Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here, something just cause my dog. Something killed your dog,
Speaker 1: my dog. We're flying through the air over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm
Speaker 1: really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
Speaker 1: the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
Speaker 1: the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
Speaker 1: saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what
Speaker 1: are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
Speaker 1: around out here? Did you see what it was? Was?
Speaker 1: It was standing enough. I'm out here looking through the
Speaker 1: window now and I don't see anything. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go outside. Jesus Quice, you better hello, get the
Speaker 1: body out here. What quin on out there? I thought
Speaker 1: of a bench about tech forty nine? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Easy ann out there? Yeah, I'm walking right. Hey.
Speaker 2: There are stories we tell around campfires, urban legends passed
Speaker 2: down through generations, and then there are the accounts that
Speaker 2: make you question everything you thought you knew about the world. Tonight,
Speaker 2: you're going to hear three of those accounts. These aren't
Speaker 2: the typical Bigfoot stories you might expect, no blurry photographs
Speaker 2: that could be anything no sensational claims about telepathic communication
Speaker 2: or interdimensional portals. What you're about to hear are the
Speaker 2: experiences of ordinary people who encountered something extraordinary in the
Speaker 2: forests of the Pacific Northwest. A homeowner trying to solve
Speaker 2: a simple problem with his garbage cans. Two loggers just
Speaker 2: trying to do their job. A security guard working the
Speaker 2: night shift at a remote research facility. Each of these
Speaker 2: men would tell you they're practical, down to earth people.
Speaker 2: They're not looking for fame or attention. In fact, most
Speaker 2: of them have been reluctant to share their stories at all,
Speaker 2: knowing how it sounds, knowing what people might think. But
Speaker 2: something happened to them in those dark woods, something that
Speaker 2: changed their understanding of what's possible. These accounts were shared
Speaker 2: with me under the condition that I changed certain details
Speaker 2: to protect their privacy, names, specific locations, some minor circumstances,
Speaker 2: But the core of each story, the encounters themselves, remain
Speaker 2: exactly as they were told to me. No embellishment, no
Speaker 2: dramatic flourishes, just three men recounting the most unsettling experiences
Speaker 2: of their lives. As you listen, ask yourself this, if
Speaker 2: you encountered something that shouldn't exist, something that science says
Speaker 2: is impossible.
Speaker 3: Would you report it?
Speaker 2: Would you risk your reputation, your credibility, everything people think
Speaker 2: they know about you? Or would you keep it to yourself,
Speaker 2: carrying the weight of that knowledge alone. The men whose
Speaker 2: stories you're about to hear made different choices, but they
Speaker 2: all agree on one thing. There are places in our
Speaker 2: world where the impossible becomes possible, where ancient things still
Speaker 2: walk among the trees, and where the line between myth
Speaker 2: and reality isn't as.
Speaker 3: Clear as we'd like to believe.
Speaker 2: So settle in, turn off the lights if you dare,
Speaker 2: and prepare to hear three encounters that will make you
Speaker 2: think twice about those dark woods outside your window, because
Speaker 2: after tonight you might never look at the forest the
Speaker 2: same way again. I never believed in any.
Speaker 3: Of that stuff.
Speaker 2: Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts all garbage to me. I'm a practical guy.
Speaker 2: I work construction, hunt deer every season, and I know
Speaker 2: the woods around my place like the back of my hand.
Speaker 2: Been living in this little town in northern Washington for
Speaker 2: fifteen years, and I thought I'd seen everything these mountains
Speaker 2: had to offer. That changed last October I'd been having
Speaker 2: problems with something getting into my garbage camp, not raccoons.
Speaker 2: The damage was too extensive. Whatever it was could rip
Speaker 2: the heavy duty plastic lids clean off and scattered trash
Speaker 2: all over my driveway. My neighbor Dave suggested maybe it
Speaker 2: was a bear, which made sense. We'd had a few
Speaker 2: wander through town that fall. So I set up a
Speaker 2: trail camera. Nothing fancy, just a basic model I use
Speaker 2: for scouting deer. Mounted it on a pine tree about
Speaker 2: twenty feet from where I keep my cans, angled it
Speaker 2: down to catch whatever was causing the mess. For two weeks,
Speaker 2: I got nothing but videos of my cat and the
Speaker 2: occasional squirrel. I was starting to think the problem had
Speaker 2: solved itself when I checked the camera on a Sunday
Speaker 2: morning and found something I couldn't explain. The timestamp read
Speaker 2: two forty seven am. The motion sensor had triggered, and
Speaker 2: at first all I could see were the garbage cans
Speaker 2: and the infrared glow. Then something moved into frame from
Speaker 2: the right side. It was massive, had to be at
Speaker 2: least eight feet tall, covered in dark hair or fur.
Speaker 2: The way it moved wasn't like anything I'd ever seen.
Speaker 2: Not clumsy like a bear, but not quite human either.
Speaker 2: It had this fluid, careful way of walking, like it
Speaker 2: was trying not to make noise. The thing approached my
Speaker 2: garbage cans and just stood there for maybe ten seconds,
Speaker 2: turning its head left and right. I could see its
Speaker 2: profile definitely not human. The forehead sloped back and the
Speaker 2: jaw protruded too far forward, but the shoulders were broad
Speaker 2: like a man's, and it stood upright on two legs.
Speaker 2: Then it grabbed one of my garbage cans with both
Speaker 2: hands and lifted it over its head like it weighed nothing.
Speaker 2: These aren't small cans they're the big ninety six gallon
Speaker 2: ones the city provides. Even empty, I can barely drag
Speaker 2: them to the curb, and this thing hoisted one up
Speaker 2: like it was made of cardboard. It shook the can
Speaker 2: once hard, and garbage scattered everywhere. Then it set the
Speaker 2: can down and began picking through the mess. The way
Speaker 2: its hands moved was the strangest part. They looked human
Speaker 2: from a distance, but longer, with fingers that seemed too thin.
Speaker 2: It would pick up items delicately, almost like it was
Speaker 2: examining them before either eating them or tossing them aside.
Speaker 2: The whole thing lasted maybe three minutes. When it was finished,
Speaker 2: it looked directly at the camera. I swear it looked
Speaker 2: right into the lens. Those eyes reflected the infrared light
Speaker 2: like an animal's, but there was something behind them that
Speaker 2: seemed almost intelligent. It tilted its head, studying the camera,
Speaker 2: and then it was gone. Didn't run or crashed through
Speaker 2: the brush, just melted back into the darkness like it
Speaker 2: had never been there.
Speaker 3: I must have watched that video fifty times that morning.
Speaker 2: I kept thinking there had to be some explanation, maybe
Speaker 2: someone in an elaborate costume playing a prank. But who
Speaker 2: would do that and how would they know exactly where
Speaker 2: to find my trail cam. I didn't tell anyone about
Speaker 2: it right away who would believe me? But the mess
Speaker 2: in my driveway was real enough, and it matched perfectly
Speaker 2: with what I'd seen on the video. Plus there were
Speaker 2: footprints near my fence line, not bear prints. These looked
Speaker 2: almost human, but stretched out and wider, with what looked
Speaker 2: like claw marks at the tips. Dave came over the
Speaker 2: next day to help me clean up the scattered garbage,
Speaker 2: and I almost showed him the video, almost, but at
Speaker 2: the last second, I chickened out. Dave's the kind of
Speaker 2: guy who'd posted on Facebook within five minutes, and I
Speaker 2: wasn't ready for that kind of attention. Instead, I moved
Speaker 2: the camera to a different angle and waited to see
Speaker 2: if it would come back. It did three nights later,
Speaker 2: same time, two forty something in the morning. This time
Speaker 2: I was ready with the second camera positioned across the yard.
Speaker 2: I wanted to get a better view, maybe catch it
Speaker 2: from multiple angles. The first camera picked it up approaching
Speaker 2: from the woods behind my house. It moved through the trees,
Speaker 2: carefully testing each step before putting its full weight down.
Speaker 2: When it reached the edge of my yard, it stopped
Speaker 2: and stood perfectly still for almost a full minute, scanning
Speaker 2: back and forth like it was checking for danger. The
Speaker 2: second camera caught it in profile as it entered the yard.
Speaker 2: The sheer size of the thing was incredible. Its shoulders
Speaker 2: had to be twice as wide as mine, long muscular arms.
Speaker 2: The legs were thick and powerful, built like tree trunks.
