WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.759 For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:10.279 Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world 3 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.160 refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:18.679 know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we 5 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.839 share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot, 6 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:28.239 dog man UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make 7 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:32.320 it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because 8 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640 once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the 9 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.920 woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.840 remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, 12 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:48.399 and let's head off into the woods if you dare. 13 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:04.840 If you've been with us since the beginning, you know 14 00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:08.319 what's been building here. If you're just tuning in, I'd 15 00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:10.280 ask you to go back and start with part one, 16 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:13.760 because what Garrett's about to describe only carries its full 17 00:01:13.799 --> 00:01:16.200 weight if you've walked the road that got him here. 18 00:01:16.719 --> 00:01:20.200 The short version is this. Over five years on a 19 00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:24.040 remote mountain property in western North Carolina, Garrett has gone 20 00:01:24.040 --> 00:01:27.319 from hearing unexplained wood knocks to standing on a cliff 21 00:01:27.319 --> 00:01:29.920 above three creatures that looked up at him without a 22 00:01:29.959 --> 00:01:33.560 trace of fear. Along the way, he's had his brother's 23 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:37.439 voice stolen and played back to him in a ravine. 24 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:39.959 He's found tracks circling his cabin in the snow while 25 00:01:39.959 --> 00:01:43.439 he slept, His dogs chased something into the forest and 26 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:46.560 came back broken, And a woman who'd been living across 27 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:49.640 the creek for fifty years handed him three decades of 28 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:54.239 documentation that confirmed everything he'd experienced and extended the timeline 29 00:01:54.280 --> 00:01:57.560 back to nineteen sixty three. Through all of it, one 30 00:01:57.599 --> 00:02:00.560 person has been on the other end of the phone. Cliff, 31 00:02:01.079 --> 00:02:04.200 Garrett's best friend since high school. The guy who drove 32 00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:06.879 four hours in a snowstorm to measure handprints on a 33 00:02:06.920 --> 00:02:07.599 cabin wall. 34 00:02:08.439 --> 00:02:10.039 The guy who said he believed. 35 00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:13.360 Him while standing in seventeen inch footprints. The guy who'd 36 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:16.319 been hearing about the ridge for five years without ever 37 00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:19.879 being on it after dark. That changed on a Saturday 38 00:02:19.919 --> 00:02:23.599 night in September of twenty nineteen, and what happened up 39 00:02:23.639 --> 00:02:26.240 there is the reason Cliff hasn't set foot on Garrett's 40 00:02:26.280 --> 00:02:30.159 property since Here's Garrett. I need to talk about why 41 00:02:30.159 --> 00:02:32.120 we did it before I talk about what happened when 42 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:35.840 we did. By the fall of twenty nineteen, i'd been 43 00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:38.479 on the mountain for five and a half years. I'd 44 00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:41.000 been through every phase a person goes through when they're 45 00:02:41.039 --> 00:02:44.960 living alongside something like this. The denial phase, where you 46 00:02:45.039 --> 00:02:48.159 explain away every sound and every track and every feeling 47 00:02:48.199 --> 00:02:52.120 as something ordinary. The fear phase, where you stop explaining 48 00:02:52.159 --> 00:02:57.000 and start locking doors. The obsessive documentation phase, where you 49 00:02:57.039 --> 00:03:00.919 fill notebooks and photograph footprints and cross reference dates like 50 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:03.560 a man building a legal case against something that will 51 00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:04.560 never stand trial. 