Speaker 1: I live on a short one mile long road in
Speaker 1: the Drry Township of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. My house sits
Speaker 1: at the halfway point of the road, with a few
Speaker 1: other neighbors dotted here and there along the way. My
Speaker 1: backyard butts up to a large pond in an open field,
Speaker 1: and to my chagrin, I have recently discovered that this
Speaker 1: part of Pennsylvania is pretty much Sisquat Central. I might
Speaker 1: never have bothered to learn this small bit of trivia
Speaker 1: if not for what had happened to me on Sunday,
Speaker 1: May the ninth, twenty twenty two. At one pm that day,
Speaker 1: I took my dogs for a walk. I opted to
Speaker 1: walk down the end of the road where a retired
Speaker 1: federal government employee lives. That he values his privacy is
Speaker 1: evident in the no trespassing signs posted and the fact
Speaker 1: that his property is gated. I usually stopped at the
Speaker 1: gate and turned around when I choose to walk the
Speaker 1: dogs in that direction. I had walked past another home
Speaker 1: on the opposite side of the road when I saw
Speaker 1: what I thought was my neighbor. Walked from the corner
Speaker 1: of his yard and on to the driveway at the
Speaker 1: same time, both of my dogs began to react strangely.
Speaker 1: They dropped their tails and began to whine and whimper
Speaker 1: as they backed away. I stared in amazement as what
Speaker 1: I had first taken for a human being crossing the
Speaker 1: driveway in two strides. Realization began to set in. This
Speaker 1: was not my neighbor. This was not a human being.
Speaker 1: This was something seven and a half to eight feet tall,
Speaker 1: and it was covered in long, matted, dark brown and
Speaker 1: black hair, and it was only fifteen feet away from me.
Speaker 1: It never looked at me or in my direction. There
Speaker 1: was no accurate smell that so many have talked about,
Speaker 1: nor did it make any sounds. It simply crossed the driveway,
Speaker 1: which was about two feet wider than a car, and
Speaker 1: then it went up a slight embankment and disappeared into
Speaker 1: the woods. At this point I still didn't realize, or
Speaker 1: perhaps I hadn't accepted the reality that I had seen
Speaker 1: a bigfoot. I was surprised and rattled and in denial,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't tell you what I was thinking at
Speaker 1: that moment, and I wish I could. I was still
Speaker 1: holding on to the thought that it was my neighbor,
Speaker 1: as I began walking back toward my house. When I
Speaker 1: reached the spot where it had stepped into the woods,
Speaker 1: I realized there was no earthly reason why anyone would
Speaker 1: venture into that heavy thicket. It would be dangerous to
Speaker 1: do so, A healthy man would struggle with it, and
Speaker 1: someone like my neighbor, who smokes heavily and enjoys his drinks,
Speaker 1: would never be able to make it through there. Well,
Speaker 1: this is when I began to get nervous. The dogs
Speaker 1: had stopped whimpering and whining, but they were in as
Speaker 1: much of a hurry to get home as I was.
Speaker 1: I kept checking back over my shoulder, but I didn't
Speaker 1: see the creature, nor did I hear anything. And when
Speaker 1: I realized I didn't hear anything, it occurred to me
Speaker 1: that even the birds had gone silent. There were no
Speaker 1: normal woodland noises at all. A few days later, I
Speaker 1: was able to have a conversation with the man who
Speaker 1: owns the property, and I began by saying, so, I
Speaker 1: saw something while I was on a walk the other day.
Speaker 1: There was a nervous pause while I collected my thoughts.
