Speaker 1: Here's a story that I've had quite a while, and
Speaker 1: I'm just getting to it. The man is in his sixties,
Speaker 1: says he's battling MS, multiple sclerosis. I assume that's what
Speaker 1: MS means now to say, he writes, I've decided to
Speaker 1: share my experiences before it's too late. Perhaps my encounters
Speaker 1: will benefit someone, and if so, then my time writing
Speaker 1: this has not been wasted. I was raised on a
Speaker 1: farm in cattle operation in Utah in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies. Our land was adjacent to foothills that led
Speaker 1: up into a range of the Rocky Mountains, where I
Speaker 1: spent every possible hour on horseback or hiking or backpacking.
Speaker 1: I log several hundred nights camping out during my teens
Speaker 1: and in twenties and my thirties and into my early forties.
Speaker 1: It came with the territory of my outdoor life. Being
Speaker 1: out of doors every day from my childhood onward gave
Speaker 1: me a tremendous education about the natural world, and I
Speaker 1: was intimately familiar with every species of tree, plant, wildflower,
Speaker 1: every type of bird that inhabited our region, and of
Speaker 1: course every mammal that lived in these valleys and mountains.
Speaker 1: I grew up fly fishing and hunting waterfowl, upland birds
Speaker 1: and big game, which took me into some of the
Speaker 1: most beautiful and remote country imaginable. I mentioned these things
Speaker 1: so you'll understand my familiar rity. That's a hard word
Speaker 1: for me to say. I mentioned these things so you'll
Speaker 1: understand my familiarity with every living thing, from the western
Speaker 1: deserts to Utah's Red Rock Country and the alpine peaks
Speaker 1: of the highest mountains. And all that time spent out doors,
Speaker 1: I never had any calls for fear, nor did I
Speaker 1: see or experience anything unusual. And then one August evening
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four, my fly fishing partner and
Speaker 1: I decided to stay out late to watch the I
Speaker 1: can't pronounce this word. I think it's per Sade meteor
Speaker 1: shower at Strawberry Reservoir, pe r seid per side or
Speaker 1: per se meteor shower at Strawberry Reservoir. We were excited
Speaker 1: to see the spectacle because of clear skies, there was
Speaker 1: no moonlight and no light pollution. We launched our float
Speaker 1: tubes into the water shortly before dark to enjoy some
Speaker 1: fishing and stargazing. Perhaps an hour into the meteor shower,
Speaker 1: we both suddenly noticed something massive walking along the shoreline
Speaker 1: on all fours. Its silhouette instantly reminded me of a
Speaker 1: polar bear with a huge hindquarters taller than its front shoulders,
Speaker 1: and its head was small for its body size, and
Speaker 1: that body was gargantuan. We were way too close to
Speaker 1: the shore for comfort, and we paddled into the safety
Speaker 1: of deeper water as quickly as possible. We both experienced
Speaker 1: a sense of dread and terror. What was that giant thing?
Speaker 1: It was several times larger than the black bears that
Speaker 1: we have in Utah, and we don't have grizzly bears
Speaker 1: in Utah, but they're not that big either. We observed
Speaker 1: the creature for a couple of minutes until it walked
Speaker 1: into the darkness and left us alone on the lake. Yes,
Speaker 1: we were both terrified, knowing that eventually we'd have to
Speaker 1: get out of the water and run up the hill
Speaker 1: to the car. We had no explanation for what we saw.
Speaker 1: Back then, I'd never heard of bigfoot walking on all fours.
Speaker 1: Since that time, I've read numerous accounts of people seeing
Speaker 1: these things down on all fours. It's the only answer
Speaker 1: I can come up with to account for the massive
Speaker 1: size of the animal we saw. The experience we had
Speaker 1: on Strawberry that August night was the precursor for the
Speaker 1: year two thousand and five, where everything changed and life
Speaker 1: has never been the same since a door was opened
Speaker 1: somehow to extraordinary strangeness that I never asked for, I
Speaker 1: didn't seek, and I can't seem to escape. This is
Speaker 1: the one and only time that I will record and
Speaker 1: recount these experiences. Now I will do my best to
Speaker 1: give you a detailed account of what happened in our
Speaker 1: lives during two thousand and five and is subsequent to
Speaker 1: that time. It all began innocently enough on a late
Speaker 1: winter day when my wife and I decided to go
Speaker 1: for a drive to town to get a taco for lunch.