Speaker 2: But it was the way it moved that stuck with me,
Speaker 2: deliberate and controlled, like it knew exactly what it was doing.
Speaker 2: This time, instead of going straight for the garbage cans.
Speaker 2: It stopped about ten feet away and seemed to study them.
Speaker 2: It circled around to approach from a different angle, always
Speaker 2: keeping its head turned toward the house, like it was
Speaker 2: watching for movement in the windows. When it finally grabbed
Speaker 2: the garbage can, I got a clear view of its
Speaker 2: hands on the second camera. The fingers were definitely longer
Speaker 2: than human fingers, and there were four of them, plus
Speaker 2: a thumb. The nails looked more like claws, dark and thick.
Speaker 2: It handled the garbage can with surprising gentleness, this time
Speaker 2: tipping it over rather than shaking it. As it sorted
Speaker 2: through the contents. I noticed it was being selective. It
Speaker 2: ignored most of the household trash and seemed to focus
Speaker 2: on food scraps. It ate directly from containers, tilting its
Speaker 2: head back to pour the contents into its mouth. The
Speaker 2: movement was efficient, but animalistic. Then something happened that nearly
Speaker 2: made me drop the camera. My porch light has a
Speaker 2: motion sensor, and something must have triggered it, because it
Speaker 2: suddenly flicked on, flooding the.
Speaker 3: Yard with bright light.
Speaker 2: The creature froze mid motion, a yogurt container halfway to
Speaker 2: its mouth for a split second, I got a perfect
Speaker 2: view of its face in full color. It wasn't human.
Speaker 2: The eyes were dark and deeply set, the nose was
Speaker 2: flat and wide, and the mouth was too large for
Speaker 2: the face. The skin that wasn't covered in hair was dark,
Speaker 2: almost black, and looked tough like leather. When it opened
Speaker 2: its mouth, I could see teeth that were too sharp
Speaker 2: and too numerous to be human. The porch light seemed
Speaker 2: to panic it. It dropped the yogurt container and took
Speaker 2: a step backward, looking around frantically. Then it did something
Speaker 2: I'll never forget.
Speaker 3: It looked directly at my bedroom window.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it actually saw me, but it
Speaker 2: stared at that window for at least ten seconds. Then
Speaker 2: it turned and walked quickly back toward the tree line,
Speaker 2: not running, but moving with obvious urgency. Within seconds, it
Speaker 2: had disappeared into the forest. I didn't sleep for the
Speaker 2: rest of that night. I kept thinking about the way
Speaker 2: it had looked at my window, wondering if it knew
Speaker 2: I was there. The rational part of my brain kept
Speaker 2: trying to find explanations. A person in a suit, some
Speaker 2: kind of trained bear, maybe even a hoax involving animatronics.
Speaker 2: But none of those explanations felt right when I watched
Speaker 2: the videos again. The creature moved too naturally, too fluidly.
Speaker 2: The proportions were all wrong for a person in a costume,
Speaker 2: and the weight and strength that displayed handling those garbage
Speaker 2: cans was beyond what any human could fake. And the eyes,
Speaker 2: there was something in those eyes that no costume could replicate.
Speaker 2: I decided to do some research. I spent hours online
Speaker 2: reading about bigfoot sightings in Washington State, and I was
Speaker 2: surprised to find how many reports there were from my
Speaker 2: general area. Most of them sounded like nonsense, people claiming
Speaker 2: they'd had conversations with the creatures or seen families of
Speaker 2: them living in caves. But a few reports were similar
Speaker 2: to what I'd experienced. Large bipedal creatures caught on trail
Speaker 2: cameras or security footage, usually rummaging through garbage or investigating
Speaker 2: camp sites. One report from a guy about fifty miles
Speaker 2: north of me caught my attention. He'd had a similar
Speaker 2: experience with something getting into his trash, and he'd also
Speaker 2: captured it on a trail camera. The description matched what
Speaker 2: I'd seen almost perfectly, down to the way the creature
Speaker 2: had examined items before for eating or discarding them. I
Speaker 2: reached out to him through the forum where he'd posted
Speaker 2: his story. Turns out he was a retired forest ranger
Speaker 2: named Bill, and he'd been dealing with the same thing
Speaker 2: for months. We talked on the phone for over an hour,
Speaker 2: comparing our experiences. He'd never posted his video online because
Speaker 2: he was afraid people would think he was crazy, but
Speaker 2: he described it in detail and it matched my footage exactly.
Speaker 2: Bill told me something that made my skin crawl. He
Speaker 2: said that after his first few encounters, the creature had
Speaker 2: started showing up even when there was no garbage outside.
Speaker 2: He'd catch it on camera just standing in his yard,
Speaker 2: sometimes for twenty or thirty minutes at a time, like
Speaker 2: it was watching his house. Bill's words stuck with me.
Speaker 2: The creature was learning. Each time it came back. It
Speaker 2: was a little more confident, a little more bold. He
Speaker 2: thought it was trying to figure us out. That conversation
Speaker 2: changed everything for me. I realized this wasn't just some
Speaker 2: random animal looking for food. Intelligence behind its behavior, and
Speaker 2: that made it infinitely more frightening. I reinforced my doors
Speaker 2: and windows and started keeping a loaded shotgun next to
Speaker 2: my bed. I also set up two more trail cameras,
Speaker 2: covering different angles of my property. If this thing was
Speaker 2: learning about me, I wanted to learn about it too.
Speaker 2: For a week, nothing happened. The garbage can sat undisturbed,
Speaker 2: and the cameras recorded nothing but the usual forest animals.
Speaker 2: I started to hope that maybe it had moved on,
Speaker 2: found a different food source somewhere else. Then Bill called me.
Speaker 2: His voice was shaky when he told me what had happened.
Speaker 2: The situation had escalated the night before. The creature hadn't
Speaker 2: just gone through his garbage It had tried to get
Speaker 2: into his house. He described waking up to the sound
Speaker 2: of something testing his back door, turning the handle and
Speaker 2: pushing against the frame. When he looked out the window,
Speaker 2: he saw the creature standing on his back deck, peering
Speaker 2: through the glass. It had stayed there for several minutes
Speaker 2: before walking away. Bill was convinced the creature knew they
Speaker 2: were watching, and he thought it was curious about them.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: That night, I barely slept. Every sound outside had me
Speaker 2: reaching for the shotgun. Every creak of the house settling
Speaker 2: made my heart race. I checked the trail cameras obsessively,
Speaker 2: but they showed nothing unusual. Around three am, I heard
Speaker 2: a strange sound. It was a low, rumbling vocalization coming
Speaker 2: from somewhere in the woods behind my house. Not quite
Speaker 2: a growl, not quite a moan, but something in between.
Speaker 2: It lasted maybe ten seconds.
Speaker 3: Then stopped.
Speaker 2: I waited by the window for another hour, but I
Speaker 2: didn't hear it again. In the morning, I checked all
Speaker 2: the cameras, but none of them had picked up anything.
Speaker 2: Whatever had made that sound had stayed just outside their range.
Speaker 2: The next few nights were quiet, but I could feel
Speaker 2: something building. It was like the calm before a storm.
Speaker 2: I started having trouble concentrating at work, and I caught
Speaker 2: myself con instantly checking over my shoulder when I was outside. Then,
Speaker 2: exactly one week after Bill's call, it happened. And stay
Speaker 2: tuned for more sasquatch out to see We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: After these messages, I woke up at two fifteen AM
Speaker 2: to the sound of something moving around outside my house,
Speaker 2: not in the woods, this time right outside my bedroom window.
Speaker 2: I grabbed the shotgun and carefully peered through the curtains.
Speaker 2: It was there, standing maybe fifteen feet from the house.
Speaker 2: Just watching in the moonlight, I could make out its
Speaker 2: massive silhouette against the lighter background of my yard. It
Speaker 2: wasn't moving, wasn't doing anything threatening, just standing.
Speaker 3: There like a statue.
Speaker 2: I watched it for what felt like hours but was
Speaker 2: probably only ten or fifteen minutes. Then, without any warning,
Speaker 2: it turned and walked directly toward my house. My heart
Speaker 2: started pounding as it approached the window where I was standing.
Speaker 2: It stopped just a few feet away, close enough that
Speaker 2: I could have reached out and touched the glass between us.
