Speaker 1: I was watching one of your YouTube episodes last night.
Speaker 1: A coach told of his encounter on the Tom Bigbie
Speaker 1: when he was younger. I had an encounter on the
Speaker 1: ten Tom as well. He's talking about Coach Keller, who
Speaker 1: lives down in Florida, who is a really good guy.
Speaker 1: He's a good guy. He and I have kept in
Speaker 1: touch since our interview and really enjoyed talking to him. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Ricky says, my encounter was ten miles south of Columbus. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm an avid croppie fisherman, and I liked to solo
Speaker 1: fish a lot. During this period. We had a permanent
Speaker 1: camper set up at one of the campgrounds. I worked
Speaker 1: two weeks on and then two weeks off, so I
Speaker 1: spent at least seven days at camp to fish. It
Speaker 1: was mid February and I was fishing alone. It was
Speaker 1: ten am, the temperatures were mild and it was a
Speaker 1: bit overcast. There's an old cutoff five miles from camp.
Speaker 1: I decided to go there. It's cut off where they
Speaker 1: just straightened the river for barge traffic. The cutoff is
Speaker 1: five miles long. The north end is filled in, but
Speaker 1: the south end is open. Where I was planning to
Speaker 1: start fishing was on the north end. Like Oxpos, the
Speaker 1: lakes are typically shaped like a U. I arrived and
Speaker 1: I shut the motor down and I started using the
Speaker 1: trolling motor, kind of easing up to where I wanted
Speaker 1: to be. That part is where the lake takes a
Speaker 1: sharp turn to the right. I had pulled up to
Speaker 1: turn and start fishing, and I heard a whoop to
Speaker 1: my left out in the swamp. I didn't pay attention
Speaker 1: to the noise, but after a while I realized what
Speaker 1: it was. I fished the curb and was going straight
Speaker 1: up the bank fishing, and then I heard another whoop.
Speaker 1: As I moved along the bank fishing, I heard four
Speaker 1: more whoops, and as I moved, it moved with me.
Speaker 1: I started to a little more attention to it. Then
Speaker 1: I fished the bank for another two hundred yards, and
Speaker 1: whatever it was kept up with me the whole time.
Speaker 1: I could never see anything, and I wasn't overly concerned.
Speaker 1: At this time in my life, Bigfoot was not something
Speaker 1: I thought about. I had seen the shows like Monster Quests,
Speaker 1: but to me it was just something to watch. It
Speaker 1: was entertainment. After I'd fished up the bank, a little more.
Speaker 1: This thing kept up with me, and I decided to
Speaker 1: move further, not because of the whoop, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: getting any bites. I knew where a good top was
Speaker 1: further on up, and I decided to start the big
Speaker 1: motor and move, and I went a quarter of mile.
Speaker 1: I stopped and got back on the trolling motor. As
Speaker 1: I was trolling there, it was again another whoop that
Speaker 1: was in line with me on the bank. I stopped
Speaker 1: and I listened real close. I sat looking and listening
Speaker 1: for ten minutes, and then it whooped a couple of
Speaker 1: more times. I was getting real concerned now, and I sided, well,
Speaker 1: I'll move all the way around to a spot closer
Speaker 1: to the main channel. The main reason that I was
Speaker 1: in the curve where I had started fishing, it was narrow,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking that was my way out. I
Speaker 1: headed to that area, which was two miles away. There's
Speaker 1: an old lake back there that we call the prehistoric Lake.
