Speaker 1: For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace.
Speaker 1: Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world
Speaker 1: refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they
Speaker 1: know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we
Speaker 1: share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot,
Speaker 1: dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make
Speaker 1: it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because
Speaker 1: once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the
Speaker 1: woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and
Speaker 1: remember some things in the woods don't want to be found.
Speaker 1: Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads,
Speaker 1: and let's head off into.
Speaker 2: The woods if you dare. This is the fourth.
Speaker 1: Installment in a ten part series from a listener named
Speaker 1: Garrett who's been sharing a decade of escalating encounters on
Speaker 1: a remote mountain property in the southern Appalachians of western
Speaker 1: North Carolina. If you're just finding this series, I'd really
Speaker 1: encourage you to go back and start with Part one.
Speaker 1: Each of these stories builds on the last, and the
Speaker 1: cumulative weight of what Garrett's describing is part of what
Speaker 1: makes it so compelling, But here's where we stand. In
Speaker 1: Part one, Garrett told us how he purchased a forty
Speaker 1: seven acre property and handbuilt cabin from an elderly man
Speaker 1: named Earl in the spring of twenty fourteen. That first summer,
Speaker 1: he began hearing deliberate wood knocks from the ridgeline. After sunset,
Speaker 1: he found seventeen inch bipedal tracks in the clay, and
Speaker 1: on the night of September twenty seventh, he saw the
Speaker 1: thing responsible standing at the edge of his meadow. In
Speaker 1: Part two, Garrett planted a garden, and something began harvesting
Speaker 1: his right produce overnight with se precision. His countermeasures were
Speaker 1: defeated one by one. A trail camera captured an infrared
Speaker 1: image of an enormous hand on the lens. He eventually
Speaker 1: watched the creature harvest from a workshop window. The story
Speaker 1: ended with the creature visiting the cabinet night, breathing against
Speaker 1: the walls, and tapping the kitchen window. In part three,
Speaker 1: the encounter shifted from physical to psychological. While walking the
Speaker 1: back acreage, Garrett heard his brother Wade's voice call his
Speaker 1: name from the woods, a perfect replication, and then heard
Speaker 1: it from two directions simultaneously boxing him into a ravine.
Speaker 1: He climbed out in a panic, experienced total spatial disorientation
Speaker 1: on his own land, and returned to find a single
Speaker 1: footprint pressed into the clay beside his back door. Each
Speaker 1: encounter has been more intimate than the last, more personal,
Speaker 1: more deliberate, and what Garrett's about to share in story
Speaker 1: for is in some ways the most unsettling all because
Speaker 1: it answers a question he'd been afraid to ask, how
Speaker 1: close does it get when he's asleep. Here's what Garrett
Speaker 1: wrote after what happened in the ravine in October, I
Speaker 1: went through a stretch that I'd described as controlled retreat.
Speaker 1: I didn't stop going outside. I didn't board up the
Speaker 1: windows or sit in the cabin with a shotgun across
Speaker 1: my knees. But I pulled back. I shortened my world,
Speaker 1: the porch, the workshop, the meadow, the truck that was
Speaker 1: my territory. I stopped walking the back acreage, I stopped
Speaker 1: hiking to the ridge line. I stayed where the ground
Speaker 1: was open and the site lines were clear, and I
Speaker 1: didn't venture into the trees unless I had to, And
Speaker 1: even then I kept it to the first thirty yards
Speaker 1: of the slope, where I could still see the cabin
Speaker 1: roof through the branches. Bowie adjusted with me. His morning
Speaker 1: root contracted instead of the full loop down to Bishop
Speaker 1: Creek and along the tree line. He'd trot to the
Speaker 1: edge of the meadow, do a quick scan, and come back.
Speaker 1: He'd still occasionally stand at the northern tree line and
Speaker 1: stare into the forest for three or four minutes at
Speaker 1: a stretch, nose working ears forward, processing information I couldn't access.
Speaker 1: But he didn't cross into the trees anymore, not even
Speaker 1: with me. November came and went. The knocking was sporadic,
Speaker 1: maybe once a week, sometimes less. The mountain was going
Speaker 1: dormant in the way it does every fall, the insects
Speaker 1: dying off, the birds migrating, the canopy thinning until the
Speaker 1: ridge line stood bare and skeletal against the sky. The
Speaker 1: silence that replaced the summer noise was different from the pressurized,
Speaker 1: ominous silence of the encounters. This was seasonal, natural, the
Speaker 1: mountain exhaling before winter. The isolation was harder in November
Speaker 1: than it had been the previous year. The first winter
Speaker 1: on the mountain, I'd been fresh, new to the property,
Speaker 1: new to the quiet riding, the high of owning a
Speaker 1: place that felt like it was mine in a way
Speaker 1: nothing else in my life life ever had. That novelty
Speaker 1: had carried me through the dark months without much trouble,
Speaker 1: But now, heading into my second winter, the novelty was gone,
Speaker 1: and what replaced it was the accumulated weight of everything
Speaker 1: I'd experienced and couldn't talk about. I'd go to work
Speaker 1: in Hendersonville and spend the day with my crew framing
Speaker 1: walls and running wire and talking about football and deer season,
Speaker 1: and the whole time there'd be a secondary track running
Speaker 1: in my head. The knocking patterns, the hand on the camera,
Speaker 1: the breathing against the wall, Wade's voice in the ravine,
Speaker 1: all of it cycling on a loop I couldn't shut off,
Speaker 1: running underneath the normal conversation, like a radio station bleeding
Speaker 1: through from another frequency. I started losing weight, not deliberately,
Speaker 1: I just wasn't eating enough. I'd make dinner, sit down
Speaker 1: at the table and realize after twenty minutes that I'd
Speaker 1: been staring at the kitchen window instead of eating. My
Speaker 1: appetite had gone somewhere I couldn't follow. Cliff noticed during
Speaker 1: a phone call and told me I sounded like I
Speaker 1: was running on fumes. I told him I was fine.
Speaker 1: He said, that's the same thing you said before your
Speaker 1: mom died. You weren't fine then either. He had a point.
Speaker 1: I spent Thanksgiving at Wade's place in Winston Salem. Colleen
Speaker 1: cooked a turkey that was too big for the oven
Speaker 1: and they had to finish it on the grill, which
Speaker 1: became a running joke for the rest of the weekend. Owen,
Speaker 1: who was eleven, showed me the curveball he'd been working on,
Speaker 1: and I adjusted his grip the same way Wade had
Speaker 1: adjusted mine twenty five years earlier. Maggie played jingle bells
Speaker 1: on the upright piano in the living room, halting but proud,
Speaker 1: and everybody clapped like she'd performed at Carnegie Hall. It
Speaker 1: was a good weekend, normal, the kind of family gathering
Speaker 1: that exists in a different dimension from the things that
Speaker 1: happen on the mountain. Wade asked me twice if I
Speaker 1: was okay. He said I looked thin. He said I
Speaker 1: had a thousand yard stare going on, which was a
Speaker 1: phrase he'd picked up in the Marines and applied to
Speaker 1: anyone who seemed distracted. Told him I'd been working too
Speaker 1: hard and sleeping too little. That was true, just not
Speaker 1: for the reasons he assumed. I drove back to the
Speaker 1: cabin on Sunday afternoon and found it exactly as I'd
Speaker 1: left it. Bowie, who'd stayed at a boarding kennel in Hendersonville,
Speaker 1: was ecstatic to be home. He sprinted the full perimeter
Speaker 1: of the meadow twice peed on every vertical surface he
Speaker 1: could find, and collapsed on the porch like he'd run
Speaker 1: a marathon. I sat beside him with a cup of
Speaker 1: coffee and watched the last daylight drain off the ridge,
Speaker 1: and I thought about how strange it was to feel
Speaker 1: both relieved and apprehensive about being back. Relieved because this
Speaker 1: was home, and home is where your body settles, even
Speaker 1: when your mind is unsettled. Apprehensive because the mountain had
Speaker 1: been unattended for four days and I had no idea
Speaker 1: what had happened up here while I was gone. I
Speaker 1: checked the perimeter. Nothing, no marks, no prints in the
Speaker 1: clay by the back door. The workshop was locked, the
Speaker 1: porch was clean, everything was order. December was cold but dry.
Speaker 1: We didn't get any significant precipitation until the week before Christmas,
Speaker 1: when a front moved in from the west and dropped
Speaker 1: about two inches of sleet that coated every surface on
Speaker 1: the mountain in a crust of ice. The gravel road
Speaker 1: became impassable for three days. I was stranded, which didn't
Speaker 1: bother me much. I'd been stranded before, and Earl had
Speaker 1: built this place for exactly that contingency. I had firewood
Speaker 1: stacked six cords deep along the south side of the workshop.
Speaker 1: I had canned food, dried goods, and a freezer chest
Speaker 1: on the back porch that functioned as a refrigerator in
Speaker 1: the winter because the ambient temperature kept it at a
Speaker 1: steady thirty four degrees. I had water from the well,
Speaker 1: which drew from an aquifer that ran beneath the frost
Speaker 1: line and never froze even when the temperatures above ground
Speaker 1: stayed below twenty for a week straight. I had heat
Speaker 1: from the fireplace and the wood stove in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: a cast iron box that Earl had installed in seventy
Speaker 1: three after rebetold him she was tired of cooking on
Speaker 1: an electric stove that went dead every time the power
Speaker 1: went out. The wood stove could heat the entire cabin
Speaker 1: by itself if you fed it right, and it doubled
Speaker 1: as a cooking surface that could boil water, simmer soup,
Speaker 1: and bake corn bread in a Dutch oven. Earl had
Speaker 1: designed this cabin for mountain winters, and it performed exactly
Speaker 1: as intended. During the sleet storm, I stayed inside for
Speaker 1: the better part of three days. Red worked on some
Speaker 1: small carpentry projects using hand tools in the cabin, listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts, including Yours.