Speaker 2: This close, I could see details that the cameras had missed,
Speaker 2: the texture of its hair, the way its chest rose
Speaker 2: and fell with each breath, the condensation forming on the
Speaker 2: window from its breathing. It raised one hand and placed
Speaker 2: it flat against the glass. The hand was enormous, easily
Speaker 2: twice the size of mine, With those long, claw tipped
Speaker 2: fingers I'd seen in the videos, it pressed gently, not
Speaker 2: hard enough to break the glass, but firmly enough that
Speaker 2: I could see the skin of its palm deforming against
Speaker 2: the surface. We stayed like that for maybe thirty seconds,
Speaker 2: just staring at each other through the window. Its eyes
Speaker 2: were darker than anything i'd ever seen, like looking into
Speaker 2: deep water at night. But there was definitely intelligence there,
Speaker 2: a kind of awareness that you don't see in other animals.
Speaker 2: Then it did something that nearly made me pull the trigger.
Speaker 2: It knocked on the window, three slow, deliberate taps with
Speaker 2: one knuckle knock, knock, knock. I stumbled backward, the shotgun
Speaker 2: shaking in my hands. When I looked back at the window,
Speaker 2: it was gone. I ran to the front of the
Speaker 2: house and checked every window, but I couldn't see it anywhere.
Speaker 2: It had simply vanished. I didn't sleep for the rest
Speaker 2: of the night. I sat in my living room with
Speaker 2: the shotgun across my lap, jumping at every sound. When
Speaker 2: dawn finally came, I went outside to look for evidence
Speaker 2: of what had happened. There, pressed into the soft dirt
Speaker 2: beneath my bedroom window was a single footprint. It was massive,
Speaker 2: at least eighteen inches long and seven inches wide, with
Speaker 2: clear impressions of four toes and what looked like claw marks.
Speaker 2: The depth of the print suggested something incredibly heavy had
Speaker 2: made it. But what really shook me was the handprint
Speaker 2: on my window. It was still there in the morning light,
Speaker 2: a clear outline in the condensation and dirt on the glass.
Speaker 2: I took pictures of everything before the evidence could disappear.
Speaker 2: That was three months ago. I haven't seen it since,
Speaker 2: but I know it's still out there. Sometimes I hear
Speaker 2: that low vocalization in the distance, and twice I found
Speaker 2: fresh footprints at the edge of my property. The trail
Speaker 2: cameras occasionally pick up movement in the trees, but never
Speaker 2: clearly enough to make out what's causing it. I've thought
Speaker 2: about moving, but part of me wonders if that would
Speaker 2: just make things worse.
Speaker 3: What if it followed me. What if leaving my.
Speaker 2: Territory encouraged it to be more aggressive. Bill moved to
Speaker 2: Arizona two weeks after his encounter. He said he couldn't
Speaker 2: take the stress of wondering when it would come back.
Speaker 2: I understand that feeling, but I'm not ready to give
Speaker 2: up my home yet. I still have the videos, and
Speaker 2: I've shared them with a few researchers who study this
Speaker 2: kind of thing. Most of them believe the footage is genuine,
Speaker 2: but none of them can explain what the creature is
Speaker 2: or what it wants. All I know is that somewhere
Speaker 2: in the woods behind my house, something is watching and
Speaker 2: waiting that knocked on my window and wanted me to
Speaker 2: know it was there. And sometimes late at night, when
Speaker 2: I'm lying in bed, I wonder if it's still learning
Speaker 2: about me and what it plans to do with that knowledge.
Speaker 2: The first account you just heard represents something many people
Speaker 2: can relate to a simple problem that spirals into something unimaginable.
Speaker 2: A man's home, his sanctuary, suddenly invaded by the impossible.
Speaker 2: But what happens when the encounter isn't in your backyard,
Speaker 2: but in the deep wilderness where humans are just visitors.
Speaker 2: Our next storyteller learned that lesson the hard way, he
Speaker 2: discovered that there are places in the mountains where we're
Speaker 2: not welcome, where something older than civilization has prior claim.
Speaker 2: This is the story of two men who ventured into
Speaker 2: territory that wasn't theirs and paid the price for their intrusion.
Speaker 2: My dad always said the mountains would teach you respect
Speaker 2: if you were smart enough to listen. He'd been logging
Speaker 2: these hills for thirty years before I was even born,
Speaker 2: and he knew every trail, every creek, every stand of
Speaker 2: timber from here to the Canadian border. When he passed
Speaker 2: away five years ago, I inherited his small logging operation
Speaker 2: and about ten thousand acres of timber rights spread across
Speaker 2: three different mountains. I thought I knew these woods too.
Speaker 2: Turns out I was wrong. It started with the dogs.
Speaker 2: I run a small crew, just me, my partner Jake,
Speaker 2: and usually one other guy depending on the job. We
Speaker 2: were working a section about twelve miles up for at
Speaker 2: Service Road forty one. Cutting beetle killed pine that needed
Speaker 2: to come out before it became a fire hazard. Nothing
Speaker 2: unusual about the job except my dog Blue had been
Speaker 2: acting strange all week. Blues a German Shepherd mix, Smart
Speaker 2: as hell and usually fearless. He rides with me in
Speaker 2: the truck every day and loves exploring the woods while
Speaker 2: we work. But that week he wouldn't leave the cab
Speaker 2: every morning when we arrived at the job site. He'd
Speaker 2: whine and pace inside the truck, refusing to come out
Speaker 2: even when I call. It wasn't like him at all.
Speaker 2: Jake noticed it too. He said that dog was spooked
Speaker 2: by something and he'd never seen him act like that.
Speaker 2: I figured maybe he'd had to run in with a
Speaker 2: porcupine or gotten into some poison. Oak dogs can be
Speaker 2: weird about stuff like that, but looking back, I think
Speaker 2: Blue knew what was out there before any of us did.
Speaker 2: The first real sign something was wrong came on Friday.
Speaker 2: We were working about a quarter mile up a skid trail,
Speaker 2: using the chainsaw to buck up a big pine we'd
Speaker 2: dropped the day before. The sound of the saw echoes
Speaker 2: in those hills, so we usually can't hear much else
Speaker 2: while we're working. But during one of the breaks, when
Speaker 2: I shut the saw off, Jake grabbed my arm. He
Speaker 2: asked if I could hear something moving through the brush.
Speaker 2: He'd been hearing it for the last ten minutes, he said,
Speaker 2: but every time I shut the saw off, it stopped.
Speaker 2: We stood there listening for a couple minutes, but whatever
Speaker 2: Jake had heard was gone. Still, it put both of
Speaker 2: us on edge for the rest.
Speaker 3: Of the day.
Speaker 2: When you're working alone in the woods with dangerous equipment,
Speaker 2: your survival instincts tend to be pretty sharp. If something
Speaker 2: felt wrong, it usually was That weekend. I couldn't stop
Speaker 2: thinking about Jake's words. Something big moving through the brush
Speaker 2: could have been an elk, I guess, or maybe a
Speaker 2: black bear, but elk usually make more noise crashing through
Speaker 2: the undergrowth without much care and bears well. They tend
Speaker 2: to avoid the sound of chainsaws and diesel engines. Monday morning,
Speaker 2: Blue refused to get in the truck. I had to
Speaker 2: physically lift him into the cab, and he spent the
Speaker 2: entire drive up the mountain shaking and whimpering. When we
Speaker 2: got to the job site, he pressed himself into the
Speaker 2: corner of the truck bed and wouldn't budge. Jake suggested
Speaker 2: maybe I should leave him at home. Whatever had him
Speaker 2: spooked wasn't getting any better. But I'd been bringing.
Speaker 3: Blue to work for six years.
Speaker 2: He was part of the routine, and I figured he'd
Speaker 2: get over whatever was bothering him another mistake. We spent
Speaker 2: Monday and Tuesday finishing up the pine we'd been working
Speaker 2: on and started scouting the next section we needed to clear.
Speaker 2: It was higher up the mountain, maybe another mile up
Speaker 2: the logging road, in a stand of old growth fur
Speaker 2: that had been marked for selective harvest. The trees up
Speaker 2: there were huge, some of them probably two hundred years old,
Speaker 2: with trunks four feet across, beautiful timber.
Speaker 3: But it would be tricky work.
Speaker 2: The slope was steep and we'd need to be careful
Speaker 2: about where the trees fell to avoid damaging the ones
Speaker 2: we were leaving.