Speaker 1: You're probably going to think I lost my mind. I
Speaker 1: began again, did you see bigfoot, he cut in. His
Speaker 1: question caught me off guard, and I wasn't expecting that answer,
Speaker 1: But I can't say I wasn't hoping for it either,
Speaker 1: I believe, so I managed to get out, Have you
Speaker 1: seen bigfoot? No? He answered again, not what I was
Speaker 1: hoping for, but not entirely unexpected. There isn't much to
Speaker 1: tell beyond that it isn't the most exciting story. It
Speaker 1: certainly isn't how I imagine things would play out if I
Speaker 1: ever saw a bigfoot. But it is what it is,
Speaker 1: and I know what I saw. So I started hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing when I was ten years old with an
Speaker 1: uncle here in the UK, and I've hunted and fished
Speaker 1: worldwide ever since. Being in the outdoors is me at
Speaker 1: my happiest, even if I don't get anything. I enjoy
Speaker 1: stalking deer, working the land, and being selective as to
Speaker 1: what I harvest. Everything I harvest is for the pot,
Speaker 1: except for the foxes and the rats. As a hunter,
Speaker 1: I believe in selective and ethical hunting, and when I
Speaker 1: do take a life, I always give the best I
Speaker 1: can for a quick, clean kill. I live in England,
Speaker 1: but most of my hunting was in Scotland on syndicate
Speaker 1: land least from a tree plantation company. The plantation consisted
Speaker 1: of mature tree with fire breaks, clear fell and new
Speaker 1: plantation with gravel tracks. We were allowed to have a
Speaker 1: static caravan on site. Americans call these camping trailers. The
Speaker 1: least area was fifteen hundred acres, but next to this
Speaker 1: was a further twelve hundred acres of woodland and farmland
Speaker 1: that was run by a local and they shot for
Speaker 1: driven pheasant. The agreement with the gamekeeper was if we
Speaker 1: helped keep the foxes down on the chute by lamping
Speaker 1: at night, we would get an invite on the chute
Speaker 1: for the end of the season. On keepers Day one
Speaker 1: weekend in early October two thousand and four, I arranged
Speaker 1: for myself and a friend to go deer stalking. I
Speaker 1: was all packed up and ready to go when my
Speaker 1: friend called me and said he couldn't come due to
Speaker 1: a family emergency, so it was just me and the dog,
Speaker 1: which was fine. I set off later than I was
Speaker 1: hoping for and on the way up to Scotland, I
Speaker 1: got held up even further with road works. The five
Speaker 1: hour drive turned into six hours, and when I got
Speaker 1: to the trailer in the woodland. It was getting on
Speaker 1: for about nine thirty PM and I was losing light.
Speaker 1: There was not enough light left to start an evening stalk,
Speaker 1: so I made a meal and I thought I would
Speaker 1: drive the plantation next door after midnight and see if
Speaker 1: I could nail some foxes whilst lamping. For all you
Speaker 1: rednecks out there, lamping is what we call shining or spotlight,
Speaker 1: but he's doing it legally for foxes and predators, which
Speaker 1: is cool. We can't even do that. We can't even
Speaker 1: shine a light in a field at night, and the
Speaker 1: game war will be on us like white on rice.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I digress. It's shining for all the Rednecks.
Speaker 1: Just after midnight, I put the dog in the back
Speaker 1: of the land rover, set the spotting lamp up, and
Speaker 1: headed off with my two forty three. I arrived at
Speaker 1: the gate of the plantation and unlocked the gate and
Speaker 1: I drove in. It was strange because I've remember a
Speaker 1: funny feeling when I opened the gate. I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: what it was, but something didn't feel right. I drove
Speaker 1: along the mature woodland and I looked down a firebreak
Speaker 1: and noticed a bright light in the sky. It was
Speaker 1: very bright. I thought it was a satellite off in
Speaker 1: the sky. This was looking out the right side of
Speaker 1: my car at my three o'clock. I carried on past
Speaker 1: the mature trees and I turned right down a track
Speaker 1: that opened on some clear fell I expected to see
Speaker 1: the light in front of me, but it was still
Speaker 1: at ninety degrees to my right, which was strange. I
Speaker 1: carried down the track for about three to four hundred
Speaker 1: yards and I stopped. I looked at the light and
Speaker 1: it was still there, just hanging in the sky. I
Speaker 1: put my zeice binoculars on it, and it was hard
Speaker 1: to look at due to the brightness. The thing was
Speaker 1: a bright silver. It looked like a cylinder on its end,
Speaker 1: like you would put a coke can on a table.