52 00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:07.560 The withdrawal after the dogs. 53 00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:10.360 When the guilt got heavier than the curiosity and I 54 00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:14.280 spent a winter barely going outside, And the slow rebuilding 55 00:03:14.319 --> 00:03:17.800 after Opal's visit, when Vernon's files gave me fifty years 56 00:03:17.800 --> 00:03:20.639 of context and the mountain started to feel less like 57 00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:24.479 a haunted house and more like a shared address. By 58 00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:27.400 September of nineteen, I'd arrived at something I'd describe as 59 00:03:27.439 --> 00:03:30.919 settled awareness. I knew what was out there, I knew 60 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:33.919 what it did. I had Vernon's records to back up 61 00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:37.280 my own observations and extend the timeline back half a century. 62 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:41.240 The mystery hadn't been solved exactly, but it had been mapped. 63 00:03:41.919 --> 00:03:44.520 The terrain was familiar, even if the thing moving through 64 00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:49.439 it wasn't, and that familiarity had bred something dangerous. Confidence. 65 00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:52.639 I don't mean confidence in the good sense. I mean 66 00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:54.759 the kind that creeps in when you've been scared for 67 00:03:54.800 --> 00:03:57.879 a long time and nothing bad has actually happened to you. 68 00:03:58.639 --> 00:04:02.319 The kind that whispers see, it's fine. They've had a 69 00:04:02.360 --> 00:04:05.599 thousand chances to hurt you and they haven't. Maybe they won't. 70 00:04:06.159 --> 00:04:09.000 Maybe you can push a little further. I'd been listening 71 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:12.319 to a lot of research content by that point, your shows, 72 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:16.680 other podcasts, some of the longer form interviews with field 73 00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:20.439 researchers who'd spent years doing active engagement in known activity 74 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:26.800 areas wood knocks, call blasts, thermal cameras, parabolic microphones, the 75 00:04:26.839 --> 00:04:31.680 whole toolkit, and some of those researchers had gotten results, responses, 76 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:35.800 close range interactions that they documented and built theories around. 77 00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:38.959 I'd been absorbing all of that, and a part of me, 78 00:04:39.480 --> 00:04:42.319 the part that had been passively observing for five years, 79 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:46.199 wanted to try it. I'd never initiated contact since the 80 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:49.600 call and response experiment in my first summer. That one 81 00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:52.480 evening in July of twenty fourteen, when I'd knocked on 82 00:04:52.519 --> 00:04:55.879 a hickory tree and gotten matching patterns from the ridge, 83 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:58.240 that had shaken me enough that I hadn't tried again. 84 00:04:59.079 --> 00:05:01.920 But five years of accumulated experience had dulled the edge 85 00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:05.120 of that fear, and the researcher in me, the part 86 00:05:05.160 --> 00:05:08.240 that kept the spiral notebook and studied Vernon's topo map 87 00:05:08.279 --> 00:05:12.879 and cross referenced seasonal patterns, wanted more data. Cliff was 88 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:15.839 the one who actually brought it up. He called on 89 00:05:15.879 --> 00:05:18.800 a Sunday evening in early September, and after the usual 90 00:05:18.839 --> 00:05:22.079 twenty minutes of Panther's talk and job updates and whether 91 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:25.399 his oldest was going to make varsity basketball, he floated 92 00:05:25.399 --> 00:05:27.920 the idea. He said, we should go up to the 93 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:31.800 ridge at night, knock, play some calls, set up, and 94 00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:34.560 see what happened. He said, I'd been sitting on that 95 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:37.079 mountain for five years listening to them come to me, 96 00:05:37.759 --> 00:05:39.519 and he wanted to know what would happen if we 97 00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:40.759 went to them. 98 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:42.040 I should have told him no. 99 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:46.800 