Speaker 1: My name is Jim and I live in Devon in
Speaker 1: the UK. The story is one hundred percent true. I
Speaker 1: feel like I have to say that because if I
Speaker 1: wasn't there and been the one to experience this encounter,
Speaker 1: I would not have believed it myself. When I first
Speaker 1: moved to Devon about five years ago, I had a
Speaker 1: seriously strange encounter. For the record, I'm a no bull
Speaker 1: craf spit on the floor kind of guy. I'm from London,
Speaker 1: where we say it as we see it. I've never
Speaker 1: told anyone about this. You think you guys over the
Speaker 1: water get ripped for seeing stuff. Try being over here
Speaker 1: where most will just call you a looney tune. We
Speaker 1: are a nation that prides itself on our rationality, the
Speaker 1: old stuff, upper lip and all that malarky. It may
Speaker 1: sound stereotypical, but that's just us across the pond. This
Speaker 1: this is the odd thing. I know. We have our
Speaker 1: fair share of weirdness in the United Kingdom, but this
Speaker 1: really took the biscuit, so to speak. I was camping
Speaker 1: out on Dartmoor National Park. We have a couple of
Speaker 1: cryptids around here, like alien big cats, hell hounds, sea
Speaker 1: monsters and some really spooky, ghostly stuff, as well as
Speaker 1: a guy who's loved this stuff from a year dot.
Speaker 1: I want to say I'm not one of those gung
Speaker 1: ho types, but I thought I'm going to see if
Speaker 1: what they say is true. It was a quite pleasant
Speaker 1: end of a September day when I went out over there.
Speaker 1: I'm a curious little fella who is also an ex
Speaker 1: Special Forces so I kind of know what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: so if I can, why not. Dartmore is a funny
Speaker 1: place to go hiking in. You need two sets of
Speaker 1: clothes even in the summer. The terrain changes rapidly and
Speaker 1: so does the temperature. That is to say, if you
Speaker 1: go to the top of the tours in summer, you'll
Speaker 1: be wearing winter clothing. But I digress. I wound up
Speaker 1: in Whitman's Forest. This is one weird place. The trees
Speaker 1: grow at angles and rocks have moss on them. It's
Speaker 1: a real Lord of the Rings kind of place. Some
Speaker 1: of the locals claims it was a Druid holy site.
Speaker 1: I thought, if I wanted to see an ABC, that
Speaker 1: would be the place to tuck myself out of sight.
Speaker 1: So I found a lovely spot where all this stuff's about.
Speaker 1: I felt my camp, and then I went and put
Speaker 1: some trail cams about. After that came the long wait.
Speaker 1: I sat there by a roaring fire and watched a
Speaker 1: really beautiful sunset. If only it had stayed that mellow
Speaker 1: the rest of the night. By midnight, I was ready
Speaker 1: to go hunting. As it were, I was hoping at
Speaker 1: least to get a cast of a footprint, But as
Speaker 1: you know in our game, it can be a long
Speaker 1: wait even for that much. I ventured for to dart More.
Speaker 1: It's quite a big force for England, but it opens
Speaker 1: up to more lands. I was over there for about
Speaker 1: an hour. Suddenly I couldn't shake this feeling that I
Speaker 1: was being watched. The hackles on my back of my
Speaker 1: neck started to prick up. Now every instinct I had
Speaker 1: learned or have naturally well sufficed it to say that
Speaker 1: my spider senses were tingling. Straight Away, I went to
Speaker 1: the relative safety of my camp, knowing there were other
Speaker 1: indigenous animals in that place already set up my alerts.
Speaker 1: I sat down and was having a couple of beers,
Speaker 1: trying to chill out. But I couldn't shake that feeling
Speaker 1: of being watched, tracked or stalk. It had to be
Speaker 1: one of those, because I was at least two miles
Speaker 1: from my camp when the feeling started and I still
Speaker 1: had it back at I was at least two miles
Speaker 1: from my camp when that feeling started, and when I
Speaker 1: got back to camp the feeling was still there. I
Speaker 1: was getting pretty freaked down by now. My mind was
Speaker 1: going twenty directions at once. Was it kids on wind up? Now?