Speaker 1: I put the rangefinder on it, and it was six
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty yards from me. It must have been
Speaker 1: twenty five feet long and maybe ten feet in diameter,
Speaker 1: and hanging about two hundred feet off the ground. I
Speaker 1: could see the trees illuminated by its brightness below. I
Speaker 1: carried on down the track and I turned right again.
Speaker 1: I was now driving behind it. I stopped and put
Speaker 1: the rangefinder on it again, and it was now at
Speaker 1: five hundred yards. This thing just hung there. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was, but it made no noise and
Speaker 1: it didn't seem to move. I was mesmerized by it.
Speaker 1: Fear took over, and I thought it best to move along.
Speaker 1: I floored it down the track. The road curved at
Speaker 1: the end and joined the original track that I came
Speaker 1: in on. I looked out the window and it was
Speaker 1: still hanging there. I had driven all the way around it,
Speaker 1: and it was always on the right side of the vehicle.
Speaker 1: I drove back to my syndicate area and I went
Speaker 1: to bed in the caravan. In the morning, I drove
Speaker 1: to the next door plantation again about NW and I
Speaker 1: looked at the area again and saw no sign of it.
Speaker 1: I drove the same route and stopped in the same places,
Speaker 1: and I never saw anything strange. A few months later
Speaker 1: I told a friend about it, and after he finished
Speaker 1: laughing at me and saying it was the moon or
Speaker 1: a planet, he asked me why I didn't go closer
Speaker 1: to it, or why I didn't take a shot at
Speaker 1: it with my rifle. At the time, that never occurred
Speaker 1: to me to even think of doing that. And in hindsight,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have done so anyway. It's kind of drummed
Speaker 1: into me always to know what I'm shooting at and
Speaker 1: never to aim or discharge a rifle above a backstop.
Speaker 1: To this day, I don't know what it was. Primeval
Speaker 1: fear kept me from getting closer and told me to leave,
Speaker 1: and I think a deep, unknown sixth sense told me
Speaker 1: something wasn't right when I arrived. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was my eyes playing tricks, but I did get
Speaker 1: hits with the rangefinder, so this thing must have been
Speaker 1: solid and reflective. It seemed to emit a light, but
Speaker 1: it didn't have any lights. I've never seen anything like
Speaker 1: it again, nor do I really want to. It would
Speaker 1: be interesting if any of your followers have encountered anything
Speaker 1: that fits this description. Paul's got another thing he wanted
Speaker 1: to share, and I thought this was really good, just
Speaker 1: as good as his story. And here's what he writes.
Speaker 1: I wanted to give you one more short story that
Speaker 1: isn't a Bigfoot story, and it's not really a UFO story.
Speaker 1: This is about people who tell about what they have seen.
Speaker 1: I've noticed the amount of decent people who are ridiculed
Speaker 1: for telling the truth about what they saw, regardless of
Speaker 1: whether it can be explained or not. A lot of
Speaker 1: these people are well respected professional people who have their
Speaker 1: lives really affected by simply telling the truth. And that's
Speaker 1: what this story is about. Many years ago, I used
Speaker 1: to shoot wildfile and game with a really nice guy.
Speaker 1: He had a great sense of humor and the banter
Speaker 1: that he gave and was able to take was legendary.
Speaker 1: He worked for a local farmer and also was a
Speaker 1: part time truck driver, and he worked for various hall
Speaker 1: firms in the southeast of the United Kingdom. He was
Speaker 1: ex army and served with his original regiment in Germany
Speaker 1: and Northern Ireland. Then needed more of a challenge and
Speaker 1: went for the parachute Regiment. You have to be a
Speaker 1: tough bastard to get in that also, and you also
Speaker 1: have to be a bit mad. This was in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties. In nineteen eighty two, he found himself
Speaker 1: on the way to the South Atlantic on a troop
Speaker 1: ship with his regiment in May of nineteen eighty two
Speaker 1: and found himself in full combat at Goose Green during
Speaker 1: the Falklands War. After he left the army, he returned
Speaker 1: back to rural life, settled down and married, and they
Speaker 1: had a child. He was well known in the community
Speaker 1: and very well liked, and was a kind of guy
Speaker 1: who would help anyone out. Over a couple of beers.