Speaker 1: On the return trip, we were two blocks south of
Speaker 1: main street in our small town when suddenly a dog
Speaker 1: of some kind with short, dark gray hair walked out
Speaker 1: into the street in front of us on two legs,
Speaker 1: and I slammed on the brakes as we watched this
Speaker 1: thing cross the road in displa It ran into someone's yard,
Speaker 1: still on two legs, and went into the shrubbery and disappeared. Well,
Speaker 1: we were speechless. What the hell was that, we both
Speaker 1: said to each other. We went home and I got online,
Speaker 1: and it didn't take long to find the numerous images
Speaker 1: and videos of these same dogs walking upright all over
Speaker 1: the southwest of the United States and down into Mexico.
Speaker 1: Some people refer to them as chupacabras, and all I
Speaker 1: know is we were both very upset by what we saw.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, it was time for another friend
Speaker 1: and I to go on our first jeep expedition of
Speaker 1: the season, and we headed south toward Utah's San Rafael Swells,
Speaker 1: some of the most remote country in the lower forty
Speaker 1: eight States. On the way, we passed through San Pete Valley,
Speaker 1: where the second strange encounter took place. At the north
Speaker 1: end of the valley, there's a small town called Melbourne,
Speaker 1: and just as we turned off the highway to head
Speaker 1: towards Melbourne, there was a huge black figure standing in
Speaker 1: sagebrush at perhaps sixty yards away. I brought the jeep
Speaker 1: to a halt and we both stared at this thing
Speaker 1: with very broad shoulders and legs like tree trunks. We
Speaker 1: weren't close enough to make out any facial features, but
Speaker 1: we could see the glistening black hair that covered this being.
Speaker 1: It had a conical shaped head and a barrel chest,
Speaker 1: and long arms and massive legs. Time stopped as we
Speaker 1: watched this thing for a few minutes, and then it
Speaker 1: turned its body to the south, took two and a
Speaker 1: half steps, and it vanished. There was nowhere for it
Speaker 1: to hide. It didn't dash to a tree for cover
Speaker 1: or drop to the ground. It was midway into its
Speaker 1: third step, with one leg raised and its foot up
Speaker 1: off the ground when it completely disappeared. It wasn't as
Speaker 1: though we watched did step into some unseen doorway where
Speaker 1: you'd observe the front part of the creature disappear, followed
Speaker 1: by its backside. No, it totally vanished in one instant
Speaker 1: of time in mid stride. You can imagine the fear
Speaker 1: that swallowed us, knowing we had to drive down the
Speaker 1: road where this thing was headed when it vanished. At
Speaker 1: that time, I had never researched anything about bigfoot. Though
Speaker 1: I was certainly familiar with the claims of those who
Speaker 1: had seen these things, I did not know there was
Speaker 1: a rich collection of encounters with these things vanishing from sight,
Speaker 1: but we both saw it one moment and the next
Speaker 1: it was gone. After the event concluded, we compared notes
Speaker 1: and both felt like it was nine feet tall and
Speaker 1: weighed perhaps as much as six hundred pounds or more.
Speaker 1: It didn't make any aggressive movements towards us, However, we
Speaker 1: both felt a deep, foreboding sense of evil. I didn't
Speaker 1: shake that horrible feeling, and we decided to postpone our
Speaker 1: jeep adventure for another time. The next in our series
Speaker 1: of life changing events occurred during the spring when we
Speaker 1: were doing some landscaping work in our yard. We lived
Speaker 1: a couple of miles outside of town and didn't have
Speaker 1: any close neighbors at the time. I hesitate to record
Speaker 1: this incredibly strange event because no one will believe me,
Speaker 1: but still, it was the most disturbing of events of
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, and to leave a full and
Speaker 1: honest account, I'll tell you this part of my story.
Speaker 1: It still turns me inside out when I think about it.
Speaker 1: I'm shaking right now as I right. My oldest son
Speaker 1: was seventeen at the time, and he was helping me
Speaker 1: with some landscaping work. We stopped for lunch, and while
Speaker 1: I was eating a sandwich in the house. I was
Speaker 1: looking into the backyard at our project and decided what
Speaker 1: we'd work on next when I saw a male American
Speaker 1: kestrel hawk fly toward a river birch tree in the
Speaker 1: back corner. Well, something was wrong with this bird, and
Speaker 1: I thought it was perhaps injured due to its erratic flight.