Speaker 2: Bowie and I.
Speaker 1: Developed a routine of short walks on the icy meadow,
Speaker 1: where I'd shuffle along in my boots and he'd skid
Speaker 1: beside me like a furry hockey puck legs splaying in
Speaker 1: every direction, tail wagging. Despite the indignity, those three days
Speaker 1: were the closest thing to normal I'd felt since the
Speaker 1: garden raids. No knocking, no tracks, no signs of anything
Speaker 1: beyond the usual winter wildlife. A pair of cars dinals
Speaker 1: at the feeder. Earl had hung a hawk circling over
Speaker 1: the meadow deer tracks along Bishop Creek. By the time
Speaker 1: the ice melted and the road opened up, Christmas had
Speaker 1: come and gone. I'd spend it alone by choice. The
Speaker 1: first Christmas without family. It was quieter than I'd expected
Speaker 1: it to be. Not sad exactly, just still. I cooked
Speaker 1: a small ham on the woodstove, gave Bowie a raw
Speaker 1: hide bone wrapped in butcher paper, and called Wade and
Speaker 1: Cliff on the phone. Both conversations were short and warm,
Speaker 1: and completely free of anything related to the mountain. I
Speaker 1: needed that, a day where the only thing I thought
Speaker 1: about was the people I loved and the food in
Speaker 1: front of me and the fire in the hearth. The
Speaker 1: knocking stopped entirely around the second week of December, the
Speaker 1: same pattern as the previous year. Whatever was on the
Speaker 1: ridge seemed to go quiet when the temperatures dropped below
Speaker 1: freezing and stayed there. I'd started to think of this
Speaker 1: as a seasonal rhythm, active spring through fall, dormant and winter,
Speaker 1: like a bear in a sense, not hibernating necessarily, but withdrawing,
Speaker 1: pulling back into the deeper forest where the terrain was
Speaker 1: rougher and the elevation was higher and the human presence
Speaker 1: was zero. That assumption held until January ninth, twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: The forecast had been calling for snow since the fifth
Speaker 1: A big system was pushing in from the gulf, pulling
Speaker 1: moisture up against the mountains, and the models were predicting
Speaker 1: six to ten inches for the elevations above three thousand feet.
Speaker 1: My property sits at about thirty four hundred, so I
Speaker 1: was squarely in.
Speaker 2: The bull's eye.
Speaker 1: I spent the days leading up to the storm doing
Speaker 1: what mountain people do, topping off the firewood racks on
Speaker 1: the porch, running the truck down to Hendersonville for groceries, batteries,
Speaker 1: and lamp oil, making sure the well pump was insulated
Speaker 1: and the pipes under the cabin were wrapped. Stacking extra
Speaker 1: blankets on the bed because the bedroom was the coldest
Speaker 1: room in the house, being the furthest from the fireplace.
Speaker 1: The snow started falling around four in the afternoon on
Speaker 1: the eighth. It came in soft and steady, no wind,
Speaker 1: just a curtain of white dropping straight down out of
Speaker 1: a pewter sky. By dark, there were three inches on
Speaker 1: the ground and the meadow had disappeared under a smooth,
Speaker 1: unbroken sheet. The trees along the ridge caught the snow
Speaker 1: on their bare branches and held it, turning the forest
Speaker 1: into something that looked like a charcoal drawing all black
Speaker 1: lines and white spaces. The creek, which usually ran loud
Speaker 1: enough to hear from the porch, went quiet under a
Speaker 1: layer of ice along the banks. The only sound was
Speaker 1: the snow itself, that soft, constant hiss of billions of
Speaker 1: crystals landing on billions of other crystals, which is one
Speaker 1: of the most peaceful sounds on Earth if you're in
Speaker 1: a place where you can hear it without the interference
Speaker 1: of plows and traffic and civilization. Bowie and I sat
Speaker 1: on the porch and watched it come down until the
Speaker 1: cold drove us inside around seven. He had snow on
Speaker 1: his nose from sticking his face into the accumulation on
Speaker 1: the porch rail, and he tracked wet paw prints across
Speaker 1: the cabin floor in a way that would have annoyed
Speaker 1: me on any other night, but felt charming this time.
Speaker 1: There's something about a snowstorm that makes you tolerant of
Speaker 1: small inconveniences. The world is being rewritten outside your door,
Speaker 1: and the mess your dog makes on the hardwood floor
Speaker 1: just doesn't register. I built a fire in the fireplace
Speaker 1: using some of the split hickory from the porch rack,
Speaker 1: and the cabin filled with that deep, sweet smoke smell
Speaker 1: that had been a part of every winter on the mountain.
Speaker 1: I made a pot of chili from canned tomatoes and
Speaker 1: ground beef I'd picked up in Hendersonville and ate it
Speaker 1: on the couch while Bowie lay on his blanket near
Speaker 1: the hearth and twitched in his sleep, chasing rabbits in
Speaker 1: his dreams. The fire popped and settled. The snow hissed
Speaker 1: against the windows. The world contracted to the size of
Speaker 1: four walls and a roof, and inside those walls everything
Speaker 1: was warm and still. By ten o'clock there were six
Speaker 1: inches on the ground and the snow was still falling.
Speaker 1: The storm had tightened the flakes smaller and denser, the
Speaker 1: kind that stacks up fast and packs down tight. I
Speaker 1: banked the fire with a green oak log that would
Speaker 1: burn slow through the night, checked the locks on both doors,
Speaker 1: out of habit and went to bed. I slept well
Speaker 1: that night, better than I had in weeks. There's something
Speaker 1: about a heavy snowfall that insulates you.
Speaker 2: From the world.
Speaker 1: It muffles sound, it softens edges, It wraps the cabin
Speaker 1: in a layer of white that makes the interior feel
Speaker 1: smaller and warmer and more enclosed like a den. The
Speaker 1: fire crackled in the other room. The wind was calm,
Speaker 1: and I slept straight through to morning, which was notable
Speaker 1: because I hadn't done that consistently since the Ravine encounter
Speaker 1: in October.
Speaker 2: I woke up at six forty.
Speaker 1: Five on January ninth. Bowie was already at the front door,
Speaker 1: doing his impatient shuffle, the one that means he needs
Speaker 1: to go out and has been waiting politely for as
Speaker 1: long as his bladder can manage. Stay tuned from more
Speaker 1: back woods big Foot stories. We'll be back after these messages.
Speaker 1: I pulled on jeans, a flannel boots, and a heavy
Speaker 1: coat and opened the door. The world had been replaced.
Speaker 1: Nine inches of fresh, undisturbed snow covered everything. The meadow
Speaker 1: was a perfect white plane that glowed faintly pink in
Speaker 1: the pre dawn light. The trees were loaded, branches bowed
Speaker 1: under the weight, and the sky overhead was clearing to
Speaker 1: a pale blue that meant the storm had passed. The
Speaker 1: air was sharp, maybe eighteen degrees, cold enough that my
Speaker 1: first breath felt like swallowing a blade. My nose hairs
Speaker 1: froze instantly. The silence was total, not the pressurized, ominous
Speaker 1: silence of the encounters, the genuine silence of a landscape
Speaker 1: buried in fresh snow, where every surface has been dampened
Speaker 1: and every sound has been absorbed, and the only thing
Speaker 1: you can hear is the creak of your own footsteps.
Speaker 1: Bowie bounded off the porch and plunged into the snow
Speaker 1: up to his chest. He looked back at me with
Speaker 1: an expression of pure delirious joy, his tongue out, his
Speaker 1: ears up, snow crusted on his nose. Then he took
Speaker 1: off across the meadow and a series of leaps that
Speaker 1: threw white powder in every direction. He was, in that moment,
Speaker 1: the happiest creature on Earth. I stood on the porch
Speaker 1: with my coffee and watched him run. The morning was
Speaker 1: beautiful in a way that made the rest of the
Speaker 1: world seem irrelevant. No sound but Bowie crashing through the
Speaker 1: snow and the occasional soft thump of a branch releasing
Speaker 1: its load, No movement but his, and the slow rotation
Speaker 1: of the earth bringing the sun up behind the ridge.
Speaker 1: Everything else was still. Then I looked to my right,
Speaker 1: toward the back of the cabin, toward the east side,
Speaker 1: where the ground dropped slightly toward the tree line and
Speaker 1: the forest begins. There were tracks in the snow, not
Speaker 1: Bowie's tracks. Bowie had gone off the porch to the
Speaker 1: left into the meadow, and his trail was a chaotic,
Speaker 1: ziz zagging mess of paw prints and belly furrows where
Speaker 1: he dived through the drifts. These tracks were on the
Speaker 1: opposite side of the cabin, to the right, and they
Speaker 1: were nothing like a dog's. My coffee stopped halfway to
Speaker 1: my mouth. I set it on the porch rail very slowly,
Speaker 1: the way you set down something fragile when you've just
Speaker 1: realized you need both hands free, and walked around the
Speaker 1: north side of the cabin, stepping carefully, placing my boots
Speaker 1: in the undisturbed snow. My own prints were the only
Speaker 1: human marks on the property. Everything else was pristine, a
Speaker 1: blank page that had been written on during the night
Speaker 1: by whatever had walked through it. The tracks came from
Speaker 1: the northeast, from the direction of the ridge. They emerged
Speaker 1: from the tree line at a point about seventy yards
Speaker 1: from the cabin, crossed the open ground between the forest
Speaker 1: and the house in a straight, deliberate line, and arrived
Speaker 1: at the northeast corner of the cabin. There was no wandering,
Speaker 1: no zig zagging, no pausing to investigate bushes or stumps
Speaker 1: or other features of the landscape. The trail was a
Speaker 1: ruled line, a straight shot from forest to house, as
Speaker 1: if the thing making it had known exactly where it
Speaker 1: was going and taken the most direct route to get there.