Everything Opal had shared with me about Earl's philosophy about 100 00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:50.040 the silence being the currency that bought safety about the 101 00:05:50.079 --> 00:05:54.480 agreement being fragile and generational and not guaranteed to hold. 102 00:05:54.639 --> 00:05:56.639 All of that should have been ringing in my ears 103 00:05:56.680 --> 00:05:59.759 like a fire alarm. Going to the ridge to knock 104 00:05:59.839 --> 00:06:04.160 was the opposite of silence. It was provocation, walking into 105 00:06:04.199 --> 00:06:07.360 their territory and making noise on purpose and saying in 106 00:06:07.399 --> 00:06:12.120 whatever language the knocking constituted, we're here, We know you're here. 107 00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:15.639 Come talk to us. But I didn't say no. I 108 00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:19.920 told him Saturday worked, bring warm clothes. He arrived at 109 00:06:19.920 --> 00:06:22.800 the cabin around two in the afternoon on September twenty first. 110 00:06:23.480 --> 00:06:25.920 His truck was loaded with more gear than I'd expected, 111 00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:30.360 a cooler, a backpack, a camera bag, a folding chair 112 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:32.680 he thought he'd carry to the ridge, which I talked 113 00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:35.600 him out of immediately, and a pair of binoculars he'd 114 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:37.879 bought at a sporting goods store on the drive up. 115 00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:41.399 He'd also brought a baseball bat. He said it was 116 00:06:41.399 --> 00:06:44.560 for knocking that I'd mentioned using firewood the first time, 117 00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:47.879 and a bat would have better swing weight. Neither of 118 00:06:47.959 --> 00:06:50.639 us acknowledged out loud that the bat also doubled as 119 00:06:50.639 --> 00:06:54.240 a weapon. We both knew, we just didn't say it. 120 00:06:54.959 --> 00:06:57.279 There are certain things two men don't discuss when they're 121 00:06:57.319 --> 00:06:59.519 about to do. Something that both of them suspect is 122 00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:03.240 a bad eye idea. The unspoken agreement to not name 123 00:07:03.319 --> 00:07:07.439 the danger is its own kind of courage or stupidity. 124 00:07:07.560 --> 00:07:10.240 The line between those two is thinner than most people think. 125 00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:14.040 We spent the afternoon getting ready. I showed him Vernon's 126 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:16.920 topo map, which I'd pinned to the wall of the workshop, 127 00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:20.399 and traced the corridor for him, the red pencil line 128 00:07:20.519 --> 00:07:24.120 running from the headwater spring to the confluence, the no 129 00:07:24.360 --> 00:07:29.000 zones Vernon had identified marked with asterisks, the sixteen green 130 00:07:29.079 --> 00:07:32.560 triangles of the structure sites, the two yellow circles of 131 00:07:32.600 --> 00:07:36.399 the suspected den areas, and the bluff marked with a 132 00:07:36.399 --> 00:07:39.639 circle dot from Vernon's eighty three siding. Sitting at the 133 00:07:39.639 --> 00:07:42.639 top of the corridor like a watch tower over everything below, 134 00:07:43.480 --> 00:07:46.480 Cliff studied the map the way he studies mechanical drawings, 135 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:51.319 with his whole body, leaning in, tracing lines with his finger, 136 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:56.319 asking questions about distance and elevation and terrain type. He 137 00:07:56.399 --> 00:07:58.680 wanted to understand the space the way he understood a 138 00:07:58.720 --> 00:08:02.959 building systems as a network of connected pathways, with predictable 139 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:07.439 behaviors and identifiable failure points. The map gave him that, 140 00:08:08.079 --> 00:08:10.959 or seemed to. What it couldn't give him was the 141 00:08:10.959 --> 00:08:14.319 feeling of standing inside the network after dark, which was 142 00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:17.639 something no map can prepare you for. I showed him 143 00:08:17.639 --> 00:08:20.160 where I planned to set up a wide shoulder on 144 00:08:20.199 --> 00:08:22.720 the ridge line, about two hundred yards south of the bluff, 145 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:26.040 not the bluff itself. I wasn't going back there in 146 00:08:26.079 --> 00:08:28.720 the dark, not after what I'd seen on the Talus 147 00:08:28.759 --> 00:08:32.600 slope in sixteen. The shoulder had decent sight lines through 148 00:08:32.639 --> 00:08:36.159 the bare upper canopy trees, and more importantly, it had 149 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:40.120 two clear exit roots, one leading southwest back toward the 150 00:08:40.120 --> 00:08:43.159 cabin via the game trail I knew, and one leading 151 00:08:43.200 --> 00:08:46.080 south along the ridge toward a secondary trail that dropped 152 00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:50.279 into the Bishop Creek drainage. If things went sideways, we'd 153 00:08:50.279 --> 00:08:50.960 have options. 