Bigfoot Changed Everything

woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, and let's head off into the woods if you dare.

There's something I've learned, after nearly four decades of doing this, after all the interviews, the field research, the late nights, sitting in places most people wouldn't go in broad daylight, I've learned that the stories that stick with you, the ones that burrow in and won't let go, They aren't the dramatic ones. They aren't the stories where somebody saw something for half a second through the trees and went

home with a good campfire tale. The ones that keep me up at night are the quiet ones, the slow ones, the encounters where something took its time, where it watched, where it made a decision about whether or not to let you leave. That's what you're about to hear. I've been collecting accounts like these for a long time. People send them to me, They call, they write long emails at two in the morning because they can't sleep, and

they've never told anyone the full story. And I can always tell the difference between someone who's embellishing and someone who's still shaking. The people in these accounts still shaking, some of them decades later. What I've put together here are five encounters, five separate people, five different parts of this country, five different decades, and every single one of them shares something in common. Not the details. The details

are all different. What they share is the aftermath. Every one of these people changed the way they lived because of what happened to them. They stopped going to places they'd gone.

Some of these came to me directly emails mostly. One of them came secondhand from a nephew telling me about his uncle. I've changed some minor details to protect privacy, but the core of every account is exactly as it was shared with me. First names only, locations are as specific as the witnesses were comfortable with. And I want to say this upfront because it matters. None of these people came to me looking for attention. Most of them

specifically asked me not to use their last names. A couple of them took months to even agree to let me share their stories at all. These aren't people chasing cliques or trying to sell a book. These are people who went through something they can't explain, and they've been carrying it alone for a long time. So let's get into it. Our first account comes from a man named Dale out of Sequem, Washington. Dale grew up hunting the

Olympic Peninsula. He'd been in those mountains his entire life, and one morning in the fall of nineteen seventy eight, everything he thought he knew about those woods changed in about thirty seconds. Here's Dale. I've gone back and forth on whether to send this probably one hundred times over the last year and a half. My name's Dale. I'm seventy one now. I live in Sequin, Washington, and I've been here most of my life. I grew up hunting

these mountains. My father taught me. His father taught him. That's just what you did out here. I started tagging along when I was eight years old, and by the time I was sixteen, I was going out on my own. I knew those woods. I'm not saying that to sound tough. I'm saying it because I need you to understand that what happened to me in October of nineteen seventy eight wasn't the result of some greenhorn wandering into the timber and getting spooked by a bear. I was twenty three.

It was the second week of October elk season. I'd gone out alone, which wasn't unusual for me. I preferred it. Actually, I was hunting a drainage off the dozed wallops up above a creek bottom where I'd seen sign earlier that week. There'd been fresh rubs on the alders and some good tracks in the mud along the water. I figured i'd get up and to a good spot before light and wait. I drove in before dawn, parked at a pull off i'd used a dozen times, grabbed my rifle, my pack

and a thermous and started hiking in. It was cold, low forties, maybe fog Sitting in the valley like it always does that time of year. You couldn't see more than forty or fifty yards in front of you, and even that was fuzzy. I remember thinking it was going to be one of those mornings where you just sit there and listen because the visibility wasn't going to do you any favors. I got up to my spot about

an hour before first light. It was a little bench above the creek, with some big furs behind me and a good view down into the drainage. I sat down against a tree, settled in and poured a cup of coffee. Everything was quiet, normal, quiet, the kind where you hear the creek and the drip off the branches and nothing else. I sat there for maybe forty five minutes. The sky

started getting gray, just barely. You know that moment where it's not really daylight yet, but you can start to make things out, Trees take shape, you can see the ground. That's where I was when I heard something moving below me.

wasn't alarmed, not yet. I figured it might be a bear. We've got black bears all through that country, and they'll move through the bottoms early in the morning. I just sat there, watching the fog, waiting for whatever it was to come into view, and then the smell hit me. I've cleaned more elk and deer than I could ever count. I've been around dead animals in various states of decay. I've smelled bear dens. This wasn't any of that. It

was something else entirely. It was sharp, organic, almost chemical, like if you took the worst body odor you've ever encountered and mixed it with wet dog and rotten vegetation. It was so strong my eyes watered. I remember pulling my collar up over my nose. That's how bad it was. Whatever was down there had stopped moving. I couldn't hear it anymore, but the smell was getting stronger, which told me it hadn't left. It was close, and it was still. Then the fog shifted just enough and I saw it.