Speaker 1: The stride was enormous. I could see from where I
Speaker 1: stood that the distance between individual prints was four and
Speaker 1: a half to five feet walking pace, No running, no bounding,
Speaker 1: just a long, steady, confident walk through nine inches of
Speaker 1: fresh powder, straight from the trees to my house. What
Speaker 1: struck me first wasn't the size of the prince, but
Speaker 1: their depth. My own boot prints, made moments earlier on
Speaker 1: the porch steps had compressed the snow maybe two or
Speaker 1: three inches. These prints had punched clean through the full
Speaker 1: nine inch layer and cratered into the frozen ground. Underneath
Speaker 1: each one was a hole in the snow pack, not
Speaker 1: just an impression on the surface, but a cylinder board
Speaker 1: straight down, as if the weight behind each step was
Speaker 1: so substantial that the snow couldn't distribute and simply collapsed.
Speaker 1: I followed the trail along the north side of the cabin.
Speaker 1: The tracks ran parallel to the wall about three feet out,
Speaker 1: close enough that whatever made them could have reached out
Speaker 1: and touched the logs. The prints were deep, punching through
Speaker 1: the full nine inches of snow and into the frozen ground.
Speaker 1: Underneath each one was a clean oval depression, with distinct
Speaker 1: toe impressions at the front five toes wide, spacing the
Speaker 1: big toe offset inward, the same configuration I documented twice before.
Speaker 1: The snow preserved every detail with a clarity that dirt
Speaker 1: and clay never could. I could see the contour of
Speaker 1: the arch. I could see where the heel had compressed
Speaker 1: the snow differently than the ball of the foot. I
Speaker 1: could see, in one particularly well defined print, what looked
Speaker 1: like creases across the soul, the kind of skin folds
Speaker 1: you see on the bottom of a bare human foot,
Speaker 1: magnified to a scale that made my stomach drop. The
Speaker 1: tracks turned the corner at the north ward west end
Speaker 1: of the cabin and continued along the west side, past
Speaker 1: the porch, past the front door, past the windows of
Speaker 1: the living room, where I'd been sleeping on the couch
Speaker 1: less than eight hours ago. The stride remained consistent. The
Speaker 1: depth remained consistent. Whatever had walked this route had done
Speaker 1: so at a steady pace, without stopping until it reached
Speaker 1: the southwest corner. There the tracks paused. I could tell
Speaker 1: because the prints were deeper, more compressed, and slightly overlapping.
Speaker 1: The thing had stood in that spot for a period
Speaker 1: of time, long enough to shift its weight.
Speaker 2: There were two.
Speaker 1: Prints facing the cabin wall, overlapping at the heels, and
Speaker 1: then a slight pivot mark where it had turned to
Speaker 1: face west toward the meadow before continuing. The southwest corner
Speaker 1: is directly outside the bedroom window. I need to let
Speaker 1: that sink in for a second, because it took a
Speaker 1: while to sink in for me. The bedroom is on
Speaker 1: the south end of the cabin. My bed is against
Speaker 1: the east wall, but the window faces south, and the
Speaker 1: southwest corner of the building is about four feet from
Speaker 1: that window. Whatever had stood at that corner shifting its
Speaker 1: weight in the snow had been standing within arm's reach
Speaker 1: of the glass behind which I was sleeping. And I
Speaker 1: hadn't heard a thing. Nine inches of fresh snow, eighteen
Speaker 1: degree air, total silence, and something had walked to my
Speaker 1: bedroom window and stood there and I'd slept through it.
Speaker 1: Bowie had slept through it. The dog who'd appointed himself
Speaker 1: night sentry, who'd been sleeping in the hallway since July,
Speaker 1: who could hear a squirrel on the roof at three
Speaker 1: in the morning, had not reacted to something standing four
Speaker 1: feet from us on the other side of a log wall.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to make of that. I've thought
Speaker 1: about it hundreds of times. The best explanation I can
Speaker 1: come up with is the snow itself. Snow is an
Speaker 1: extraordinary sound insulator. Nine inches of fresh powder would have
Speaker 1: muffled footsteps to almost nothing, even heavy ones, and the
Speaker 1: cold that night was deep enough that all the windows
Speaker 1: were closed and frosted on the outside, which would have
Speaker 1: further blocked any noise. It's also possible that whatever this
Speaker 1: thing is, it knows how to move quietly, deliberately, the
Speaker 1: way a cat moves when it's stalking, not accidentally, silent,
Speaker 1: intentionally so. But there's another possibility that I can't dismiss,
Speaker 1: and it's the one that keeps me up at night.
Speaker 1: Maybe Bowie did sense it. Maybe he woke up oriented
Speaker 1: toward the south wall, processed the information, and made a decision.
Speaker 1: The same kind of decision he'd been making for over
Speaker 1: a year, the decision to not react, to not bark,
Speaker 1: not growl, not alert me, because alerting me would mean confrontation,
Speaker 1: and confrontation with something that size, that close through a
Speaker 1: window and a log wall would not end well for
Speaker 1: either of us. Maybe Bowie's silence wasn't a failure of detection.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was a strategy. Dogs are smarter than we
Speaker 1: give them credit for. I continued following the track around
Speaker 1: the cabin from the southwest corner. They proceeded along the
Speaker 1: south wall, past Reba's zenias, which were just bare stalks
Speaker 1: now poking through the snow, past the root cellar hatch,
Speaker 1: and around to the southeast corner the back door, the
Speaker 1: same spot where I'd found the single footprint after the
Speaker 1: ravine encounter two months earlier. At the back door, the
Speaker 1: track stopped again, same overlapping compression pattern, same weight shifting indicators.
Speaker 1: The thing had stood at my back door facing the
Speaker 1: threshold the same way it had in October when it
Speaker 1: left the single print in the clay, But this time
Speaker 1: the snow offered a level of detail the clay never could.
Speaker 1: I could see where it had adjusted its stands, the
Speaker 1: left foot settling slightly deeper than the right, suggesting a weightshift,
Speaker 1: as if it were leaning forward toward the door, toward
Speaker 1: the interior of the cabin, toward whatever it could detect
Speaker 1: on the other side. And there were handprints, not on
Speaker 1: the door itself, on the log wall beside it, two
Speaker 1: impressions about five feet off the ground, where something had
Speaker 1: placed its hands flat against the cabin wall. The snow
Speaker 1: that had accumulated on the horizontal surfaces of the log courses,
Speaker 1: the narrow ledges where the rounded tops of the logs
Speaker 1: met had been compressed in two spots, each roughly the
Speaker 1: size of a dinner plate, maybe ten inches across from
Speaker 1: thumb edge to pinky edge. The fingers were splayed, I
Speaker 1: could count them five on each hand. The thumbs were
Speaker 1: positioned lower into the outside, angled the way your thumb's
Speaker 1: angle when you pressed both palms flat against a wall
Speaker 1: and lean into it, which is exactly what I believed
Speaker 1: the thing was doing, leaning against the cabin, pressing its
Speaker 1: weight into the wall beside my back door, listening. I
Speaker 1: stood there looking at those handprints for a long time.
Speaker 1: The detail in the snow was extraordinary. I could see
Speaker 1: the faint ridge patterns where the skin of the palms
Speaker 1: had compressed the surface. I could see where the fingertips
Speaker 1: had pressed harder than the centers of the palms, curling
Speaker 1: slightly as if gripping the rounded log surface. The thumbs
Speaker 1: had left the deepest impressions, sunk into the snow, about
Speaker 1: three quarters of an inch, bearing more weight than the fingers,
Speaker 1: the way your thumbs do when you brace yourself against
Speaker 1: a wall and lean your ear toward the surface. That's
Speaker 1: the image I couldn't shake. Not a creature standing at
Speaker 1: my wall, A creature leaning in, pressing its ear or
Speaker 1: whatever passed for an ear against the logs, listening to
Speaker 1: the sounds inside, the fire crackling, the dog breathing, Me
Speaker 1: sleeping seven feet away on the other side of the wall,
Speaker 1: completely unaware. I photographed everything I'd learned my lesson from
Speaker 1: the game trail tracks in the first summer. This time,
Speaker 1: I had my phone out before the adrenaline even finished spiking.
Speaker 1: I shot the full track line from a distance. I
Speaker 1: shot individual prints up close with a tape measure beside them.
Speaker 1: I shot the handprints on the wall. I shot the
Speaker 1: pivot mark at the bedroom corner I shot my own
Speaker 1: boot print beside one of the tracks for scale comparison.
Speaker 1: The measurements confirmed what I already knew but needed to
Speaker 1: see in numbers. Individual foot impressions seventeen inches long, seven
Speaker 1: and a quarter inches wide, stride length approximately fifty four
Speaker 1: inches center to center, depth of impression through nine inches
Speaker 1: of snow, plus approximately one and a half inches into
Speaker 1: the frozen ground beneath, which told me the weight behind
Speaker 1: each step was substantial. My own boot at one ninety
Speaker 1: barely dented the frozen ground under the snow. This thing
Speaker 1: was pushing through it like it wasn't there. But here's
Speaker 1: the part that really got me. The tracks continued from
Speaker 1: the back door along the east side of the cabin,
Speaker 1: completing the full circuit, and then headed away from the house,
Speaker 1: not back toward the ridge, which is where they'd come from.