Speaker 3: Standing.
Speaker 2: Wednesday morning, we drove up to the new site to
Speaker 2: start laying out our cutting plan. Blue was still acting strange,
Speaker 2: but he seemed a little better. He actually got out
Speaker 2: of the truck on his own, though he stayed close
Speaker 2: to my legs instead of running off to explore like usual.
Speaker 2: We were about halfway through marking the trees we wanted
Speaker 2: to cut when Jake called out from about fifty yards
Speaker 2: uphill from me. He wanted me to come look at something.
Speaker 2: I walked up to where he was standing next to
Speaker 2: a big fur and he pointed to something carved into
Speaker 2: the bark about seven feet off the ground. At first
Speaker 2: I thought it was just natural scarring. Bears will sometimes
Speaker 2: claw trees to mark territory, but when I got closer,
Speaker 2: I could see it was definitely deliberate. Four parallel grooves
Speaker 2: had been carved deep into the bark, each one about
Speaker 2: eighteen inches long and maybe half an inch wide. They
Speaker 2: were fresh, too, sap was still seeping from the cuts,
Speaker 2: and the exposed wood hadn't had time to darken. Jake
Speaker 2: asked if it could be a bear, but he didn't
Speaker 2: sound convinced. I've seen plenty of bear sign over the years,
Speaker 2: and this wasn't quite right. The cuts were too uniform,
Speaker 2: too deliberately placed, and they were higher than most bears
Speaker 2: could reach, even standing on their hind legs. I agreed
Speaker 2: it might be a bear, but I was already feeling
Speaker 2: that prickle of unease that meant my instincts were trying
Speaker 2: to tell me something. I suggested we keep an eye out.
Speaker 2: We spent the rest of the morning marking trees, but
Speaker 2: I noticed both of us were quieter than usual, listening
Speaker 2: more carefully to the sounds around us. Blue stayed glued
Speaker 2: to my side, occasionally letting out a low wine when
Speaker 2: we moved deeper into the timber. Around noon, we broke
Speaker 2: for lunch and walked back toward the truck. The logging
Speaker 2: road curved through the trees, and as we came around
Speaker 2: a bend, I saw something that made me stop dead
Speaker 2: in my tracks. There were footprints in the dirt road,
Speaker 2: big ones. They started at the edge of the pavement
Speaker 2: where the forest service road ended, and continued up the
Speaker 2: dirt logging road for maybe thirty feet before disappearing into
Speaker 2: the trees. On the uphill side. Each print was huge,
Speaker 2: easily twice the size of my boot, with clear impressions
Speaker 2: of five toes. Jake saw them at the same time
Speaker 2: I did. He asked what the hell they were. I
Speaker 2: knelt down next to the clearest print and put my
Speaker 2: hand next to it for scale. My hand, spread wide,
Speaker 2: barely covered half the width of the print. The toes
Speaker 2: were long and appeared to have some kind of claw
Speaker 2: marks at the tips, though not as pronounced as you'd
Speaker 2: see from a bear. Jake asked how fresh I thought
Speaker 2: they were. The dirt was still moist from a light
Speaker 2: rain we'd had two nights earlier, and the edges of
Speaker 2: the princes were sharp and well defined. I figured they
Speaker 2: were pretty fresh, maybe from last night or this morning.
Speaker 3: We followed the prints.
Speaker 2: To where they left the road, but the forest floor
Speaker 2: was too thick with pine needles and undergrowth to track
Speaker 2: them any further. Whatever had made them had been heading uphill,
Speaker 2: deeper into the timber we were supposed to be working.
Speaker 2: Jake said he thought we should call it a day,
Speaker 2: and I didn't argue with him. We packed up our
Speaker 2: gear and headed back down the mountain, but I couldn't
Speaker 2: stop thinking about those footprints. When I got home, I
Speaker 2: spent the evening on the Internet trying to find some
Speaker 2: explanation for what we'd seen. Most of what I found
Speaker 2: was obviously fake, blurry photos and wild stories that were
Speaker 2: clearly made up. But there were a few reports from
Speaker 2: other loggers and forest workers in the Pacific Northwest that
Speaker 2: sounded more credible, descriptions of large footprint, strange sounds in
Speaker 2: the woods, and the feeling of being watched while working
Speaker 2: in remote areas. One report really caught my attention. It
Speaker 2: was from a logger up in British Columbia who described
Speaker 2: finding similar claw marks on trees and tracks that matched
Speaker 2: what Jake and I had seen. He'd also mentioned that
Speaker 2: wildlife in the area had started acting strangely, avoiding areas
Speaker 2: where they'd previously been common. That made me think about
Speaker 2: Blues behavior and about how quiet the woods had been lately.
Speaker 2: Usually we'd see deer sign, maybe catch a glimpse of elk,
Speaker 2: or hear chipmunks chattering in the trees, but for the
Speaker 2: past week the forest had felt empty, like everything had
Speaker 2: moved on to somewhere else. Thursday morning, I almost decided
Speaker 2: to work a different section, but we had a deadline
Speaker 2: on this job, and the timber we'd marked was perfect
Speaker 2: for what our buyer needed. Jake and I talked it
Speaker 2: over and decided to be extra careful but keep working.
Speaker 2: We brought a radio in case we needed to call
Speaker 2: for help, and I convinced Jake to bring his thirty
Speaker 2: eight to six rifle just in case. Blue still didn't
Speaker 2: want to get in the truck, so this time I
Speaker 2: left him at home. The drive up the mountain was quiet.
Speaker 2: Both of us were tense, jumping at every shadow, listening
Speaker 2: for sounds that didn't belong. When we got to the
Speaker 2: job site, the first thing I did was check the
Speaker 2: road for new tracks. There weren't any. The dirt showed
Speaker 2: tire marks from vehicles that had passed since the rain,
Speaker 2: but no more of the big footprints. I started to
Speaker 2: relax a little, thinking maybe whatever had made them had
Speaker 2: moved on. We unloaded our gear and hiked up to
Speaker 2: where we'd been working. The claw marks on the tree
Speaker 2: were still there and the sap had hardened into dark
Speaker 2: amber drops, but everything else looked normal, so we fired
Speaker 2: up the chainsaw and got to work. The first tree
Speaker 2: we cut was a big fur near the bottom of
Speaker 2: the slope. It fell clean, crashing down through the smaller
Speaker 2: trees with a sound like thunder. As the echoes faded,
Speaker 2: I heard something off in the distance. From somewhere up
Speaker 2: the mountain, maybe a quarter mile away, came an answering sound,
Speaker 2: a deep, booming call that didn't match anything I'd ever
Speaker 2: heard in these woods. It lasted maybe five seconds, then
Speaker 2: cut off abruptly. Jake asked if it was an elk,
Speaker 2: but his voice was shaking. I'd heard elk bugle hundreds
Speaker 2: of times. This wasn't an elk. It was deeper, more resonant,
Speaker 2: and there was something almost intelligent about the rhythm of it,
Speaker 2: like it was responding to the sound of the falling tree.
Speaker 2: I told Jake we should keep working, but I made
Speaker 2: sure the rifle was within easy reach. For the next hour,
Speaker 2: everything seemed normal. We bucked up the fallen tree and
Speaker 2: started working on the next one Jake had marked. The
Speaker 2: chainsaw was loud enough to mask most other sounds, but
Speaker 2: every time I shut it off, both of us would
Speaker 2: stand perfectly still and listen. It was during one of
Speaker 2: these quiet periods that we heard it again, closer, this time,
Speaker 2: maybe only one hundred yards uphill from where we were working.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned for more sasquatch out to see We'll be
Speaker 2: right back.
Speaker 3: After these messages.
Speaker 2: The same deep booming call, but followed by something that
Speaker 2: sounded almost like wood knocking against wood. Jake whispered that
Speaker 2: it wasn't an animal. I had to agree with him.
Speaker 2: The knocking sound was too rhythmic, too deliberate. Three sharp raps,
Speaker 2: a pause, then three more, like someone was trying to communicate.
Speaker 3: We decided to pack up for the day.
Speaker 2: Whatever was making those sounds was getting closer, and I
Speaker 2: didn't want to find out what it was while we
Speaker 2: were alone in the woods. We loaded everything into the
Speaker 2: truck as quickly as possible and headed back down the mountain.