Speaker 1: But rather than landing in the tree, the small and
Speaker 1: colorful hawk landed on the ground where we had been
Speaker 1: planting some barberry bushes, and it started moving its wings
Speaker 1: in a strange, unnatural way. And the next thing I knew,
Speaker 1: this bird pushed its wings up and away from its
Speaker 1: body in a manner that would be impossible for any
Speaker 1: bird to do, and then I was looking at something
Speaker 1: other than the hawk. More than sixteen years have passed
Speaker 1: since this event occurred, and I no longer remember the
Speaker 1: exact order of what I've witnessed. But over the next
Speaker 1: several minutes, I observed this thing chained shapes into a
Speaker 1: rabbit with badly deformed ears, a squirrel that was incorrectly formed,
Speaker 1: a weasel, a marmot, and a each of which was
Speaker 1: anatomically incorrect. At the same time as I witnessed this event,
Speaker 1: I was suddenly sick to my stomach and filled with
Speaker 1: nausea and a violent headache. The badger jumped down from
Speaker 1: the retaining wall and went over to a hole in
Speaker 1: the field. My son came upstairs at that point, and
Speaker 1: I asked him to keep watch on the hole while
Speaker 1: I went over there. I went over through the garage
Speaker 1: and I picked up a stout club. When I got
Speaker 1: to the hole, nothing was there, and I retreated to
Speaker 1: the couch, where I needed to rest for a few
Speaker 1: hours to recover. Later research uncovered a material known as
Speaker 1: black goo or programmable matter, that might account for what
Speaker 1: I saw. Perhaps it was something from the military or
Speaker 1: the deep state. I don't know. Debilitating nausea continued for
Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks anytime I went outside and
Speaker 1: near where I'd seen that thing. Perhaps it was some
Speaker 1: kind of radioactivity. The next two events occurred on the
Speaker 1: same day. I was fly fishing with my partner at
Speaker 1: a still water known as Schofield Reservoir. It was a
Speaker 1: gorgeous late spring day and the fishing was good. The
Speaker 1: sky was a stunning azure blue, with white, fluffy clouds
Speaker 1: hanging low in the sky. At one point I looked
Speaker 1: almost straight above me and gasped at seeing a very
Speaker 1: large silver sphere in the sky that appeared to be
Speaker 1: covered in radio towers. It was not very high above me,
Speaker 1: as it was hovering between two of the low hanging clouds,
Speaker 1: and as soon as I saw it, the thing rapidly
Speaker 1: ascended and was gone from sight in mere moments. Then,
Speaker 1: on the way home, as we left the mountains and
Speaker 1: reached Highway six, we both saw a glowing orange orb
Speaker 1: coming toward us in the opposite lane of traffic. My
Speaker 1: friend commented that it was about the size of a basketball.
Speaker 1: We watched it pass us and turned to watch it
Speaker 1: go behind us, but it disappeared. Later that summer, my
Speaker 1: friend would fish at Indian Creek Bay on Strawberry Reservoir,
Speaker 1: where we saw two orbs the same evening. Our lives
Speaker 1: were becoming very weird. What in the world was happening
Speaker 1: to us? Well, this story is becoming so long, so
Speaker 1: I'll skip to the next orb story. It's not that critical.
Speaker 1: We finally reached July fourth, and after all the activities
Speaker 1: of the day, my wife and I were sitting on
Speaker 1: the back patio and watching fireworks in towns east of
Speaker 1: where we lived. We had an unobstructed view for many
Speaker 1: miles in every direction. After the fireworks ceased, we sat there,
Speaker 1: enjoying the cool of the evening until almost midnight, when
Speaker 1: she grabbed my arm and said, what is that pointing
Speaker 1: up the sky about halfway between our home and the
Speaker 1: mountains to the east. Neither of us spoke for a
Speaker 1: few minutes as we observed a huge, triangular shaped craft
Speaker 1: moved silently across the sky. It had running lights along
Speaker 1: the top and bottom edge of the side, and once
Speaker 1: it passed we could see the back end, which also
Speaker 1: had running lights. It continued moving north until we lost
Speaker 1: sight of it. We were both two small town kids
Speaker 1: that couldn't understand why these inexplicable things were happening to us.