Speaker 1: One evening he told me this story and how it
Speaker 1: affected his life, his work, and his marriage. In the
Speaker 1: summertime in the late nineteen eighties, he was trucking freshly
Speaker 1: harvested peas with another guy in another truck. It was
Speaker 1: early morning and they were driving through a rural area
Speaker 1: in Suffolk and heading for a pea processing factory. As
Speaker 1: they drove down the quiet country roads, the sun started
Speaker 1: to rise and in the pink and blue sky they
Speaker 1: saw two black triangles. They seemed to just hang silhouetted
Speaker 1: in the sky. He drew them and they were Isaceles triangles.
Speaker 1: He said, you could even see the heat haze coming
Speaker 1: off of them. He got on his sebee to the
Speaker 1: other driver and said, do you see them? What the
Speaker 1: hell are they? The other driver said, screw this, and
Speaker 1: they both floored the trucks and didn't stop until they
Speaker 1: reached the truck stop twenty miles away. He said they
Speaker 1: both felt shook up and told other truckers what they
Speaker 1: had seen. This was a big mistake. At no point
Speaker 1: did they ever say UFO or spaceship or aliens. They
Speaker 1: just described what they had seen in the sky that morning,
Speaker 1: and they received a fair amount of ridicule. And it
Speaker 1: didn't stop there. It spread like wildfire and it never ended.
Speaker 1: They both were accused of drinking on the job and
Speaker 1: being mentally unbalanced. They lost a work through the ordeal.
Speaker 1: They just weren't hired by any of the haulage companies.
Speaker 1: Every time he went into town, someone would draw an
Speaker 1: alien face on his car in the dust, or whistle
Speaker 1: the close encounters theme. It was the same in the
Speaker 1: local pub. You would think that a tough guy like
Speaker 1: him could take it, and that it could only go
Speaker 1: on for so long. But it stopped being banter or
Speaker 1: a joke, and it simply turned into harassment. One day
Speaker 1: he had had enough and he punched one of his hecklers. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that got him his shotgun certificate revoked over it. I
Speaker 1: can't stress how constant it was. The other driver moved
Speaker 1: away because of the bullying. Also in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: when the First Gulf War started, it suddenly became clear
Speaker 1: to him what he had actually seen on television the
Speaker 1: United States Air Force rolled out the F one seventeen
Speaker 1: stealth Fighter. What he and the other driver had seen
Speaker 1: was these aircraft coming into land at an air base
Speaker 1: in Suffolk. Even when he explained to people that's what
Speaker 1: he had seen, it never mattered and the harassment never stopped.
Speaker 1: I last saw him in the mid nineteen nineties when
Speaker 1: he was running aid out for the United Nations to
Speaker 1: the Balklands War. I heard he met a Bosnian woman
Speaker 1: who was from Germany and moved out there after the war.
Speaker 1: He was a good friend and a great and really
Speaker 1: didn't deserve what he got for simply telling the truth.
Speaker 1: My name is Kelly and I'm from England and I'm
Speaker 1: a regular listener to your show. I have a true story,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure if it will interest you. It
Speaker 1: isn't about Bigfoot nor dog Man, to be honest, it
Speaker 1: does not even involve a cryptid, and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: you could class it as paranormal or supernatural, but I
Speaker 1: will let you decide on that yourself. First, let me
Speaker 1: tell you a little about myself. I am a forty
Speaker 1: seven year old woman and I live in Lincoln with
Speaker 1: my husband. The story did not happen in Lincoln, but
Speaker 1: in Manchester, where I used to live before I'm married.
Speaker 1: I lived on a rather large estate back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two when this strange incident occurred, and I
Speaker 1: had lived in that area since nineteen seventy two. It
Speaker 1: was the beginning of July and we had just had
Speaker 1: the hottest day of the year. It had been around
Speaker 1: ninety four, and the night was so humid it was
Speaker 1: still in the eighties. I knew I would not be
Speaker 1: able to sleep, although I was doing for work at
Speaker 1: nine am the next morning, and I stayed up watching
Speaker 1: television until two AM. When I retired to bed, it
Speaker 1: was boiling hot in the room, and I opened the
Speaker 1: window as wide as I could to let some air inside,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't any. Sadly, we don't have air conditioners here,
Speaker 1: and the air outside was as warm as that within
Speaker 1: the room. I dressed lightly and I chose to sleep
Speaker 1: on top of the covers, but as hard as I tried,
Speaker 1: I couldn't sleep, and I did not even feel tired.
