Speaker 1: Today, I want to tell you about a journey that
Speaker 1: I've been on for most of my life. Ever since
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I've heard tales of bigfoot and
Speaker 1: wild men while spending time with my friends and family.
Speaker 1: As I grew older and read more about the paranormal,
Speaker 1: my interest in encryptids and other things strange only deepened.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm so excited to share with you what
Speaker 1: I've personally become involved with the Untold Radio Network. The
Speaker 1: Untold Radio Network is a live streaming podcast network that
Speaker 1: airs a new show every day across all podcast platforms, YouTube,
Speaker 1: and more. They have eight different shows on all sorts
Speaker 1: of exciting topics such as bigfoot, cryptids, UFOs, aliens, and
Speaker 1: much more. I even have my own show called Weird Encounters,
Speaker 1: where I talk about all things strange. This is more
Speaker 1: than just a podcast network. It's a community that allows
Speaker 1: me to meet so many amazing people who share their
Speaker 1: stories and experiences with strange. If you're interested in hearing
Speaker 1: more of these stories and learning more about the paranormal
Speaker 1: and encryptids, make sure you check out the Untold Radio
Speaker 1: Network for all kinds of exciting shows. It's free to subscribe.
Speaker 1: So what are you waiting for? Visit www dot untold
Speaker 1: Radio network dot com Today.
Speaker 2: Now on what are your reporting? I got a screen
Speaker 2: going on here. Something just killing my dog, something to
Speaker 2: kill your dog, my dog. We're flying through there, over
Speaker 2: the tree. I don't know how it did it? Okay, damn,
Speaker 2: I'm really confused. All I saw was my dog coming
Speaker 2: over the fence, and name was dead once you hit
Speaker 2: the ground. I didn't see any cars. All I saw
Speaker 2: was my dog coming over the fence. Made What are
Speaker 2: you reporting? We got some wonder or something crawling around
Speaker 2: out here? Did you see what it was? It was
Speaker 2: enough here. Look, I'm new to window now and I
Speaker 2: don't need anything. I don't want to go outside. Just fight. Hello,
Speaker 2: hit the boddy out here? What quin? I'm out there?
Speaker 2: I've thought of a bench about text nine. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Easy annount there. Yeah, I'm working right heady.
Speaker 1: Since February of twenty twenty one, every single Friday, I've
Speaker 1: released an interview either with someone who's had a direct
Speaker 1: encounter with sasquatch or with a researcher who spent time
Speaker 1: in the field gathering stories, evidence, and insight. That hasn't changed.
Speaker 1: It's the foundation of this show, but since going full
Speaker 1: time with the podcast in March of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: I've expanded what we offer. That means, in addition to
Speaker 1: the Friday interviews, you'll now hear narrated encounters from Fred
Speaker 1: and Alaska on Sundays and on Wednesdays, I share stories
Speaker 1: I've pulled from historical archives and global databases, encounters that,
Speaker 1: while not told firsthand on the mic, still deserve to
Speaker 1: be heard. Now. I want to be transparent. I've gone
Speaker 1: back and forth on whether or not to address some
Speaker 1: of the negative feedback, but I think open dialogue matters.
Speaker 1: I recently got a review saying that these narrated stories
Speaker 1: are obviously made up and that by including them, I've
Speaker 1: tarnished the channel. According to the reviewer, you can tell
Speaker 1: if a story is legit by the terror in the
Speaker 1: witness's voice, and look, I get it first hand. Audio
Speaker 1: is powerful, it's raw, it's compelling. It's why I'll always
Speaker 1: keep Fridays reserved for those direct interviews. But I also
Speaker 1: believe the historical accounts matter. I do rewrite them, not
Speaker 1: to change what happened, but to organize and clarify them
Speaker 1: so they're easier to follow and better to listen to.
Speaker 1: And I'm upfront about that. If those episodes aren't your thing,
Speaker 1: skip them, that's totally fine. Just know the interviews you
Speaker 1: come here for are still dropping every Friday like always.
Speaker 1: So whether you've been here since day one or just
Speaker 1: found the show last week, thank you seriously. Your support
Speaker 1: has made all of this possible, and I'm incredibly grateful
Speaker 1: you keep showing up week after week. So with all
Speaker 1: that said, let's get into today's episode. What you're about
Speaker 1: to hear is a collection of encounters that come from
Speaker 1: people who had real experiences with something they can't explain.
Speaker 1: They're part of the bigger picture, and they help us
Speaker 1: understand the full scope of what people are experiencing out there.
Speaker 1: I've never told many people this story, but here goes.
Speaker 1: It was August nineteen sixty eight and I was twenty three,
Speaker 1: working my second season as a fire lookout in the
Speaker 1: Olympic National Forest. I was stuck in this tiny tower
Speaker 1: about fifteen miles from the nearest dirt road, boring as
Speaker 1: hell most days, just staring at trees, taking weather readings,
Speaker 1: and talking on the radio a couple times a day.
Speaker 1: Most guys hated it, but I didn't mind the quiet.
Speaker 1: This one day was hot as hell. Had to be
Speaker 1: eighty five degrees, which is pretty damn warm for the mountains.
Speaker 1: I just finished my evening radio check around six and
Speaker 1: was making some beans on my little propane stove when
Speaker 1: I heard something big moving around in the bushes below
Speaker 1: the tower. First thing I thought was bear. We had
Speaker 1: tons of black bears roaming around. I grabbed my binoculars
Speaker 1: and went out on the little walkway that goes around
Speaker 1: the lookout. Sun was still up, so I could see
Speaker 1: pretty good. I looked down at the trees about one
Speaker 1: hundred yards below and saw something moving. That's when I
Speaker 1: saw the thing that's messed with my head for the
Speaker 1: last fifty some years. At first I thought somebody was
Speaker 1: down there wearing dark clothes, but then it stood up
Speaker 1: all the way and Jesus Christ, it was huge. Had
Speaker 1: to be seven maybe eight feet tall. The thing was
Speaker 1: covered in this dark brown hair hanging longer from its arms.