154 00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:53.799 That was the theory. Theories are cheap. 155 00:08:54.440 --> 00:08:57.759 Options are what you actually use when the theory fails. 156 00:08:58.200 --> 00:09:01.080 I also told him the rules. We'd knock in sets 157 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:03.879 of three, with the bat spaced about two minutes apart. 158 00:09:04.519 --> 00:09:08.120 Five sets, then fifteen minutes of silence. If we got 159 00:09:08.159 --> 00:09:14.240 a response, we'd document it timestamp, direction count, estimated distance. 160 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:18.159 We wouldn't knock back immediately, at least three minutes between 161 00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:21.440 their response and our next knock. I'd brought a call 162 00:09:21.480 --> 00:09:25.639 blast recording, a Sierra Sounds clip that's widely used in research, 163 00:09:25.960 --> 00:09:28.679 and we'd play it through a portable bluetooth speaker at 164 00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:33.360 moderate volume. One blast, then five minutes of silence, and 165 00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:35.759 if anything got within one hundred yards of our position, 166 00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:39.519 we'd stop knocking and start paying serious attention to our exits. 167 00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:42.080 Cliff took all of this in the way he takes 168 00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:47.519 in a wiring diagram, methodically, without argument. He asked about 169 00:09:47.519 --> 00:09:49.600 the dogs, and I told him Bowie and Ruby were 170 00:09:49.639 --> 00:09:52.679 staying at the cabin. Bowie was ten and a half. 171 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:55.919 His hips wouldn't make the climb, and even if they could, 172 00:09:56.200 --> 00:09:59.039 I wasn't putting either dog in a situation like this again, 173 00:10:00.080 --> 00:10:03.600 Not after October of seventeen. The memory of Bowie wedged 174 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:06.440 under that log was still sharp enough to cut, and 175 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:09.240 I'd sworn to myself after that night that I'd never 176 00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:12.120 again bring my dogs into a scenario where the creatures 177 00:10:12.159 --> 00:10:17.120 had any advantage, which, on their ridge after dark was 178 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:20.919 every advantage. We ate An early dinner on the porch, 179 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:25.320 sandwiches and coffee. The afternoon was warm for late September 180 00:10:25.519 --> 00:10:28.279 mid seventies, with a light breeze from the south and 181 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:31.559 a sky that was mostly clear. The ridge was sharp 182 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:35.600 against the blue, every tree visible, the canopy just starting 183 00:10:35.639 --> 00:10:38.399 to show the first hints of color change. 184 00:10:38.440 --> 00:10:39.879 A few sour woods. 185 00:10:39.519 --> 00:10:42.600 Had turned early, A couple of red maples along Bishop 186 00:10:42.639 --> 00:10:45.799 Creek were going orange at the edges. The mountain was 187 00:10:45.799 --> 00:10:48.559 in that brief pause between full summer green and the 188 00:10:48.639 --> 00:10:52.759 riot of October that held breath before the change. If 189 00:10:52.759 --> 00:10:55.720 you didn't know what lived up there, you'd call it paradise. 190 00:10:56.720 --> 00:10:59.600 I told Cliff about Opal. He'd heard bits and pieces 191 00:10:59.600 --> 00:11:01.919 on the phone over the past year, but I gave 192 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:06.159 him the full version that afternoon. Vernon's files, the thirty 193 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:10.240 years of documentation, the topo map and the creek corridor, 194 00:11:10.440 --> 00:11:15.399 and the generational theory, rebelieving food on the stump, earle, 195 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:19.320 believing the silence was what kept them safe, Ople's warning 196 00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:21.720 that the credit was running out and the new generation 197 00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:24.639 was writing its own rules. He listened to all of 198 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:29.120 it without interrupting, which was unusual for Cliff. Normally, he'd 199 00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:31.639 cut in with a question or a joke, or some 200 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:35.080 piece of commentary that was half helpful and half irritating. 