Speaker 1: But I knew without any sleep, I would pay for it.
Speaker 1: The next day at work, I clock watched instead as
Speaker 1: I tossed and turned, and then two am changed into
Speaker 1: three AM, and then four am. It was just far
Speaker 1: too warm to sleep, so I took a book from
Speaker 1: my bookshelf and I began to read, hoping that I
Speaker 1: would eventually drift off to sleep. There was not a
Speaker 1: sound from anywhere coming through the window as I read,
Speaker 1: and then about four thirty am I heard the clopping sound,
Speaker 1: clip clop, clip clop. My first thought was who was
Speaker 1: riding a horse at this time of the morning. The
Speaker 1: clip clopping noise continued, so I put my book down
Speaker 1: and I leaned out to look through my window. It
Speaker 1: was daylight and from my home I could see either
Speaker 1: end of the street that I lived on and the
Speaker 1: main road that it attached to. The clip clop sound
Speaker 1: grew louder, and then in the distance on the main
Speaker 1: road came a figure. I could not see them clearly,
Speaker 1: only the top of their head over the distant hedges,
Speaker 1: but it was a woman, I was sure of it,
Speaker 1: and she was wearing heels, and that is what was
Speaker 1: making the clip clop noise. There was no traffic at
Speaker 1: the time in the morning, and it was a Tuesday,
Speaker 1: so I wondered why someone was out so early, I
Speaker 1: popped my head back into the room so she would
Speaker 1: not see me spying on her, and as she turned
Speaker 1: the corner, I was amazed to see that she was
Speaker 1: wearing a winter jacket with a hood pulled up in
Speaker 1: all that heat. She was also wearing trousers in what
Speaker 1: looked like old fashioned hobnailed boots, which still made the
Speaker 1: loud clip clop sound. The jacket had the old style
Speaker 1: wooden toggles on the front to tie it up, and
Speaker 1: I stood back in the shadows watching her, thinking that
Speaker 1: she must be slightly mad to be dressed for winter
Speaker 1: after the hottest day of the year. I observed her
Speaker 1: and she drew level with my house, clip clopping along.
Speaker 1: She was side on to me, with her head down,
Speaker 1: looking at the ground, so all I could see was
Speaker 1: her hood, and then she suddenly stopped abruptly, she turned
Speaker 1: and looked directly up at me. This caused me to
Speaker 1: take a sharp intake of breath and step backwards. How
Speaker 1: did she know that I was there? I thought? I
Speaker 1: remember her face well from what I could see of
Speaker 1: it under her hood. It was pale like alabaster, and
Speaker 1: she had dark eyes and a thin mouth that remained closed.
Speaker 1: Everything about her was off kilter to me, and the
Speaker 1: hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end.
Speaker 1: I thought, what am I doing stepping away from the window.
Speaker 1: It was still wide open, and I thought, if anyone
Speaker 1: is weird here, it's her. So I stepped back to
Speaker 1: the window and she was gone. All this occurred in seconds,
Speaker 1: and seeing as I had heard her approaching for the
Speaker 1: last five minutes with her loud footwear, if she had
Speaker 1: run off or walked, I would have heard it. I
Speaker 1: knew all my neighbors well and she wasn't one of them,
Speaker 1: so she had not skipped into the houses. Plus, they
Speaker 1: all had iron gates that made a loud noise as
Speaker 1: you open them. I looked out of the window the
Speaker 1: entire length of the street, left and right, but she
Speaker 1: was gone. I thought I had spooked her and she
Speaker 1: ran into the garden to hide. I would have heard
Speaker 1: that clip clop of heels though on the pavement. I
Speaker 1: stood at the window until five thirty am in case
Speaker 1: she was hiding somewhere, but I never saw her again.
