Speaker 1: Everybody, Welcome to the Dixie Cryptid Podcast. My name's Cameron Buckner,
Speaker 1: and we don't ask for money, and we don't have
Speaker 1: a membership program. All of this content is free, doesn't
Speaker 1: cost you a dime, So if you don't like it,
Speaker 1: send me an email and I'll give you your money back.
Speaker 1: I usually go through these stories and just randomly pick two, three,
Speaker 1: four or five stories to put in a podcast, and
Speaker 1: I did that on this one. But I don't know
Speaker 1: how it happened, but I picked three of the best
Speaker 1: stories I have read in probably a year for this
Speaker 1: particular podcast. So I hope you guys enjoy this. This
Speaker 1: is a good one. This is a really good one.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go. When I was growing up,
Speaker 1: my mom and dad had a rule. When the son
Speaker 1: started to set, my siblings and I had to come inside.
Speaker 1: We had a small farm with chickens and goats and
Speaker 1: rabbits and pigs, so all of our chores had to
Speaker 1: be done before sunset. One day, I asked my mom
Speaker 1: why I couldn't play out in the yard, and her
Speaker 1: answer sounded like a mother trying to scare her child
Speaker 1: into listening. She said it was because there were monsters
Speaker 1: in the woods that wanted to take me. I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure I believed her, but some of our animals started
Speaker 1: to disappear at night, so I didn't push it very far.
Speaker 1: My father was the president of the West Virginia Trappers Association.
Speaker 1: He had let me hunt and run traps with him
Speaker 1: since I was eight years old. I was sure I
Speaker 1: knew every animal in our woods, but I was wrong.
Speaker 1: One day, Dad got a call from our neighbor Den,
Speaker 1: who raised a cattle. He said that one of the
Speaker 1: cows was dead and her calf was missing. Dad took
Speaker 1: me along to Den's house with him, who showed us
Speaker 1: the dead cow. There were deep scratches on her front
Speaker 1: quarter and her neck had been broken. Dad didn't know
Speaker 1: what to make of this. There was no sign of
Speaker 1: anything dragging the calf off, besides the trail leading into
Speaker 1: the woods that connected to our property. I started to
Speaker 1: track it, but Dad and Den both yelled at me
Speaker 1: to stay put. Instead, I helped set some bear traps
Speaker 1: around the dead cow, and Dad told Den, if it
Speaker 1: comes back, these should hold it. Later that night, after dinner,
Speaker 1: I overheard my dad tell my mom that whatever killed
Speaker 1: Den's cow was probably what had been taking our animals.
Speaker 1: Mom asked what we could do, and Dad told her
Speaker 1: about the traps that he was confident they would catch
Speaker 1: some thing and then we might finally see what was
Speaker 1: killing the animals. The next morning, Din called frantically, telling
Speaker 1: my dad that we needed to come back to where
Speaker 1: we set the traps. We went straight out to the cow,
Speaker 1: and this time my older brother joined us. We were armed,
Speaker 1: expecting to find a large bear. When we got there,
Speaker 1: Din was at a loss for words. The dead cow
Speaker 1: was gone and there were clear large tracks leading back
Speaker 1: into the woods. Dad was furious. Our traps were gone too,
Speaker 1: and seven bear traps are not cheap. He told Den
Speaker 1: that he'd never seen anything like this. The animal had
Speaker 1: to be intelligent to spot and pull up the traps
Speaker 1: from their steaks. About that time, life got stranger. None
Speaker 1: of us kids were allowed outside unless someone was with us,
Speaker 1: and we both had to be armed. I was eleven
Speaker 1: at this point, and I felt safe by myself, especially
Speaker 1: with my twenty gage shotgun with me, but we still
Speaker 1: had to do our chores in pairs. Well, nothing happened
Speaker 1: for about a month until one day I was out
Speaker 1: on the porch drinking a soda After feeding and watering
Speaker 1: the chickens and the rabbits, I was watching the upper field,
Speaker 1: hoping to see a deer or turkey. I remember the
Speaker 1: sun was already getting low and dusk was starting to
Speaker 1: set in. I saw what I told Mom and Dad
Speaker 1: was a large man sneaking across our field. It scared me.