Speaker 1: They went south across the meadow at an angle toward
Speaker 1: Bishop Creek. The stride lengthened as the track line crossed
Speaker 1: the open ground, stretching to six feet or more between prints,
Speaker 1: which suggested the thing had picked up its pace once
Speaker 1: it was away from the cabin, not running, just walking, faster,
Speaker 1: moving with purpose. The tracks reached the creek bank and
Speaker 1: continued down the slope toward the water. I followed them
Speaker 1: to the edge of the ice. Bishop Creek was partially frozen,
Speaker 1: with a ribbon of dark water still running down the
Speaker 1: center where the current was fastest. The banks were glazed
Speaker 1: with a shelf of ice that extended about two feet
Speaker 1: from each side, and the snow on the banks was
Speaker 1: undisturbed except at the single point where the tracks descended
Speaker 1: and ended. The last print was on the ice shelf itself.
Speaker 1: The weight behind it had cracked the ice in a
Speaker 1: spiderweb pattern that radiated about eight inches in every direction
Speaker 1: from the impression, but the ice had held whatever this
Speaker 1: thing weighed.
Speaker 2: The shelf had been.
Speaker 1: Thick enough to support it, at least briefly. From there
Speaker 1: the trail van The thing had stepped off the ice
Speaker 1: into the flowing water and disappeared. I checked both banks
Speaker 1: upstream and downstream for fifty yards in each direction, crouching
Speaker 1: every few steps to examine the snow at the water
Speaker 1: line for any sign of an exit point.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 1: The snow on both banks was smooth and unbroken as
Speaker 1: far as I could see. The thing had entered the
Speaker 1: creek and either walked upstream or downstream through the water,
Speaker 1: probably for a considerable distance, leaving no trail, deliberately using
Speaker 1: the creek the way a fugitive uses a river to
Speaker 1: break a scent trail, moving through water that was barely
Speaker 1: above freezing, water that had ice forming on its edges,
Speaker 1: barefoot in single digit air to erase its path. Think
Speaker 1: about that for a second. Whatever made those tracks walk
Speaker 1: through snow and frozen ground barefoot, then waded into a
Speaker 1: mountain creek in January, in water that couldn't have been
Speaker 1: more than thirty three or thirty four degrees. It did
Speaker 1: this voluntarily, stratigely, as a method of concealment. The cold
Speaker 1: that would have incapacitated a human in minutes was for
Speaker 1: this thing nothing more than a tactical inconvenience, a minor
Speaker 1: cost of doing business. I stood on the bank of
Speaker 1: Bishop Creek for a long time, looking at the point
Speaker 1: where the tracks disappeared into the ice rimmed water, and
Speaker 1: I felt something shift inside me, something I'd been holding
Speaker 1: in place since the first wood knock eighteen months earlier,
Speaker 1: A partition, a wall between the part of my mind
Speaker 1: that accepted what was happening and the part that still
Speaker 1: clung to the possibility of a normal explanation the wall
Speaker 1: came down. Because this wasn't a single event, I could rationalize.
Speaker 1: This was a pattern, a routine. The thing had come
Speaker 1: from the ridge, walked to my cabin, circled the entire structure,
Speaker 1: paused at my bedroom window, paused at my back door,
Speaker 1: leaned against the wall beside the door, completed the circuit,
Speaker 1: and then left via a route that deliberately concealed its
Speaker 1: heart or direction. Stay tuned for more Backwoods bigfoot stories.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after these messages. This wasn't random animal movement.
Speaker 1: This was a protocol, a method, something it had done before,
Speaker 1: possibly many times, and something it had refined to minimize
Speaker 1: evidence and maximize information. And it had done it while
Speaker 1: I was asleep. That's the thought that drove me back
Speaker 1: to the cabin at a pace just short of jogging.
Speaker 1: Not the size of the tracks, not the handprints, not
Speaker 1: the creek escape, the realization that this had probably been
Speaker 1: happening all along, every night, every week, for months, maybe
Speaker 1: since I'd moved in. The only reason I'd found evidence
Speaker 1: this time was the snow. The snow was an accident,
Speaker 1: a fluke, a nine inch recording medium that the thing
Speaker 1: couldn't avoid or erase the way it avoided cameras and
Speaker 1: erased its trail in water and on bare ground. Without
Speaker 1: the snow, I would never have known it was there.
Speaker 1: How many nights had it circled my cabin while I slept?
Speaker 1: How many times had it stood at the bedroom window?
Speaker 1: How many times had it leaned against the wall by
Speaker 1: the back door, pressing its hands into the logs, close
Speaker 1: enough to hear my breathing. I didn't want to think
Speaker 1: about it, but I couldn't stop. I got back to
Speaker 1: the cabin and went inside. Bowie was on the porch
Speaker 1: watching me with his head tilted. He'd finished his meadow
Speaker 1: romp and was lying in a patch of sun caked
Speaker 1: in snow, looking completely unbothered. I sat on the couch
Speaker 1: and called Cliff. He answered on the third ring. I
Speaker 1: could hear a television in the background, and the sound
Speaker 1: of his kids arguing about something normal household noise, the
Speaker 1: soundtrack of a life that didn't include seven foot creatures
Speaker 1: walking laps around your house at night. I need you
Speaker 1: to come up here, I said. Cliff was quiet for
Speaker 1: a second. When today, now, if you can another pause,
Speaker 1: that bad. I told him about the track, the full
Speaker 1: circuit around the cabin, the handprints, the creek, the bedroom window.
Speaker 1: I kept my voice level, which took effort because the
Speaker 1: adrenaline was still coursing through me and my hands were
Speaker 1: trembling against the phone. Cliff said he'd leave within the hour.
Speaker 1: The drive from Gastonia to my property was about two
Speaker 1: and a half hours in good conditions, longer with snow
Speaker 1: on the roads. He said he'd bring chains for his
Speaker 1: tires and a thermos of coffee, and he'd be there
Speaker 1: by early afternoon. I hung up and sat in the
Speaker 1: cabin and waited. I didn't go back outside. I didn't
Speaker 1: check the tracks again. I sat in the living room
Speaker 1: and looked at the south wall, the wall that separated
Speaker 1: me from the bedroom, the wall beyond which the southwest
Speaker 1: corner stood, where something had paused and shifted its weight
Speaker 1: four feet from my sleeping body. The fire had gone
Speaker 1: out overnight, and the cabin was cold. I rebuilt it mechanically,
Speaker 1: splitting kindling, stacking logs, striking a match. The ritual of
Speaker 1: it helped is the oldest human technology. It's the thing
Speaker 1: we've been doing since before we were fully human. Building
Speaker 1: a fire and a cold cabin when you're scared is
Speaker 1: an act of primal self assertion. I'm here, I'm warm,
Speaker 1: I'm in control of at least this. The fire caught,
Speaker 1: the cabin warmed. Bowie came inside and took his spot
Speaker 1: by the hearth. I made a fresh pot of coffee
Speaker 1: and drank two cups while I waited for Cliff. He
Speaker 1: arrived at one point fifteen. I heard his truck grinding
Speaker 1: up the gravel road before I saw it, the engine
Speaker 1: laboring through the snow, chains clanking on the tires. He
Speaker 1: pulled up to the cabin and got out, wearing a
Speaker 1: car heart jacket, insulated overalls, and a look on his
Speaker 1: face that was equal parts concern and curiosity. He'd brought
Speaker 1: a backpack with what he called field supplies, which turned
Speaker 1: out to be a tape measure, a digital camera better
Speaker 1: than my phone, a can of marking spray, and a
Speaker 1: yardstick he'd grabbed from his shop. Show me, he said.
Speaker 1: I took him around the cabin. We started at the
Speaker 1: northeast corner where the tracks emerged from the tree line,
Speaker 1: and followed them counterclockwise.
Speaker 2: Cliff didn't say a.
Speaker 1: Word for the first five minutes. He just walked beside
Speaker 1: the tracks, looking down, occasionally crouching to examine a print
Speaker 1: up close. He's not a tracker. He's an HVAC technician
Speaker 1: from Gastonia who thinks camping as a hotel without room service.
Speaker 1: But he's a practical observational man who spent thirty years
Speaker 1: troubleshooting systems by reading physical evidence, following duct work, tracing wiring,
Speaker 1: looking at a problem and figuring out what caused it.
Speaker 1: He brought that same diagnostic eye to the tracks, and
Speaker 1: I could see him processing the information the way he'd
Speaker 1: process a malfunctioning heat pump, systematically, without prejudice, letting the
Speaker 1: evidence lead. He pulled out the tape measure and checked
Speaker 1: the stride between three consecutive prints. Then he checked the depth,
Speaker 1: pushing the yardstick into one of the impressions until it
Speaker 1: hit the frozen ground at bottom. Then he crouched beside
Speaker 1: a particularly well defined print and looked at the tow impressions,
Speaker 1: counting them silently, his lips moving.
Speaker 2: At one point, he.
Speaker 1: Placed the yardstick flat across the width of a print
Speaker 1: and looked up at me. Seven inches seven in a quarter,
Speaker 1: I said, I measured this morning. He nodded and stood up.
Speaker 1: My foot is eleven and a half inches long, size twelve.
Speaker 1: This thing is what seventeen seventeen, give or take depends
Speaker 1: on the print. He looked at the track line stretching
Speaker 1: along the cabin wall, and then turned to look at
Speaker 1: the trail coming from the tree line, the straight, undeviated
Speaker 1: line from forest to house. It didn't hesitate, no, didn't wander,
Speaker 1: didn't circle, just walked straight here like it had done
Speaker 1: it before. He absorbed that without comment, and we kept walking.
Speaker 1: At the southwest corner, where the tracks paused by the
Speaker 1: bedroom window, Cliff stopped. He looked at the overlapping prints.