Speaker 1: That was not the last unidentifiable thing we saw flying
Speaker 1: in the skies that year, but it was the most
Speaker 1: remarkable one of all. Sometime in August of two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, my fishing partner called me late one evening
Speaker 1: and said to go outside and look above the prominent
Speaker 1: mountain in our valley. I did so, and to my surprise,
Speaker 1: there was a new bright star in the sky we'd
Speaker 1: never seen before, and it was flashing colors at an
Speaker 1: immense rate of change. My friend had the latest and
Speaker 1: most powerful camera with a fantastic zoom lens, and he
Speaker 1: filmed the star, which not only flashed colors that we
Speaker 1: couldn't name, but changed shapes each time it flashed. We
Speaker 1: watched it in slow motion, and we were astonished by
Speaker 1: the revelation of what his camera brought into focus. Over
Speaker 1: the years since two thousand and five, we've witnessed many
Speaker 1: such anomalies. By late September, the heat of the summer
Speaker 1: was behind us and it was time to attempt the
Speaker 1: jeep expedition once again. We made plans to explore a
Speaker 1: section of the San Rafael Swell we had never visited.
Speaker 1: On the drive to the swell, we once again passed
Speaker 1: through the Sand Pete Valley, and of course discussed the
Speaker 1: bigfoot sighting from the spring. That was not my friend's
Speaker 1: first cryptid encounter, as I learned. After we passed the
Speaker 1: location of the sighting, we both gave an audible sigh
Speaker 1: of relief and proceeded on our way. And part way
Speaker 1: through the valley, we decided to explore a range of
Speaker 1: hills we'd never visited before, and we pulled onto a
Speaker 1: gravel road that led up into the hills. I stopped
Speaker 1: the jeep on a bridge over a small irrigation canal
Speaker 1: as we looked ahead, trying to decide which way we
Speaker 1: wanted to go. It was eleven am, and that's when
Speaker 1: I noticed a movement below me and to the left
Speaker 1: in my peripheral vision. When I looked directly at whatever
Speaker 1: had moved, I was instantly paralyzed with fear and incapable
Speaker 1: of movement or speaking. Time stopped and I couldn't even breathe.
Speaker 1: There below me, kneeling in the canal, was a monster
Speaker 1: covered in grizzled hair and a mixture of gray and
Speaker 1: light brown, with golden yellow colored eyes that were far apart,
Speaker 1: and a wide mouth with narrow lips that were closed
Speaker 1: tightly together. I could not look away, and I couldn't move,
Speaker 1: and as time stood still, I had a long look
Speaker 1: at this thing. The hair on its forehead began at
Speaker 1: the brow ridge and grew upward on its forehead until
Speaker 1: it reached the top of its head that was cone shape.
Speaker 1: The hair was a uniform one inch in length. The
Speaker 1: hair on its face gave it a perfect, full beard
Speaker 1: that grew up close to its eyes, leaving only a
Speaker 1: small patch of charcoal gray skin around the eyes. It
Speaker 1: never blinked. The nose was wider and flatter than a
Speaker 1: human nose, and hair grew across part of its nose.
Speaker 1: The space between the bottom of its nose and its
Speaker 1: upper lip was much wider than that of a human,
Speaker 1: at least twice as wide and maybe more. The shoulders
Speaker 1: on this beast were four feet wide and massive with muscle.
Speaker 1: The hair was longer on its shoulders, perhaps four inches long.
Speaker 1: There wasn't much neck to speak of, and it looked
Speaker 1: like its head rested on its shoulders. The head was
Speaker 1: too small to match the shoulders. Its chest was full
Speaker 1: and rounded and covered in hair and a couple of
Speaker 1: inches long. The shoulder muscles and biceps were incredibly huge.
Speaker 1: Because of its position in the canal, I couldn't see
Speaker 1: its elbows, lower arms, or hands. I also couldn't see
Speaker 1: below its chest, and I never saw its legs at all.
Speaker 1: I have assumed all these years that as I was
Speaker 1: parked on the bridge and the motor was running, it
Speaker 1: must have disturbed the creature that may have been sleeping
Speaker 1: or resting under the bridge, and it came out to
Speaker 1: investigate the source of the noise, but I'm just guessing.