It was standing at the base of the slope, maybe sixty yards below me, partially behind a big hemlock. At first I thought I was looking at a man. My first, honest to God thought was that some other hunter had come in on the same drainage and was standing there in a dark coat. Because the shape was upright, two legs, two arms, shoulders, but the proportions were wrong. I could see that even through the fog. The shoulders were too wide, way too wide, and the arms hung too far down.

They hung almost to the knees. The whole body was thick in a way that a human body isn't, not fat, not muscular in the way you'd think of a bodybuilder, just dense, packed, like every part of it was built heavier than it had any right to be. The way it stood was wrong too. A man standing still in the cold shifts his weight, he moves, he adjusts. This thing was rooted, absolutely motionless from the waist down. The

stillness of it was unnatural. It was the kind of stillness that takes effort, or that comes naturally to something that's used to standing still for a very long time, waiting watching. It was covered in hair, dark brown, almost black, and it was matted in places, clumped, wet looking. The hair on the shoulders was longer than on the arms. It didn't look like fur, not the way a bear's coat looks uniform and groomed. This was more like the hair on a neglected animal, uneven, patchy in some spots,

thick in others. I couldn't see the face clearly, not at that distance, not in that fog, but I could see the head and the head is what made my hand start shaking, because it wasn't round, it wasn't shaped like a bear's head. It came up to a slight point, like the top of the skull was ridged, and the head sat right on the shoulders. There was no neck, or if there was, it was so thick and short that it just blended into the shoulders like they were one piece. I sat there with the rifle across my

knees and I didn't move. I didn't breathe. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that my body wouldn't respond. It was like everything below my neck just locked up. I've never felt anything like it. I've been in tight spots. I've had close calls in the woods. I fell off a cliff face when I was nineteen and broke my collar bone, but nothing has ever produced the kind of fear I felt in that moment. It was primal. That's

the only word for it. Something in my brain was screaming at me to be steel, be invisible, don't let it know you're here. It turned its head, not toward me, off to the left, and when it turned I saw the profile of the face. The jaw was massive, just enormous. It jutted forward, not like an ape exactly, but close. The brow was heavy and sloped, and the skin on the face, the parts that weren't covered in hair, was gray, not dark gray, not pale, just gray, like old concrete,

like something that hadn't seen sun in its life. It stood there for maybe ten more seconds.

to relax, my teeth ached. When I finally stood up, I didn't go down the slope. I didn't track it. I turned around and walked straight back to my truck. I didn't run, but I wanted to. Every cell in my body wanted to. I kept looking over my shoulder the whole way back. I'd take ten steps and stop and listen. Ten more steps, stop, listen. It took me twice as long to hike out as it did to hike in. I got to the truck and sat there with the engine running and my hands on the steering wheel.

Couldn't stop looking at the tree line. I kept expecting to see it again. Every shadow between the firs looked like shoulders. Every dark stump looked like something crouching. I sat there for at least ten minutes before I could bring myself to put the truck in gear. I drove home, and I didn't tell my wife what happened. I didn't tell my father, I didn't tell anyone. I put the rifle in the safe, and I told everyone I was done hunting. My dad thought I'd lost my mind. My

buddies gave me grief about it for years. I left them. I wasn't going to explain myself because I knew how it would sound. I knew exactly how it would sound. I didn't go back into those woods for twenty six years. Twenty six years, Brian, I'm not talking about that specific drainage. I mean any woods. I didn't hunt I didn't hike. I didn't go on camping trips with my kids. My wife would want to do a weekend at a campground somewhere, and I'd find a reason not to go. She thought