Speaker 2: That night, I called my dad's old logging partner, Ray,
Speaker 2: who'd been working these mountains for forty years. If anyone
Speaker 2: would know what we were dealing with, it would be him.
Speaker 2: Ray said it sounded like we boys had stirred up
Speaker 2: something that didn't want to be bothered. He'd heard stories
Speaker 2: like ours before, usually from guys working the really remote sections.
Speaker 2: Most of them ended up finding a different place to work.
Speaker 2: I asked what kind of stories. Ray was quiet for
Speaker 2: a long moment, then he told me about things in
Speaker 2: the woods that weren't supposed to be there, big things,
Speaker 2: smart things, things that didn't like machinery and noise, and
Speaker 2: people cutting down their trees. He told me about a
Speaker 2: crew that had been working up near Mount Baker in
Speaker 2: the early nineties. They'd reported similar experiences, strange sounds, unusual tracks,
Speaker 2: the feeling of being watched. The job foremen had pushed
Speaker 2: them to keep working despite their concerns. Ray explained that
Speaker 2: one morning they found their equipment vandalized, chains cut on
Speaker 2: the chainsaws, tires slashed on the skidders, diesel fuel drained
Speaker 2: from the tanks. But the weird part was that nothing
Speaker 2: was thrown around or smashed up like you'd expect from vandals.
Speaker 2: Everything was just disabled, like something wanted to stop them
Speaker 2: from working but didn't want to destroy the equipment. I
Speaker 2: asked if they ever figured out who did it. Ray
Speaker 2: said they never did, but they found tracks around the
Speaker 2: job site, big ones, and the guys swore they could
Speaker 2: feel something watching them from the tree line while they
Speaker 2: were cleaning up the mess. Ray's story didn't make me
Speaker 2: feel any better about going back to work the next day,
Speaker 2: but we had contracts to fulfill and bills to pay.
Speaker 2: I decided we'd finish the job as quickly as possible
Speaker 2: and then find somewhere.
Speaker 3: Else to work for the rest of the season.
Speaker 2: Friday morning, Jake met me at my house instead of
Speaker 2: the job site. He looked like he hadn't slept much.
Speaker 2: He said he'd been thinking about this all night. Maybe
Speaker 2: we should just walk away from this job. It wasn't
Speaker 2: worth getting hurt over. Part of me agreed with him,
Speaker 2: but the stubborn part of me, the part that had
Speaker 2: inherited my dad's pride in finishing what we started, wasn't
Speaker 2: ready to give up yet. I suggested one more day,
Speaker 2: we'd cut what we could and then move on to
Speaker 2: something else. Jake reluctantly agreed, and we drove up the
Speaker 2: mountain for what we both suspect it might be the
Speaker 2: last time. The logging road seemed different, somehow, more oppressive,
Speaker 2: like the trees were closing in around us. Even with
Speaker 2: the windows down and the radio plane, the truck felt claustrophobic.
Speaker 2: When we got to the job site, the first thing
Speaker 2: I noticed was the smell. It was musky and wild,
Speaker 2: like wet fur and something else I couldn't identify. The
Speaker 2: odor was strongest near the tree line where the tracks
Speaker 2: had disappeared earlier in the week.
Speaker 3: Jake asked if I could smell it too. I nodded.
Speaker 2: Whatever had been watching us was close, maybe close enough
Speaker 2: to see us right now. We unloaded our equipment quickly
Speaker 2: and started working on the trees we'd marked near the road.
Speaker 2: The plan was to stay as close to the truck
Speaker 2: as possible and cut only what we could reach without
Speaker 2: going deeper into the timber. The first tree fell without incident,
Speaker 2: and we were bucking it up when I heard Jake
Speaker 2: shout behind me. I shut off the chainsaw and turned
Speaker 2: around to see him pointing up the slope. About seventy
Speaker 2: yards of way at the edge of the timber, something
Speaker 2: was standing between two large fir trees. At first I
Speaker 2: thought it was just shadows in my imagination, but as
Speaker 2: I stared, I could make out a definite shape. It
Speaker 2: was tall, maybe eight feet, and broad across the shoulders.
Speaker 2: Dark fur or hair covered most of its body, and
Speaker 2: it stood upright on two legs like a person. The
Speaker 2: arms were too long, the torso too wide, the head
Speaker 2: too large for the neck. Jake whispered that he didn't
Speaker 2: know what that thing was. As if it had heard him,
Speaker 2: the creature stepped forward, slightly, moving from shadow into a
Speaker 2: patch of dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy. For just
Speaker 2: a moment, I got a clear look at its face.
Speaker 2: It wasn't human. Then, without any warning, the creature raised
Speaker 2: one arm and brought it down hard against the trunk
Speaker 2: of the tree it was standing next to. The sound
Speaker 2: echoed through the forest like a gunshot. Three sharp cracks
Speaker 2: as it struck the tree, then silence. Ja said we
Speaker 2: needed to go right now. I wanted to argue, to
Speaker 2: stand our ground and prove we weren't afraid, but the
Speaker 2: rational part of my brain was screaming that this was
Speaker 2: not a fight we could win. Whatever that thing was,
Speaker 2: it was bigger and stronger than both of us combined.
Speaker 2: We started loading our equipment into the truck, moving as
Speaker 2: quickly as possible while trying not to make any sudden movements.
Speaker 2: The creature watched us the whole time, occasionally shifting its
Speaker 2: weight from one foot to the other, but never coming
Speaker 2: any closer. When we were almost finished packing up, it
Speaker 2: did something that nearly made me drop the chainsaw I
Speaker 2: was carrying. It cupped its hands around its mouth and
Speaker 2: let out a long, loud call that seemed to shake
Speaker 2: the trees around us. The sound was answered immediately by
Speaker 2: two similar calls from different directions, one from higher up
Speaker 2: the mountain, one from down toward the road we'd driven
Speaker 2: in on. We weren't dealing with just one of these things.
Speaker 2: There were at least three of them, and they were
Speaker 2: coordinating with each other. Jake shouted for us to go,
Speaker 2: jumping into the passenger seat, I threw the last of
Speaker 2: our gear into the truck bed and slammed it into drive.
Speaker 2: As we pulled away, I caught a glimpse of the
Speaker 2: creature in my side mirror. It was following us down
Speaker 2: the slope, not running, but walking, with long, purposeful strides
Speaker 2: that covered ground faster than seemed possible. We hit the
Speaker 2: paved road doing about fifty miles an hour and didn't
Speaker 2: slow down until we reached town. Neither of us said
Speaker 2: much during the drive, but I could see Jake's hand
Speaker 2: shaking as he lit a cigarette That was six months ago.
Speaker 2: We never went back to finish that job, and I
Speaker 2: ended up paying a penalty to the timber company for
Speaker 2: breaking our contract.
Speaker 3: It was worth it. I've done some.
Speaker 2: Research since then, talk to other loggers and forest workers
Speaker 2: who've had similar experiences. Turns out we're not alone. There
Speaker 2: are things in these mountains that most people don't know about,
Speaker 2: things that have been here long before we started cutting
Speaker 2: roads and harvesting timber. I still work in the woods,
Speaker 2: but I stay closer to town now, in areas that
Speaker 2: see more traffic and human activity. Jake took a job
Speaker 2: with a construction company and won't even go camping anymore.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we'd tried
Speaker 2: to tough it out, if we'd gone back the next
Speaker 2: day and attempted to finish the job. Part of me
Speaker 2: thinks they would have escalated things, maybe damaged our equipment
Speaker 2: like Ray's story, or worse. But another part of me
Speaker 2: wonders if they were just trying to communicate, to let
Speaker 2: us know that section of forest was important to them somehow.
Speaker 2: The way that first one had watched us, the intelligence
Speaker 2: in its eyes, it didn't seem mindlessly aggressive. It seemed
Speaker 2: like it was trying to tell us something. Either way,
Speaker 2: I got the message. There are places in these mountains
Speaker 2: where humans aren't welcome, places where older things than us
Speaker 2: have prior claim. My dad always said the mountains would
Speaker 2: teach you respect if you were smart enough to listen.
Speaker 2: I'm listening now. Fear and territorialism. That's what defined our
Speaker 2: laws encounter, A clear message delivered through intimidation and overwhelming presence.
Speaker 2: But what if the message was different? What if instead
Speaker 2: of driving humans away, these creatures were trying to understand us.
Speaker 2: Our final account comes from a man whose job required
Speaker 2: him to be alone in the wilderness, night after night.
