Speaker 1: When I was six years old, I was lying in
Speaker 1: bed and I was unable to go to sleep. I
Speaker 1: lay there for probably an hour, though it felt like forever.
Speaker 1: My window was at the foot of my bed, and
Speaker 1: it was close enough for me to crawl to and
Speaker 1: look out, which I often did. That night, when I
Speaker 1: looked out, I saw something that scared the living crud
Speaker 1: out of me. At first, everything was fine until something
Speaker 1: stepped in the way and bent down and looked at me.
Speaker 1: The window was six feet off the ground, yet here
Speaker 1: was this creature so big that it had to crouch
Speaker 1: over to look at me. Well, I crawled as fast
Speaker 1: as my little legs would go. I threw the pillow
Speaker 1: over my face, and I hid under my blanket. Then,
Speaker 1: when I was fourteen, I was in the woods, playing
Speaker 1: around like i'd a thousand times before. I knew that
Speaker 1: place better than the back of my hand. I was
Speaker 1: down on a sandbar playing Tarzan. When up on the bank,
Speaker 1: I heard a branch snap. My head whipped in the
Speaker 1: direction of the sound, but I didn't see anything, and
Speaker 1: I decided to climb up and get a better look
Speaker 1: at it. When I got to the top of the bank,
Speaker 1: I heard a crash, like a locomotive plowing through the brush.
Speaker 1: I still didn't see anything, but a knot in the
Speaker 1: pit of my stomach told me it was another one
Speaker 1: of those things that was looking through my window and
Speaker 1: it was time for me to get out of there.
Speaker 1: I'm nineteen years old now and I still go through
Speaker 1: those woods looking for signs of them. Every single time
Speaker 1: I go, I hear something pacing me. I can't see them,
Speaker 1: but I know they're out there watching me. Years ago,
Speaker 1: I used to be a milkman and I worked from
Speaker 1: twelve am to seven am. One night. While at the
Speaker 1: dairy depot, two cops dropped by to buy some chocolate milk.
Speaker 1: We were chatting when a scream echoed through the air,
Speaker 1: making my hair stand up on end and making all
Speaker 1: the dogs nearby start barking and howling. I asked the
Speaker 1: cops if they were going to have a look, but
Speaker 1: they shook their heads and they told me I was nuts.
Speaker 1: I ended up going out by myself to check it out,
Speaker 1: but I didn't see anything. Weeks later, I was driving
Speaker 1: the main road back to the dairy to load up
Speaker 1: again when I saw a purple pulsing light keeping tag
Speaker 1: with me I pulled over to watch it, and I
Speaker 1: saw it descend to the ground and stop pulsing. I
Speaker 1: got out of the car and stared at it for
Speaker 1: a few minutes, waiting for it to move, and that's
Speaker 1: when I heard the sound of cattle running and mooing.
Speaker 1: Not long after that, I heard heavy footsteps by this thing.
Speaker 1: Stra I knew it was big. I did the heroic
Speaker 1: thing and went back into my truck and left as
Speaker 1: fast as I could. I didn't get an explanation for
Speaker 1: the purple light, and I wasn't going to stick around
Speaker 1: to find out what it was. When I was a child,
Speaker 1: I remember being shaken awake by a thick, hairy hand
Speaker 1: at night. It even happened to me as an adult
Speaker 1: when I was camping with friends, though I never told them,
Speaker 1: knowing they think I was crazy. When I grabbed the hand,
Speaker 1: it would pull away and disappear. It shook me up
Speaker 1: pretty bad, as you can imagine. My son in law
Speaker 1: was living with us until he and my daughter could
Speaker 1: get a house. One morning he told us that something
Speaker 1: big and harry had grabbed him during the night. I
Speaker 1: could tell he was rattled, and after telling him of
Speaker 1: my experiences and that nothing ever happens. He began to relax.
Speaker 1: That was about eighteen years ago, and since then all
Speaker 1: has been quiet. Other times I see a tall black
Speaker 1: figures standing at the end of the dairy driveway a
Speaker 1: few times. To my horror, it even whispered my name.