Speaker 1: He was wearing what I thought was a gilly suit.
Speaker 1: Dad immediately grabbed his rifle and yelled for my older
Speaker 1: brother Joe to grab his. They ran into the field
Speaker 1: and looked for it, but it was long gone. Later
Speaker 1: that night, we heard one of our rabbits screaming. We
Speaker 1: could hear something banging against one of the cages and
Speaker 1: making deep grunting noises. Joe and my father grabbed their
Speaker 1: rifles and flashlights and ran out the door. I grabbed
Speaker 1: my forty four mag brush rifle and I followed them.
Speaker 1: The rabbits were going nuts and one of them was
Speaker 1: still screaming, and before I made it to them, I
Speaker 1: heard my brother scream and he started shooting. I froze
Speaker 1: in my tracks just twenty feet from the house, and
Speaker 1: I saw them running back towards me, and Dad grabbed
Speaker 1: me with his free hand and he dragged me back inside.
Speaker 1: He told Mom to bolt the doors and shut all
Speaker 1: the windows and turn off the lights. Apparently they had
Speaker 1: pissed off whatever the thing was. No one slept that night.
Speaker 1: At first, the creature threw rocks at the house, breaking
Speaker 1: one of the windows, and there was an ungodly roar
Speaker 1: that gave us chills. Eventually the rackets stopped. We thought
Speaker 1: it was over until we heard a loud thud against
Speaker 1: the back of the house, and at the same time
Speaker 1: there was a thud at the front. I remember Dad
Speaker 1: turning white and he looked at my mother and he said,
Speaker 1: my god, Judy, there's more than one. Mom started crying
Speaker 1: and the kids asked what it was. Dad said he
Speaker 1: didn't know, but that it looked like some kind of
Speaker 1: a giant eight. The thudding against the doors went on
Speaker 1: for hours, right up until an hour before sunrise. The
Speaker 1: next day. We went to check out the damage, and
Speaker 1: what we found was awful. There were large footprints all
Speaker 1: over the house that looked like fists. That was nothing
Speaker 1: compared to what we found when we checked our livestock.
Speaker 1: Over thirty rabbits were dead. They were ripped in half
Speaker 1: and half pulled through the wire on their cages. Two
Speaker 1: goats were gone. There was no sign of them at all.
Speaker 1: They were just gone. One of our hogs had been killed.
Speaker 1: It's his neck was broken. Dad was furious. He called
Speaker 1: our neighbors and told them what had happened. He called
Speaker 1: two of my older brothers who had moved out, and
Speaker 1: he told them too. Everyone came over to check on
Speaker 1: us and check out the massacre, each of them as
Speaker 1: livid as my father. Later that evening, everyone showed up
Speaker 1: again and they packed everything from twelve gate shot guns
Speaker 1: with deer slugs to high powered rifles, not to mention
Speaker 1: the pistols that were on their belts. Mom fed everyone
Speaker 1: a nice chicken dinner, and then we waited. Round ten thirty,
Speaker 1: we heard grunting coming from the woods behind the house.
Speaker 1: Knowing there would be more than one of them, three
Speaker 1: of our large group went around the house to check
Speaker 1: it out, while the rest of us waited inside at
Speaker 1: the ready. Ten minutes later, we heard a scream. It
Speaker 1: was like a woman shrieking mixed with the bear's roar,
Speaker 1: and from the safety of the inside of a house,
Speaker 1: we heard our neighbors open up gunfire, letting off round
Speaker 1: after round until the scream turned again to a cry
Speaker 1: of pain. Then we heard a second roar so intense
Speaker 1: it vibrated our chests. It came from the other side
Speaker 1: of the house. We ran to the windows in time
Speaker 1: to see this thing tear through some of the bushes.
Speaker 1: It had to be at least eight feet tall. And
Speaker 1: then a third, smaller one, maybe six feet tall, came
Speaker 1: running toward us. It took three rounds from us, and
Speaker 1: it turned toward the first one, who was screaming. The
Speaker 1: big one let out one more loud and long roar
Speaker 1: as it lifted its mate and barreled into the woods.