Speaker 1: After taking a long look at this thing, I finally
Speaker 1: gained my composure enough to put the jeep in reverse,
Speaker 1: take my foot off the clutch, and speed back down
Speaker 1: out of there. My friend said later he thought I
Speaker 1: was going to roll the jeep, but he didn't know
Speaker 1: what I had seen, but he did see me staring
Speaker 1: out the window. I let out a scream as we
Speaker 1: backed down the steep road until we reached the pavement
Speaker 1: and drove away as fast as she would carry us.
Speaker 1: A couple of miles down the road, I pulled over
Speaker 1: and change places with my friend, as I was too
Speaker 1: impacted by the encounter to drive safely. This time, we
Speaker 1: did go to the Swell, but the trip was a
Speaker 1: bus for me due to what I had seen. What
Speaker 1: else did two thousand and five have in store for me?
Speaker 1: As it turned out, that was not the final strange
Speaker 1: experience of the year. But I won't recite the other
Speaker 1: UFO experiences. My poor wife was seeing them often in
Speaker 1: the mountains by our home, and it shook her to
Speaker 1: the core. I'd like to share some observations prior to
Speaker 1: these experiences. I had never seen anything unusual or out
Speaker 1: of place in my outdoor life. Suddenly I knew the
Speaker 1: truth about things that most people will never know. Regarding
Speaker 1: the two clearly identifiable bigfoot creatures, I've already said that
Speaker 1: the first black creature felt intensely evil, but I did
Speaker 1: not have the same feeling with the second, grizzled one.
Speaker 1: Its face was eight to nine feet from my face,
Speaker 1: but it never grimaced at me or displayed any threatening behavior.
Speaker 1: It could have easily opened its mouth to growl at
Speaker 1: us and show its teeth, but its mouth remained close.
Speaker 1: I was terrified and petrified with fear from simply seeing
Speaker 1: this monstrup close. But I didn't feel any fear being
Speaker 1: projected from this creature as many people report. If anything,
Speaker 1: it seemed to purposefully not do anything to terrorize us whatsoever.
Speaker 1: That being said, I've never been able to bring myself
Speaker 1: to visit that bridge again or camp out since two
Speaker 1: thousand and five. Now I still go fly fishing as
Speaker 1: often as health permits, but I never go unarmed if
Speaker 1: we're off the beaten path. And that's that's the end
Speaker 1: of his email. But there's a PostScript, and here's what
Speaker 1: he writes, in October of twenty nineteen, fourteen years after
Speaker 1: the bridge siding, I had another bigfoot encounter at a
Speaker 1: small lake in northern Utah called Mill Hollow, where I
Speaker 1: was fishing by myself. No one else was at the
Speaker 1: lake that day. I didn't have a visual this time,
Speaker 1: but a mature white fur was pushed over nearby. In
Speaker 1: the creatures made a sound I can only describe as
Speaker 1: a symphony orchestra, with all the string and wind and
Speaker 1: brass instruments striking a note together, accompanied by multiple car horns.
Speaker 1: The loud noise lasted for a single quarter note. They
Speaker 1: had my attention. I assumed that rather than scream at me,
Speaker 1: they made this less threatening sound so not to alarm
Speaker 1: the numerous bull elk that are bugling in the mountains
Speaker 1: around me. And I suspect it was a hunting party
Speaker 1: and they wanted me gone. I gathered my fly rides
Speaker 1: in another gear, and I left the area. I've read
Speaker 1: other people's accounts of these beings making all kinds of sounds,
Speaker 1: but I've never heard anyone report them sounding like a
Speaker 1: symphony orchestra. Last in February of this year, twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one one night, at twelve thirty am, something slapped the
Speaker 1: side of our home so hard that it felt like
Speaker 1: the house would come off its foundation. The slap was
Speaker 1: on the second floor, on the other side of the
Speaker 1: wall from my head. It reverberated through the house, and
Speaker 1: my youngest son in the basement called me wondering what
Speaker 1: had just happened. I instantly knew what had happened. One
Speaker 1: of the bigfoot creatures that I had encountered found where
Speaker 1: I was living and must have climbed up the rock
Speaker 1: chimney and let me know they knew where I was.