Speaker 1: But the face that's what still gives me nightmares. It
Speaker 1: was kind of flat, with this massive brow ridge. Wasn't
Speaker 1: a bear face, wasn't a human face. It was something
Speaker 1: else entirely. It was caring at this rotting log, ripping
Speaker 1: chunks off like they were nothing. The raw power was terrifying,
Speaker 1: pulling apart stuff that would have taken me in an
Speaker 1: axe half a day. The way it moved wasn't right either,
Speaker 1: too fluid, too purposeful. I just stood there like an idiot,
Speaker 1: frozen stiff, watching through the binoculars. Then the worst part happened.
Speaker 1: It stopped dead and looked straight up at the tower.
Speaker 1: I swear on my life it locked eyes with me.
Speaker 1: Those weren't animalized. There was something behind them, something thinking.
Speaker 1: The thing just stared at me for what felt like
Speaker 1: forever but was probably only ten to fifteen seconds. Then
Speaker 1: it just turned and walked into the trees. Didn't run
Speaker 1: or seemed scared, just these powerful, long strides that ate
Speaker 1: up ground like nobody's business. The way it moved was
Speaker 1: all wrong, smooth, but not like how people walk. When
Speaker 1: it disappeared, I realized I'd been holding my breath so long.
Speaker 1: I was dizzy. My hands were shaking so bad. I
Speaker 1: dropped the damn binoculars. Thank God for the next strap.
Speaker 1: I nearly pissed myself. I thought about radioing it in,
Speaker 1: but stopped. They'd have thought I was drunk or crazy?
Speaker 1: Who the hell reports seeing a sasquatch on official channels.
Speaker 1: That night was the longest of my life. Every crack
Speaker 1: and groan of the tower and the wind had me
Speaker 1: jumping out of my skin. I kept imagining that thing
Speaker 1: climbing up to get me. I had my rifle loaded
Speaker 1: next to my sleeping bag, but deep down I knew
Speaker 1: if it wanted in, no gun was going to stop it.
Speaker 1: Next morning, I hiked down to where I'd seen it.
Speaker 1: The log was torn to pieces. Whatever did it had
Speaker 1: incredible strength. I found a partial footprint in some soft
Speaker 1: dirt nearby, about sixteen inches long, with five toes, just
Speaker 1: one print, but it was enough. I had nothing to
Speaker 1: make a cast with, and it rained hard that night,
Speaker 1: washing it all away. For weeks after, I felt watched.
Speaker 1: Every time I went outside the tower, my skin would crawl.
Speaker 1: Sometimes at night I'd hear weird calls echoing across the valleys,
Speaker 1: not elk, not wolves, something else. Sometimes they'd come in
Speaker 1: patterns like signals, two long howls, paws, then three short ones,
Speaker 1: then from another ridge an answer. I figured that would
Speaker 1: be my one and only run in with whatever was
Speaker 1: in those deep woods. But I was wrong. Fast forward
Speaker 1: five years to nineteen seventy three. I wasn't working lookouts anymore,
Speaker 1: got married and needed steadier work, But me and my
Speaker 1: buddy Dave would go hunting up in the Olympics every fall.
Speaker 1: This time we were way back in, probably twenty miles
Speaker 1: from the nearest road, set up in this little valley
Speaker 1: for elk season. Second night out. Dave's already asleep in
Speaker 1: the tent and I'm just sitting by the fire having
Speaker 1: a last smoke. It's dead quiet except for the crackling wood.
Speaker 1: Then I smell it like wet dog mixed with rotting
Speaker 1: meat and skunk, a smell that has no business in nature.
Speaker 1: I knew instantly what it was. Every hair on my
Speaker 1: body stood up. I slowly reached from my rifle beside
Speaker 1: the log I was sitting on. That's when I heard
Speaker 1: heavy footsteps circling our camp, just beyond the firelight. Not
Speaker 1: four legs, two something big walking on two legs. I
Speaker 1: tried to wake Dave without yelling, but the chicken shit
Speaker 1: had taken his sleeping pills and was out cold. I
Speaker 1: was alone with this thing circling me in the dark.
Speaker 1: Then the rock started hitting our camp not thrown at
Speaker 1: us directly. They'd land ten to fifteen feet away from me,
Speaker 1: one after another, small at first, then bigger, like it
Speaker 1: was testing me seeing what I'd do. I fired a
Speaker 1: shot in the air, thinking it would scare it off.
Speaker 1: Big mistake. The thing let out a scream that I
Speaker 1: still can't describe right. It was like a woman being murdered,
Speaker 1: mixed with an angry bear, but ten times louder. It
Speaker 1: echoed around the whole valley. I nearly shipped myself day,
Speaker 1: finally up stumbling out of the tent, asking what the
Speaker 1: hell was going on. I told him to shut up
Speaker 1: and get his gun. We sat back to back all night,
Speaker 1: feeding the fire to keep it bright. The thing kept
Speaker 1: circling just out of sight. Sometimes we'd see branches move
Speaker 1: or catch a glimpse of something big moving between trees.
Speaker 1: A couple times we heard wood knocking, like someone hitting
Speaker 1: trees with a baseball bat. Knock, knock, knock, pause, knock knock.
Speaker 1: When dawn finally broke, we packed up faster than we
Speaker 1: ever had and got the hell out of there. On
Speaker 1: the hike out, we found our trail blocked by broken trees,
Speaker 1: not blown down by wind. Snapped off about seven feet
Speaker 1: up and laid across the path. Had to be twenty
Speaker 1: trees arranged like this. Some were six inches thick. Nothing
Speaker 1: breaks trees like that, except maybe bulldozers. I never went
Speaker 1: back to that valley again. Dave wrote the whole thing
Speaker 1: off as a bear and too much. Whiskey said the
Speaker 1: trees were just storm damage, but he never went camping
Speaker 1: again either. I know what I saw. It wasn't a bear,
Speaker 1: wasn't a guy in a suit, and sure as hell
Speaker 1: wasn't my imagination. There's something in those forests that we
Speaker 1: don't have a name for, something smart that doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be found. The natives knew about it long before
Speaker 1: we showed up. Tell you something else. I've worked forestry
Speaker 1: for forty years and I've never told my coworkers this story.