Speaker 1: As I stood, observing and slightly baffled at the window,
Speaker 1: a cat came from the left of the street, walking
Speaker 1: along and another from the right, and they met and
Speaker 1: sat side by side where the woman had stood. When
Speaker 1: she turned to look up at me, it was so weird.
Speaker 1: Cats usually fight, and these two were not known to
Speaker 1: me as any of the neighborhood cats either. I stood
Speaker 1: watching the road with the window shut, even in the heat.
Speaker 1: I had images of her flying through my window to
Speaker 1: get me, so I slammed it shut and watched through
Speaker 1: the glass. The whole episode creeped me out. I could
Speaker 1: not sleep at all that night, and I went to
Speaker 1: work a few hours later. I told a few family
Speaker 1: members and they thought it strange, but they had no ideas.
Speaker 1: I wondered if the lady had maybe a skin problem,
Speaker 1: hence why she was covered over, But why would you
Speaker 1: wear the heaviest clothes in that heat. Plus it still
Speaker 1: did not answer where she suddenly disappeared to silently. I
Speaker 1: suppose that will remain a mystery. I moved out in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, and the only time I ever saw and
Speaker 1: heard anything was back in two thousand and two. But
Speaker 1: it has stuck in my mind as odd all these
Speaker 1: years later. And if she was real or not, your
Speaker 1: guess is as good as mine. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if this story is scary or just perplexing, and I
Speaker 1: was most definitely not dreaming. I know as I never
Speaker 1: slept that night, and on hot evenings afterwards, I'll always
Speaker 1: keep the window closed and endured the heat. As I
Speaker 1: finished typing this, the hairs on the back of my
Speaker 1: neck stood up again, and I turned around to check
Speaker 1: that she wasn't standing there. How foolish is that? I
Speaker 1: was raised in the desert desert area of Utah, in
Speaker 1: the small town of Caneville, population fifteen On a good
Speaker 1: day when everyone was home. This town was so remote
Speaker 1: it was thirty miles to the west to the nearest
Speaker 1: town in twenty miles to the east of Hanksville, which
Speaker 1: is just north of Hyte Marina on Lake Powell. Only
Speaker 1: a handful of cars passed through our town on Highway
Speaker 1: twenty four on a busy day. My father was a
Speaker 1: desert tour guide and he knew the Utah Desert like
Speaker 1: the back of his hand. So I was raised rough
Speaker 1: camping in the desert with my parents and their friends
Speaker 1: for several years. In the spring, Dad would lead a
Speaker 1: group called the Wonder Bunch on a three day camp
Speaker 1: trip into the desert and canyons of Utah. They called
Speaker 1: themselves the Wonder Bunch because they always wondered where they
Speaker 1: were going, and wondered who would be going, and wondered
Speaker 1: when they would make it back. I love going on
Speaker 1: the Wonder Bunch camp trips, which usually had seventy five
Speaker 1: to one hundred people in the group. Every night, after
Speaker 1: eating a great meal, several men would get out their
Speaker 1: musical instruments and play songs around the campfire. My dad
Speaker 1: played guitar, one man played a banjo, and another played
Speaker 1: a harmonica, etc. While they played, some of the others
Speaker 1: would clear an area of brush and rock so we
Speaker 1: could dance in the sand. Most of the time square
Speaker 1: dancing or doing the old fashioned waltz or two step,
Speaker 1: and if people didn't want to dance, they just sat
Speaker 1: listening to the music or singing along if they wanted.
Speaker 1: It was usually long after the moon had come up
Speaker 1: and the fire had died down that we would finally
Speaker 1: retire to our beds beneath the stars. In May of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, when I was fifteen, I talked my
Speaker 1: dad into letting me take five of my girlfriends on
Speaker 1: a weekend camp trip. A girl's only trip. Since we
Speaker 1: were teenagers, their mothers were concerned that some of the
Speaker 1: local boys might find us and cause trouble. So Dad
Speaker 1: promised that he would take us where no one would
Speaker 1: be able to find us. He wouldn't even tell me
Speaker 1: where he was going to ensure no boys could find us.