Speaker 2: Unlike our previous storytellers, he didn't stumble into an encounter.
Speaker 2: The encounters came to him, and what developed over months
Speaker 2: of careful observation was something unprecedented, a relationship. This is
Speaker 2: a story about communication, trust, and the possibility that were
Speaker 2: not the only intelligent species on this planet. Working security
Speaker 2: at a remote research station wasn't supposed to be exciting.
Speaker 2: That was actually the whole point I needed boring. After
Speaker 2: eight years as a sheriff's deputy and three tours overseas,
Speaker 2: I was done with adrenaline and danger and all the
Speaker 2: complications that came with them. When the job posting for
Speaker 2: a night security guard at the Cascade Environmental Research Center
Speaker 2: crossed my desk, it seemed perfect, quiet location, minimal human contact,
Speaker 2: decent pay, and all I had to do was walk
Speaker 2: around a bunch of empty buildings once an hour and
Speaker 2: make sure nobody was stealing scientific equipment. The research center
Speaker 2: sits about forty miles northeast of Seattle, tucked into a
Speaker 2: valley between two ridge lines of old growth forest. During
Speaker 2: the day, it's home to maybe twenty scientists and graduate
Speaker 2: students studying everything from salmon migration to climate change impacts
Speaker 2: on forest ecosystems. At night, it's just me, a few
Speaker 2: automated monitoring systems, and about six thousand acres of wilderness.
Speaker 2: I'd been working there for three months without incident when
Speaker 2: things started getting weird. My shift ran from ten pm
Speaker 2: to six am, and most nights i'd see the same things.
Speaker 2: Deer grazing on the grass around the main building, the
Speaker 2: occasional raccoon getting into the dumpsters, maybe a coyote trotting
Speaker 2: across the parking lot, normal wildlife stuff that you'd expect
Speaker 2: in a place like that. The first sign something was
Speaker 2: different came on a Tuesday night in late September. I
Speaker 2: was doing my two am rounds, walking the perimeter of
Speaker 2: the compound with my flashlight when I heard something in
Speaker 2: the woods that I didn't recognize. It started as a low,
Speaker 2: humming sound, almost like singing, but not quite musical. It
Speaker 2: seemed to be coming from the forest on the north
Speaker 2: side of the facility, maybe a couple hundred yards into
Speaker 2: the trees. The sound would rise and fall, sometimes stopping
Speaker 2: completely for thirty seconds or more before starting up again.
Speaker 2: I'd heard plenty of animal sounds during my time, there owls, coyotes, elk,
Speaker 2: even the occasional cougar scream that could make your hair
Speaker 2: stand on end.
Speaker 3: But this was different.
Speaker 2: It had a rhythm to it, almost like it was intentional,
Speaker 2: like something was trying to communicate. I stood at the
Speaker 2: edge of the parking lot listening for maybe ten minutes.
Speaker 2: The humming continued the whole time, never getting closer, but
Speaker 2: never moving away either. Eventually, I finished my rounds and
Speaker 2: went back to the security office, but I kept the
Speaker 2: windows open so I could hear if it started up again.
Speaker 2: It didn't, but I had trouble concentrating on my book
Speaker 2: for the rest of the shift. Something about that sound
Speaker 2: had put me on edge in a way I couldn't
Speaker 2: quite explain it. Reminded me of something, but I couldn't
Speaker 2: figure out what. The next night was quiet, and I
Speaker 2: started to think maybe I'd just heard wind in the
Speaker 2: trees or some piece of equipment I wasn't familiar with.
Speaker 2: But Thursday night it happened again, same time, around two
Speaker 2: a m. Same location in the forest to the north,
Speaker 2: the humming sound rising and falling with that strange rhythm.
Speaker 2: This time I decided to investigate. I grabbed a powerful
Speaker 2: led flashlight from the security office and walked toward the
Speaker 2: tree line. The humming stopped as soon as I left
Speaker 2: the parking lot, like whatever was making it had seen
Speaker 2: me coming. I spent twenty minutes walking along the edge
Speaker 2: of the forest, shining my light into the trees and
Speaker 2: listening for any sound. Nothing whatever had been out there
Speaker 2: was gone, or at least it wasn't making noise anymore.
Speaker 2: But as I was walking back toward the buildings, I
Speaker 2: found something that made me stop. There were footprints in
Speaker 2: the dirt near the maintenance shed, and they definitely weren't human.
Speaker 2: Each print was huge, at least sixteen inches long and
Speaker 2: maybe six inches wide. They had five distinct toe marks.
Speaker 2: I followed the tracks for about fifty feet before they
Speaker 2: disappeared onto the gravel of the parking lot. They seemed
Speaker 2: to be heading from the forest toward the main research building,
Speaker 2: then back toward the trees on the opposite side of
Speaker 2: the compound. In the morning, I mentioned the tracks to
Speaker 2: doctor Sarah when she arrived for work. She came out
Speaker 2: to look at them with me, and I could see
Speaker 2: the concern on her face as she examined the prints.
Speaker 2: She said it could be a bear, though she'd never
Speaker 2: seen bear tracks quite like these, and they were much
Speaker 2: larger than what they tip a saw in this area.
Speaker 2: Doctor Sarah had been working at the research center for
Speaker 2: eight years and knew the local wildlife better than almost anyone.
Speaker 2: If she was puzzled by the tracks, they were definitely unusual.
Speaker 2: I asked if any of her researchers had reported anything
Speaker 2: strange lately, unusual animal behavior, sounds. They didn't recognize anything
Speaker 2: like that, She thought for a moment, actually, yes. A
Speaker 2: few of their graduate students had mentioned that the wildlife
Speaker 2: cameras they had set up for the mammal survey had
Speaker 2: been malfunctioning. They kept getting triggered in the middle of
Speaker 2: the night, but when they checked the images. There was
Speaker 2: nothing there, just empty forest that got my attention. I
Speaker 2: asked how long that had been happening. She said about
Speaker 2: two weeks. They'd assumed it was a technical problem with
Speaker 2: the equipment, but the cameras were all relatively new and
Speaker 2: had been working fine before. I asked her to show
Speaker 2: me where the malfunctioning cameras were located, and it turned
Speaker 2: out they were all positioned in the same general area
Speaker 2: where I'd been hearing the humming sounds. That couldn't be
Speaker 2: a coincidence. Doctor Sarah agreed to let me review the
Speaker 2: camera footage from the past two weeks. Most of it
Speaker 2: was exactly what she described. The cameras had been triggered
Speaker 2: by motion sensors, but the images showed nothing but trees
Speaker 2: and undergrowth. But there were a few frames that caught
Speaker 2: my attention. In three different images taken on different nights,
Speaker 2: there were areas of darkness between the trees that seemed
Speaker 2: too uniform, too solid to be natural shadows. They weren't
Speaker 2: clear enough to make out details, but something about their
Speaker 2: size and shape suggested they might be large animals moving
Speaker 2: just at the edge of the camera's range. I printed
Speaker 2: out the clearest images and studied them for hours. The
Speaker 2: more I looked, the more convinced I became that something
Speaker 2: large was moving through that section of forest carefully, staying
Speaker 2: just outside the range where the cameras could capture clear pictures.
Speaker 2: Friday night, I came to work prepared. I brought my
Speaker 2: personal digital camera with a telephoto lens, a pair of
Speaker 2: military grade night vision binoculars I'd kept from my army days,
Speaker 2: and a digital voice recorder. If something was going to happen,
Speaker 2: I wanted to document it properly and stay tuned for
Speaker 2: more sasquatch out to see.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: After these messages, the humming started right on schedule at
Speaker 2: two am. This time, instead of investigating immediately, I set
Speaker 2: up my equipment in the security office and observed from
Speaker 2: a distance. Through the night vision binoculars, I could see
Speaker 2: into the forest much more clearly than with just a flashlight.
Speaker 2: At first, I didn't see anything unusual, just trees and undergrowth,
Speaker 2: all rendered in the green and black palette of the
Speaker 2: night vision. But after about ten minutes of watching, I
Speaker 2: caught sight of movement about one hundred yards into the trees.
Speaker 2: Something large was moving between the trunks, staying in the shadows,
Speaker 2: but definitely there. I adjusted the focus on the binoculars
Speaker 2: and try to get a better look. What I saw
Speaker 2: made me drop the binoculars and reach for my side arm.