Speaker 1: So many people have reported such events of being harassed
Speaker 1: by these creatures that I wasn't surprised, but I took
Speaker 1: measures to hopefully keep it from happening again. I hate
Speaker 1: the feeling of being a marked man. Oh man, that's
Speaker 1: the end. That's the end of the PostScript. That's that
Speaker 1: last paragraph gives me the creeps. Whoo. What an amazing
Speaker 1: set of events in this man's life. And this is
Speaker 1: the one and only time he's going to record or
Speaker 1: recount this and all. I can't add anything to this story,
Speaker 1: but I can tell the man thank you for thinking
Speaker 1: of me and sending the email to me to share
Speaker 1: with this audience because we love these great stories. I
Speaker 1: know they're unsettling to the people that they happen to,
Speaker 1: but we love hearing them, and so I appreciate the gentleman.
Speaker 1: He never said whether to use his name or not,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to. But it's just a wonderful story.
Speaker 1: And I got this back in twenty twenty one and
Speaker 1: I'm just now getting to it. So I hope the
Speaker 1: man is still listening. I hope he's not dealing too
Speaker 1: terribly bad with MS and was able to hear this story.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure, I'm sure it's helping some other people. Okay,
Speaker 1: thanks sir for the story. Here is a story written
Speaker 1: up rather roughly. I tried to tell it as it
Speaker 1: was told to me, though I had to add a
Speaker 1: few points of context for it to make sense to
Speaker 1: someone outside the family. My fiance's family has been in
Speaker 1: North Carolina since the early seventeen hundreds, and since then
Speaker 1: a few family legends have cropped up. The most interesting
Speaker 1: of these is of the brother of the man she
Speaker 1: is descending from. He fought in the French Indian War
Speaker 1: against the Cherokees, then against the British under Nathaniel Greene.
Speaker 1: After the British withdrawal from the Carolinas, he took his
Speaker 1: family further west into the Appalachians in search of a
Speaker 1: life away from war. The story of what he and
Speaker 1: his family found in those mountains starts here. To preserve privacy,
Speaker 1: I have changed the family name to Smith. Upon receiving
Speaker 1: his discharge from the North Carolina Rifle Corps, the militia
Speaker 1: unit he served in during the War of Independence, Jacob
Speaker 1: Smith returned home to his wife and two sons. His
Speaker 1: third son, Arthur, who served with him, accompanied him to
Speaker 1: their home in the New Hope Valley. Their homestead was.
Speaker 2: Humble, but the earth was fertile from the frequent floods
Speaker 2: that often occurred in the area. Jacob, however, returned home
Speaker 2: a changed man. He avoided his neighbors and would often
Speaker 2: leave for days at a time with just his rifle,
Speaker 2: coming back empty handed more often than not. Arthur eventually
Speaker 2: took his place as the man of the house, and
Speaker 2: with his brothers and mother, kept the farm in good order.
Speaker 2: In seventeen eighty four, however, a terrible flood swept down
Speaker 2: through the New Hope Valley, killing most of their livestock
Speaker 2: and destroying their crops. Faced with debt accumulated during the war,
Speaker 2: Arthur chose to sell their property and move elsewhere. Arthur
Speaker 2: wanted to move east, closer to the coast, but Jacob
Speaker 2: would not allow it. He wanted to be as far
Speaker 2: from people as he could go, and that meant moving
Speaker 2: to the edge of the Cherokee Territory into the Appalachians.
Speaker 2: He convinced Arthur that they could purchase a much larger
Speaker 2: track of land than they already owned and start fresh
Speaker 2: in solitude. At the end of winter, they set out
Speaker 2: for the edge of the Cherokee Territory. During the winter,
Speaker 2: Arthur had married the daughter of a wealthy neighbor, and
Speaker 2: she accompanied the family on the trying journey west. With
Speaker 2: her father's help. They had purchased a large swathe of
Speaker 2: land along the New River, and they intended to split
Speaker 2: the land among Jacob's sons upon his passing, leaving each
Speaker 2: with a respectable homestead. By May, they had built the
Speaker 2: first house at the foot of a mountain, and after
Speaker 2: much labor, had cleared and planted their first fields. Jacob's
Speaker 2: skill at hunting had returned, and they ate well as
Speaker 2: they waited for their crops to grow. They kept on
Speaker 2: good terms with the Cherokee neighbors, who occasionally visited to
Speaker 2: trade for gunpowder and metal tools. Their first harvest was
Speaker 2: good that autumn, and they had good stocks to relan
Speaker 2: for the coming winter. Arthur's young wife became pregnant during
Speaker 2: this time, much to the amusement of his younger brothers
Speaker 2: and the joy of his parents. Jacob seemed to be
Speaker 2: somewhat returned to his old self, the war seeming to
Speaker 2: have become a distant and unwelcome memory. The winter of
Speaker 2: seventeen eighty five was bitter cold and came early. The
Speaker 2: first snow fell in early November, and cold, old winds
Speaker 2: blasted through the hills. As the days got darker and
Speaker 2: the nights got longer, strange things began to happen around
Speaker 2: the snowed in homestead. Early one morning, the family was
Speaker 2: awoken by the sound of pounding and splintering on their barn.