Speaker 1: But I'm not the only one who's seen things. After
Speaker 1: a few beers, other old timers will sometimes hint at
Speaker 1: weird experiences, strange calls in the night, massive tracks where
Speaker 1: there shouldn't be any, finding deer carcasses, and trees fifteen
Speaker 1: feet off the ground. We don't talk about it directly,
Speaker 1: but we know there's things in the deep woods that
Speaker 1: aren't in any wildlife manual. You can use this for
Speaker 1: your show, but change my name, will you. My family
Speaker 1: already thinks I've lost a few marbles. Don't need to
Speaker 1: give them more ammunition. While his encounters in Washington's Olympic
Speaker 1: Peninsula remain etched in his memory decades later, his experiences
Speaker 1: weren't isolated phenomena across the country. In the dense forests
Speaker 1: of New York's Adirondack Mountains, another observer would soon have
Speaker 1: their own inexplicable encounter with something that shouldn't exist according
Speaker 1: to conventional science. The year was nineteen seventy six, and
Speaker 1: a young biology graduate student was about to have her
Speaker 1: understanding of North American wildlife permanently altered. I've never put
Speaker 1: this down on paper before. Some nights I still wake
Speaker 1: up hearing those sounds. September nineteen seventy six, I was
Speaker 1: twenty four, working on my biology degree at Cornell. I
Speaker 1: was one of only three women in the program, so
Speaker 1: I was always trying to prove myself. I'd convinced my
Speaker 1: advisor to let me do solo research on acid rain
Speaker 1: effects in the high Adirondacks. Looking back, I was being
Speaker 1: stupid going out there alone, but I was young and
Speaker 1: had something to prove. My research spot was near Marcy Dam,
Speaker 1: three miles from the nearest place you could drive. I'd
Speaker 1: hiked in with all my gear and set up camp
Speaker 1: by this little stream. During summer, the place got hikers,
Speaker 1: but by late September it was pretty much deserted. My
Speaker 1: second night there, this monster storm rolled in out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Temperature dropped like a rock, and rain started coming down
Speaker 1: in sheets. I was zipped up in my sleeping bag,
Speaker 1: listening to the rain hammering my little tent when I
Speaker 1: heard it. At first I thought it was some kind
Speaker 1: of elk bugling, but we don't have elk in the
Speaker 1: Adirondacks anymore, haven't for one hundred years. Then I thought moose,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't right for that either. The sound was structured,
Speaker 1: almost like talking, but not human. It started deep and resonant,
Speaker 1: then changed to these short, barking whoops that made the
Speaker 1: hair on my arms stand up. I'd been camping and
Speaker 1: hiking in those mountains since I was a kid. I
Speaker 1: knew every sound those woods made. This wasn't anything I'd
Speaker 1: ever heard before. Then I heard something big moving through
Speaker 1: the forest, heading straight from my camp. Not crashing like
Speaker 1: a scared deer or foraging like a bear. These were heavy,
Speaker 1: deliberate footsteps. Whatever it was stopped real close to my tent,
Speaker 1: just out of sight in the darkness. I was terrified
Speaker 1: I was alone, miles from help in a storm with
Speaker 1: something massive standing right outside my tent. Then it made
Speaker 1: this low, rumbling noise that I swear to God sounded
Speaker 1: like talking, not words I could understand, but definitely not
Speaker 1: animal sounds either. It had rhythm and variation like speech.
Speaker 1: I called out, hoping it was just a lost hiker.
Speaker 1: The response came immediately, this series of weird barks and whoops,
Speaker 1: way louder than before, right outside my tent. Then I
Speaker 1: heard branches breaking, not snapping underfoot, but being broken on purpose.
Speaker 1: Three loud cracks, one after another, like whatever was out
Speaker 1: there was snapping branches and dropping them. I had my
Speaker 1: flashlight in a death grip, but couldn't make myself unzip
Speaker 1: the tent to look outside and stay tuned for more
Speaker 1: sasquatch ott to see we'll be right back. After these messages,
Speaker 1: I just sat there, shaking, listening to this thing walking
Speaker 1: around my camp. Twice it circled completely around. The footsteps
Speaker 1: were heavy and on two feet, definitely not a bear.
Speaker 1: The stride was too long for a person, and whatever
Speaker 1: it was weighed a ton from the sound of the
Speaker 1: footfalls in the mud. After what felt like forever, it
Speaker 1: finally moved away, back up the ridge. I could hear
Speaker 1: those weird calls for another hour, getting farther away, until
Speaker 1: the storm drowned them out. I didn't sleep a wink.
Speaker 1: I kept my knife in my hand all night, for
Speaker 1: all the good that would have done. I was crying
Speaker 1: on and off, convinced I was going to die out there.
Speaker 1: When morning finally came, I crawled out of my tent,
Speaker 1: half expecting to find nothing. But there in the mud
Speaker 1: were these tracks. Not washed out spots or animal prints,
Speaker 1: actual footprints, human shaped, but massive, about fourteen to fifteen
Speaker 1: inches long with five toes. The distance between them was huge,
Speaker 1: like four to five feet apart. Whatever made them had
Speaker 1: a stride twice as long as mine. But the branches
Speaker 1: were what really freaked me out. Three big branches thick
Speaker 1: as my wrist had been snapped off and arranged in
Speaker 1: a neat pile at the edge of my camp, not
Speaker 1: thrown there by wind or fallen naturally deliberately placed like
Speaker 1: a message. I packed my stuff so fast I left
Speaker 1: half of it behind. Told my adviser a bear ransacked
Speaker 1: my camp. Never mentioned the footprints or those horrible sounds.
Speaker 1: Back then, female scientists were already fighting an uphill battle.
Speaker 1: Say the word bigfoot, and my career would have been
Speaker 1: over before it started. For years, I convinced myself it
Speaker 1: was just a weird bear encounter. The mind plays tricks,
Speaker 1: especially when you're alone and scared. But deep down I
Speaker 1: knew better. Twelve years later, nineteen eighty eight, I was
Speaker 1: back in the Adirondacks with my husband John for a
Speaker 1: weekend hiking trip. I'd never told him about what happened.
Speaker 1: We were in a completely different part of the mountains,
Speaker 1: near Lake Placid. Our second night, we were sitting by
Speaker 1: the campfire after dinner. John had gone to get more
Speaker 1: water from the stream about fifty yards away. It was
Speaker 1: that perfect quiet you only get in the deep woods.