201 00:11:35.799 --> 00:11:38.200 But that afternoon he just sat and took it in 202 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:42.279 his coffee, going cold in his hands, his eyes moving 203 00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:44.679 between me and the ridge behind me, as if he 204 00:11:44.759 --> 00:11:47.200 was watching the story play out against the tree line 205 00:11:47.240 --> 00:11:48.000 while I told it. 206 00:11:48.919 --> 00:11:51.960 When I finished, he was quiet for a while. Then 207 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:53.240 he pointed out, with the. 208 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:56.919 Dry honesty that's always been his best and most aggravating quality, 209 00:11:57.360 --> 00:12:00.320 that Vernon had kept quiet for thirty years, an Earl 210 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:03.279 had kept quiet for forty three, and here we were 211 00:12:03.559 --> 00:12:05.879 about to hike up there with a baseball bat and 212 00:12:05.919 --> 00:12:09.840 a bluetooth speaker. He wasn't wrong. He was never wrong 213 00:12:09.879 --> 00:12:12.559 about things like that. He was just wrong about what 214 00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:15.759 to do with the information. We left the cabin at 215 00:12:15.799 --> 00:12:19.559 six point fifteen. Sunset was around seven twenty, and I 216 00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:21.559 wanted to be on the ridge and set up before 217 00:12:21.600 --> 00:12:24.720 the light went Bowie and Ruby watched us from the 218 00:12:24.759 --> 00:12:26.480 front window as we crossed the meadow. 219 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:28.000 I'd given them. 220 00:12:27.840 --> 00:12:30.440 Each a biscuit before we left, the way you'd give 221 00:12:30.440 --> 00:12:32.519 a kid a treat before leaving them with a sitter. 222 00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:36.799 It didn't make me feel less guilty about going. Bowie 223 00:12:36.919 --> 00:12:39.200 was standing on the couch with his paws on the seal, 224 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:41.720 and even from across the meadow, I could see his 225 00:12:41.840 --> 00:12:45.679 ears tracking us. Ruby was beside him, her one good 226 00:12:45.720 --> 00:12:48.799 ear pointing in our direction, her body tense with that 227 00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:52.360 particular frustration dog show when the humans are doing something 228 00:12:52.399 --> 00:12:55.840 without them and they can't figure out why. The hike 229 00:12:55.919 --> 00:12:58.679 started on the game trail behind the cabin, the same 230 00:12:58.759 --> 00:13:00.240 route I'd taken to the bluff. 231 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:00.879 Two years earlier. 232 00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:04.000 The trail was well worn from deer traffic and my 233 00:13:04.039 --> 00:13:06.919 own trips up the slope, a narrow groove in the 234 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:08.440 leaf litter that switched back. 235 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:09.279 Through the hardwoods. 236 00:13:10.039 --> 00:13:13.919 The trees were tall here, mature oaks and hickories, their 237 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:17.279 canopy interlocking overhead so tight that the evening light came 238 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:20.799 through in coins and fragments. The air was still warm 239 00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:23.279 at ground level, but you could feel the cooler layer 240 00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:26.240 above it, the first sign of the temperature inversion that 241 00:13:26.279 --> 00:13:29.000 would settle into the hollows after dark and make the 242 00:13:29.039 --> 00:13:32.840 lowlands ten degrees colder than the ridge. Cliff was in 243 00:13:32.919 --> 00:13:35.360 decent shape for a guy in his mid forties who 244 00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:38.840 spent most of his working life crawling through attics and basements. 245 00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:42.200 He kept up without complaint, though his breathing got heavy 246 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:44.960 on the steeper sections, and he stopped once to adjust 247 00:13:45.039 --> 00:13:47.519 his pack straps where they were cutting into his shoulders. 