Speaker 1: On Friday, after school, we loaded all of our camping
Speaker 1: gear and six girls into Dad's nineteen sixty six international
Speaker 1: travel all and we headed out to the desert for
Speaker 1: a girl's weekend of giggling and fun. Dad loved to
Speaker 1: entertain and pull practical jokes, so at the right time
Speaker 1: on our way into the desert, he stopped the vehicle, saying,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, girls, but I have to wi. Of course,
Speaker 1: being in the desert, there wasn't any bush or large
Speaker 1: boulder in sight. While Dad stepped out of the travel
Speaker 1: all the girls turned their heads and covered their eyes,
Speaker 1: and then we heard Dad yell we long and loud,
Speaker 1: before getting back into the driver's seat and continuing on
Speaker 1: our way. Of course, of course, the girls had a
Speaker 1: big laugh over that joe. After an hour, we stopped
Speaker 1: at the head of the canevill Wash, about five to
Speaker 1: seven miles from my home. We hurriedly unloaded our gear
Speaker 1: and Dad told us that he would be back to
Speaker 1: pick us up on Sunday afternoon before he waved and
Speaker 1: he drove away. There was a full moon that weekend,
Speaker 1: and Friday night went really well. We set up camp
Speaker 1: and spread our bedrolls in a line in the bottom
Speaker 1: of the wash where it was sandy and soft, and
Speaker 1: then roasted hot dogs around a small campfire. Since it
Speaker 1: had been a fairly long day, we went to bed
Speaker 1: as soon as he got dark, and all went well
Speaker 1: that night. On Saturday morning, after eating breakfasts of burned
Speaker 1: bacon and pancakes and eggs, we straightened up camp and
Speaker 1: decided to do a little exploring of the area. I
Speaker 1: love to gather rocks, as my dad had taught me
Speaker 1: the difference between petrified wood, dinosaur bone, jasper, quartz, flint,
Speaker 1: and other types of rocks. The wash had several small
Speaker 1: canyons and gullies that ran off of it, which were
Speaker 1: perfect for rock hounting, so we hiked some of them
Speaker 1: until it started to gently rain. We hurried back to
Speaker 1: camp stowed our gear on a ledge beneath an overhanging
Speaker 1: cliffs so it wouldn't get wet. The storm was just
Speaker 1: a summer cloud burst that only lasted a few minutes,
Speaker 1: so when it was done and the sun came out again,
Speaker 1: we decided it was time to sun tan. We spread
Speaker 1: our bedrolls back out. Since we were up on a
Speaker 1: small canyon in the middle of the desert with no
Speaker 1: one around us for miles, we stripped down to our
Speaker 1: brawls and panties and then laid face down on our
Speaker 1: sleeping bags to get a good tan on our backs.
Speaker 1: And then someone suggested we didn't want to get the
Speaker 1: brawl line on our back, so we unhooked the back
Speaker 1: of our brawls and just laid there in the sun.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, one of the girls noticed the
Speaker 1: jet flying over, so we all squealed and jumped up
Speaker 1: and ran to the overhanging cliff, leaving six white bros
Speaker 1: lying in a row on our bed rolls. After a
Speaker 1: moment of panic, we realized that jet flying that high,
Speaker 1: probably at thirty thousand feet, couldn't see us anyway. But
Speaker 1: our sun tanning mood was over, so we got dressed
Speaker 1: again and we did a little more exploring before it
Speaker 1: was time to cook supper. I remember at the very
Speaker 1: head of the wash was a natural seep with just
Speaker 1: enough water for us to wash our hands and do
Speaker 1: the supper clean up. Before long, the sun had set
Speaker 1: and our day of fun was over, so we put
Speaker 1: out the fire and we crawled into our beds that
Speaker 1: were still at the bottom of the wash, and we
Speaker 1: quickly fell asleep. Sometime in the night, we were awakened
Speaker 1: by a small sprinkling of rain drops, and I told
Speaker 1: the girls we needed to move our beds out of
Speaker 1: the wash and up under the overhanging cliffs so we
Speaker 1: wouldn't get caught in a flash flood if it rained
Speaker 1: any harder. The desert canyons of Utah are notorious for
Speaker 1: flash floods. If people aren't cautious and aware of the