Speaker 1: Then I heard that same deep, structured vocalization from years before.
Speaker 1: It was coming from the ridge above our camp. John
Speaker 1: came running back without the water, looking scared. He'd heard
Speaker 1: it too and wanted to know what that sound was.
Speaker 1: I couldn't speak. I was literally paralyzed with fear. Then
Speaker 1: we heard branches breaking in the woods around us, not
Speaker 1: just one or two, dozens of them, like something was
Speaker 1: circling our camp, snapping branches as it went. John grabbed
Speaker 1: the flashlight and started shining it into the tree, but
Speaker 1: couldn't see anything. I finally found my voice and told
Speaker 1: him we needed to get in the tent right now.
Speaker 1: He argued, saying it was just a bear and the
Speaker 1: fire would keep it away. That's when we heard the
Speaker 1: wood knocks. Three sharp knocks like someone hitting a tree
Speaker 1: with a baseball bat, then silence, then from the opposite direction,
Speaker 1: three more knocks. In response, I told John that bears
Speaker 1: don't do that. We heard heavy footsteps all around us,
Speaker 1: just out of the firelight. Then John's flashlight caught something,
Speaker 1: just for a second, a massive shape moving between trees,
Speaker 1: much taller than a person covered in dark hair. John
Speaker 1: saw it too. He grabbed my arm so hard at
Speaker 1: left bruises. He kept asking what the fuck that was.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell him. I couldn't admit what I knew.
Speaker 1: We stayed up all night, keeping the fire as bright
Speaker 1: as possible. The knocking and footsteps continued for hours. At
Speaker 1: one point, something threw a rock into our camp, not
Speaker 1: at us, but close enough to send a message. It
Speaker 1: landed right at the edge of the firelight. When dawn came,
Speaker 1: we packed up in record time. As we hiked out
Speaker 1: and as we made our way along the trail, John
Speaker 1: tried to explain it away teenagers playing pranks, a bear,
Speaker 1: anything rational. But I knew it was the same thing
Speaker 1: I'd encountered years before, and this time I wasn't alone.
Speaker 1: John had seen it too. We've never gone back to
Speaker 1: the Adirondacks, not once in almost forty years. John won't
Speaker 1: talk about that night. When our kids wanted to go camping,
Speaker 1: we took them to established campgrounds with lots of other
Speaker 1: people around. I became a biology professor and spent my
Speaker 1: career studying forest ecosystems. I've read all the research on
Speaker 1: known North American wildlife. Nothing in the scientific literature explains
Speaker 1: what I encountered, But I know what I experienced. There's
Speaker 1: something in those mountains that shouldn't exist, but does, something
Speaker 1: intelligent that doesn't want to be found, but occasionally makes
Speaker 1: itself known. The female scientists encounters in the Adirondacks stayed
Speaker 1: with her throughout her academic career, influencing her approach to
Speaker 1: forest ecosystems, even as she carefully kept her experiences hidden
Speaker 1: from colleagues. But the creature's presence wasn't limited to the
Speaker 1: ancient mountains of the northeast. A few years later, and
Speaker 1: over one thousand miles southwest, the remote hollows of the
Speaker 1: Ozark Mountains would become the setting for another remarkable encounter,
Speaker 1: this time involving a hunter whose straightforward understanding of woodland
Speaker 1: predators would be forever changed. During a routine deer season,
Speaker 1: it was the fall of nineteen eighty five. I went
Speaker 1: on a hunting trip with Terry and his buddy Ray.
Speaker 1: We headed out to our usual spot in the Ozarks,
Speaker 1: about twelve miles west of Mountain View, deep in the
Speaker 1: National Forest where hardly anyone ever goes, remote, quiet, the
Speaker 1: kind of place you don't see another soul for days.
Speaker 1: I came back early from that trip, and I never
Speaker 1: talked about why until now. It was early November, cold
Speaker 1: as hell at night, but perfect for deer hunting. We'd
Speaker 1: set up at the old clearing by Falling Rock Creek,
Speaker 1: planning to stay five days. Terry and Ray were good hunters,
Speaker 1: but damn if they didn't bring enough beer to drown
Speaker 1: a horse. By sundown, they were half in the bag already.
Speaker 1: Our second night, those two idiots drank till they passed
Speaker 1: out around the fire. I turned in early because I
Speaker 1: wanted to be up before dawn. I was in my
Speaker 1: own tent, maybe thirty yards from theirs. Smart move on
Speaker 1: my part. Ray snored like a chainsaw. Around two in
Speaker 1: the morning, I woke up and I heard something moving
Speaker 1: around our camp, heavy footsteps going between the tents and
Speaker 1: where we'd hung our game. We'd bagged a small dough
Speaker 1: that first day. I figured it was a black bear
Speaker 1: after our deer meat. We'd get plenty of bears in
Speaker 1: the Ozarks, so I grabbed my flashlight and my rifle,
Speaker 1: thinking i'd scare it off. Moon was bright enough I
Speaker 1: could see Okay without the light, what I say I
Speaker 1: saw standing by our deer carcass wasn't a bear. This
Speaker 1: thing was huge, had to be seven feet tall, at
Speaker 1: least covered in this dark reddish brown hair, standing on
Speaker 1: two legs like a man, reaching up toward our deer,
Speaker 1: hanging from a high branch. But Here's the part that
Speaker 1: still freaks me out. It was untying the rope we'd used,
Speaker 1: not clawing or ripping at it, untying it with fingers
Speaker 1: like a person would. That's when I knew I wasn't
Speaker 1: looking at any normal animal. I couldn't move. My rifle
Speaker 1: was half raised, but I couldn't even think to aim.
Speaker 1: It must have made some noise, because it turned and
Speaker 1: looked straight at me. Its face Jesus, kind of like
Speaker 1: a man's face but not had this heavy brow and wide,
Speaker 1: flat nose. But the eyes are what got me. They
Speaker 1: caught the moonlight, looked almost reddish, deep set, but aware,
Speaker 1: looking at me, like it knew exactly what I was.
Speaker 1: We just stared at each other for what fell like
Speaker 1: forever but was probably five seconds. I wasn't scared exactly,
Speaker 1: more like my brain couldn't process what I was seeing.