Speaker 1: He looked at the window. He measured the distance from
Speaker 1: the nearest print to the glass three feet eight inches.
Speaker 1: He looked at me. You were asleep in there, I nodded.
Speaker 1: He rubbed his jaw, and you didn't hear anything.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 1: Neither did Bowie. He looked at the tracks again. Then
Speaker 1: he looked back at the tree line, tracing the trail
Speaker 1: with his eyes all the way from the forest to
Speaker 1: the cabin wall. He did this twice, as if reconfirming
Speaker 1: what he was seeing. How heavy do you figure, I
Speaker 1: told him. My estimate four to five hundred pounds minimum,
Speaker 1: based on the depth of the impressions relative to my
Speaker 1: own weight in the same snow conditions.
Speaker 2: I showed him where I'd tested it.
Speaker 1: Stepping into undisturbed snow beside one of the tracks, my
Speaker 1: boot barely cratered the surface compared to the cylinders punched
Speaker 1: by whatever had walked through.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: He crouched again and looked at the compression pattern at
Speaker 1: the bottom of one of the prints. The ground under
Speaker 1: the know is frozen solid, has been for weeks, and
Speaker 1: this went through the snow and into the ground, about
Speaker 1: an inch and a half into the ground, through frozen soil.
Speaker 1: He let out a long breath that turned to vapor
Speaker 1: in the cold air and drifted away. That's a big animal, Garrett,
Speaker 1: I told him, I was aware. We continued the circuit
Speaker 1: at the handprints by the back door. Cliff spent a
Speaker 1: long time crouching, examining the wall impressions. He pulled off
Speaker 1: his glove and placed his own hand over one of
Speaker 1: the compressed areas. His spread hand didn't cover the full impression.
Speaker 1: The fingers of whatever had leaned against that wall extended
Speaker 1: at least two inches beyond Cliff's fingertips. And Cliff is
Speaker 1: not a small man. He's six' one two hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty pounds with hands that spend their days gripping wrenches
Speaker 1: and duct. Work those aren't bear, paws he. SAID i, said,
Speaker 1: no a bear doesn't walk around a cabin on two
Speaker 1: legs and lean against the wall with both.
Speaker 2: Hands.
Speaker 1: No he stood up and brushed the snow off his.
Speaker 1: Knees i'm not going to say the. Word you know
Speaker 1: WHAT i, think But i'm not saying. IT i told
Speaker 1: him he didn't have. To we followed the tracks across
Speaker 1: the meadow To Bishop. Creek cliff stood on the bank
Speaker 1: and looked at the point where the trail entered the,
Speaker 1: water then looked upstream and downstream at the undisturbed snow
Speaker 1: on both. Banks the thing had entered the creek and
Speaker 1: left no exit tracks for at least fifty yards in either.
Speaker 1: Direction it used the creek to hide its. Trail cliff,
Speaker 1: said not a, question a.
Speaker 2: STATEMENT i.
Speaker 1: Nodded he stood there for a, while hands in his jacket,
Speaker 1: pockets looking at the. Water then he turned to me and,
Speaker 1: said how long do you think this has been going?
Speaker 1: ON i told HIM i didn't. KNOW i told him
Speaker 1: that was what scared me the, Most that the snow
Speaker 1: had revealed a VISIT i would never have known about,
Speaker 1: otherwise and that the efficiency and precision of the route
Speaker 1: suggested this wasn't the first. Time the thing knew the
Speaker 1: layout of the, Cabin it knew where the windows, were
Speaker 1: it knew where the doors, were it knew the terrain
Speaker 1: between the trees and the house and the. Creek that
Speaker 1: kind of familiarity doesn't come from a single. Visit cliff
Speaker 1: looked at me with an EXPRESSION i hadn't seen from him.
Speaker 1: Before not fear, exactly something more like, reckoning the face
Speaker 1: of a man who's been humoring his friend's strange stories
Speaker 1: for eighteen months and has just walked into evidence he can't.
Speaker 1: DISMISS i believe, you he, said for the, RECORD i
Speaker 1: believe all of. It that sentence hit me harder THAN i.
Speaker 1: Expected i'd been carrying this alone for so, long With
Speaker 1: cliff as the only person who knew. That i'd started
Speaker 1: to wonder if he was just being, polite just letting me,
Speaker 1: talk because that's what friends. Do hearing him SAY i believe,
Speaker 1: you while standing in the snow beside tracks that dwarfed our.
Speaker 1: Own looking at a creek where something had waded through
Speaker 1: ice water to cover its trail felt like a weight being,
Speaker 1: redistributed not, removed just. Shared we went back to the
Speaker 1: cabin AND i made, lunch soup and so sandwiches and more.
Speaker 1: Coffee we sat at the kitchen table and talked for two,
Speaker 1: hours not just about the, tracks about, everything the, knocking the,
Speaker 1: garden the, trail camera hand the, workshop, observation the, mimicry the.
Speaker 1: RAVINE i laid it all, out start to, finish in chronological,
Speaker 1: order And cliff listened to the whole thing without cracking
Speaker 1: a single, joke which was. Unprecedented WHEN i, finished he
Speaker 1: sat back in his chair and was quiet for a long.
Speaker 1: Time then he, said you need to document this, properly
Speaker 1: not just the, notebook, photographs, measurements time, stamps weather, conditions,
Speaker 1: everything because someday you're going to want to tell this,
Speaker 1: story and when you, do you're going to need more
Speaker 1: than your. Memory he was, right and from that day
Speaker 1: FORWARD i did exactly what he. Said every, observation every,
Speaker 1: incident every piece of physical evidence, documented, dated. Stored cliff
Speaker 1: left around on, four wanting to get down the, mountain before,
Speaker 1: dark the gravel road was manageable with, chains but once
Speaker 1: the temperature dropped, further the packed snow would ice over
Speaker 1: and the switchbacks near the bottom would become genuinely. DANGEROUS
Speaker 1: i walked him to his truck and we stood in
Speaker 1: the driveway for a, minute the snow crunching under our,
Speaker 1: boots our breath hanging in the cold air between. Us
Speaker 1: CLIFF i, said thanks for coming. Up he shook his.
Speaker 1: Head don't thank. Me i've been giving you a hard
Speaker 1: time about this for a year and a. HALF i
Speaker 1: should have come up. Sooner he, paused looking at the,
Speaker 1: cabin at the ridge behind, it at the tree line
Speaker 1: that wrapped around the property like a dark. Curtain you,
Speaker 1: know when you first started telling me about the, KNOCKING
Speaker 1: i figured you were stressed out new, property living, alone
Speaker 1: your mom. PASSING i thought your brain was filling in
Speaker 1: the blanks with.
Speaker 2: Noise he looked at. ME i was, wrong And i'm.
Speaker 1: Sorry that wasn't a small thing coming From. Cliff he's
Speaker 1: not a man who apologizes easily or admits error. Gracefully
Speaker 1: thirty years of friendship AND i could count his apologies
Speaker 1: on one. Hand this one cost him, something AND i
Speaker 1: appreciated it more THAN i could. Say you believe me,
Speaker 1: NOW i, Said i'm standing in footprints that are bigger
Speaker 1: than my. Arm he, Said i'd have to be an
Speaker 1: idiot not. To he got in his. Truck before he pulled,
Speaker 1: away he rolled down the window and, said put a
Speaker 1: lock on that bedroom. Window the glass kind won't stop
Speaker 1: anything that, size but at least you'll hear it if something.
Speaker 1: TRIES i told HIM i, would And, garrett he looked
Speaker 1: at me for a long. Beat keep that, Notebook keep the.
Speaker 1: Photographs you're going to want them. Someday he drove off
Speaker 1: down the gravel, road his tire chains rattling and clanking
Speaker 1: against the snow packed, surface AND i stood in the
Speaker 1: driveway and watched until his tail lights disappeared around the
Speaker 1: first curve and the sound of his engine faded into the.
Speaker 1: Distance then it was just me and the mountain and
Speaker 1: the snow and the, silence and somewhere in the, trees
Speaker 1: somewhere on the ridge or along the, creek or in the,
Speaker 1: SHADOWS i couldn't see into whatever had walked around my
Speaker 1: cabin last night and would probably walk around it again.
Speaker 1: TONIGHT i went, inside Fed bowie and sat on the
Speaker 1: couch in the darkening. Cabin the sun set around five point,
Speaker 1: thirty the snow took on that blue purple tint it
Speaker 1: gets in the last light the color of a, bruise
Speaker 1: and the temperature dropped. Fast by six o'clock it was
Speaker 1: in the single. Digits the cabin was warm from the,
Speaker 1: fire but every time the wind, GUSTED i could feel
Speaker 1: the cold pressing against the, walls like something trying to get.
Speaker 1: In the windows radiated. Cold the floor near the exterior
Speaker 1: walls was cool, underfoot even with the woodstove. Burning the
Speaker 1: cabin was a pocket of warmth and a frozen, landscape
Speaker 1: and the warmth felt fragile in a way it hadn't.
Speaker 1: Before not because the cold threatened it BECAUSE i now
Speaker 1: knew that the walls between the warm inside and the
Speaker 1: cold outside were thinner Than i'd, imagined not physically. Psychologically
Speaker 1: something could stand on the other side of those, walls
Speaker 1: lean against, them press its hands into, them look through the,
Speaker 1: windows AND i would never know unless the weather conspired
Speaker 1: to record the. VISIT i didn't go on the porch that.
Speaker 1: EVENING i stayed, inside with the curtains drawn and the
Speaker 1: fire built, high And bowie on his blanket by the
Speaker 1: HEARTH i ate left over. CHILI i read a Paperback
Speaker 1: i'd been working through for a month without making much.
