Speaker 1: I was born in nineteen sixty five. My family lived
Speaker 1: in a little town in eastern Oklahoma, just a few
Speaker 1: miles north of five forty, about thirty five miles from
Speaker 1: the Arkansas state line. I grew up hunting, fishing, trapping,
Speaker 1: and taking care of our farm animals. My dad was
Speaker 1: a prominent mechanic in town, and in his free time,
Speaker 1: he loved a coon hunt. We traveled several thousand miles
Speaker 1: on foot around our area chasing dogs. My best friend, Slick,
Speaker 1: and I love to get out and explore the mountains
Speaker 1: to hunt and fish. It was early spring and we
Speaker 1: had planned a trip to the Blue Mountains to camp
Speaker 1: out and fish the numerous streams and traverse the area.
Speaker 1: I loaded up my eighty two Dodge with all we
Speaker 1: thought we needed and threw it in a campershell and
Speaker 1: set out Friday evening after work. We made the trip
Speaker 1: south to the mount Mountains just in time to find
Speaker 1: a suitable place to set up camp, which was nothing
Speaker 1: more than a fire. After working all day and driving,
Speaker 1: we hit the hay early and got a good night's rest.
Speaker 1: The property was leased for oil and gas production as
Speaker 1: well as logging, and spanned several thousand acres. There were
Speaker 1: service roads running through the property and a few cabins
Speaker 1: built here and there. There was no electricity running through it,
Speaker 1: so there were no full time residents. On the first day,
Speaker 1: we fished a stream that meandered several miles, but that
Speaker 1: night we camped in a different spot at the crossing
Speaker 1: of another creek. We enjoyed the fish that we caught
Speaker 1: that day. For dinner, we decided to go to bed
Speaker 1: and get an early start. The night was almost uneventful,
Speaker 1: except for the rustling and scratching of something outside our
Speaker 1: shell camper around three am. Not long after that, I
Speaker 1: was woken up to something bumping into the truck and
Speaker 1: shaking it. It wasn't a violet shake, just a slight bump,
Speaker 1: but it was loud enough to get my attention. I
Speaker 1: hit the fender well and I yelled, get out of here.
Speaker 1: Nothing more happened. In the morning found us headed out
Speaker 1: with a pack full of rations and fishing gear. Slick
Speaker 1: and I were gun nuts, so we were armed. We
Speaker 1: fished for the better part of eight hours, and we're
Speaker 1: casually walking along the creek to head back, when half
Speaker 1: a mile from the truck, I was struck with a
Speaker 1: feeling that I was being watched. I stopped and looked
Speaker 1: at Slick, and I could tell that he had the
Speaker 1: same feeling. We heard several solid knocks to the north
Speaker 1: of us, and my hair stood on end. Our fighter
Speaker 1: flight response kicked in and we drew our weapons, preparing
Speaker 1: to high tail at east along the creek to the trucks,
Speaker 1: and then massive rocks started hitting the water and made
Speaker 1: our decision even more immediate. We were looking up at
Speaker 1: the Sheer bluff wall. We could see the top of
Speaker 1: a tree moving back and forth, but there was no wind.
Speaker 1: I said to hell with this, and I let loose
Speaker 1: with eight to ten shots from my weapon, and Slick
Speaker 1: touched off a couple from his into the bluff wall,
Speaker 1: and then we hauled us and didn't stop until we
Speaker 1: were at the truck. We had no more evidence, nor
Speaker 1: did we see any physical shape, but things played out
Speaker 1: like a lot of other Bigfoot stories I've heard. When
Speaker 1: I was twelve years old, I boarded a plane for
Speaker 1: Oregon to see my brother. He was logging in the
Speaker 1: Mammoth area with a good friend of his who was
Speaker 1: a Vietnam Vet. They had a logging camp with trailers
Speaker 1: and equipment in the mountains a few miles from town.
Speaker 1: I spent the first few days there around the landing
Speaker 1: with my brother loading log trucks, but as soon as
Speaker 1: the owner found out that I could run equipment, he
Speaker 1: put me to work. I was running an old John
Speaker 1: Deere four forty skidter, piling treetops and dressing a skid road.