248 00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:52.360 He'd loaded too much, the camera, the binoculars, a jacket 249 00:13:52.399 --> 00:13:55.960 he didn't need yet, a water bottle, an emergency blanket 250 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:59.120 he'd apparently thrown in at the last minute. I told 251 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:02.159 him to pack light. He'd packed cliff, which is a 252 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:06.039 different thing entirely. He'd never hiked this slope before, and 253 00:14:06.080 --> 00:14:07.679 I could see him taking it in the way a 254 00:14:07.720 --> 00:14:12.399 contractor takes in a building, assessing load paths, filing away 255 00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:15.360 the grade and the footing and the canopy density. He 256 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:17.919 was figuring out how fast he could move through this terrain, 257 00:14:17.960 --> 00:14:20.639 if he had to move fast, how much the leaf 258 00:14:20.679 --> 00:14:23.960 litter would slow him down, Where the rock out crops 259 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:26.960 were that could trip you in the dark, Which trees 260 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:29.200 were big enough to get behind if you needed something 261 00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:32.399 at your back. He'd never admit that's what he was doing, 262 00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:35.440 but I'd known him thirty years, and I could read 263 00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:37.759 his body language the way he could read a compressor. 264 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:41.200 About halfway up, he stopped and turned around to look 265 00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:44.200 back down the slope. Through the trees, you could just 266 00:14:44.240 --> 00:14:46.559 make out the cabin roof and a slice of the 267 00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:50.879 meadow below glowing gold in the lateral light. The view 268 00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:54.840 was beautiful, peaceful, the kind of scene that makes real 269 00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:59.320 estate agents reach for words like paradise and haven. If 270 00:14:59.320 --> 00:15:01.440 you didn't know what used this slope as a highway 271 00:15:01.480 --> 00:15:04.919 after dark, you'd never want to leave. He mentioned the 272 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:07.759 nice view. I told him it was nicer from the top. 273 00:15:08.559 --> 00:15:11.639 He turned back uphill and started climbing again. And then 274 00:15:11.679 --> 00:15:15.120 he brought up Vernon, whether the forest serviceman had ever 275 00:15:15.159 --> 00:15:17.679 gone to them, whether he'd ever hiked up to the 276 00:15:17.799 --> 00:15:21.120 ridge on purpose to initiate contact in the thirty years 277 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:24.679 he'd been watching. I thought about it carefully. I'd been 278 00:15:24.679 --> 00:15:29.080 through every page of Vernon's files, hundreds of entries, thousands 279 00:15:29.080 --> 00:15:34.320 of individual observations, and every single one was passive. Vernon 280 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:37.399 had documented what came to him, what crossed his path, 281 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:40.480 what he encountered during the course of his daily work. 282 00:15:41.080 --> 00:15:45.200 He'd never gone looking, he'd never knocked, he'd never played calls. 283 00:15:45.840 --> 00:15:48.200 He'd never set up a microphone on a ridge shoulder 284 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:50.799 at dusk and sent a recording of something that sounded 285 00:15:50.840 --> 00:15:54.240 like his subjects into the forest. In thirty years of 286 00:15:54.279 --> 00:15:57.279 watching the creatures, Vernon had never once done what. 287 00:15:57.159 --> 00:15:58.080 We were about to do. 288 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:02.639 I told Cliff that no, Vernon hadn't, and Cliff absorbed 289 00:16:02.679 --> 00:16:04.919 that and pointed out that Vernon had lived to be 290 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:09.000 sixty eight. Heart trouble killed him. I said, not the ridge, 291 00:16:09.639 --> 00:16:12.200 and Cliff observed, with the kind of fairness that makes 292 00:16:12.279 --> 00:16:15.159 him both a great friend and an annoying one, that 293 00:16:15.279 --> 00:16:18.519 Vernon hadn't given the Ridge a chance to try. I 294 00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:21.159 didn't have a response for that. I should have had one. 295 00:16:21.720 --> 00:16:23.480 I should have heard it as the warning it was, 296 00:16:23.559 --> 00:16:26.600 and said, you're right. Let's go back to the porch 297 00:16:26.639 --> 00:16:29.200 and open a couple beers and listen from a safe distance, 298 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:32.360 the way Vernon did for three decades. But I didn't 299 00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:36.320 say that. I kept climbing, and Cliff kept climbing behind me, 300 00:16:37.080 --> 00:16:40.360 two men walking uphill into a bad idea, each one 301 00:16:40.399 --> 00:16:43.080 aware it was bad, neither one willing to be the 302 00:16:43.080 --> 00:16:45.960 first to say so. We didn't talk much after that. 303 00:16:46.720 --> 00:16:49.240 The slope took most of our wind, and the forest 304 00:16:49.240 --> 00:16:52.039 had shifted into that evening mode where every sound you 305 00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:55.879 make feels amplified, and every silence feels like someone listening. 