Speaker 1: Later that morning, we found blood in several places and
Speaker 1: even tracked it for almost a mile to the stream
Speaker 1: that was running around an old strip road, and we
Speaker 1: lost it there And we never found the bodies, but
Speaker 1: I know one had to be dead. Dad contacted the
Speaker 1: DNR and reported what had happened. Two officers came and
Speaker 1: looked around. They didn't even cross the woodline. They tried
Speaker 1: to tell us that it was a bear and that
Speaker 1: they could find us if we had tried to kill
Speaker 1: it out of season. We all know what we saw
Speaker 1: and shot, but no one believed us. Thankfully, nothing ever
Speaker 1: came back since that night, and for years after that
Speaker 1: we lived peacefully. I grew up and I moved out,
Speaker 1: and the events of that time became a memory. I'm
Speaker 1: thirty seven now, and just recently something has started taking
Speaker 1: my dad's animals again without leaving a trace. Seems the
Speaker 1: peace on the farm has come to an end. I'm
Speaker 1: afraid they're back. I grew up in central West Virginia,
Speaker 1: and my dad and I are big into coon hunting.
Speaker 1: Almost every night during coon season we would go together
Speaker 1: and run the dogs. In the summertime, when I was
Speaker 1: on break, I would take the dogs every night to
Speaker 1: get them ready for the season. Most of the time
Speaker 1: I would take off walking, but every once in a
Speaker 1: while my dad would come with me, even if he
Speaker 1: had to work the next morning. We would take his truck.
Speaker 1: That particular night was hot and muggy, but it was
Speaker 1: clear and there was a full moon. Dad and I
Speaker 1: loaded up the dogs and set out to try to
Speaker 1: get them to strike. That night, we treed three or
Speaker 1: four coons by one am. Seeing that we did pretty good,
Speaker 1: and because Dad had to get up in a few
Speaker 1: hours to go to work, we packed up and headed
Speaker 1: back to the house. That's when my work usually began.
Speaker 1: There were multiple things that Dad wanted done before I
Speaker 1: went to bed that night. He told me to wash
Speaker 1: out the kennels, and feed and water the dogs, and
Speaker 1: collect the eggs from the chicken coop. Our house sat
Speaker 1: right smack dab in the middle of a holler, and
Speaker 1: on either side of the house was straight up hills
Speaker 1: into the woods. I took off and did my chores
Speaker 1: while Dad went in to go to bed. When I
Speaker 1: was done, I started walking back to the front porch,
Speaker 1: and I got a weird feeling that something was staring
Speaker 1: right through my soul. I looked to my right up
Speaker 1: the hill, and there, thirty feet higher in the trees
Speaker 1: or a set of red eyes looking right at me.
Speaker 1: They were so big. My first thought was that it
Speaker 1: was a small airplane. I sat and stared right back
Speaker 1: at it for a few seconds, completely mesmerized, before I
Speaker 1: realized there was no way it was a plane. It
Speaker 1: was too close, they were too big, and it was
Speaker 1: far too silent. I think it was two thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning by then. I hauled my butt inside, where
Speaker 1: Dad was fast asleep on the couch, and I debated
Speaker 1: on waking him up. That was a cardinal sin in
Speaker 1: our house. So I sat there and stared at the wall,
Speaker 1: contemplating what in the world I had just seen outside.
Speaker 1: A few minutes passed and I heard a huge bang
Speaker 1: on the roof, like a paratrooper had landed on top
Speaker 1: of the house. Once it landed, it started walking toward
Speaker 1: my parents' bedroom. It was so loud and heavy that
Speaker 1: I could hear every footstep, and once it reached the
Speaker 1: end of the house, it turned and it walked all
Speaker 1: the way back to where my room was on the
Speaker 1: other side. About that time, I decided, screw this, I'm
Speaker 1: waking my dad up. I don't care if he will
Speaker 1: beat my butt or not. So I woke him up.
Speaker 1: I was freaking out, and he just groaned at me
Speaker 1: and he went back to sleep. I sat there the
Speaker 1: rest of the night, wide awake until we woke up
Speaker 1: for work the next morning, and when I told him
Speaker 1: what I heard the night before, he just laughed at me.