Speaker 1: Why would they be here? A ranger? Again? No, they
Speaker 1: don't go there full stop. Then I thought, it's a
Speaker 1: serial killer. They could dump your body over there and
Speaker 1: you'd never be found. Or it could be Satanists maybe
Speaker 1: or Pagans. At some point in its history, Dartmoor Forest
Speaker 1: was a sacred grove. That's when I heard the first
Speaker 1: twig snap. I immediately picked up my bill hook. A
Speaker 1: bill hook is a machete with a curve at the top.
Speaker 1: Also had my pocket knife in my other hand. And
Speaker 1: then I saw a set of glittering eyes in the
Speaker 1: light of the night. I announced my presence and I said,
Speaker 1: I can see you there, Come out where I can
Speaker 1: see you. All I got in reply was a low
Speaker 1: kind of whistle. I gathered that whatever was looking at
Speaker 1: me was definitely not a human. The eyes alone told
Speaker 1: me that I've lived with a few different indigenous peoples
Speaker 1: around the world. I felt this relative to my experience.
Speaker 1: In a stern voice, I said, I'm not here to
Speaker 1: do anyone or anything any harm. I'm merely passing through.
Speaker 1: You're welcome to come share my fire if you come
Speaker 1: in peace. And this is something I learned in the
Speaker 1: Congo in Africa. In other words, if you want what
Speaker 1: I've got, come to me and get it. I still
Speaker 1: had my blades drawn. I sat down by my fire,
Speaker 1: my blades on my lap, and that's when it stood
Speaker 1: to its full height. I uttered a pretty nasty expletive
Speaker 1: as I thought, you're a big one, ain't you. My
Speaker 1: training kicked in and I was working out his size
Speaker 1: and how long he could go. And then this thing
Speaker 1: strode across my campsite. I saw it with my own eyes.
Speaker 1: He or she was seven feet tall and built like
Speaker 1: a brick, blank blank, well, you get the idea, mate.
Speaker 1: It was covered in long, shaggy hair like an orangutan,
Speaker 1: except it didn't walk on its knuckles like most apes do.
Speaker 1: And that was an intense smell to it as well.
Speaker 1: I sat there with my blades on my lap, making
Speaker 1: no movement at all. In fact, I pretended not to
Speaker 1: be paying attention to it. I really couldn't tell what
Speaker 1: sex it was, and in less than a minute he
Speaker 1: or she walked through my camp. With that, I felt
Speaker 1: the animosity from earlier disappear. The rest of the night
Speaker 1: was perfect. I actually think it had come to work
Speaker 1: out what my intentions were in the forest. I never
Speaker 1: believed in the wood was that's what we called them
Speaker 1: in medieval times. But when I hear stuff like your
Speaker 1: wickedly awesome channel, I have to wonder. Besides, I know
Speaker 1: what I saw. It seemed in action indeed, not so
Speaker 1: aggressive or isolated as bigfoot are over in the States,
Speaker 1: or as elusive as the Australia, although I think they
Speaker 1: sent tagging area like most primates do other than us.