Speaker 1: One night, I was training a guy to do the
Speaker 1: delivery run since I was going away on holiday. It
Speaker 1: was three in the morning and we were delivering to
Speaker 1: a coffee shop. While we were unloading the truck, we
Speaker 1: heard my name whispered. We both looked up and on
Speaker 1: the corner was the black figure again. It was eight
Speaker 1: feet tall, just standing there. The guy I was training
Speaker 1: asked what the heck that was. I tried to stay calm,
Speaker 1: telling him not to worry. It happens a lot to me.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, he quit that night. That's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: I had many other strange experiences working at night as
Speaker 1: a milkman. Though I'm retired now. My wife and kids
Speaker 1: know all about the things that I've encountered, though we
Speaker 1: don't talk about it anymore. My seven year old son
Speaker 1: and I love listening to your stories while we sit
Speaker 1: and draw together. We're both big fans of cryptids. And
Speaker 1: he wanted me to share the story with you. It's
Speaker 1: a story without an answer, and it makes a great
Speaker 1: campfire tale for my nieces and nephews. In the summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety nine, my someday to be husband and
Speaker 1: I both got jobs cleaning up campgrounds in Central Oregon.
Speaker 1: We had bought a trailer and were excited to pull
Speaker 1: it out into the woods and spend the summer living
Speaker 1: on the Forest Service land. We had both just finished
Speaker 1: college and living in the middle of the woods felt
Speaker 1: like a dream come true. We found a great spot
Speaker 1: that had previously been used by other campers, complete with
Speaker 1: the decent road, a nice flat area for the trailer,
Speaker 1: and a pretty little stream that ran right next to
Speaker 1: the camp. Both of us had grown up in Oregon's
Speaker 1: outdoors and we felt comfortable being in the woods. With
Speaker 1: that said, we both had an uncomfortable feeling in this place.
Speaker 1: In fact, we had a conversation about it the very
Speaker 1: first night we were there. I always felt a general
Speaker 1: unease at this spot. It was almost like I was
Speaker 1: being watched. Central Oregon is not the typical ecology for
Speaker 1: the western part of the state. It's an arid high
Speaker 1: desert with sparsely growing ponderosa pines and sage brush growing
Speaker 1: in clumps, so visibility is pretty good, and therefore that
Speaker 1: sensation of being watched seemed strange to me. The night
Speaker 1: of the incident, we sat at the table in the
Speaker 1: camper eating our dinner when we heard something hit the
Speaker 1: side of the trailer. It startled us and our cat. Somehow,
Speaker 1: the catch reaction gave us confirmation that we weren't just
Speaker 1: hearing things. A bump on the side of the trailer
Speaker 1: might not sound like much, but the location of our
Speaker 1: trailer was in an empty space with no surrounding trees
Speaker 1: closer than twenty feet for something to make. That noise
Speaker 1: spooked us a little, and wild animals tend not to
Speaker 1: run into people's trailers, especially when the trailer is sticking
Speaker 1: out in the open, like it was. We went about
Speaker 1: our business the rest of that evening, not giving it
Speaker 1: another thought. My cat, who lived in the trailer lived
Speaker 1: there exclusively. She embodied the definition of a scaredy cat
Speaker 1: and had never shown any desire to leave the trailer,
Speaker 1: and that is why I was shocked when I opened
Speaker 1: the door to go outside to retrieve something, and she
Speaker 1: shot out of the trailer into the darkness. What was
Speaker 1: she doing? She hated to be outside. We grabbed a
Speaker 1: flashlight and headed outside to find her. But when we
Speaker 1: stepped out, we were immediately hit with frigid air. We
Speaker 1: can have cold nights in this climate, but this was
Speaker 1: unusually icy for a summer night. We wandered out into
Speaker 1: the darkness and noticed a low hanging fog creeping along
Speaker 1: the ground, just like a horror movie. I've never seen
Speaker 1: a fog like that before or since this incident. And
Speaker 1: then we were overcome by a stench of human theces
Speaker 1: It's an unmistakable smell, and we both were seriously disturbed.