Speaker 1: He thought I was crazy. I'm in my twenties now,
Speaker 1: but ever since that night, every time I come home,
Speaker 1: I stay inside. I barely go out at night, and
Speaker 1: Dad hasn't been able to get me to go hunting
Speaker 1: very much. Since then, no one has ever believed me.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you all will. It feels good to get it
Speaker 1: off my chest. I am a graduate of the University
Speaker 1: of Kentucky's Veterinary Medicine program. I achieved my doctorate in
Speaker 1: veterinary medicine, specializing in bovine, equine, swine, and small ruminants.
Speaker 1: After working with some older veterinarians, I was able to
Speaker 1: open my own practice at nineteen ninety five. Later, I
Speaker 1: was offered a position with the Tennessee elk reintroduction program.
Speaker 1: In two thousand, the state reintroduced two hundred head of
Speaker 1: elk in the Northumberland Wildlife Area, fitting a portion of
Speaker 1: them with radio callers. Later in twenty fifteen, we began
Speaker 1: using implanted transmitters to help with the retention rates of
Speaker 1: the calves born each year. In the early years, we
Speaker 1: became proficient at monitoring the callers and quickly identified when
Speaker 1: a specimen was distressed. We were able to catch several
Speaker 1: poachers in the act of illegally harvesting bull elk, and
Speaker 1: even monitored one bull elk that traveled into Kentucky and
Speaker 1: set up squattersh writes in a peaceful valley and mountain
Speaker 1: along Wolf Creek. Needless to say, Tennessee had something to
Speaker 1: say about this and had to recover the runaway and
Speaker 1: bring him back home to his family. On the morning
Speaker 1: of September nineteen, twenty seventeen, I got the call to
Speaker 1: meet a game warden and park ranger off one of
Speaker 1: the service roads in a wildlife area. The collar of
Speaker 1: one of our bull elk was transmitting some erratic data.
Speaker 1: I was the last to arrive with my field pack
Speaker 1: and tranquilizer gun. I had three darts loaded with enough
Speaker 1: xylazine in fentanyl to immobilize a twelve hundred pound bull
Speaker 1: in a matter of seconds. This bull was over ten
Speaker 1: years old and he was one of the hurd's dominant breeders.
Speaker 1: The park ranger's name was Brian, and he had the
Speaker 1: radio telemetry equipment that detected the location of the callers
Speaker 1: signal and the game warden. Rick was equipped with an
Speaker 1: M four rifle just in case the signal came in strong.
Speaker 1: As soon as Brian fired up his equipment showing us
Speaker 1: we were within five hundred yards of the bull, we
Speaker 1: slipped into the bush and began the trek toward him,
Speaker 1: careful not to make unnecessary noise with our approach. We
Speaker 1: were a little more than one hundred yards out when
Speaker 1: Brian said the signal was moving away quickly, as if
Speaker 1: it had hopped into a truck and was driving off.
Speaker 1: Rick burst into action and ran forward with reckless abandon
Speaker 1: When Brian and I finally caught up with him, he
Speaker 1: was standing in a small clearing that was drenched in blood.
Speaker 1: The smaller trees had been smashed to the ground, and
Speaker 1: there in the midst of all this carnage lay a
Speaker 1: single leg bone and a hoof of our missing bull.
Speaker 1: It appeared that all the flesh was chewed off his
Speaker 1: leg and cast aside. We all knew that this animal
Speaker 1: did not run off on its own, missing a leg
Speaker 1: to stand on, Rick again took the lead and began
Speaker 1: to track the animal, following the droplets of blood and
Speaker 1: broken twigs and tree limbs, and the moved leaf litter
Speaker 1: on the forest floor. Occasionally Brian picked up the signal again,
Speaker 1: but it would quickly disappear a moment later. Over the
Speaker 1: next four hours of playing cat and mouse, the signal
Speaker 1: came in strong and it was moving right at us.