Speaker 1: It was small, menial stuff, but for a twelve year
Speaker 1: old I was the king of the hill. Several days
Speaker 1: went by before any of us went to town, and
Speaker 1: then as the weekend rolled around, we rolled up in
Speaker 1: crew trucks and headed off the mountain. We hadn't gone
Speaker 1: a mile before the truck in front of us came
Speaker 1: to a screeching stop, and the guys all piled out,
Speaker 1: and we rolled to a stop behind them, and we
Speaker 1: bailed out too. When we walked around to the front
Speaker 1: of their truck, I was amazed and immediately scared. There
Speaker 1: were several enormous barefoot prints leading across and down the road,
Speaker 1: apiece easily twenty inches long and pronounced in the deep
Speaker 1: dust of the dirt road. These tracks had to be fresh,
Speaker 1: because the last logging truck had just left an hour
Speaker 1: before us and would have wiped the tracks out. Several
Speaker 1: of the guys who were raised in the area had
Speaker 1: seen those tracks before, and some had even seen the
Speaker 1: creatures themselves. I was young, and I had nightmares for
Speaker 1: several days after that. In the summer of nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: we lived on the Arkansas River. The river was to
Speaker 1: our west, and the six hundred and forty thousand acre
Speaker 1: Campgruber Military training facility was north south and east of US.
Speaker 1: A highway ran through our little town, but even then,
Speaker 1: with green Leaf Lake not far away in Camp Gruber,
Speaker 1: there was plenty of natural habitat. My brother and I
Speaker 1: were members of a bass club at green Leaf Lake,
Speaker 1: and we fished in a tournament every Friday night throughout
Speaker 1: the summer. One evening during a tournament, there was a
Speaker 1: three quarter moon just peeking over the mountain to the east.
Speaker 1: We were fishing on the east bank and trolling along
Speaker 1: silently and concentrating and not talking and ready for a bike.
Speaker 1: We were coming up on a small pocket about sixty
Speaker 1: feet wide and two hundred feet long when I noticed
Speaker 1: a dark shadow on the edge of it the water.
Speaker 1: I thought it was another boat that we hadn't seen,
Speaker 1: and I whispered to my brother, I guess we'll cut
Speaker 1: across to the other point. When I uttered those words,
Speaker 1: the shadow came alive. It let out a deep, guttural
Speaker 1: growl and started plowing through the water. This thing was
Speaker 1: so powerful that it caused a huge weight as it
Speaker 1: headed to the bank thirty feet away. When it reached
Speaker 1: the shore, it plowed through the timber and scrub like
Speaker 1: a bulldozer. We could hear it for a minute or
Speaker 1: so as it headed up the mountain well. We sat
Speaker 1: dumbfounded until finally asked my brother what the hell was that.
Speaker 1: We came to the conclusion that it had to be
Speaker 1: nine feet or taller because the water depth in that
Speaker 1: particular spot was six feet deep and it was at
Speaker 1: least three feet above the water line. We couldn't make
Speaker 1: out any definition, but we both saw the outline as
Speaker 1: it got close to the bank, and whatever it was,
Speaker 1: this thing was big. This took place about six miles
Speaker 1: from another confirmed sighting in the area of ten Killer Lake.
Speaker 1: Sosquatch theory did an interview with a lady about it.
Speaker 1: We only lived three miles from Green Leaf, so the
Speaker 1: next day my brother and I went into detective mode
Speaker 1: back to the water to see what we could find.
Speaker 1: We found big impressions in the grass and weeds at
Speaker 1: the shoreline, but no definitive tracks because the ground was
Speaker 1: too hard, and when we ventured into the woods well
Speaker 1: healed with forty four mags, we came across several arm
Speaker 1: sized limbs that were broken off at the seven foot level.
Speaker 1: It was easy to trail by the broken limbs, which
Speaker 1: we followed for three hundred yards before returning to the boat. Now,
Speaker 1: I haven't told anyone about this encounter because we still
Speaker 1: live in this area and I don't want to scare
Speaker 1: my two boys away from hunting here. We had black
Speaker 1: bears at certain times of the year, usually in the fall.
Speaker 1: What my brother and I saw was not a black bear.
Speaker 1: I know what it was, and I don't feel that
Speaker 1: it's dangerous, maybe curious, but maybe not a threat. Thank
Speaker 1: you for the platform to voice our experiences.