Speaker 1: PROGRESS i tried to behave like it was a normal winter.
Speaker 1: Evening around nine, O'CLOCK i decided to check the tracks
Speaker 1: one more time before. BED i don't know, why, compulsion,
Speaker 1: anxiety the need to verify that What i'd seen that
Speaker 1: morning was still there and still real and hadn't been
Speaker 1: some kind of elaborate hallucination brought on by isolation and.
Speaker 2: COLD i put on.
Speaker 1: My coat and boots and stepped onto the porch with a.
Speaker 1: Flashlight stay tuned for More backwoods Big foot. Stories we'll
Speaker 1: be back after these. Messages the beam cut through the
Speaker 1: darkness and lit up the, snow which sparkled in the
Speaker 1: cold air like the surface was embedded with. GLASS i
Speaker 1: walked around to the north side of the, cabin following
Speaker 1: my own bootprints from that, morning and shined the light
Speaker 1: on the track line that ran along the. Wall the
Speaker 1: tracks were still, there already starting to lose definition as
Speaker 1: the top layer of snow had sublimated in the dry,
Speaker 1: cold but still clearly visible the stride the depth the
Speaker 1: five toed.
Speaker 2: Impressions all of.
Speaker 1: It THEN i swung the flashlight further along the, wall
Speaker 1: past the point where the original tracks turned the corner
Speaker 1: to the west, side AND i saw something that stopped me.
Speaker 1: Cold there were new, tracks a second set of, prints
Speaker 1: running parallel to my own bootprints from that, morning but
Speaker 1: offset about two feet to the. Right they followed the
Speaker 1: same Path i'd taken When i'd walked the circuit With,
Speaker 1: cliff along the north, wall around the northwest, corner down
Speaker 1: the west side past the, porch the same, route the same,
Speaker 1: sequence step for, step corner for, corner as if something
Speaker 1: had watched me walk the perimeter that, morning and then
Speaker 1: hours later had come back and retraced my steps with
Speaker 1: the precision of someone following a guide rope in the.
Speaker 1: Dark BUT i hadn't made those, prints and neither Had.
Speaker 1: Cliff cliff's boots were a different size and tread, pattern
Speaker 1: a wolverine work boot with a heavy lug soul that
Speaker 1: left a distinctive waffle grid impression in the. SNOW i
Speaker 1: could clearly distinguish his tracks from. Mine these new prints
Speaker 1: were neither of. Ours they were the same dimensions as
Speaker 1: the overnight, tracks seventeen inches five toes deep heel, strike
Speaker 1: barefoot in single digit. Cold my flashlight beam was shaking
Speaker 1: so badly the light was stuttering across the snow like a.
Speaker 1: STROBE i gripped the barrel with both hands to steady,
Speaker 1: it and forced myself to breathe in through the, nose
Speaker 1: out through the, mouth the way you breathe when you're
Speaker 1: trying to keep your hands from shaking enough to hold
Speaker 1: a tool. Steady i'd done it a thousand times on
Speaker 1: ladders and. SCAFFOLDING i never Thought i'd be doing it
Speaker 1: in my own, yard staring at footprints that had appeared
Speaker 1: in the time it took me to eat dinner and
Speaker 1: read half a chapter of a. Paperback something had followed
Speaker 1: my path After i'd walked. It After cliff AND i
Speaker 1: had documented the overnight tracks and gone inside for, lunch
Speaker 1: and spent two hours at the kitchen table talking about
Speaker 1: What i'd found and what it meant and WHAT i.
Speaker 2: Should do about.
Speaker 1: It After cliff had driven away And i'd locked the
Speaker 1: doors and drawn the curtains and convinced myself that the
Speaker 1: day's excitement was. Over WHILE i was inside the cabin
Speaker 1: with the fire going And bowie at my, feet something
Speaker 1: had come back to the cabin and walked the same
Speaker 1: Route i'd walk that, morning placing its feet beside, mine
Speaker 1: matching my trail step for. Step the message was impossible to.
Speaker 1: MISREAD i see where you. WALKED i walked there. Too
Speaker 1: you found my, Truck now find. THESE i followed the
Speaker 1: new tracks with the. Flashlight they paralleled my bootprints along
Speaker 1: the north, wall turned the, corner and continued along the west.
Speaker 1: Side at the southwest, corner where the original overnight tracks
Speaker 1: had paused at the bedroom, window the new tracks paused
Speaker 1: two same compressed weight shifting, pattern same deliberate, stop at
Speaker 1: the same. Spot it had stood there again at the,
Speaker 1: window my, window the window four feet from my bed
Speaker 1: for the second time in twenty four. Hours but this
Speaker 1: time there was an, addition a single track that left
Speaker 1: the main line and stepped closer to the, window closer
Speaker 1: than the overnight tracks had, been within two feet of the,
Speaker 1: glass close enough that if the thing bent forward even,
Speaker 1: slightly its face would have been inches from the. Pane
Speaker 1: and beside that track in the snow beneath the, window
Speaker 1: there was a MARK i hadn't seen during the morning,
Speaker 1: SURVEY a knuckle print or WHAT i interpreted as a knuckle.
Speaker 1: Print four small round depressions in the, snow spaced in
Speaker 1: an arc at the height of the window, sill as
Speaker 1: if something had rested the back of its curled fingers
Speaker 1: on the sill and leaned forward to look. Inside the
Speaker 1: depressions were evenly, spaced about an inch and a half,
Speaker 1: apart and each one was roughly the diameter.
Speaker 2: Of a quarter.
Speaker 1: Knuckles the dorsal side of four fingers curled into a
Speaker 1: loose fist resting on the, seal the way you'd rest
Speaker 1: your hand on a counter while you leaned forward to
Speaker 1: peer through a window to look. Inside at the bed
Speaker 1: Where i'd, slept at the room Where i'd lain unconscious
Speaker 1: for eight hours while something circled my, Home at the
Speaker 1: pillow where my head had, rested and the Blankets i'd
Speaker 1: pulled up to my chin because the bedroom was cold
Speaker 1: and the fire was in the other, room And i'd
Speaker 1: felt safe enough to let myself drift into the deepest
Speaker 1: Sleep i'd had in. MONTHS i stood at that window
Speaker 1: with the flashlight beam shaking in my, hand and felt
Speaker 1: the full accumulated weight of eighteen months settled onto my.
Speaker 1: Shoulders every encounter from the first knock to this moment
Speaker 1: had been building toward a REVELATION i hadn't wanted to.
Speaker 1: Face the knocking had been, distant the garden had been.
Speaker 1: External the mimicry had been in the, forest in the,
Speaker 1: ravine away from the. Cabin even the previous cabin, visits
Speaker 1: the breathing against the, wall the tapping on the kitchen
Speaker 1: window had happened WHILE i was awake and aware and
Speaker 1: on the other side of a locked.
Speaker 2: Door this was.
Speaker 1: Different this was something standing at my bedroom, window leaning
Speaker 1: down to look through the glass WHILE i was unconscious
Speaker 1: and defenseless and had no idea it was. There this
Speaker 1: was an, inventory a check in a surveillance, routine conducted
Speaker 1: with the knowledge THAT i was asleep and couldn't observe
Speaker 1: it being. Observed and the fact that it had come
Speaker 1: back After i'd discovered the overnight, tracks After cliff AND
Speaker 1: i had spent the afternoon walking the evidence and talking
Speaker 1: about it in voices that must have carried through the winter.
Speaker 1: Air it meant it had been watching us do, that
Speaker 1: watching us follow its, trail Watching cliff measure his hand
Speaker 1: against the wall, impression watching him drive, away and then
Speaker 1: ONCE i was alone, again and inside with the curtains.
Speaker 1: Closed it came back and did it, again walked the same,
Speaker 1: route stopped at the same, window and this time got even,
Speaker 1: closer not because it hadn't finished the first, time because
Speaker 1: it wanted me to know it could come back whenever it.
Speaker 1: Chose that my awareness of its visits changed, nothing that
Speaker 1: discovering the evidence didn't deter. It THAT i could document
Speaker 1: and measure and photograph every track in handprint and knuckle
Speaker 1: mark on the, property and the next night there'd be fresh.
Speaker 1: ONES i went, INSIDE i locked every door and, WINDOW.
Speaker 2: I closed every.
Speaker 1: CURTAIN i pushed the couch against the south wall so
Speaker 1: that my back would be to the bedroom and my
Speaker 1: face would be toward the front, door the only entrance
Speaker 1: that didn't face the tree. Line bowie was on his,
Speaker 1: blanket watching me rearrange the, furniture with the patient expression
Speaker 1: of a dog who's seen his owner do strange things
Speaker 1: before and has learned not to ask. QUESTIONS i didn't
Speaker 1: sleep that. NIGHT i sat on the couch with the
Speaker 1: fire going and the flashlight in my, hand and listened
Speaker 1: to the. Mountain every sound was amplified by the silence
Speaker 1: and the. Snow the fire popping the, cabin settling in the,
Speaker 1: cold the wind cutting across the ridge and moaning through
Speaker 1: the bare, branches and underneath all of, it the, deep
Speaker 1: insulated quiet of a winter, night where sound travels further
Speaker 1: and cleaner than at any other time of. Year at
Speaker 1: two seventeen in the, MORNING i heard, IT a single
Speaker 1: strike from the, ridge, sharp, heavy, percussive wood on, wood
Speaker 1: the first Knock i'd heard since Early. December it cut
Speaker 1: through the insulated silence of the snow covered landscape with
Speaker 1: a clarity that made it sound closer than it probably.