Speaker 1: We didn't use the trailer's toilet for number two's we
Speaker 1: were young and too dumb to know how to empty
Speaker 1: the poop tank. We always used the bathroom at work,
Speaker 1: or we'd dig a hole in the woods far away
Speaker 1: from the trailer if necessary. Well, the smell put us
Speaker 1: over the top, and I remember thinking, good luck, caat
Speaker 1: your on your own. We opened a small panel on
Speaker 1: the outside of the trailer that would allow her entrance
Speaker 1: back inside. I was a little concerned that she might
Speaker 1: get eaten by an owl or a coyote, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't going back out there to look for her. Well,
Speaker 1: we settled into bed and we were curled up and
Speaker 1: slowly drifting off, and there was a huge stud on
Speaker 1: the roof. It hit so hard and it rocked the
Speaker 1: trailer back and forth. We froze. We held on to
Speaker 1: each other tightly, and we weren't able to speak, and
Speaker 1: then a dragging sound made its way from above us
Speaker 1: all the way up the length of the trailer. Within seconds,
Speaker 1: there was another large stud over us, again shaking the trailer,
Speaker 1: and the same loud, dragging noise up the entire length
Speaker 1: of the trailer. We were paralyzed, waiting for what would
Speaker 1: happen next. The noise stopped and everything went quiet, and
Speaker 1: after a while we were able to speak again and
Speaker 1: whispering to one another what the heck that was and
Speaker 1: what we should do. My husband suggested going out with
Speaker 1: a flashlight and checking it out, but we decided not to,
Speaker 1: and to this day I'm really grateful we didn't do that.
Speaker 1: We lay there trying to unravel what had just happened
Speaker 1: and what it could have been. We went through the
Speaker 1: list of wild animals in the area, and nothing seemed
Speaker 1: to make sense. The trailer was too far away from
Speaker 1: any tree to allow an animal to jump across to it,
Speaker 1: and the dragging sound was not like anything we'd ever heard.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a house with lots of critters
Speaker 1: on the roof, and they all make the sound a footstep, skurring,
Speaker 1: not dragging sounds. We thought it might be an owl,
Speaker 1: but there was no sounds of footsteps or talons on
Speaker 1: the metal roof. And although some owls can be big,
Speaker 1: this was much heavier and much bigger. It was big
Speaker 1: enough to shake the trailer. Eventually, we were able to
Speaker 1: fall asleep, and the cat did return in one piece.
Speaker 1: As soon as we woke up, we went to inspect
Speaker 1: the area around the trailer. Nothing was out of place,
Speaker 1: and there was not a single animal track in the
Speaker 1: powdery dust. We pulled out of that spot within two
Speaker 1: days and we moved into a trailer part. I've never
Speaker 1: had another experience like that, and I've continued to enjoy
Speaker 1: the woods to this day, but it still gives me
Speaker 1: goosebumps to think about that night. Thanks for all the
Speaker 1: good listening, and the writer signs off, Oh, that was
Speaker 1: a great story. That's a You never saw her, You
Speaker 1: never saw anything you don't know what it was, but
Speaker 1: you know something's out there. It's just like that. It's
Speaker 1: not even a gut instinct. You heard it, You felt it,
Speaker 1: You felt whatever it was rocking the trailer, and you
Speaker 1: know there's nothing out there that would do that. There's
Speaker 1: no animal that would do that unless it was a person.
Speaker 1: It could have been a person just messing with you.
Speaker 1: But why would anybody do that? And doesn't make any
Speaker 1: sense anyway. It's a great story. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: When I first became a deputy, I spent a month
Speaker 1: riding with a field training officer before I was finally
Speaker 1: allowed to patrol alone. It was a New Year's Day,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty. I had only been with the department for
Speaker 1: a couple of months, but since most calls happened on
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve, they let me go solo that night,
Speaker 1: knowing it would be a quiet The day started off
Speaker 1: peacefully enough. There had only been one call all morning
Speaker 1: about a dog running loose. It wasn't until later that
Speaker 1: things got interesting. It all began with a call from
Speaker 1: the County Emergency Operations Center alerting me about an emergency
Speaker 1: situation two children possibly breaking through the ice in Morgan
Speaker 1: Creek south of Jacksonburg Road bridge. I turned on my
Speaker 1: light bar and headed straight to the bridge, where I
Speaker 1: saw a woman frantically waving her arms. She told me
Speaker 1: her children had gone for a walk along the creek
Speaker 1: hours earlier and never returned. She had tracked their footprints
Speaker 1: in the snow along the creek to a spot where
Speaker 1: they stepped onto the ice, where a large hole revealed
Speaker 1: the freezing water beneath. I followed her to the water's edge,
Speaker 1: where two sets of child sized footprints led right to
Speaker 1: the break in the ice, clearly visible in the snow.