Speaker 1: Rick positioned himself to the side and took cover behind
Speaker 1: some down trees. Brian and I followed his lead. Ten
Speaker 1: minutes later, an older Native of American dressed in buckskins
Speaker 1: and moccasins walked out of the dark woods on his
Speaker 1: outstretched arms. He presented the collar and he said, I
Speaker 1: believe this is what you're searching for. He laid it
Speaker 1: on the ground and started to walk away. When Rick
Speaker 1: told him to stop and turn around. The older man
Speaker 1: did what he was told, and Rick identified himself. He
Speaker 1: asked him what in the hell made him think he
Speaker 1: could just walk up and drop the collar and walk
Speaker 1: off like that. The older man looked at him, calmly
Speaker 1: in the eyes, and he said, I answer to a
Speaker 1: higher power than you. I am the uniony, the spiritual leader,
Speaker 1: and the medicine man for our people, and the one
Speaker 1: who oversees the sou Kaloo. He seemed to appreciate our confusion,
Speaker 1: and then he added, the sou Kaloo do not wish
Speaker 1: to be disturbed. He only took the elk to feed
Speaker 1: his mate. She has recently given birth and is not
Speaker 1: ready to travel. The answer wasn't good enough for Rick.
Speaker 1: A law enforcement agent can't just take a stranger's word
Speaker 1: and call it a day. The old man could have
Speaker 1: been an innocent messenger, or he could have been trying
Speaker 1: to distract us while his poacher buddies got away with
Speaker 1: our bull. Rick asked the man, well, what is a Sukloo.
Speaker 1: The old man was patient in his response. They're the hairy,
Speaker 1: slant eyed devils of old. Their tribe and ours have
Speaker 1: made peace many years ago, though we have yet to
Speaker 1: reach peace with the Judicula tribe. But our alliance with
Speaker 1: the Suklou keeps the Judicula away from our people. Rick
Speaker 1: called his bs. He grabbed a man's arm and swung
Speaker 1: him around and slapped a handcuff on one of his wrists.
Speaker 1: My life changed then, and there, fifty yards away, a
Speaker 1: monster stepped out from behind a tree and it roared.
Speaker 1: It was unlike anything I had ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1: It was a train horn, an elephant bugle, and a
Speaker 1: lion's roar, all mixed into one enormous sound, and it
Speaker 1: shook through our bodies in the entire forest. The three
Speaker 1: of us were frozen. The old man didn't react at all.
Speaker 1: This creature stood over nine feet tall and was almost
Speaker 1: four feet wide, with the build of a linebacker. We
Speaker 1: could see his muscles flexing as he roared, and we
Speaker 1: could see his large canines as his mouth widened. His
Speaker 1: hair was long, and it covered the majority of his
Speaker 1: body except for the palms of his hands and the
Speaker 1: bottoms of his feet. And his face. His face is
Speaker 1: what got me. There was a hint of something human,
Speaker 1: but also something ape or demon like. The eyes were
Speaker 1: solid black with no visible white, and the nose was
Speaker 1: flattened against his face, like a gorilla with dark gray
Speaker 1: skin pigmentation, and there was no sign of ears on
Speaker 1: either side of its head. My instincts kicked in, as
Speaker 1: it has so many times in private practice, when a
Speaker 1: large animal became unexpectedly uncontrollable, and I took aim with
Speaker 1: the tranquilizer rifle, and I fired immediately after the first
Speaker 1: one impacted the creature, I inserted the second dart and
Speaker 1: readied myself for another shot. The beast stood stationary for
Speaker 1: twenty seconds, not seeming to know what had hit him,
Speaker 1: but realizing something was wrong, and began to fade back
Speaker 1: into the dark woods. Brian stood there, slight jawed, not
Speaker 1: doing anything. As Rick composed himself, he handcuffed the old
Speaker 1: man's older wrists and secured him around a small tree,
Speaker 1: and he left the man there and he took the lead.
Speaker 1: Tracking the monster. We found it less than one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty yards away, was face down in the forest floor.