Speaker 1: Was the cold air carried it, cleanly without the distortion
Speaker 1: and softening that warm summer air adds to distant. Sounds
Speaker 1: this was crisp defined a, statement punctuating the stillness like
Speaker 1: an exclamation. Point then, silence a long hanging pause that
Speaker 1: stretched for maybe two. MINUTES i counted the seconds in
Speaker 1: my head one hundred and. EIGHTEEN i, know because counting
Speaker 1: was the only thing keeping me from. Hyperventilating then a second,
Speaker 1: strike same, direction same, quality but, closer noticeably, closer not
Speaker 1: on the, ridge on the slope between the ridge and the,
Speaker 1: cabin maybe half the. Distance the sound was, louder, fuller
Speaker 1: and the impact resonated with a longer, decay rolling through
Speaker 1: the cold air and reflecting off the snow covered meadow
Speaker 1: in a way that made it hard to pinpoint, exactly
Speaker 1: but easy to confirm the general trajectory coming down toward.
Speaker 1: Me another, pause about ninety, SECONDS i stared at the
Speaker 1: south wall of the car and tried to calculate distances
Speaker 1: based on the volume change between the first and second.
Speaker 1: Strikes if the first had been on the ridge roughly
Speaker 1: three hundred yards away and the second was half that,
Speaker 1: distance then whatever was knocking had covered one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty yards of, steep snow covered terrain in two, minutes moving,
Speaker 1: downhill moving toward the, cabin and announcing its approach with each.
Speaker 1: Strike that's what it. Was an, announcement not a, warning
Speaker 1: not a, threat a. COUNTDOWN a third strike closer, still
Speaker 1: and this one had a different. Character the previous two
Speaker 1: had been the familiar sharp Crack i'd been hearing for
Speaker 1: a year and a, half the clean percussive report of
Speaker 1: one piece of wood struck against. Another this one was, heavier,
Speaker 1: deeper lower, pitched like whatever was being struck was a
Speaker 1: bigger piece of, wood a standing tree rather than a
Speaker 1: loose branch or. Like the force behind the blow had increased.
Speaker 1: Dramatically it resonated through the walls of the, cabin AND
Speaker 1: i felt it in the floor through my. Boots the
Speaker 1: windows buzzed faintly in their. FRAMES a jar on the
Speaker 1: kitchen counter clinked against its. Neighbor bowie's head came. Up
Speaker 1: he stared at the south. Wall his hackles rose in that,
Speaker 1: slow deliberate ripple that started at his shoulders and rolled
Speaker 1: toward his. Tail but he didn't, growl he didn't, Bark
Speaker 1: he just. STARED i sat on the couch and counted
Speaker 1: my heart. BEATS i got to about one hundred and
Speaker 1: forty before the fourth strike. Came this one was, close very,
Speaker 1: close within the first tree, line maybe forty yards from the.
Speaker 1: Cabin the sound was, massive a concussive boom that rattled
Speaker 1: the window glass and sent a cascade of snow sliding
Speaker 1: off the porch. Roof it was the loudest Knock i'd
Speaker 1: ever heard by a significant. Margin the previous strikes had
Speaker 1: been firm and. Deliberate this one was. Emphatic it had
Speaker 1: forced behind it that communicated something beyond. Presence it communicated
Speaker 1: capability THIS i can hit something this hard And i'm this.
Speaker 1: Close there was no fifth. Strike the mountain went quiet
Speaker 1: after the fourth and stayed quiet for the rest of the.
Speaker 1: Night bowie's hackles settled after about ten. Minutes he laid
Speaker 1: his head back down on his, blanket but kept his eyes,
Speaker 1: open fixed on the south wall until sometime after, three
Speaker 1: WHEN i finally saw his eyelids droop and. CLOSE i
Speaker 1: stayed on the couch until, dawn when the first gray
Speaker 1: light crept through the, CURTAINS i got, up put on
Speaker 1: my coat and went. Outside the tracks from the night
Speaker 1: before both sets were still, visible but fading in the morning.
Speaker 1: COLD i walked past them to the north side of
Speaker 1: the cabin and looked toward the tree. Line there was
Speaker 1: a fresh trail in the snow coming from the, ridge
Speaker 1: ending at a massive red oak about thirty five yards
Speaker 1: from the, cabin a TREE i knew well because it
Speaker 1: was one of the largest on the, property with the
Speaker 1: trunk nearly three feet in, Diameter i'd estimated its age
Speaker 1: at two hundred years or more based on the. Girth
Speaker 1: it was one of the Trees earl had pointed out
Speaker 1: during our first walk of the, property calling it the Old.
Speaker 1: Man he said he And frank had seriously discussed cutting
Speaker 1: it for lumber when they were building the, cabin and
Speaker 1: decided against it because it felt wrong to kill something
Speaker 1: that had been standing since before The Civil. War the
Speaker 1: snow around the base of the oak was trampled in
Speaker 1: a tight, circle packed down by what must have been
Speaker 1: significant weight moving in a confined. Space the compression zone
Speaker 1: was about four feet in, diameter and within it the
Speaker 1: snow was crushed, flat and the frozen ground beneath was
Speaker 1: scuffed and. Marked whatever had stood there had shifted, repeatedly,
Speaker 1: pivoting adjusting its, stance possibly winding up for the. Blow
Speaker 1: and on the, trunk at a height of about eight,
Speaker 1: feet there was a fresh wound in the, bark a
Speaker 1: scar where something had struck the tree hard enough to
Speaker 1: shatter the outer bark and expose the white sapwood. Underneath
Speaker 1: the wound was roughly, circular about six inches, across with
Speaker 1: radiating fractures extending another four or five inches in every.
Speaker 1: Direction the bark fragments were scattered in the snow below,
Speaker 1: it like shrapnel from a small, explosion some pieces landing
Speaker 1: two or three feet from the. TRUNK a chunk of
Speaker 1: bark the size of my palm was embedded in the
Speaker 1: snow about four feet, away driven there by the force
Speaker 1: of the impact eight feet up on a trunk three feet,
Speaker 1: wide hit hard enough to crack the bark open and
Speaker 1: send pieces flying several. FEET i tried to put that in.
Speaker 1: Perspective i've swung a sledge hammer at stumps to split.
Speaker 1: Them i've driven fence posts with a. Maul i've hit
Speaker 1: things as hard AS i can with heavy, tools using
Speaker 1: my legs and my hips and my shoulders the way
Speaker 1: you're supposed. TO i could not produce the kind of
Speaker 1: DAMAGE i was looking, at not at eight feet off the,
Speaker 1: ground not on a living oak with bark that's an
Speaker 1: inch thick and tough as shoe. Leather whatever hit that
Speaker 1: tree had delivered a blow with more force than a
Speaker 1: grown man swinging a ten pound, hammer and it had
Speaker 1: done so at a height that would require an eight foot,
Speaker 1: reach which means the thing was either very tall with
Speaker 1: very long, arms or it was tall enough to deliver
Speaker 1: a full power strike at a height most humans can
Speaker 1: barely touch on. TIPTOE i measured the height of the.
Speaker 1: WOUND i measured the diameter of the. SCAR i measured
Speaker 1: the distance of the furthest bark fragment from the. TRUNK
Speaker 1: i photographed, everything including the trampled snow at the, base
Speaker 1: the approach trail from the, ridge and several angles of
Speaker 1: the wound. Itself THEN i walked back to the, cabin went,
Speaker 1: inside and sat down at the kitchen table with the spiral.
Speaker 2: NOTEBOOK i wrote.
Speaker 1: For an, hour every, detail every, measurement every. Observation the overnight,
Speaker 1: tracks the full cabin, circuit the pauses at the bedroom
Speaker 1: window and the back, door the handprints on the, wall
Speaker 1: the creek, Escape cliff's visit and his, measurements the second
Speaker 1: set of tracks paralleling my boot, prints the knuckle impressions
Speaker 1: at the bedroom window, sill the sequential knocks descending from
Speaker 1: the ridge in the small hours of the, morning the
Speaker 1: struck oak and its shattered, Bark all of it documented
Speaker 1: in the, careful methodical prose That cliff had urged me to.
Speaker 1: Adopt stay tuned for More Backwoods bigfoot. Stories we'll be
Speaker 1: back after these. Messages WHEN i was, FINISHED i sat
Speaker 1: back and looked at What i'd, Written pages and pages
Speaker 1: of documentation spanning eighteen months and now a systematic surveillance
Speaker 1: pattern revealed by an accident of weather that had laid
Speaker 1: down a recording. Surface the thing couldn't. Circumvent the snow
Speaker 1: told me What i'd suspected but hadn't been able to.
Speaker 1: Prove the creature or creatures hadn't gone dormant in. Winter
Speaker 1: they'd gone invisible without. Snow their visits left no, trace
Speaker 1: no prints on the frozen, ground no marks in the dead,
Speaker 1: grass no disturbance in the leaf litter that was already
Speaker 1: flat and dry from months of. Cold they moved through
Speaker 1: the winter landscape the way they moved through every other, season, quietly,
Speaker 1: deliberately and with a level of environmental awareness that bordered on.
Speaker 1: Mastery the snow was a, glitch a brief window where
Speaker 1: the recording medium was too deep and too uniform to,
Speaker 1: Avoid and in that, window in those twelve or so
Speaker 1: hours between the storm's end and the gradual sublimation and
Speaker 1: melting that would erase the evidence over the next two,
Speaker 1: days the truth was written on the ground in a
Speaker 1: language EVEN i couldn't. Misread they'd been coming the whole,
Speaker 1: time every night or close to, it walking from the
Speaker 1: ridge to my, cabin circling the, structure pausing at the,
Speaker 1: windows pressing their hands to the, walls standing at my,
Speaker 1: doors and then leaving via the creek or some other
Speaker 1: route that concealed their departure before dawn broke AND i
Speaker 1: stepped onto the porch with my coffee and ASSUMED i was.