Speaker 1: weather and their surroundings, they could end up in a
Speaker 1: life threatening situation. Throughout the years, Dad had rescued several
Speaker 1: people who had been caught or stranded by flash floods. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the moon was full that week end, so we had
Speaker 1: no trouble gathering up our beds and quickly getting underneath
Speaker 1: the overhang out of the rain that was coming down
Speaker 1: a little harder now. And as soon as we were
Speaker 1: all under the overhang. Before we even got a chance
Speaker 1: to spread out our beds, a light came down from
Speaker 1: the sky and began to search the area in the
Speaker 1: wash where we had been sleeping only moments before. The
Speaker 1: beam of the search light was fifteen to twenty feet
Speaker 1: in diameter and it was coming straight down from the sky. However,
Speaker 1: there was no engine, only the hushed breathing of six
Speaker 1: terrified girls. One of the girls tried to stick her
Speaker 1: head out from underneath the overhang to see where the
Speaker 1: light was coming from, but three of the other girls
Speaker 1: held her back for fear that she would give away
Speaker 1: our hiding place. We realized the light was not normal,
Speaker 1: and we since something sinister was happening, and we were frightened.
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned, there was no motor noise of any
Speaker 1: type of noise, just the silence of the desert, and
Speaker 1: we watched in fear, and the light searched our camp area,
Speaker 1: and it swept the bed of the wash where we
Speaker 1: had previously been sleeping, and up the side of the
Speaker 1: hills and cliffs that line the wash. After ten minutes,
Speaker 1: the searchbeam of light disappeared. We saw a bright light
Speaker 1: shoot to the north and do a ninety degree turn
Speaker 1: and shoot to the east and over the horizon. It
Speaker 1: was gone in a matter of seconds. There was a
Speaker 1: temporary military base to the east of us, maybe thirty
Speaker 1: miles between Hanksville and Green River, Utah, and I have
Speaker 1: wondered if it had anything to do with this incident.
Speaker 1: It took a while for us to settle down and
Speaker 1: go back to bed and sleep the rest of the night.
Speaker 1: I might also mention that there was a small flood
Speaker 1: that went through our camp and right down the wash
Speaker 1: where we had been sleeping earlier. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
Speaker 1: None of our camping gear was washed away. The next
Speaker 1: day was Sunday, and it was just afternoon when Dad
Speaker 1: came to pick us up. We excitedly told him what
Speaker 1: had happened and how the light had come down from
Speaker 1: the sky and had been searching for us. The blood
Speaker 1: drained from his face and he just said, hurry and
Speaker 1: pack your stuff. We need to get going. So we
Speaker 1: loaded everything in his trusty travel all and he drove
Speaker 1: us back to town. It wasn't until many years later, when
Speaker 1: I was an adult, that I learned about the many
Speaker 1: strange objects he had seen in the skies of southeastern Utah.
Speaker 1: As I remembered this night in the desert, I'm very
Speaker 1: thankful that we were protected and not abducted. In my heart,
Speaker 1: I feel the Lord saved us by sending that small
Speaker 1: shower to wake us up and get us to move
Speaker 1: underneath the overhang where we couldn't be seen from above.
Speaker 1: I can only imagine how horrific Dad's life would have
Speaker 1: been had us girls gone missing, especially since he was
Speaker 1: the only one who knew where we were and the
Speaker 1: last one to see us on that Friday night when
Speaker 1: he dropped us off to start our camping adventure. Throughout
Speaker 1: my teenage years, I saw other strange lights in the sky,
Speaker 1: but they were not as frightful as this one. This
Speaker 1: craft was definitely looking for us. It's a puzzle to
Speaker 1: me how it knew where we were. I know Daddy
Speaker 1: didn't tell them, and as Dad promised, the boys didn't
Speaker 1: find our camp, but the UFO certainly did. And she
Speaker 1: signs off Utah Desert Girl