Speaker 1: I got around there and I got back on the
Speaker 1: trolling motor, and it took five minutes to troll in
Speaker 1: because the cut is so shallow that you can't use
Speaker 1: your big motor. As I was getting my pole straight
Speaker 1: out in front of me. I heard the same whoop
Speaker 1: and I sat there listening, and seventy five yards to
Speaker 1: the right, further down, there was another whoop. Apparently there
Speaker 1: were more than one. This area is a mile as
Speaker 1: the crow flies from where I was Originally, it's basically
Speaker 1: a swampy island. Needless to say, I got out of
Speaker 1: there quick. When I got back to the camper, some
Speaker 1: people had arrived and I was telling them what happened,
Speaker 1: and they laughed at me. I went online searching for
Speaker 1: animal sounds to determine what it was, and I never
Speaker 1: found anything that sounded like it until I came across
Speaker 1: the Sierra Sounds video on YouTube. And if you play it,
Speaker 1: it's a fast sounding whoop, but if you slow it
Speaker 1: down into one whoop, that's exactly what I heard. There's
Speaker 1: no doubt in my mind what it was. Now. At
Speaker 1: the time, I was unsure, but after years of research,
Speaker 1: I'm fully convinced and I know what it was, and
Speaker 1: I believe. I am fifty one years old and I've
Speaker 1: spent twenty years in the United States Army as a
Speaker 1: military police officer. I retired in twenty twelve from the
Speaker 1: Army and transitioned into a Department of Defense save law
Speaker 1: enforcement job. I'm trained and observing my surroundings and noting
Speaker 1: details at a glimpse. I live in Kansas, south of
Speaker 1: a military post, in a rural agriculture area with rolling
Speaker 1: limestone hills and lots of trees and native grasslands. When
Speaker 1: I say small, I mean if you counted all the
Speaker 1: stray cats and dogs together with the human population, you
Speaker 1: might count one hundred and fifty in total. My friend
Speaker 1: and I were heading back on this rural county two
Speaker 1: lane road which was skirted on both sides by trees
Speaker 1: limestone hills upward of thirty feet straight up. My friend
Speaker 1: was looking down at her cell phone and I was
Speaker 1: listening to music, thinking about the possibility of having a
Speaker 1: deer or a black angus calf jump out onto the road.
Speaker 1: We weren't talking, we were just cruising home down this
Speaker 1: dark county road. And then it happened. I was coming
Speaker 1: around a curved to the right, and then in my
Speaker 1: headlights I saw it. Now. I say it because for
Speaker 1: the first time in years, I was at a total
Speaker 1: loss for recognizing what I was approaching. I could see
Speaker 1: this was not a deer or a bovine. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what it was. My mind was racing through the
Speaker 1: rolodex of images I had seen in my life, and
Speaker 1: I was coming up with a big fat zero. Without
Speaker 1: even realizing that I had said anything out loud, my
Speaker 1: friend said, without looking up, holy crap. As she is
Speaker 1: saying this, we were passing by a huge, reddish brown
Speaker 1: thing standing in the middle of the road. This thing
Speaker 1: was perfectly still, almost as if it was starting to
Speaker 1: cross the road and realize I was closer than it thought,
Speaker 1: so it waited for me to pass. As I passed,
Speaker 1: I was so close to it that I could have
Speaker 1: slapped it. It wasn't a cow or a horse. This
Speaker 1: is what was racing through my mind. Apparently my brain
Speaker 1: overload trying to get a hold of what my eyes
Speaker 1: were looking at. I had said, holy crap out loud.
Speaker 1: This entire process was twenty seconds from first sighting to passing.
Speaker 1: Beyond seeing it in my rear view mirror. Now, let
Speaker 1: me be clear, twenty seconds terrified me beyond anything I've
Speaker 1: ever experienced in my life. Remember, I had served twenty years,
Speaker 1: of which I was deployed six times in the combat zones.
Speaker 1: I've had my share of being scared, but this terrified me.
Speaker 1: I could see the eyes as I approached it. They
Speaker 1: were blood red and glowing and the evilest things I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. And again, my friend said, why are you saying,
Speaker 1: holy crap, did you see a deer? Well? I finally
Speaker 1: stuttered out, no, No, it wasn't a deer. She looked
Speaker 1: over at me and she said, you're not making any sense.
Speaker 1: What did you see? I don't know. I said it
Speaker 1: was standing on two legs. I just don't know what
Speaker 1: it was. He told me to turn around and let's
Speaker 1: go get a look, and I immediately answered, heck no.
Speaker 1: After getting home, I started digging on the internet and
Speaker 1: I came across your podcast and I listened to some
Speaker 1: of your stories. After getting a little time to process
Speaker 1: all of this, I feel that I can share this. Finally,
Speaker 1: I never did fully discuss what happened with my friend
Speaker 1: who was in the truck that night. I know now
Speaker 1: what I saw that night, and I know I'm not crazy.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being a great sounding board. I grew
Speaker 1: up in western North Carolina, two miles from the Blue
Speaker 1: Ridge Parkway. I love camping and being as far away
Speaker 1: from people as possible, so In the late fall of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, I talked a friend of mine into
Speaker 1: going camping with me to a place called Graveyard Fields.