Speaker 1: I only say this because the smell lingered. It was
Speaker 1: still reeking when I left. Well that's my tale. Please,
Speaker 1: if you could be so bold as to give your
Speaker 1: opinion on this, I'm a bit stumped, mate, cheers Jim. Well, Jim,
Speaker 1: I don't have an opinion, dude, that was your story.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I called you dude. Mate, I have to
Speaker 1: learn to call people in other countries what they're accustomed
Speaker 1: to being called to mate. Anyway, I don't have an opinion,
Speaker 1: but it's an unbelievable story. I think you're asking my
Speaker 1: opinion because maybe you have the idea that I know
Speaker 1: a lot about these things and I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: you know. Somebody asked me the other day, he said,
Speaker 1: what all do you know about Bigfoot? And I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know much about them. Never seen one, never
Speaker 1: seen the track. I don't know anything at all about them.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to pretend like I do like
Speaker 1: some people do, and to be honest, I'm a little curious,
Speaker 1: but I'm not really eat up with knowing a lot
Speaker 1: about Bigfoot. To answer your question, I don't think I
Speaker 1: have an opinion, although I will say, based on the
Speaker 1: stories that I have narrated up until now and read
Speaker 1: so far, I think it's quite unusual for one of
Speaker 1: these things to walk right through your camp. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've narrated a story like that, but I have
Speaker 1: heard two stories like that from people who are, let's
Speaker 1: just say, big storytellers in the bigfoot world. Actually, they
Speaker 1: told me the stories face to face. I was with them.
Speaker 1: They were telling me and a whole bunch of people
Speaker 1: around the campfire, and they're great stories, and I don't
Speaker 1: really doubt them. I don't doubt them because other people
Speaker 1: saw it too, so it does happen. I think it's
Speaker 1: quite rare for one of these creatures to just walk
Speaker 1: right through your camp. But what an experience. I mean,
Speaker 1: my takeaway from that would be I got to see
Speaker 1: something that very, very very few people see in this world.
Speaker 1: That's what I think. When I'm standing in waste high
Speaker 1: water in the middle of the winter in a swamp,
Speaker 1: hunting over a spread of decoys, and I get to
Speaker 1: see ducks. A lot of times when the ducks come in,
Speaker 1: I won't even shoot because I'm seeing something that so
Speaker 1: few people in the world ever get to see. And
Speaker 1: it is an honor and a privilege to be able
Speaker 1: to be healthy enough to get there, to be able
Speaker 1: to own the equipment to get there, and to be
Speaker 1: able to stay there on really cold, icy mornings and
Speaker 1: watch that kind of thing happen. There are so many
Speaker 1: things that go on in the woods that if you
Speaker 1: just go and you be quiet and you just observe,
Speaker 1: just kind of meld into the woods. You get to
Speaker 1: see things that ninety nine percent I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing ninety nine percent of the entire population never get
Speaker 1: to see. They may get to see it on video.
Speaker 1: You might get to see animals doing their mating ritual.
Speaker 1: You might get to see animals fighting. You might get
Speaker 1: to see, like I said a minute ago, ducks coming
Speaker 1: in and opening in the middle of a swamp, in
Speaker 1: the middle of a cypress swamp, watching them light on
Speaker 1: the ground right in the middle of your decoys. Watching
Speaker 1: wood ducks shoot past you in the morning when they're
Speaker 1: leaving their roost. There's so many things you get to
Speaker 1: see if you just go there and be quiet, with
Speaker 1: no ill intention, sit back and watch, and you know,
Speaker 1: ninety nine times out of one hundred, you may not
Speaker 1: see anything. They know you're there, Everything knows you're there.
Speaker 1: But to just sit there and observe, I mean, heck,
Speaker 1: just watch the bugs, you know. I like to go
Speaker 1: back and sit in a lawn chair by this pond
Speaker 1: behind my house and just watch the bugs flitter on
Speaker 1: top and watch the fish take them off the top
Speaker 1: of the water. I mean, not many people really think
Speaker 1: about that. Not many people get to see that. Like
Speaker 1: this little bird. I hope this bird survives and I'm
Speaker 1: going to get to see a bird go from just
Speaker 1: a day old. This little bird is no more than
Speaker 1: a day or two old. If it survives, I'll get
Speaker 1: to watch it grow from just being hatched, hopefully to
Speaker 1: a bird that'll fly off and go into the wild
Speaker 1: and be wild. And it would just be awesome to
Speaker 1: do that. Now. I don't hold out much hope of that,
Speaker 1: but if I'm patient and I'm persistent with this bird,
Speaker 1: it might happen. I'm a sixty year old man. I'm
Speaker 1: pushing sixty, and this stuff still thrills me. This nature
Speaker 1: thing thrills me. Okay, I know that I've talked longer
Speaker 1: than the story was, but I'm really adamant about it.