Speaker 2: Jacob loaded his Baker rifle and stepped to the window,
Speaker 2: where through the gloom he saw a strange sight. A
Speaker 2: large black bear was desperately clawing at the barn door.
Speaker 2: It was clear the door was not going to give way,
Speaker 2: but the bear seemed not to mind. Jacob did not shoot,
Speaker 2: and intrigued by this strange behavior, he tried yelling at
Speaker 2: the bear, which had often worked in the past. The
Speaker 2: bear only looked quickly back at him with an expression
Speaker 2: of a hunted animal in its eyes, and continued trying
Speaker 2: to force its way into the barn. Jacob taken aback,
Speaker 2: shot the terrified animal dead. Upon examining the carcass, it
Speaker 2: was found that the bear had ripped out its own
Speaker 2: claws and had left great bloody streaks on the door
Speaker 2: in its attempt to get into the barn. Several of
Speaker 2: its teeth had also been left embedded in the wood
Speaker 2: of the door as a testament to the animal's madness.
Speaker 2: The same day, Jacob ordered his sons to load their
Speaker 2: rifles and pack for three days in the wilderness. Arthur
Speaker 2: was left behind to guard the women and told to
Speaker 2: report the incident to any Cherokee that might pass by.
Speaker 2: Jacob and his boys made for Kiowe, the largest of
Speaker 2: the Cherokee settlements and the home of an old warrior
Speaker 2: whom Jacob knew from the French and Indian War. How
Speaker 2: they knew each other is not known for sure, but
Speaker 2: it is speculated that one had spared the other during
Speaker 2: the fierce fighting and had since become friends. Upon reaching Kiwi,
Speaker 2: they were welcomed by the old warrior and told him
Speaker 2: of the incident with the bear. He was immediately concerned
Speaker 2: and gathered his own sons from around the village. They
Speaker 2: all questioned Jacob as to recent events, and upon hearing
Speaker 2: that author's young wife was pregnant, an expression of horror
Speaker 2: came to their faces. In a hurry, they gathered their
Speaker 2: gear of war and painted their faces with large black
Speaker 2: circles around their eyes, and outlined their mouths in black,
Speaker 2: so they seemed to stretch wide across their faces. The
Speaker 2: six Cherokee and three Whites set a fast pace back
Speaker 2: towards the Smith homestead. Two days later, the party crossed
Speaker 2: the French abroad and covered the short miles between the
Speaker 2: ford and the house. By the early evening, thick boards
Speaker 2: had been nailed into place over the windows on both doors,
Speaker 2: though a gap had been left wide enough for the
Speaker 2: muzzle of a rifle. They were welcomed home by Arthur,
Speaker 2: and as they ate, he told them of what he
Speaker 2: had experienced in the time of their absence. On the
Speaker 2: second day, the smokehouse had been demolished during the night,
Speaker 2: and the bear's meat and hide had been taken. Arthur
Speaker 2: could not see what had done it, though he had
Speaker 2: heard savage screams and hoots amidst the noise of the destruction.
Speaker 2: He fired his rifle in the direction of the smokehouse,
Speaker 2: and as the report echoed in the hills, all noise ceased.
Speaker 2: The third night was what caused him to board up
Speaker 2: the windows. He awoke to a shriek from his mother,
Speaker 2: whose bed was on the second floor of the house.
Speaker 2: He hurried up to her, and she stood holding a
Speaker 2: musket to her shoulder, the barrel pointed at the window.