Speaker 2: It was walking upright on two legs, like a person,
Speaker 2: but it was massive, easily eight feet tall, with shoulders
Speaker 2: that had to be three feet across. Its entire body
Speaker 2: was covered in dark hair. The way it moved was
Speaker 2: amazing for something that large. I fumbled for my camera
Speaker 2: and managed to get the telephoto lens pointed in the
Speaker 2: right direction, but by the time I found the creature
Speaker 2: in the viewfinder, it had moved deeper into the forest
Speaker 2: and was mostly obscured by trees. I took several pictures anyway,
Speaker 2: hoping I might catch something useful. The humming had stopped
Speaker 2: as soon as I'd started moving around in the office,
Speaker 2: and within a few minutes I couldn't see the creature anymore.
Speaker 2: But I knew what I'd seen there was something living
Speaker 2: in those woods that shouldn't exist. I spent the rest
Speaker 2: of my shift reviewing the photos I'd taken, but they
Speaker 2: were all too dark and blurry to be useful as evidence.
Speaker 2: Shadows and tree branches that could be interpreted as almost
Speaker 2: any thing. Still, I knew what I'd observed through the
Speaker 2: night vision binoculars. Saturday and Sunday nights were quiet, no humming,
Speaker 2: no strange tracks, no mysterious camera malfunctions. I started to
Speaker 2: wonder if the creature had moved on, maybe found a
Speaker 2: different territory that didn't involve late night encounters with curious humans.
Speaker 2: But Monday night everything changed. I was doing my one
Speaker 2: am rounds when I noticed that the motion sensor lights
Speaker 2: around the research facility were acting strangely. They kept flickering
Speaker 2: on and off in sequence, as if something large was
Speaker 2: moving around the perimeter of the compound, but staying just
Speaker 2: outside the range where I could see it clearly. I
Speaker 2: went back to the security office and grabbed my night
Speaker 2: vision binoculars. From the office window, I had a good
Speaker 2: view of the entire compound, and I could see what
Speaker 2: was triggering the lights. There were three of them, three
Speaker 2: massive upright figures moving through the trees at the edge
Speaker 2: of the facility's grounds. They weren't approaching the buildings directly.
Speaker 2: They were definitely circling the compound, staying about fifty yards
Speaker 2: out in the forest. I watched them for nearly an hour.
Speaker 2: They moved with coordination and purpose, like they were conducting
Speaker 2: some kind of reconnaissance. Occasionally, one of them would stop
Speaker 2: and seem to study the buildings, turning its head to
Speaker 2: examine different structures before moving on. The largest of the
Speaker 2: three was enormous, probably close to nine feet tall. The
Speaker 2: other two were slightly smaller, but still massive compared to
Speaker 2: any human. All three were covered in dark hair and
Speaker 2: moved with that same fluid grace I'd seen in the
Speaker 2: single creature a few nights earlier. Around two thirty am,
Speaker 2: they stopped circling and gathered together at the edge of
Speaker 2: the parking lot. I could see them clearly through the binoculars,
Speaker 2: three huge upright figures, standing just at the border between
Speaker 2: the forest and the open ground around the research facility.
Speaker 2: They seemed to be communicating with each other, though I
Speaker 2: couldn't hear anything from inside the office.
Speaker 3: One of them, the largest.
Speaker 2: Kept gesturing toward the main research building with movements that
Speaker 2: looked almost human. Then they did something that I still
Speaker 2: have a hard time understanding. In unison, all three of
Speaker 2: them turned and looked directly at the security office. Even
Speaker 2: through the night vision binoculars, I could see their eyes
Speaker 2: reflecting the infrared illumination. They knew exactly where I was.
Speaker 2: For maybe thirty seconds, we stared at each other across
Speaker 2: the parking lot. I felt like prey being evaluated by predators,
Speaker 2: and every instinct I had was telling me to run,
Speaker 2: but I forced myself to stay calm and keep watching.
Speaker 2: Then the largest of the creatures cupped its hands around
Speaker 2: its mouth and let out a long, low call that
Speaker 2: I could hear clearly even through the closed windows. The
Speaker 2: sound was immediately answered by the other two creatures, and
Speaker 2: then by more voices from deeper in the forest. There
Speaker 2: weren't just three of them, there was an entire group
Speaker 2: out there, and they were communicating with each other. I
Speaker 2: reached for my radio to call for backup, then realized
Speaker 2: how crazy that would sound. What was I going to
Speaker 2: tell the Sheriff's department that I was being surrounded by
Speaker 2: a family of bigfoot. The creatures watched the security office
Speaker 2: for another few minutes, then melted back into the forest
Speaker 2: as silently as they'd appeared. Within seconds, they were gone,
Speaker 2: leaving only the normal sounds of the night forest. I
Speaker 2: didn't do any more rounds that shift. I stayed in
Speaker 2: the security office with the doors locked and my weapon ready,
Speaker 2: jumping at every sound until sunrisese. When Doctor Sarah arrived
Speaker 2: for work the next morning, I was still sitting at
Speaker 2: the desk, exhausted and shaken. I told her everything, the
Speaker 2: humming sounds, the footprints, what I'd seen through the night
Speaker 2: vision binoculars. I expected her to think I was crazy
Speaker 2: or having some kind of breakdown, but she listened to
Speaker 2: the whole story without interruption. When I finished, she was
Speaker 2: quiet for a long time. Then she said something that
Speaker 2: surprised me. She told me they'd been getting reports. I
Speaker 2: asked what kind of reports. She explained they'd been hearing
Speaker 2: from other research stations and field teams in the area
Speaker 2: unusual wildlife behavior, strange sounds, equipment malfunctions. Two of their researchers,
Speaker 2: working on a stream survey about ten miles north of
Speaker 2: the center, had reported feeling like they were being watched
Speaker 2: for their entire three day field work session. They said
Speaker 2: they kept finding large footprints around their campsites. Doctor Sarah
Speaker 2: pulled out a folder from her desk and showed me
Speaker 2: several photographs. They were footprint casts made by various researchers
Speaker 2: over the past month, all from different locations within about
Speaker 2: a twenty mile radius of the research center. Every cast
Speaker 2: showed the same basic features, large five toed prints and
Speaker 2: a depth that suggested extreme weight. She explained that they'd
Speaker 2: been trying to figure out what species could be responsible.
Speaker 2: Nothing in the known fauna of this region matched these characteristics.
Speaker 2: I looked through the photographs and reports. The evidence was overwhelming.
Speaker 2: Whatever I'd been encountering at the research facility wasn't an
Speaker 2: isolated incident. There was a population of these creatures living
Speaker 2: in the forest throughout the region. I asked what she
Speaker 2: wanted to do about it. She considered the question carefully.
Speaker 2: Nothing for now. If these creatures had been living in
Speaker 2: this area without causing problems, she didn't see any reason
Speaker 2: to disturb that balance. But she'd like me to continue
Speaker 2: documenting any encounters I had. Take photos, if I could
Speaker 2: record any vocalizations, note their behavior patterns. She paused, then
Speaker 2: added that I should be careful. If these were a
Speaker 2: previously unknown species of large primate, they could be potentially dangerous.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't take any unnecessary risks. That night, I came
Speaker 2: to work with better equipment. Doctor Sarah had loaned me
Speaker 2: a high resolution camera with infrared capability and a digital
Speaker 2: recorder sensitive enough to pick up sounds from several hundred
Speaker 2: yards away. If the creatures returned, I'd be ready. They
Speaker 2: didn't show up Monday or Tuesday night, but Wednesday, around
Speaker 2: two am, I heard the familiar humming sound from the forest.
Speaker 2: This time I was able to record it clearly and
Speaker 2: get several good photographs of shapes moving between the trees.
Speaker 2: The pattern continued for the next two weeks. The creatures
Speaker 2: would appear every few nights, always around the same time,
Speaker 2: always maintaining their distance from the buildings, but clearly observing
Speaker 2: the facility. I documented everything, their movements, their vocalizations, their
Speaker 2: apparent social structure. What struck me most was their intelligence.
Speaker 2: They weren't just random animals wandering.
Speaker 3: Through the area.