Speaker 1: Then it made this sound like a low rumbling grunt
Speaker 1: and dropped our deer. It didn't run off like a
Speaker 1: scared animal would. It backed away real slow, still watching
Speaker 1: me until it hit the tree line. Then it just
Speaker 1: turned and walked off into the woods. Didn't crash through
Speaker 1: brush like a bear, moved quiet deliberate, like it was
Speaker 1: trying not to make noise. I had a clean shot,
Speaker 1: finger was on the trigger, but something stopped me. The
Speaker 1: way it looked at me, there was something in those
Speaker 1: eyes intelligence. I couldn't do it. I spent the rest
Speaker 1: of the night sitting by the fire with my rifle
Speaker 1: across my lap, jumping at every sound, kept seeing those
Speaker 1: eyes in the darkness. By morning, I told Terry and
Speaker 1: Ray I had stomach problems and needed to head back
Speaker 1: to town. Never told them what I saw. They probably
Speaker 1: thought I was hung over something. But I keep thinking
Speaker 1: about how it untied that damn rope. No animal does that,
Speaker 1: and why didn't it just take the deer when it
Speaker 1: had the chance. It was like it was studying how
Speaker 1: we'd hung it up there, trying to figure out our knots.
Speaker 1: I tried to forget about it, told myself it was
Speaker 1: a bear in the moonlight. Playing tricks didn't work, though.
Speaker 1: I kept having these dreams where I'd be hunting and
Speaker 1: turn around to find that thing standing right behind me,
Speaker 1: those eyes staring into mine. Twelve years later, nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: I finally went back to those woods, different spot, maybe
Speaker 1: ten miles from the first place. My boy was sixteen,
Speaker 1: wanted to learn to hunt, so we went out, just
Speaker 1: the two of us. I figured, after all this time,
Speaker 1: lightning wouldn't strike twice right. First night was fine. Second
Speaker 1: day we bagged a nice eight point buck, cleaned it,
Speaker 1: hung it up proper. That night, around the fire, my
Speaker 1: boy asked if I believed in bigfoot. I nearly choked
Speaker 1: on my coffee. I asked him why he'd bring that up,
Speaker 1: and he said some kids at school had been talking
Speaker 1: about sightings in the Ozarks. I told him it was
Speaker 1: all bullshit, just drunk hunters seeing bears. Biggest lie I
Speaker 1: ever told him. After he went to sleep, I sat
Speaker 1: by the fire thinking about that night back in eighty five.
Speaker 1: That's when I heard wood knocking, four sharp knocks coming
Speaker 1: from the ridge above our camp, then another set of
Speaker 1: knocks from the opposite direction. Something answering, I knew what
Speaker 1: was out there. I loaded my shotgun and sat with
Speaker 1: my back against a tree all night, watching the tree line.
Speaker 1: Around three am, I heard heavy footsteps circling our camp,
Speaker 1: just beyond where the firelight reached. Then rocks started landing
Speaker 1: in our camp, not thrown at us. They'd land twenty
Speaker 1: feet away like warnings. I never woke my boy. What
Speaker 1: was I going to say that we were surrounded by bigfoot?
Speaker 1: He'd have thought his old man lost his mind. At
Speaker 1: first light, I told him we needed to go home,
Speaker 1: said I'd forgotten about an important work thing. He was disappointed,
Speaker 1: but didn't argue. The whole hike out, I felt eyes
Speaker 1: on us. Every few hundred yards. We'd hear branches breaking
Speaker 1: off to our sides, always just out of sight. Something
Speaker 1: was escorting us out of its territory. My boy's forty now,
Speaker 1: with kids of his own. He still doesn't know why
Speaker 1: we left early that day, and when he takes his
Speaker 1: boys camping, I always tell him to stick to the
Speaker 1: established campgrounds. I tell him it's safer that way. He
Speaker 1: thinks I'm just being an overprotective grandpa. I've been hunting
Speaker 1: all my life, spent more time in the woods than
Speaker 1: most people. I know what bears look like, what cougars
Speaker 1: sound like, how deer move. What I saw wasn't any
Speaker 1: of those. There's things in these mountains that ain't in
Speaker 1: any wildlife book. And here's the crazy part. I still
Speaker 1: hunt those mountains, just not that area. It's like those
Speaker 1: woods are forbidden territory now, and sometimes when I'm alone
Speaker 1: in my stand at dawn, I'll hear those knocks again,
Speaker 1: or catch that smell on the wind, and I know
Speaker 1: I'm being watched. Something's out there in those woods, something
Speaker 1: that watches us, studies us, and sometimes, when the mood
Speaker 1: strikes it lets itself be seen. The hunter never returned
Speaker 1: to that particular valley in the Ozarks, but his story
Speaker 1: represents just one more piece in a pattern of encounters
Speaker 1: spanning across America's wilderness areas. As we move into the
Speaker 1: new millennium, these interactions didn't diminish. They evolved. In the
Speaker 1: misty ridges of the Great Smoky Mountains, where Cherokee legends
Speaker 1: had long spoken of strange forest beings, a young pastor
Speaker 1: seeking spiritual renewal would instead find something that challenged not
Speaker 1: just his understanding of nature, but of creation itself. I've
Speaker 1: thought long and hard about writing this down. A man
Speaker 1: in my position risks a lot talking about these things.
Speaker 1: Folks expect their pastor to be level headed, not claiming
Speaker 1: to see monsters in the woods. But I can't deny
Speaker 1: what happened. In April two thousand and two, I was
Speaker 1: thirty one, a young pastor at a small church in
Speaker 1: eastern Tennessee. I was going through what you might call
Speaker 1: a crisis of faith, burnt out from the demands of ministry,
Speaker 1: Questioning if I'd made the right choice with my life,
Speaker 1: I decided to take a few days alone in the
Speaker 1: Smokies to pray and sort myself out. I'd been hiking
Speaker 1: those mountains since I was a boy, so I wasn't
Speaker 1: worried about going solo. I had permits for this thirty
Speaker 1: mile loop trail that goes through some pretty remote areas
Speaker 1: of the park, places where you can hike all day
Speaker 1: and not see another soul. Second day out, I was
Speaker 1: following this ridge when a nasty spring storm came rolling
Speaker 1: in out of nowhere, rain pouring down, temperature dropping fast.