Speaker 1: A lot of people get to see videos. Go see
Speaker 1: it for yourself. Go see the things in nature for yourself.
Speaker 1: All right, That's all I'm going to say. About A
Speaker 1: year ago, in February, I decided to go on a
Speaker 1: two night camping trip with three of my friends, John, Joe,
Speaker 1: and Jim to a called Nutria Number four, a couple
Speaker 1: of miles from Rama and Zuni, New Mexico, The lake
Speaker 1: is well hiding behind the hog backs and mountains and
Speaker 1: is a great for fishing. We set up camp at
Speaker 1: a campground located about a half a mile on top
Speaker 1: of a hill overlooking a small valley. It was a
Speaker 1: cozy spot behind some pine and cedar trees that acted
Speaker 1: as a wind break. At four point thirty, after we'd
Speaker 1: set up the tent and gathered some firewood and done
Speaker 1: everything else we needed to do, Joe suggested we go
Speaker 1: down to the lake and throw some lines. So we
Speaker 1: packed some light tackle, knowing we wouldn't get back until
Speaker 1: after dark, grabbed our headlamps and headed out. It was
Speaker 1: a slow, cold night, but we managed to catch six
Speaker 1: trout before heading back to camp. Around eight thirty, we
Speaker 1: were walking along in the dark in temperatures of around
Speaker 1: thirty degrees fahrenheit with me in the back, when we
Speaker 1: noticed everything had gone dead silent. We all stopped switched
Speaker 1: our headlamps to the highest settings before continuing on, checking
Speaker 1: every tree, scrutinizing every shadow, and repeatedly scanning the horizon
Speaker 1: for any predator or anything else that may have caused
Speaker 1: the quiet. I swung my headlamp around to my right
Speaker 1: and caught eyes shine thirty yards away. They were close
Speaker 1: to the ground, so my first thought was that it
Speaker 1: must be just another stray dog that are so common
Speaker 1: on the reservation. But as I began to turn away,
Speaker 1: I saw out of the corner of my eye that
Speaker 1: those eyes began to float upwards. I had a moment
Speaker 1: of uneasiness, but I didn't want to scare my friends,
Speaker 1: so I said, hey, let's go a little bit faster.
Speaker 1: It's cold out. They picked up the pace and soon
Speaker 1: we were back at camp. By now we were freezing
Speaker 1: and hungry. Our main objective was to build a fire
Speaker 1: and cook dinner. I thought about what I'd seen, and
Speaker 1: I decided not to mention it. I wasn't sure what
Speaker 1: it was, and I didn't want to get my friends
Speaker 1: worked up over what could be nothing. There was no
Speaker 1: use in all of us being on the edge. An
Speaker 1: hour later, we had a decent fire burning in front
Speaker 1: of us, and our bellies were full of trout and
Speaker 1: we were listening to some good music. As we sat
Speaker 1: there talking and having a good time. My concerns over
Speaker 1: the rising eye shine passed once I was comfortable with
Speaker 1: the thought that it hadn't followed us back to camp.
Speaker 1: The sudden, unexpected sound of something that was too big
Speaker 1: to be just a twig breaking in the trees to
Speaker 1: our east sent that same fear running back through my body.