Speaker 2: They were deliberately studying the research facility, learning our routines,
Speaker 2: testing our responses. The way they communicated with each other
Speaker 2: and coordinated their movements suggested a level of cognitive ability
Speaker 2: that was remarkable. They also seemed to understand that I
Speaker 2: was documenting them. On several occasions, I caught them positioning
Speaker 2: themselves to avoid the infrared care or moving in ways
Speaker 2: that kept them in shadows where photography was difficult. They
Speaker 2: knew they were being observed, and they were actively avoiding
Speaker 2: creating clear evidence of their presence. After a month of
Speaker 2: regular encounters, something changed. I was doing my usual two
Speaker 2: am observation when I noticed that only one creature was
Speaker 2: present instead of the usual group of three. It was
Speaker 2: the large one, the apparent leader, and instead of staying
Speaker 2: at the edge of the forest, it walked directly toward
Speaker 2: the security office. I watched through the night vision binoculars
Speaker 2: as it approached to within about twenty feet of the building.
Speaker 2: It stopped there and stood perfectly still, looking directly at
Speaker 2: the office windows. Even though I knew it couldn't see
Speaker 2: me clearly through the one way glass, I felt like
Speaker 2: it was making eye contact with me. We stayed like
Speaker 2: that for nearly ten minutes. Then the creature did something extraordinary.
Speaker 2: It reached down and picked up a small branch from
Speaker 2: the ground.
Speaker 3: Very deliberately.
Speaker 2: It placed the branch on the concrete walkway in front
Speaker 2: of the security office, then stepped back and watched to
Speaker 2: see if I would respond. I had no idea what
Speaker 2: to do. This was clearly some kind of communication attempt,
Speaker 2: but I didn't know what it meant or how I
Speaker 2: should react. Eventually, I decided to acknowledge the gesture. I
Speaker 2: turned on the exterior lights briefly, then turned them off again.
Speaker 2: The creature seemed to understand that I was responding. It
Speaker 2: picked up another branch and placed it next to the
Speaker 2: first one, then looked at the office again. I flashed
Speaker 2: the lights twice. The creature placed a third branch, then
Speaker 2: a fourth, each time I responded with the lights. We
Speaker 2: continued this pattern until there were seven branches arranged in
Speaker 2: a neat line on the walkway. Then the creature stepped back,
Speaker 2: looked at the arrangement for a moment, and walked back
Speaker 2: toward the forest. Just before it disappeared into the trees,
Speaker 2: it turned and made a sound, not the usual humming,
Speaker 2: but a shorter, sharper call that sounded almost like a
Speaker 2: greeting or farewell. In the morning, I showed Doctor Sarah
Speaker 2: the arrangement of branches. She was fascinated by the encounter
Speaker 2: and agreed that it represented clear evidence of intelligence and
Speaker 2: attempted communication. She said it was trying to establish a.
Speaker 3: Dialogue with me.
Speaker 2: This was remarkable behavior for any non human species. That
Speaker 2: encounter changed my relationship with the creatures. They still appeared regularly,
Speaker 2: but there was less tension in our interactions. They seemed
Speaker 2: to understand that I wasn't a threat, and I began
Speaker 2: to feel less like I was being evaluated and more
Speaker 2: like I was being accepted. Over the following weeks, I
Speaker 2: had several more communication sessions with the large creature. It
Speaker 2: would approach the security office and we would go through
Speaker 2: variations of the branch and light routine. Sometimes it would
Speaker 2: arrange objects in different patterns. Sometimes it would make different sounds,
Speaker 2: always seeming to test whether I would respond appropriately. I
Speaker 2: started leaving small gifts, apples from my lunch, interesting rocks
Speaker 2: i'd found, sometimes just clean water in a bowl. The
Speaker 2: creature would examine these offerings carefully, sometimes taking them, sometimes
Speaker 2: leaving them untouched. There didn't seem to be any pattern
Speaker 2: to what it accepted, but it always acknowledged the gesture.
Speaker 2: I've been working at the research center for eight months now,
Speaker 2: and I still have regular encounters with the creatures. They've
Speaker 2: become a part of my routine, and I think I've
Speaker 2: become a part of theirs. We have an understanding, a
Speaker 2: relationship built on mutual respect and careful communication. Doctor Sarah
Speaker 2: and I have discussed whether to report our findings to
Speaker 2: the scientific community, but we've decided to keep the information
Speaker 2: within our small group for now. These creatures have managed
Speaker 2: to remain hidden for who knows how long, and they
Speaker 2: deserve to continue their existence without interference from humans who
Speaker 2: might not understand their intelligence and peaceful nature. Sometimes I
Speaker 2: wonder what would happen if more people knew about them.
Speaker 2: Would they be protected and studied respectfully, or would they
Speaker 2: become subject of exploitation and harassment. I've seen how humans
Speaker 2: treat other intelligent species, and I'm not sure our track
Speaker 2: record inspires confidence. For now, I'm content to be their
Speaker 2: neighbor and occasional friend. They've taught me that there are
Speaker 2: still mysteries in the world, still things we don't understand
Speaker 2: about the intelligence and complexity of the natural world. And
Speaker 2: on quiet nights, when I hear their humming songs drifting
Speaker 2: through the forest, I'm reminded that we share this planet
Speaker 2: with creatures far more remarkable than most people could ever imagine.
Speaker 2: Three encounters, three very different outcomes. One man learned to
Speaker 2: live with being watched, another was driven from his workplace
Speaker 2: by creatures defending their territory, and the third found something
Speaker 2: unexpected connection. Each of these men face the same choice
Speaker 2: when their encounters ended, speak or stay silent. The homeowner
Speaker 2: eventually shared his trailcam footage with researchers, though he's never
Speaker 2: spoken publicly about what happened. The lagger changed careers and
Speaker 2: moved to a different state, carrying his experience like a
Speaker 2: weight he can't set down. The security guard continues his work,
Speaker 2: maintaining a careful relationship with beings that science says don't exist.
Speaker 2: But maybe the most interesting detail is what they all
Speaker 2: agree on when you talk to them.
Speaker 3: This isn't over.
Speaker 2: The homeowner still hears sounds in the woods behind his house.
Speaker 2: The lagger gets reports from other crews working in remote areas.
Speaker 2: The security guard knows his relationship with the creatures is
Speaker 2: just beginning. They're out there in the deep forests of
Speaker 2: the Pacific Northwest, in the remote mountains where humans rarely venture,
Speaker 2: and sometimes, as our first storyteller learned, in the woods
Speaker 2: behind suburban homes. They've been there longer than our cities,
Speaker 2: longer than our civilization, watching and waiting and adapting to
Speaker 2: our encroachment into their world. The question isn't whether they exist,
Speaker 2: The question is what they want from us. Are they
Speaker 2: simply trying to co exist, staying hidden in the shrinking
Speaker 2: wild places. Are they studying us the way we might
Speaker 2: study them, or are they waiting for something, some change
Speaker 2: in our relationship with the natural world that will determine
Speaker 2: our future interactions. One thing is certain, the encounters continue.
Speaker 2: Every month, new reports surface from hunters, hikers, forest workers,
Speaker 2: and ordinary people who stumble into something extraordinary. Most keep
Speaker 2: their experiences to themselves, knowing how it sounds, knowing what
Speaker 2: people will think. But a few, like the men whose
Speaker 2: stories you've heard tonight, eventually find the courage to speak
Speaker 2: because in the end, these aren't just stories about mysterious
Speaker 2: creatures in the woods.
Speaker 3: There are stories about.
Speaker 2: The limits of human knowledge, about the hubris of thinking
Speaker 2: we've cataloged and understood everything on our planet. They're reminders
Speaker 2: that there are still frontiers, still mysteries, still things that
Speaker 2: can make us question everything we think we know. The
Speaker 2: next time you're driving through dense forest, or camping in
Speaker 2: the wilderness, or even just looking out at the tree
Speaker 2: line behind your house, remember these stories. Listen carefully to
Speaker 2: the sounds of the night, watch for movement in the
Speaker 2: shadows between the trees, and ask yourself, in a world
Speaker 2: where we've mapped every continent and explored every ocean, what
Speaker 2: else might be out there watching us from the darkness.
Speaker 2: Some questions are better left unanswered, but that doesn't stop
Speaker 2: us from wondering.
Speaker 4: They say, you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay.
Speaker 1: Out in.
Speaker 4: Joy, this chard, that chid everything, call me bride back,
Speaker 4: No joy for me. Joy staying right, you call it
Speaker 4: right away. Still still still conduct doussas, still stays uses
Speaker 4: stains us fas