Speaker 1: I found a little clearing off the main trail and
Speaker 1: set up camp. Early. After I got my tent situated,
Speaker 1: I strung up a tarp so i'd have a dry
Speaker 1: spot to sit. The rain finally led up around on dusk,
Speaker 1: but this thick fog moved in. Couldn't see more than
Speaker 1: twenty to thirty feet in any direction. That's when things
Speaker 1: started getting weird. I was heating water for some instant
Speaker 1: soup when I heard movement in the woods around me.
Speaker 1: At first I figured deer or maybe a black bear,
Speaker 1: They're all over the Smokies. But then I heard talking,
Speaker 1: not human talking, not animal noises either, something in between.
Speaker 1: It started as this low humming sound, then changed to
Speaker 1: what seemed like conversations, like question and answer patterns. There
Speaker 1: were at least two different voices going back and forth.
Speaker 1: It sent chills up my spine like nothing I'd ever felt.
Speaker 1: I called out, thinking maybe some hikers were lost in
Speaker 1: the fog. No human answer came back. Instead, everything went dead, silent,
Speaker 1: the kind of silence that feels heavy, like something pressing
Speaker 1: down on you. I couldn't see anything in the fog,
Speaker 1: but I felt eyes on me from every direction, and
Speaker 1: stay tuned for more sasquatch out to see. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back after these messages. When it got full dark,
Speaker 1: I lit my little camp lantern. That's when the knocking started,
Speaker 1: sharp loud cracks, like someone hitting trees with a heavy stick.
Speaker 1: One knock from the north, then two from the east,
Speaker 1: then three from the west, like they were talking to
Speaker 1: each other. The knocks kept moving, circling closer to my
Speaker 1: camp I'm not too proud to admit I was scared
Speaker 1: half to death. I'm a grown man, been in these
Speaker 1: woods all my life, but I was shaking like a leaf.
Speaker 1: I started praying out loud, reciting Psalm twenty three over
Speaker 1: and over. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Speaker 1: The strangest thing happened when I started praying. The knocking stopped.
Speaker 1: But then I heard footsteps, soft, careful steps, circling my camp,
Speaker 1: just outside where my light reached. Something big, moving, real, deliberate,
Speaker 1: like trying to stay quiet. Then the fog shifted and
Speaker 1: I saw it through a gap in the mist, this
Speaker 1: massive shape moving between two trees, maybe forty feet away.
Speaker 1: Even with the fog, I could tell it was huge,
Speaker 1: covered in dark hair, walking on two legs, but definitely
Speaker 1: not human. The way it moved was smooth and silent,
Speaker 1: like it knew exactly how to place each foot to
Speaker 1: make the least noise. I kept praying, my voice cracking
Speaker 1: with fear. The thing stopped dead when it heard my prayers.
Speaker 1: It just stood there, watching me through the fog. Then,
Speaker 1: and this is the part that still gives me nightmares,
Speaker 1: it deliberately placed something on the ground and backed away,
Speaker 1: still watching me. I stayed frozen in that spot all night,
Speaker 1: too terrified to move, kept my knife in one hand
Speaker 1: and my little camp lantern in the other, prayed till
Speaker 1: my voice gave out. The footsteps continued circling all night long,
Speaker 1: times coming closer, sometimes moving away. Never saw the creature
Speaker 1: clearly again, but I heard it breathing heavy, deep breaths,
Speaker 1: just beyond the light. When dawn finally came and the
Speaker 1: fog lifted, I worked up the courage to go look
Speaker 1: at the spot where I'd seen it. There on a
Speaker 1: flat rock was the strangest thing. Three different kinds of
Speaker 1: tree bark stacked in a cross pattern, with blackberries piled
Speaker 1: on top. Now, blackberries don't grow at that elevation, especially
Speaker 1: not in April. Someone something had brought them from somewhere else.
Speaker 1: It wasn't random, No animal does that. It was deliberate,
Speaker 1: like an offering or a message. I packed up and
Speaker 1: got the hell out of there, cutting my trip short
Speaker 1: by two days. Told folks back home I got sick.
Speaker 1: Didn't tell a soul what really happened. For years. Who'd
Speaker 1: believe a pastor saying he saw bigfoot? I'd have lost
Speaker 1: my congregation faster than Jonah lost his ship. But that
Speaker 1: wasn't the end of it. Years later, two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: i'd mostly convinced myself the whole thing was just fear
Speaker 1: and fog playing tricks on my mind. I went back
Speaker 1: to the Smokies, different area, this time taking my twelve
Speaker 1: year old nephew camping. Figured it would be good uncle
Speaker 1: nephew bonding. We were two days into a four day trip,
Speaker 1: camped in this pretty little valley. My nephew was already
Speaker 1: asleep in the tent. I was sitting by our dying fire,
Speaker 1: reading my Bible by flashlight when I caught that smell.
Speaker 1: Before I could even move, I heard those knocks again,
Speaker 1: Three sharp cracks from the ridge to our north, then
Speaker 1: two knocks from the south, answering they knew we were there,
Speaker 1: They were surrounding us. I dove into the tent and
Speaker 1: zipped it up, waking my nephew. When he asked what
Speaker 1: was wrong, I lied and said I thought I heard
Speaker 1: a bear. We listened together as something heavy walked around
Speaker 1: our camp, not a bear's four legged gait, two legs.
Speaker 1: My nephew's eyes got big as dinner plates when he
Speaker 1: realized what we were hearing wasn't a bear. The walking
Speaker 1: continued for maybe an hour. Then right outside our tent,
Speaker 1: not three feet away, something dropped a pile of objects.
Speaker 1: We could hear them thump on the ground one by one.
Speaker 1: My nephew was crying silently. Now I was trying to pray,
Speaker 1: but couldn't remember a single verse. My mind was blank
Speaker 1: with terror. Eventually the footsteps moved away. We stayed huddled
Speaker 1: in that tent till morning light. When we finally worked
Speaker 1: up the nerve to look outside, there was a pile
Speaker 1: of pine cone stacked in a perfect pyramid right in
Speaker 1: front of our tent. Flap on top was a single
Speaker 1: wild strawberry. My nephew saw it too. When he asked
Speaker 1: me what it meant, I didn't have an answer. We
Speaker 1: packed up right then and hiked out The whole way
Speaker 1: back to the car. We kept hearing branches breaking just
Speaker 1: off the trail, something following us, pacing us, making sure
Speaker 1: we left. My nephew's thirty, now with kids of his own.