Speaker 1: Someone jumped up and turned off the music, and we
Speaker 1: all grabbed our headlamps. We scanned the area, but the
Speaker 1: pine trees were too thick to see anything that might
Speaker 1: be standing in their midst We listened for another sound,
Speaker 1: not even daring to breathe, but we heard nothing. Jim
Speaker 1: picked up a rock through it in that direction. It
Speaker 1: was just our luck that he hit something. It released
Speaker 1: the most terrifying scream I've ever heard. With our eyes
Speaker 1: wide and our minds racing, we ran inside the tent
Speaker 1: and grabbed whatever we could find to defend ourselves. We
Speaker 1: really didn't have anything that we felt was sufficient enough
Speaker 1: to ward off something that could roar like whatever that
Speaker 1: thing in the trees was, but even our pocketknives were
Speaker 1: better than nothing. Once we were armed, we stood still
Speaker 1: and we listened. We could hear footsteps coming towards us,
Speaker 1: like huge, thundering sledge hammers made by some monstrous beast.
Speaker 1: The trees started rustling, and John began to panic. He
Speaker 1: was praying and pleading with God to rescue us, while
Speaker 1: the rest of us tried to calm him down. Outside.
Speaker 1: The footsteps grew louder and heavier as they got closer Inside.
Speaker 1: We exchanged silent glances, each of us us seeing the
Speaker 1: fear in the other's eyes and hoping they couldn't see
Speaker 1: the terror in ours. We caught our collective breath as
Speaker 1: a shadow stepped between the blazing fire and the wall
Speaker 1: of our tent and it stopped. It was enormous and muscular,
Speaker 1: and it was walking on two legs. We watched in
Speaker 1: horrified fascination as this thing bent down and seemed to
Speaker 1: inspect our fish bones and leftovers. Seconds crawled by like
Speaker 1: hours before it stood erect, and it grunted before walking away,
Speaker 1: apparently taking our food scraps with it. Another forty five
Speaker 1: minutes would pass in the tent before we were able
Speaker 1: to talk, much less move around. We considered packing up
Speaker 1: and leaving, but we were afraid to make any noises
Speaker 1: that might bring the creature back. Nor were we willing
Speaker 1: to leave the fire unattended, and we weren't about to
Speaker 1: put it out. Our only option was to wait out
Speaker 1: the night. It was ten but our adrenaline was still flowing.
Speaker 1: I knew we'd need more firewood to make it through
Speaker 1: the night, so I asked Jim to come with me
Speaker 1: so we could gather some. Joe and John stayed back
Speaker 1: to watch over the camp. We had it out, keeping
Speaker 1: a constant look for any signs of the creature's return,
Speaker 1: as we picked up every piece of dead wood we
Speaker 1: could find. We reached the top of the hill and
Speaker 1: looked out over the moonlit valley below. To our utter
Speaker 1: shock and disbelief, running faster than anything I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: was a bigfoot heading towards the other mountain, and what
Speaker 1: seemed like only a few seconds had disappeared into the
Speaker 1: pine trees, and it was gone. Jim and I looked
Speaker 1: at each other, unable to process what we'd just seen.
Speaker 1: We turned and ran quickly back to the camp to
Speaker 1: tell John and Joe what we had seen, confirming that
Speaker 1: it was a bigfoot that had come into our camp
Speaker 1: that night. A few minutes later, a long, low howl
Speaker 1: came from that other mountain to our west. I didn't
Speaker 1: sleep that night. I doubt the others did either. It
Speaker 1: was like we'd walked into a nightmare, and somehow managed
Speaker 1: to survive, but my mind could not accept it. When
Speaker 1: the dawn broke and the sky began to turn a
Speaker 1: bluish pink, I got up and stirred up the last
Speaker 1: burning coals of the fire. Then I packed up everything
Speaker 1: outside the tent and was just finishing when everyone else
Speaker 1: slowly crawled out of their bedrolls. We cleaned up and
Speaker 1: finished loading up our gear without anyone saying a single word. Finally,
Speaker 1: as we were pulling out, everyone spoke at once, asking
Speaker 1: each other what had happened last night, and no one
Speaker 1: had a real answer. That was the scariest night of
Speaker 1: my life.