Speaker 1: My car was in the shop at the time, so
Speaker 1: he would have to drive. He said he had to work,
Speaker 1: so he could only stay one night. Well. I ranged
Speaker 1: to be picked up four days from the start of
Speaker 1: our trip. This was in the days before cell phones,
Speaker 1: and that meant when my friend left I would be
Speaker 1: truly on my own, which was fine with me. The
Speaker 1: day was cool and it was nice. The skies were
Speaker 1: blue overhead. As we parked in the parking area and
Speaker 1: prepared for the two to three mile hike in. With
Speaker 1: all of our supplies, I had convinced my friend to
Speaker 1: help me carry in a cooler full of drink that
Speaker 1: we called PJ. This was corn liquor, fruit punch, citrus soda,
Speaker 1: and whatever kind of fresh fruit was available. It was heavy,
Speaker 1: but I kept telling my buddy that it would be
Speaker 1: worth it. We didn't see but a couple of people
Speaker 1: on our way in, and I knew the perfect well
Speaker 1: secluded place to camp off the trail. We made it
Speaker 1: to the Laurel Thicket and then had to find a
Speaker 1: way to get through them without ripping ourselves to pieces.
Speaker 1: And when we did, it opened up into a small
Speaker 1: grassy area with a small feeder creek fifteen feet from
Speaker 1: where the tent would be. We got the camp set
Speaker 1: up and a fire started, and then we made ourselves
Speaker 1: a cup of PJ. And when we started getting hungry,
Speaker 1: I made us some tinfoil dinners, and I seasoned some
Speaker 1: ground beef and cut up some potatoes and onions and carrots,
Speaker 1: and I wrapped them tight and put them in the
Speaker 1: coals to cook, and it was great. Around dark, we
Speaker 1: were talking and wondering if anyone else was crazy enough
Speaker 1: to camp in the temperatures dropping below freezing. When we
Speaker 1: heard a woo hoo. I was pretty sure that it
Speaker 1: was other campers aways off, so I answered back, woo hoo.
Speaker 1: We did this several times until it got late. Then
Speaker 1: we decided to turn in. It was an uneventful night.
Speaker 1: The next morning we woke up with frost on our
Speaker 1: sleeping bags, so we were in a hurry to stoke
Speaker 1: the fire and get warm. Shortly after breakfast, my buddy
Speaker 1: told me, man, I gotta go. Are you sure you're
Speaker 1: gonna be okay? For three days? Way up here by yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be fine. I told him my ride would be
Speaker 1: there before noon. On the third day, he took off,
Speaker 1: and I spent the day getting wood and then relaxing
Speaker 1: at camp. Around dusk, I decided to make a small
Speaker 1: pot of stew, not that can stuff, but some real
Speaker 1: beef tips and vegetables cooked over the fire and some
Speaker 1: good beef stock. It takes a while to cook, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't ready until after dark, and by then I'd
Speaker 1: had a few drinks, and I made a bowl and
Speaker 1: sat back, looked up at the stars. There was a
Speaker 1: clear night and the sky was beautiful. And then I
Speaker 1: heard that call again. Woo hoo. It was still a
Speaker 1: good ways off, and I sat for a minute, and
Speaker 1: I wondered if I should answer back, before finally responding
Speaker 1: with my own whoop. All went silent a few minutes,
Speaker 1: and then came an answering whoop, and it still sounded
Speaker 1: like it was at least several football feels away. I
Speaker 1: sat and thought about what kind of idiot I really am.
Speaker 1: If this is others with bad intentions, I'm giving my
Speaker 1: location away each time I answer back, and I decided
Speaker 1: to turn in for the night. Sometime in the morning,
Speaker 1: before daylight, I could have sworn I heard someone or
Speaker 1: something walking near the laurel bushes that surrounded my campsite.
Speaker 1: And I chose this campsite because it is almost impossible
Speaker 1: in the daylight to find a way through the laurels.
Speaker 1: At night, I imagine you tear yourself to pieces trying
Speaker 1: to get through it. I was very tuned in, but
Speaker 1: after a while of not hearing anything else, I drifted
Speaker 1: back to sleep once again. I woke with frost on
Speaker 1: my sleeping bag, and after warming up by the fire,
Speaker 1: I decided to see if I could find where and
Speaker 1: what was walking by the laurels. I looked, and I looked,
Speaker 1: but I didn't see any tracks or anything else that
Speaker 1: would indicate anyone had been there. And I spent the
Speaker 1: rest of the day gathering wood for the night to come.
Speaker 1: I had a huge fire going before dark, and I
Speaker 1: decided to cook dinner the last night of camping. I
Speaker 1: always liked to eat good. I was going to have
Speaker 1: a tea bone in potatoes and onions. The smell of
Speaker 1: that cooking was heavenly. I still had some PJ left,
Speaker 1: and I was not about to carry it out alone.