Speaker 1: We've never talked about that night again, but he doesn't
Speaker 1: go camping anymore. Neither do I. Not in the back country.
Speaker 1: I've spent twenty years trying to make sense of what happened.
Speaker 1: As a man of faith, I believe God's creation is
Speaker 1: vast and mysterious, with wonder's science hasn't named yet. If
Speaker 1: these creatures exist, they're part of that same creation, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean they're friendly. What haunts me most isn't
Speaker 1: the fear. It's the intelligence behind those eyes, the deliberate
Speaker 1: nature of those offerings, the way it responded to prayer.
Speaker 1: There was something almost ritualistic about its behavior, like it
Speaker 1: was trying to communicate something important. I don't know what
Speaker 1: to make of it all. I just know what I saw,
Speaker 1: what I heard, what I felt. All I know is
Speaker 1: there's more in those mountains than most folks realize. And
Speaker 1: sometimes if you're alone in the wild places, they let
Speaker 1: you know you're being watched. The pastor's profound encounters in
Speaker 1: the Smokies left him with more questions than than answers
Speaker 1: about what dwells in America's remaining wilderness. These questions continue
Speaker 1: to resonate with those who spend significant time in our
Speaker 1: most remote forests. Nearly two decades later, in the ancient
Speaker 1: redwood groves of northern California's Humboldt County. A wildlife biologist
Speaker 1: with scientific training and observational skills would document what might
Speaker 1: be the most compelling evidence yet of intelligent non human
Speaker 1: entities sharing our forests, watching and occasionally interacting with those
Speaker 1: who enter their domain. You asked for details about what
Speaker 1: I saw in Redwood National Park. This is the first
Speaker 1: time I've written it all down. I've kept most of
Speaker 1: this out of official reports because I still need my job.
Speaker 1: In May twenty nineteen, I was doing a three week
Speaker 1: survey looking for endangered bird nesting sites in the old
Speaker 1: growth sections of the park. Budget cuts meant I was
Speaker 1: working alone, which breaks all our protocols, but we were
Speaker 1: desperate to get the data. I had my main camp
Speaker 1: near Redwood Creek, hiking out five to seven miles every
Speaker 1: day to different spots. On May fourteenth, I was deep
Speaker 1: in the park, at least six miles from the nearest
Speaker 1: access road. I was in this amazing grove of ancient
Speaker 1: redwoods trees over three hundred feet tall. I'd been working
Speaker 1: in that area for four days with no problems. Around
Speaker 1: three point thirty that afternoon, I got this feeling of
Speaker 1: being watched. If you've spent time in places with predators.
Speaker 1: You know exactly what I mean. The hair on your
Speaker 1: neck stands up, your gut screams. That's something staring at you.
Speaker 1: I figured mountain lion. We'd been tracking several in that area.
Speaker 1: I looked around and didn't see anything at first, but
Speaker 1: I noticed something weird. Branches twisted into X shapes, and
Speaker 1: several trees around me about eight to ten feet off
Speaker 1: the ground, fresh breaks, not old damage, too many to
Speaker 1: be random, all the same pattern. I was taking pictures
Speaker 1: of these branch formations when I heard something moving uphill,
Speaker 1: maybe one hundred yards away. I grabbed my binoculars, thinking
Speaker 1: i'd spot the mountain lion. What I saw instead made
Speaker 1: my blood freeze. At first glance, I thought bear. We
Speaker 1: have plenty of black bears in the redwoods. But as
Speaker 1: it crossed a small opening between trees, I realized it
Speaker 1: was walking on two legs and it was huge, way
Speaker 1: bigger than any person. Had to be seven to eight
Speaker 1: feet tall at least. It was covered in black hair,
Speaker 1: with this reddish tint on the shoulders and head. Built
Speaker 1: like a human, but with longer arms, massive shoulders, and
Speaker 1: this ridge of bone on top of its head. But
Speaker 1: the way it moved was what really struck me. So
Speaker 1: smooth and quiet through thick underbrush, like it had been
Speaker 1: born there. The craziest part, when it realized I was watching,
Speaker 1: it didn't run or hide like any normal animal wood.
Speaker 1: It just stopped at the edge of the clearing and
Speaker 1: stared right at me. For almost a minute. We just
Speaker 1: looked at each other. I had my wildlife camera and
Speaker 1: took three pictures before it moved away. Those photos should
Speaker 1: have been proof, but later that day, crossing a stream,
Speaker 1: I slipped and soaked all my gear. The memory card corrupted.
Speaker 1: My coworkers still give me shit about the convenient equipment failure.
Speaker 1: What happened next convinced me this wasn't a bear or
Speaker 1: someone in a suit. For the next hour, it circled
Speaker 1: around my position, stopping at four different spots about seventy
Speaker 1: to one hundred yards away. At each spot, it would
Speaker 1: snap branches, loud, not random, deliberate, like it was sending
Speaker 1: a message or marking its territory. Twice it made this
Speaker 1: call I can't even describe, deep and resonant, lasted maybe
Speaker 1: ten seconds, started low, rose and pitch, then went back down.
Speaker 1: I recorded it, but between distance and wind the quality
Speaker 1: was garbage. When we analyzed the sound later, it had
Speaker 1: infrasonic elements below what humans can hear. Nothing in our
Speaker 1: wildlife database matches it. When it started getting dark around
Speaker 1: seven fifteen, I decided to head back to my camp.
Speaker 1: The whole three mile hike back, I kept hearing wood
Speaker 1: knocks behind me, always the same distance back following me,
Speaker 1: only stopped when I reached my camp site. That night
Speaker 1: was the scariest of my life. From about eleven PM
Speaker 1: to two AM, something walked to circles around my camp.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was stayed about fifty yards out, never came closer.
Speaker 1: I sat frozen in my tent, too terrified to look outside.