Speaker 2: She told him that she had seen a horrid beast
Speaker 2: of a man peering down at her, and that she
Speaker 2: had awakened to the sound of him trying to reach
Speaker 2: into the window. As she was telling this to him,
Speaker 2: he heard his wife scream from downstairs and heard the
Speaker 2: shattering of glass. He took the musket from his mother
Speaker 2: and made it down to find his wife cowering in
Speaker 2: the corner, staring at the window. He ran to the
Speaker 2: shattered window and fired his musket at a dark shape
Speaker 2: retreating rapidly into the gloom of the night. She described
Speaker 2: much the same face as had a mother, but it
Speaker 2: had crashed its hand through the glass in an attempt
Speaker 2: to grab her. He boarded the windows that morning. Since
Speaker 2: then they had stayed in the house and heard great
Speaker 2: screams coming from what seemed like all around them. Every
Speaker 2: few hours a great impact would shake the house, always
Speaker 2: opposite from the side or was guarding. The door had
Speaker 2: been hit several times with great force, and cracks were
Speaker 2: beginning to show in its timbers. Yona, the eldest of
Speaker 2: the old warrior's son, spoke in a low voice. He
Speaker 2: told them that the beast had come down from the
Speaker 2: hills in search of food and had smelled the pregnant girl.
Speaker 2: This had drawn it to the farm, which must have
Speaker 2: angered it. He said that his people had long ago
Speaker 2: come to an agreement with it, and that it no
Speaker 2: longer rated their settlements, but that strayed into their territory,
Speaker 2: especially with young children or pregnant women, was extremely dangerous.
Speaker 2: He was reluctant to speak its name aloud, but eventually
Speaker 2: told them its name, sul Keloo. He told them that
Speaker 2: it was part of a race of people who lived
Speaker 2: high up in the mountains and came to the valleys
Speaker 2: at night to hunt. He said that they were quick
Speaker 2: to anger and could not speak as men did, and
Speaker 2: that they were terrible foes. When his people would see them,
Speaker 2: they would bow their heads and walk backwards until they
Speaker 2: heard it leave, and then would return home and not
Speaker 2: hunt for seven days. If he returned to the hunt
Speaker 2: too early, he would return to find his children or
Speaker 2: his wife gone, never to be seen again. The Indians
Speaker 2: went outside and built up a great pile of brush
Speaker 2: and fallen timber in front of the house. As darkness
Speaker 2: began to fall, they lit the fire and slowly walked
Speaker 2: around it, singing a mournful song. Jacob and his wife
Speaker 2: stood on the porch, watching in fascination, when suddenly, from
Speaker 2: the darkness beyond the fire, a scream thundered out, long
Speaker 2: and terrifying. The Indians instantly ceased their song and stepped
Speaker 2: backwards towards the house. Their heads bowed. Then the great
Speaker 2: beast stepped into the firelight and screamed again, staring directly
Speaker 2: at Arthur's young wife. The girl collapsed and was quickly
Speaker 2: pulled into the house by her mother in law. Now
Speaker 2: only the men stood on the porch, and the beast
Speaker 2: focused its gaze on Jacob, baring its teeth and emitting
Speaker 2: a rumbling growl that seemed to shake the earth. Jacob
Speaker 2: stood firm and returned the creature's gaze without fear, Having
Speaker 2: many times before faced death on the battlefield, he quietly
Speaker 2: told his sons to go inside and bar the door.
Speaker 2: The old man was now alone face to face with
Speaker 2: suel Koleu. In a flash, he raised his rifle and fired,
Speaker 2: and the ball struck the creature in the center of
Speaker 2: its chest. With a mighty roar, The creature lunged forward
Speaker 2: through the fire, scattering sparks and flaming branches about him.
Speaker 2: With one he seized Jacob by the head and smashed
Speaker 2: his body against the house, killing him instantly. The creature,
Speaker 2: in a violent rage, stomped around the house, beating it
Speaker 2: over and over with the body of Jacob, as his
Speaker 2: sons fired at it from the slits left in the
Speaker 2: windows again and again, to no effect. The house, which
Speaker 2: had been showered with embers, began to burn. The rest
Speaker 2: of the family, faced with a choice between burning to
Speaker 2: death and facing sul Kaloo, themselves, banded together As the
Speaker 2: smoke thickened in the air, Arthur led them out and
Speaker 2: they ran as fast as they could to the ford.
Speaker 2: They were not followed and made it to Kiwi the
Speaker 2: next day. They sheltered with the Indians for some time
Speaker 2: and eventually traveled back east. As they passed their farms
Speaker 2: did they found that it had burned to the ground.
Speaker 2: The barn had been destroyed, and a foul smell came
Speaker 2: from their well. As far as we know, they settled
Speaker 2: in Greensboro and have been there ever since.