Speaker 1: So I started in on making sure the cooler was
Speaker 1: empty when I left. After I ate, I was sitting there,
Speaker 1: enjoying the night and looking at the stars when here
Speaker 1: came another whoop. This time it sounded like it was
Speaker 1: closer than the night before. It came from my one o'clock.
Speaker 1: I was quiet and didn't answer this time, and then
Speaker 1: suddenly another woop came from my six o'clock and it
Speaker 1: was only a couple one hundred yards away. Now, I
Speaker 1: guess this kind of freaked me out. I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: any other campers the whole time I'd been there. I
Speaker 1: was sitting there thinking about what this might be when
Speaker 1: another whoop came from my one o'clock, and it was
Speaker 1: much closer this time. Right after that, a loud woop
Speaker 1: came for my six o'clock, and I decided to stoke
Speaker 1: the fire and I stacked plenty of wood on it
Speaker 1: before getting into my tent. I laid there in my
Speaker 1: sleeping bag, intently listening, and another whoop came from my
Speaker 1: one o'clock and it sounded closer still, followed by a
Speaker 1: whoop again for my six o'clock that was very loud
Speaker 1: and yes, even closer. I was getting nervous. At this point.
Speaker 1: I pulled my case double X hunting knife out of
Speaker 1: its sheath and I laid still. And then I heard
Speaker 1: footsteps at my six not like footsteps, but heavy. I
Speaker 1: swear I could feel them in the ground. And then
Speaker 1: I heard more footsteps at my one o'clock. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I thought, what am I supposed to do now? I
Speaker 1: decided it was best to lie as still as possible,
Speaker 1: because whatever was walking out there was big enough to
Speaker 1: shake the ground. It had to be huge, and there
Speaker 1: seemed to be two of them. I heard branches breaking,
Speaker 1: and then, because the fire was still blazing, I saw
Speaker 1: a huge shadow on my tent. I heard my pots
Speaker 1: and pans being moved, and the lid of my cooler
Speaker 1: that still had fruit from the PJA in it, being opened.
Speaker 1: Another shadow from my one o'clock crossed my tent, enjoying
Speaker 1: the other one. At the cooler. There was quite a
Speaker 1: bit of fruit left in there. The thing about that
Speaker 1: fruit is the longer it sits in the PJ, the
Speaker 1: more alcohol it absorbs. This fruit had been soaking up
Speaker 1: alcohol for four days, and it had to be strong.
Speaker 1: I was a nervous wreck, but I managed to stay
Speaker 1: still as I heard my stuff being thrown around, and
Speaker 1: eventually the two shadows disappeared in the direction of my
Speaker 1: one o'clock. Needless to say, I did not sleep at all.
Speaker 1: At daylight, I unzipped my tent and I saw all
Speaker 1: my stuff all over the place, and I decided to
Speaker 1: pack up and head to the parking area asap. The
Speaker 1: hike out was uneventful, and I got to the parking
Speaker 1: area two hours before my ride was due to arrive.
Speaker 1: That was okay with me, at least, I was okay.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what was in my camp that night,
Speaker 1: but I have a pretty good idea. I still camp,
Speaker 1: but I'm always armed with a long rifle and a
Speaker 1: forty four mag handgun. I don't want to wind up missing.
Speaker 1: I still wonder about my strange encounter to this day.
Speaker 1: It's what sparked my interest in the unexplained. My story
Speaker 1: is not a big story, but an encounter from either
Speaker 1: some sort of unknown military technology or beyond. Here's the
Speaker 1: story from that strange summer evening when I was twelve
Speaker 1: years old in the late nineteen nineties, before cell phones
Speaker 1: were a thing with the kids. My mom and I
Speaker 1: went to our local department store on a clear, warm
Speaker 1: summer evening. We were browsing around the store and I
Speaker 1: had this overwhelming feeling to ask if I could pick
Speaker 1: up some disposable cameras. I like to take random pictures
Speaker 1: of my pets in my backyard when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: She reminded me that I already had an extra camera
Speaker 1: that she had bought last week. I agreed to use
Speaker 1: that pack first before getting another, and then we picked
Speaker 1: up our items and we checked out, and we went
Speaker 1: out on our way. The parking lot was full of
Speaker 1: people walking in and out of the stores, and something
Speaker 1: caught my attention in the air, and I glanced up
Speaker 1: and saw two slow flying black triangle objects in the distance.