Speaker 1: We approached it and the smell became overwhelming. It was
Speaker 1: a mix of rancid trash, festerring road killed sewer, and
Speaker 1: rotten potatoes. The three of us weren't strong enough to
Speaker 1: roll it on its back, but we were able to
Speaker 1: turn its head to the side so that it didn't
Speaker 1: suffocate in the ground. Brian and Rick began taking pictures
Speaker 1: with their phones as I pulled out a specimen kit
Speaker 1: and took samples of blood and skin and hair. Within
Speaker 1: just a few minutes, this beast had already started to
Speaker 1: regain its awareness. I gave him a shot of something
Speaker 1: to help with the opioid component of the tranquilizer, and
Speaker 1: we began our retreat, with Rick covering our backs with
Speaker 1: his M four. We moved out backwards the way we
Speaker 1: came in, and our eyes trained on the beast as
Speaker 1: we quietly slipped away, but we didn't get much of
Speaker 1: a head start. Within seconds, the beast raised himself upright
Speaker 1: and staggered off into the thick woods like a drunk
Speaker 1: man stumbling home, picked up the pace and made it
Speaker 1: back to the area where we left the older man,
Speaker 1: but he was gone. We found Rick's handcuffs laying on
Speaker 1: the ground in a mysterious cloud of fog around the tree.
Speaker 1: We didn't know what to say, there was no sign
Speaker 1: of him anywhere. Rick said a string of curse words,
Speaker 1: and we quickly headed back to our vehicles. Brian called
Speaker 1: the park office and informed them of what had happened,
Speaker 1: stating that we had photos and specimens to validate the
Speaker 1: existence of sisquatch, but we had a two hour walk
Speaker 1: back to the vehicles. As we walk, we discussed how
Speaker 1: we had evidence of a mythological species and that we
Speaker 1: would be featured on every TV station around the world,
Speaker 1: and we might even earn some money from all this.
Speaker 1: I was just excited that we could be able to
Speaker 1: put the laws in place to protect these creatures. This
Speaker 1: was a green peace Christmas. Our excitement soon faded as
Speaker 1: we approached our vehicles, we saw two black suburbans with
Speaker 1: blacked out windows and government plates waiting for us. Four
Speaker 1: men dressed in black suits and wearing dark sunglasses stepped
Speaker 1: down and approached us. The one in charge presented his
Speaker 1: credentials badge, and he told us that we had a
Speaker 1: very forgettable day to day and that he needed my
Speaker 1: field pack and our phones. They patted us down and
Speaker 1: made it clear that we had not seen a thing
Speaker 1: other than evidence that a pack of feral dogs had
Speaker 1: taken down a bull elk, and that we were not
Speaker 1: to mention anything or our jobs would be history. As
Speaker 1: they were driving away, Brian told us that he was
Speaker 1: afraid that might happen, so he emailed the photos to
Speaker 1: himself and his parents and his girlfriend in Knoxville. We
Speaker 1: were overjoyed, but it was short lived. When I got home,
Speaker 1: I went to the and found that my email had
Speaker 1: been entirely wiped out and my eye cloud was empty
Speaker 1: as well. The next day I tracked down both Rick
Speaker 1: and Brian, who told me the same had happened to them.
Speaker 1: Brian's parents' email had been wiped out and his girlfriend's
Speaker 1: phone quit functioning. She was unable to recover anything, not
Speaker 1: even her contacts. The following week, I submitted my resignation.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to work with or for an employer
Speaker 1: with such questionable ethics. I re established my practice as
Speaker 1: a livestock vet, and I will continue to seek the
Speaker 1: answers I want on my own, including what I have
Speaker 1: already discovered about the two tribes of Bigfoot. First, the
Speaker 1: Soux Kaloo, they simply want to avoid humans and avoid
Speaker 1: all contact. But the Judahicula are not the same. They're
Speaker 1: the evil side of Sasquatch, and we'll take a human's
Speaker 1: life if given the opportunity. I'm unsure of the motivation
Speaker 1: behind the government's decision to keep the existence of Sasquatch
Speaker 1: a mystery, or why they would confiscate our personal property
Speaker 1: to maintain this secrecy, but I would truly like to
Speaker 1: know before I leave this world. Okay, thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast. I certainly do appreciate you, and
Speaker 1: we will see you guys on the next one. Thanks