Speaker 1: Back up was already on its way. I called the
Speaker 1: nearest volunteer fire department and a water rescue team with
Speaker 1: my radio. I tried to calm her down, but it
Speaker 1: didn't help. She was nearly hysterical when we heard the
Speaker 1: distant well of sirens. The fire department sent a diver
Speaker 1: under the ice, and he located the two children. They
Speaker 1: had both drowned, a girl and a boy, age eleven
Speaker 1: and nine years later in two thousand, on a snowy
Speaker 1: New Year's night, I was home listening to dispatch over
Speaker 1: my radio. A call came in requesting any unit near
Speaker 1: the Jacksonburg Road bridge south of Morgan Creek. Another officer
Speaker 1: responded quickly and dispatch briefed him. Two children had been
Speaker 1: seen walking south along the road and they were both wet.
Speaker 1: When the caller stopped to ask if they were okay,
Speaker 1: they kept walking and they didn't acknowledge her. The caller
Speaker 1: was frightened and she stopped at a nearby gas station
Speaker 1: and she called it in. She was worried about the kids.
Speaker 1: The deputy told dispatch he was en route, and about
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes later I heard him on the radio again.
Speaker 1: Negative contact on the children. He told the dispatch. I
Speaker 1: saw footprints in the snow walking south, but they disappeared
Speaker 1: about a quarter mile south of the bridge at the
Speaker 1: old vacant farmhouse. Maybe they were picked up by somebody.
Speaker 1: I will continue to patrol the area. I knew this
Speaker 1: farmhouse well. It used to belong to the family whose
Speaker 1: children drowned twenty years earlier. After that tragedy, the parents
Speaker 1: moved away and it hadn't been bought or lived in since.
Speaker 1: The deputy and the dispatcher were both relatively new hires
Speaker 1: and likely unaware of the drownings. I firmly believed that
Speaker 1: the caller had seen the ghosts of those children who
Speaker 1: died that day twenty years earlier. The fact that the
Speaker 1: footprints vanished at the old house is pretty hard to explain. Today,
Speaker 1: the farmhouse is gone, it was torn down, and a
Speaker 1: new bridge has replaced the old one. Other than that,
Speaker 1: the area remains the same. It's beautiful, but it's burdened.
Speaker 1: Was that a creepy That's a creepy story, and it's
Speaker 1: a sad I wasn't gonna talk between these stories. I
Speaker 1: know some people want me to talk. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: But the reason I don't talk is because I really
Speaker 1: don't have much to say. I just love reading these
Speaker 1: and recording them and putting on them out for you
Speaker 1: guys to hear. But I'll talk about this one. This
Speaker 1: is so sad. Can you imagine, oh, oh, the morning
Speaker 1: and the sorrow and the memory of their both children
Speaker 1: drowning in an icy creek. I just cannot imagine. I
Speaker 1: cannot imagine, you know. And when we hear stories like this,
Speaker 1: you know what, the first thing we all think is
Speaker 1: we silently and the recesses of our minds try to
Speaker 1: give comfort to people like that. But the first thing
Speaker 1: we think is man, I'm so glad that didn't happen
Speaker 1: to me. And you go home and you hug your
Speaker 1: children and you look at them and you stroke their hair,
Speaker 1: and you think, I'm so glad. I'm not dealing with that.
Speaker 1: I think that's a natural I know that's what. That's what.
Speaker 1: The first thing. I'm always self assessing myself. I'm always
Speaker 1: thinking about who I am, I am, my character, you know?
Speaker 1: Am I a good person? Am I doing people right?
Speaker 1: Have I made the right choices. I'm always self assessing
Speaker 1: and I always feel a little bit guilty for that.
Speaker 1: But I can't be dishonest with you and not say
Speaker 1: every time I hear about something like that, just read
Speaker 1: this story, I'm thinking, oh my god, I'm glad that
Speaker 1: didn't happen to me or anybody in my family or
Speaker 1: any of my kids families. You know. It's just I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm harping on it. It's just the
Speaker 1: story just struck me as so sad because I have children,
Speaker 1: and you know how that is. Anyway, that's a sad story,
Speaker 1: but it is a very intriguing story that this woman
Speaker 1: ran up on these kids walking wet down a road
Speaker 1: on a winter night, twenty years after two children had
Speaker 1: drowned in that Greek very odd, very very good story
Speaker 1: from the writer