Speaker 1: Alone i'd been living inside a surveillance pattern for eighteen
Speaker 1: months without knowing. It the CABIN i thought of as
Speaker 1: my refuge was a waypoint on somebody else's. Route the
Speaker 1: WALLS i trusted to separate my world from theirs, were
Speaker 1: from their, perspective. Transparent they knew WHERE i, slept they
Speaker 1: knew WHERE i, Ate they knew WHERE i kept the.
Speaker 1: Dog they knew the layout as well AS i, did maybe,
Speaker 1: better because they'd walked it from the outside in the
Speaker 1: dark more times THAN i could. Count that realization changed
Speaker 1: the WAY i lived on the, mountain not, dramatically not
Speaker 1: in ways that would be visible to anyone, else but, internally,
Speaker 1: fundamentally the relationship between me and the property. SHIFTED i
Speaker 1: stopped thinking of the cabin as a barrier and started
Speaker 1: thinking of it as a known, location a point on
Speaker 1: a map that someone else, carried a place that was
Speaker 1: observed not, private, occupied not. HIDDEN i didn't. LEAVE i
Speaker 1: want to be clear about. THAT i didn't pack a
Speaker 1: bag and drive To hendersonville and check into a.
Speaker 2: MOTEL i.
Speaker 1: STAYED i rebuilt the, FIRE i Fed, BOWIE i made.
Speaker 1: COFFEE i went to work the next, day and came
Speaker 1: home that evening and cooked, dinner and sat on the
Speaker 1: couch and went to. Bed people ask, me WHEN i
Speaker 1: eventually tell them any of, this WHY i didn't. Leave
Speaker 1: they can't understand. It they think they'd have been gone
Speaker 1: after the first, sighting or at the latest after the
Speaker 1: mimicry in the. Ravine and maybe they would have. BEEN
Speaker 1: i don't judge anyone for, that but for, me leaving
Speaker 1: was never really an, option AND i want to try
Speaker 1: to explain, why BECAUSE i think it matters for understanding
Speaker 1: the rest of what. Happened the cabin wasn't just a.
Speaker 1: Building it was my parents money turned into something. Permanent
Speaker 1: it was the continuation of my dad's fall weekends in
Speaker 1: The Blue. Ridge it was my mom's, garden however briefly
Speaker 1: it had. Lasted it Was earl's hands in the joinery
Speaker 1: and rebazinias along the south, wall and frank stone work
Speaker 1: in the. Chimney it was the place, where for the
Speaker 1: first time in my adult, Life i'd slept eight hours
Speaker 1: a night and woken up feeling like a human being
Speaker 1: instead of a machine running a PROGRAM i hadn't. Written
Speaker 1: the cabin was the first Thing i'd ever owned that
Speaker 1: felt like it owned me back in the way that
Speaker 1: land does when you've put your labor into it and
Speaker 1: it's accepted. You and here's the part that's hardest to.
Speaker 1: ADMIT i was, interested despite the, fear despite the sleep,
Speaker 1: loss despite the WEIGHT i was, dropping and the thousand
Speaker 1: yard Stair wade had.
Speaker 2: NOTICED i was.
Speaker 1: Interested something extraordinary was happening on this, mountain something that
Speaker 1: most people would never, experience and most scientists would never.
Speaker 1: Study something that was rewriting my understanding of what exists
Speaker 1: in these woods and what those things are capable. Of
Speaker 1: walking away from that would have felt like closing a
Speaker 1: book in the middle of the most important. Chapter SO
Speaker 1: i stayed AND i. Adapted BUT i slept differently After january,
Speaker 1: ninth lighter with the curtains closed and a flashlight on
Speaker 1: the nightstand And bowie in the, hallway and some part
Speaker 1: of my brain running a low level alert program that
Speaker 1: never fully powered. DOWN i started leaving a battery powered
Speaker 1: lantern on the kitchen counter at, night turned, low just
Speaker 1: enough light to navigate the cabin without a. Flashlight if
Speaker 1: something woke me, UP i put a pair of boots
Speaker 1: in a jacket by the bed SO i could be
Speaker 1: dressed and outside in under thirty. SECONDS i installed the window.
Speaker 1: Lock cliff had recommended a secondary latch that would make
Speaker 1: noise if the glass was.
Speaker 2: Disturbed these weren't.
Speaker 1: The preparations of a man who expected an. Attack they
Speaker 1: were the preparations of a man who'd accepted that his
Speaker 1: home was being visited regularly by something that outweighed him
Speaker 1: by three hundred pounds and could peel bark off a
Speaker 1: living oak at eight feet.
Speaker 2: With a single.
Speaker 1: Blow not because it was going to hurt, me it
Speaker 1: hadn't shown any inclination toward aggression in eighteen months of,
Speaker 1: contact but because knowledge changes, you and the knowledge that
Speaker 1: something that powerful was circling my cabin WHILE i slept
Speaker 1: demanded a response more substantial than pulling the covers over
Speaker 1: my head and hoping for the. Best BECAUSE i knew
Speaker 1: they were out, there and NOW i knew they'd always out,
Speaker 1: there and the, snow which had been so beautiful when it,
Speaker 1: fell which had wrapped the cabin in silence and given
Speaker 1: me the best night's Sleep i'd had in, months had
Speaker 1: shown me the Truth i'd been avoiding since the first
Speaker 1: knock on the first evening of the first. SUMMER i
Speaker 1: wasn't alone on this. Mountain i'd never been alone on this.
Speaker 1: Mountain and whatever was walking circles around my cabin in
Speaker 1: the dark had known that from the very. Beginning it
Speaker 1: had been here before, me Before, earl probably before the cabin.
Speaker 1: Existed this was its, territory AND i was the, visitor
Speaker 1: not the other way. Around i'd just been the last
Speaker 1: one to figure that. Out i'll stop. Here story five
Speaker 1: is about The Bluff, overlook the Place earl's, grandfather or
Speaker 1: in my, Case earl, himself warned me never to visit after.
Speaker 1: Dark he'd mentioned it once in passing during that first
Speaker 1: afternoon we spent on the. Porch he'd pointed toward a
Speaker 1: spot on the, ridge a rocky prominence that jutted above
Speaker 1: the tree, line about half a minle mile northeast of the,
Speaker 1: cabin and said his Brother frank used to hunt from
Speaker 1: up there in the. Fall because you could see three
Speaker 1: counties from the. Top then he'd, said almost as an
Speaker 1: afterthought the way he said everything that. Mattered most don't
Speaker 1: go up there after. Dark there's no good reason to
Speaker 1: be on that bluff after. SUNDOWN i didn't ask WHY
Speaker 1: i should, have BUT i was buying a, cabin not
Speaker 1: collecting ghost. Stories and the comment went into the same
Speaker 1: mental file as the mountains got its own rhythm And
Speaker 1: reba's garden wasn't worth the. Trouble Things earle said that
Speaker 1: didn't seem important until they. WERE i went to the
Speaker 1: bluff after, dark and WHAT i found up, there or more,
Speaker 1: accurately what found, me is the REASON i started locking
Speaker 1: the gate at the bottom of the gravel road and
Speaker 1: Telling dennis at the hardware store that IF i ever went,
Speaker 1: missing he should send someone up the mountain with a
Speaker 1: flashlight and a strong. Stomach but that's for next, Time.
Speaker 1: Garrett that was story four From, garrett AND i want
Speaker 1: to sit with this one for a minute BEFORE i wrap.
Speaker 1: Up we talk a lot in this field about evidence,
Speaker 1: tracks audio, recordings, photographs thermal. Hits we talk about what
Speaker 1: constitutes proof and what falls, short and the frustration for
Speaker 1: most researchers and most witnesses is that the evidence is always.
Speaker 1: INCOMPLETE a track washes, away a photograph is, blurry a
Speaker 1: recording is. Ambiguous the subject operates at the edge of,
Speaker 1: detection and by the time we catch up to where it,
Speaker 1: was it's already. Gone what snow, does and What garrett's
Speaker 1: account illustrates so, perfectly is take that advantage away for
Speaker 1: one brief. Period the recording medium is. Everywhere every step is,
Speaker 1: captured every route is, visible every pause is. Documented and
Speaker 1: what The snow revealed At garrett's cabin wasn't a single.
Speaker 1: Visit it was a, routine a, circuit a protocol that suggests,
Speaker 1: habitual repeated access to a structure occupied by a sleeping.
Speaker 1: Human the second set of tracks is what gets, me
Speaker 1: because the first, set the overnight, circuit could theoretically be
Speaker 1: explained as a single curious animal making a one time,
Speaker 1: visit unusual but within the realm of what we know
Speaker 1: about large animal. Behavior but the second, set the one
Speaker 1: laid down in the afternoon or evening Following garrett's own,
Speaker 1: path placed deliberately beside his, bootprints that's something else.
Speaker 2: Entirely that's a.
Speaker 1: Response that's an animal that saw the evidence of its own,
Speaker 1: detection watched the humans, investigate and then came back and
Speaker 1: retraced the, route as if to, say, YES i was
Speaker 1: here And i'm still, here and knowing about it doesn't change.
Speaker 1: Anything that's a level of awareness that goes beyond. Curiosity
Speaker 1: that's a statement of, ownership and it's one of the
Speaker 1: most chilling Things i've heard in forty years of studying this.
Speaker 1: Subject next Time garrett takes us to The Bluff overlook
Speaker 1: and what waits for him there isn't. Alone stay, safe stay,
Speaker 1: curious And i'll talk to you next.
Speaker 2: Time Didn't di