Speaker 1: I stayed at that camp five more days to finish
Speaker 1: my work. Never saw the creature directly again, but twice
Speaker 1: more I heard those calls at dawn and dusk, but
Speaker 1: from farther away, like it was keeping tabs on me
Speaker 1: but giving me space. When I got back to the office,
Speaker 1: I filed my report but left out anything that screamed.
Speaker 1: Bigfoot said it might be unusual bare behavior. After twelve
Speaker 1: years as a wildlife biologist, I wasn't about to torch
Speaker 1: my career. Three years later, January twenty two, I went
Speaker 1: back to the same area. I brought a better camera,
Speaker 1: better audio equipment, determined to get solid evidence if I
Speaker 1: saw anything. The first two days were quiet, heavy rain,
Speaker 1: cold as hell. On the third morning I found tracks
Speaker 1: in the mud, not bare, not human, massive footprints sixteen
Speaker 1: to seventeen inches long, five toes halfway between human and ape.
Speaker 1: I took dozens of photos, made a cast of the
Speaker 1: best print. That night, they came back, not one this time,
Speaker 1: at least three. I could hear them moving around my
Speaker 1: camp after dark, communicating with those wood knocks, different patterns
Speaker 1: from different directions. Around midnight, I heard something heavy breathing
Speaker 1: right outside my tent, not breathing like a person, deeper,
Speaker 1: more powerful. I was lying there, paralyzed with fear when
Speaker 1: something touched the side of my tent, not aggressive, just
Speaker 1: a gentle press of what felt like fingers running along
Speaker 1: the fabric. I must have made some noise, because whatever
Speaker 1: it was moved away quickly. Then the wood knock started again,
Speaker 1: more urgent, this time one close than responses from farther away.
Speaker 1: Within minutes, everything went silent. I packed up and left
Speaker 1: the whole hike out. I felt watched kept hearing movement
Speaker 1: parallel to the trail. When I reached the trailhead, I
Speaker 1: found a final branch arrangement, a perfect X made from
Speaker 1: two thick branches, positioned right across the trail marker. The
Speaker 1: equipment worked fine this time. I have photos of the footprints,
Speaker 1: the branch structures, the gifts they left, the audio recordings
Speaker 1: captured those knocks and calls. Clearly, I've kept it all
Speaker 1: on a personal hard drive, separate from work. I haven't
Speaker 1: filed a detailed report, just noted unusual wildlife behavior in
Speaker 1: my field notes. Who would believe me? And if they did,
Speaker 1: what would happen to those creatures? Government teams stomping through
Speaker 1: their territory trying to capture or kill one? I couldn't
Speaker 1: live with that. I've studied North American wildlife my entire
Speaker 1: adult life. I know every animal that's supposed to live
Speaker 1: in those forests. What I encountered doesn't match anything in
Speaker 1: scientific literature. These beings were intelligent, They used tools, they communicated,
Speaker 1: They left deliberate signs. They could have harmed me easily,
Speaker 1: but chose not to. Here's what really keeps me up
Speaker 1: at night. They weren't afraid of me. They were curious
Speaker 1: studying me, and they've been doing it for a long time.
Speaker 1: How many hikers walk through those woods never realizing they're
Speaker 1: being watched and assessed by something they don't believe exists.
Speaker 1: What lives in those ancient forests isn't just another animal,
Speaker 1: It's something else, entirely, something watching us from the edges
Speaker 1: of our world, smart enough to stay hidden, patient enough
Speaker 1: to wait us out, and sometimes, when they decide the
Speaker 1: time is right, they let themselves be seen. As we
Speaker 1: bring Tonight's journey through America's wilderness to an end, it's
Speaker 1: impossible to ignore the remarkable patterns that emerge across these
Speaker 1: five accounts. What makes these stories so compelling isn't just
Speaker 1: the sincerity of each witness, but the consistent details that
Speaker 1: appear across encounters separated by both time and distance. From
Speaker 1: Washington State in nineteen sixty eight to California in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: from the Adirondacks to the Ozarks to the Great Smoky Mountains,
Speaker 1: spanning more than fifty years and the breadth of our continent,
Speaker 1: these witnesses describe encounters that are strikingly similar despite having
Speaker 1: no connection to one another. Consider the evidence. The forest
Speaker 1: service worker in the Olympics experienced wood knocks and branch
Speaker 1: breaking in specific patterns, the same communication method reported by
Speaker 1: the scientist in New York. Eight years later and over
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred miles away. The hunter in Arkansas described
Speaker 1: the same musky odor that the pastor would encounter in
Speaker 1: North Carolina, New nearly two decades afterward. The strategic placement
Speaker 1: of gifts from barries to animal kills appears in accounts
Speaker 1: from the nineteen seventies through the twenty tens. None of
Speaker 1: these witnesses knew each other. They came from entirely different
Speaker 1: backgrounds forestry, academia, hunting, religious ministry, wildlife biology. Yet all
Speaker 1: describe beings with the same physical characteristics, the same behavioral patterns,
Speaker 1: the same apparent intelligence and curiosity. All experienced the sensation
Speaker 1: of being observed before direct contact. All reported these entities
Speaker 1: moving with surprising stealth and purpose for their size. What
Speaker 1: are the odds that five unconnected individuals, separated by thousands
Speaker 1: of miles and spanning half a century would independently fabricate
Speaker 1: stories with such remarkably consistent details. What explains how a
Speaker 1: pastor in two thousand and two would describe branch arrangements
Speaker 1: identical to those documented by a biologist in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: without either knowing of the other's experience. Perhaps most telling
Speaker 1: is what these encounters weren't. None described monsters or mindless beasts. Instead,
Speaker 1: each witness encountered something that observed, communicated, and seemed to
Speaker 1: make deliberate decisions. Something that showed curiosity about human activities
Speaker 1: without aggression. Something that appeared to maintain territories and communicate
Speaker 1: within social groups. While science continues to dismiss these accounts
Speaker 1: for lack of definitive physical evidence, the consistency across decades
Speaker 1: in geography presents a compelling case for something yet undiscovered,
Speaker 1: an intelligent species sharing our forests, watching our encroachment into
Speaker 1: their territories, occasionally reaching across the divide between our worlds.
Speaker 1: In pat pat