Speaker 1: My mother and I stopped at the end of the
Speaker 1: curb and began trying to discern what the objects could be. Well,
Speaker 1: I was an enthusiastic kid, and I started jumping up
Speaker 1: and down, saying it's a UFO, it's a UFO, mom,
Speaker 1: hoping to draw the attention to what was in the
Speaker 1: sky from others. And my mom laughed and said something like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe you're right this time. And then something happened we
Speaker 1: didn't expect one of the black triangle objects took a slow,
Speaker 1: almost ninety degree turn and started to slowly move in
Speaker 1: our direction. We were dumbfounded, so caught up in the
Speaker 1: moment of what was happening, along with a strange feeling
Speaker 1: of calmness. Keep in mind that it was still daylight,
Speaker 1: even though the sun was starting to set, and it
Speaker 1: was a summer evening where everything had that pretty golden
Speaker 1: glow to it. There were no shadows that obstructed our view.
Speaker 1: The object continued toward us, making no sound, and soon
Speaker 1: it was at the same height of the one story
Speaker 1: department store building, and it made its way over us.
Speaker 1: It aligned itself with the road going between the department
Speaker 1: store and another building. There were no defining features, no
Speaker 1: windows or people waving back at us. I would have
Speaker 1: seen those details, because now it was at its closest point.
Speaker 1: It was as if the object floated by the metal
Speaker 1: was a flat black, like a carbon texture. There were
Speaker 1: no markings or landing gear or painted numbers that I
Speaker 1: could see from my perspective. While the object moved slowly,
Speaker 1: My Mam and I stared up in silence and amazement,
Speaker 1: as if time stood still. Even though this was all
Speaker 1: over in a few minutes finally I turned around and
Speaker 1: I shouted, is anyone else seeing this? And I remember
Speaker 1: turning around to see a man that had joined us
Speaker 1: on the curb, and I saw an elderly couple holding
Speaker 1: each other tight, and a few people in their cars
Speaker 1: were looking up. But what was bizarre was that some
Speaker 1: people were walking in the store without taking notice of
Speaker 1: this big object floating in plain sight. Some wont by
Speaker 1: giving us weird looks. While all this was going on,
Speaker 1: there were people pointing up at the UFO. It still
Speaker 1: gives me goosebumps to this day when I think back
Speaker 1: to that moment. It felt more like a dream played
Speaker 1: out in reality. Why did only a few of us
Speaker 1: see it and others didn't even notice? The object passed
Speaker 1: us and then began to gain altitude. Those of us
Speaker 1: who were watching observed it float away over the tops
Speaker 1: of the buildings. There was no fast exit, like shooting
Speaker 1: out of sight. It just floated away and got back
Speaker 1: on the same course it had been on when we
Speaker 1: first saw it. The second craft had vanished. We never
Speaker 1: saw it again. Remember, all this time, people were walking
Speaker 1: in and out of the stores and never noticed the
Speaker 1: strange object that was clearly visible. It was so close
Speaker 1: and they never even noticed it. I don't remember how
Speaker 1: the conversations went with a few standing by us, but
Speaker 1: we all had big grins on our faces. After a
Speaker 1: few minutes of discussing in jokes about how this is
Speaker 1: not your average trip to the store, we went our
Speaker 1: separate ways. On the drive home, my mother said that
Speaker 1: maybe it was a military plane. We knew the stealth bomber,
Speaker 1: but why would they fly over citizens so randomly like
Speaker 1: that if it was. Also, I've watched videos of stealth
Speaker 1: bombers and seen them at air shows, and I'm well
Speaker 1: aware of the noise they make and how fast they
Speaker 1: can move. This thing just floated over us. Could it
Speaker 1: have been from space? If so, why fly early, quiet
Speaker 1: over some random people in a populated parking lot. The
Speaker 1: questions still swirl in my head to why I have
Speaker 1: witnessed something so unique. In hindsight, I think calling the
Speaker 1: local air force would have been a good idea. Neither
Speaker 1: of us thought to do so back then. Maybe we
Speaker 1: were too wonderstruck. I let my imagination take hold that day.
Speaker 1: It's something that we should all carry with us as adults.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't hurt to think of a logical explanation.
Speaker 1: The event might can be debunked, but until then again
Speaker 1: it is left to my imagination. I am blessed to
Speaker 1: have a photographic memory, and I can still recall all
Speaker 1: these details, even though it was nineteen years ago. Now,
Speaker 1: I still wonder though, what I might have captured on
Speaker 1: a small disposable camera. My mom said she should have
Speaker 1: let me get the darned thing. Schol