306 00:16:56.720 --> 00:17:00.799 The birds had quit, the insects were winding down. About 307 00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:03.440 three quarters of the way up, a barred owl called 308 00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:06.039 from somewhere to the south, and Cliff flinched at it. 309 00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:09.000 He caught himself and shook his head, and I could 310 00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:11.559 see him filing that reaction away as a preview of 311 00:17:11.599 --> 00:17:12.279 how the rest. 312 00:17:12.119 --> 00:17:13.240 Of the night was going to go. 313 00:17:14.279 --> 00:17:16.839 We reached the ridge shoulder at six point fifty. The 314 00:17:16.880 --> 00:17:20.400 spot was as I remembered it, about thirty feet across, 315 00:17:20.440 --> 00:17:23.079 bounded by hard woods on the north and south sides, 316 00:17:23.319 --> 00:17:26.720 and dropping away steeply to the east and west. The 317 00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:29.680 canopy was thinner up here, and I could see patches 318 00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:33.480 of sky still light, the first star not yet visible 319 00:17:34.240 --> 00:17:36.799 to the north. About two hundred yards through the trees, 320 00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:40.359 the ridge rose toward the bluff. I couldn't see it 321 00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:42.559 from where we stood, but I knew it was there. 322 00:17:43.359 --> 00:17:46.079 I set up the audio recorder on a small tripod 323 00:17:46.319 --> 00:17:49.039 positioned on a flat rock near the center of the shoulder. 324 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:53.480 Cliff unloaded his camera, checked the battery, hung the binoculars 325 00:17:53.519 --> 00:17:57.119 around his neck. I paired the speaker to my phone. 326 00:17:57.160 --> 00:17:59.240 We'd agreed to start with knocks and moved to the 327 00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:02.799 call blast light later if the knox produced nothing. The 328 00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:06.000 sun was sitting on the western ridge, maybe ten minutes 329 00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:09.519 of direct light left. The shadows in the hollows below 330 00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:12.759 us were already deep. Cliff walked to a dead oak 331 00:18:12.799 --> 00:18:15.799 about fifteen feet from where I stood, set his feet, 332 00:18:16.119 --> 00:18:19.759 and swung the bat. The sound was enormous, not like 333 00:18:19.799 --> 00:18:22.359 the wood knocking I'd been hearing for five years, which 334 00:18:22.440 --> 00:18:27.559 was relatively contained and focused. This was louder, broader, amplified 335 00:18:27.559 --> 00:18:29.519 by the dead wood of the oak acting as a 336 00:18:29.559 --> 00:18:33.160 resonating chamber. The crack rolled out across the ridge in 337 00:18:33.240 --> 00:18:37.279 every direction, echoing off the slopes, bouncing through the hollows, 338 00:18:37.799 --> 00:18:41.400 carrying further than I'd anticipated. It sounded like someone had 339 00:18:41.400 --> 00:18:45.079 fired a cannon. Cliff flinched at his own noise. He 340 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:48.279 hit the tree twice more. The second and third strikes 341 00:18:48.279 --> 00:18:51.759 were slightly less explosive, either because the trunk had absorbed 342 00:18:51.759 --> 00:18:55.039 some energy or because he was unconsciously pulling his swing. 343 00:18:55.599 --> 00:18:59.720 Three strikes our opening statement sent out across every square 344 00:18:59.720 --> 00:19:02.839 foot of terrain within a half mile. Then we stood 345 00:19:02.839 --> 00:19:06.599 there and we waited. The silence that followed was the 346 00:19:06.599 --> 00:19:10.039 most complete I'd ever experienced on the mountain. Not the 347 00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:13.680 pressurized silence of the encounters, where the air feels thick 348 00:19:13.759 --> 00:19:16.720 and the absence of sound becomes its own kind of noise. 349 00:19:17.519 --> 00:19:19.799 This was the silence of a forest that had just 350 00:19:19.880 --> 00:19:23.240 heard something unexpected and was deciding what to do about it. 351 00:19:24.039 --> 00:19:28.160 An intake of breath across an entire landscape. Two minutes 352 00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:32.079 I watched the second hand on my watch, Cliff stood 353 00:19:32.119 --> 00:19:34.799 with the bat at his side, facing north, scanning the 354 00:19:34.839 --> 00:19:38.839 tree line. The light was dropping fast. At two minutes 355 00:19:38.839 --> 00:19:43.200 and about fifteen seconds, something answered from the north, from 356 00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:46.079 the direction of the bluff, maybe one hundred and fifty 357 00:19:46.160 --> 00:19:51.200 yards away, A single strike, heavy resonant. Not the same 358 00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:54.000 sound we'd made. Ours had been a bat on a 359 00:19:54.039 --> 00:19:59.240 dead hollow oak. This was denser, fuller, the deep, solid 360 00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:01.640 impact of some something hitting the living tree with enough 361 00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:04.319 force to make the sound carry across the ridge and 362 00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:07.240 down into the hollows on both sides. Stay tuned for 363 00:20:07.359 --> 00:20:11.200 more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. 364 00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:15.640 I knew this sound. I'd been hearing it from my 365 00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:18.519 porch for five years, but hearing it from one hundred 366 00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:20.960 and fifty yards while standing on a ridge at dusk 367 00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:23.519 is a fundamentally different thing than hearing it from a 368 00:20:23.559 --> 00:20:26.359 quarter mile away while sitting in a chair with a beer. 369 00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:31.319 The distance changes everything. From the porch, the knocking was 370 00:20:31.319 --> 00:20:34.519 a data point from one hundred and fifty yards. It 371 00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:38.079 was a voice, and it was talking to us. One 372 00:20:38.119 --> 00:20:43.039 strike and then silence, the kind that has texture. You 373 00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:45.759 could feel the forest holding still around the fading echo, 374 00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:49.680 Everything suspended, waiting for whatever came next. 375 00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:51.599 Cliff went rigid. 376 00:20:52.119 --> 00:20:55.640 Every muscle in his upper body engaged, His knuckles went 377 00:20:55.680 --> 00:20:58.640 white on the bad handle. He turned to me and 378 00:20:58.680 --> 00:21:01.440 I could see it in his face, the moment where 379 00:21:01.480 --> 00:21:03.880 it stopped being a theory he'd been entertaining from a 380 00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:06.920 safe distance, and became something real that was one hundred 381 00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:09.880 and fifty yards away in the dark. I told him 382 00:21:09.880 --> 00:21:14.559 to knock again, three more. He swung three clean strikes. 383 00:21:15.319 --> 00:21:18.880 The sound went out. This set felt different. The first 384 00:21:18.880 --> 00:21:21.519 had been a question thrown into the void. This was 385 00:21:21.559 --> 00:21:26.720 a continuation. We'd knocked, they'd answered. Now we were knocking again, 386 00:21:27.240 --> 00:21:31.160 and everybody involved knew it. The response came faster this time, 387 00:21:31.640 --> 00:21:35.839 maybe forty five seconds, two strikes from the north, same direction, 388 00:21:36.279 --> 00:21:41.039 same quality, measured, unhurried, not matching our three for three 389 00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:45.079 two strikes. Only whatever was responding had its own count, 390 00:21:45.400 --> 00:21:48.680 its own rhythm, its own ideas about how this exchange 391 00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:52.039 was supposed to go. And then, before the echo of 392 00:21:52.079 --> 00:21:55.599 the second northern strike had finished decaying, a third strike 393 00:21:55.640 --> 00:22:00.559 from a different direction, entirely east below us, down the 394 00:22:00.599 --> 00:22:04.240 slope toward the Bishop Creek drainage, maybe two hundred yards, 395 00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:07.839 A single sharp crack that cut through the dusk from 396 00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:13.480 a completely different angle, higher pitched, thinner, a different striking surface, 397 00:22:13.599 --> 00:22:17.839 or a different force behind the blow. Two sources, two directions, 398 00:22:18.519 --> 00:22:21.400 the same call and response pattern I documented from my 399 00:22:21.480 --> 00:22:24.319 porch during the first summer when the ridge knocking was 400 00:22:24.359 --> 00:22:27.640 answered from the creek. Except now I was standing on 401 00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:31.599