I just didn't enjoy it anymore more. I let her think that. The truth is, I was afraid, a twenty three year old man who'd spent his whole life in the mountains, and I was afraid to go back because I'd seen something standing in that fog that should not have been there, something that wasn't a bear, wasn't a man, wasn't anything I could make sense of then, and honestly I still can't. I finally went on a walk in the woods again when my granddaughter was four. She wanted

to go on a nature walk. She was tugging on my hand, and I did it for her. But I'll tell you this, it wasn't peaceful, it wasn't fun. I spent the whole time watching the trees, listening. My granddaughter was pointing at birds and picking up rocks, and I was scanning the timber like I was on patrol. I'm seventy one years old, and I still don't like being in the woods.

a fence post. I saw something that looked almost human but wasn't. And the way it moved when it left, unhurried, casual, like it had somewhere to be, and I was beneath its Notice, that's the part that haunts me most. It wasn't afraid of me, not even a little bit. Whatever I saw that morning was real, It was solid, it was alive, and it was something that made me, a man who grew up in those mountains, feel like prey. I don't know what you do with that.

country to the mountains of West Virginia. A woman named Karen was twenty four years old in nineteen ninety three, camped alone on a trail she'd hiked dozens of times. What happened to her that night and what she saw the next morning ended her relationship with the outdoors permanently. Here's Karen. I'm writing this because my therapist told me it might help. I know that probably sounds dramatic, but I've been dealing with this for over thirty years, and

I'm tired of it living only in my head. I found your show about six months ago, and I listened to most of your episodes in about two weeks. Some of them scared me so badly I had to turn them off and come back the next day. But I kept coming back because these people were describing things I recognized, not the exact same thing, but the feeling, the way it sits in your chest afterward, the way you can't explain it to anyone without feeling like you're losing credibility.

My name's Karen. I'm fifty seven. I live in Virginia now, but I grew up in Elkins, West Virginia, right on the edge of the Monongahela National Forest. My family wasn't what you'd call outdoorsy, but you didn't have to be. The forest was just there. You'd drive ten minutes in any direction and you were in it. I started hiking in college. I went to Davis and Elkins, so I was right there and it became my thing. It was

how I dealt with stress. I'd load up a pack and head out on one of the trails for a few hours. Sometimes i'd go for a full weekend. In September of nineteen ninety three, I was twenty four. I'd graduated and was working at a physical therapy clinic in town. I decided to do a solo overnight on a trail i'd done several times before. It was a loop that took you up into some older timber, across a couple of ridges, and back down along a creek. Nothing crazy,

maybe twelve miles total. I'd always felt safe on it. I hiked in on a Saturday morning and set up camp in a spot I liked, a flat area back in some hard woods, about thirty yards off the trail. I spent the afternoon reading and walking around, had a fire that night, ate dinner. Everything was completely normal. I woke up at around two in the morning, and I don't know why. I wasn't cold. I didn't have to use the bathroom. My eyes just opened and I was

immediately wide awake, which is unusual for me. I'm a heavy sleeper, always have been. But I was awake, like someone had flipped a switch. The first thing I noticed was the silence. And I know people say that all the time in these stories, so let me be specific. The creek I was camped near was still running. I could hear that, but there were no insects, no frogs, nothing in the underbrush, nothing in the canopy. It was September in West Virginia, Brian. The woods at night in

September are loud. Crickets, katie DIDs, tree frogs, all of it. That constant chorus that you stop hearing after a while because it's just background noise. It was gone, all of it. It was like someone had muted every living thing within a quarter mile. I lay there in my sleeping bag and I listened. My heart was beating hard, and I didn't know why yet. I just had this overwhelming feeling

that something was wrong. Not vague, not gradual. It was instant and absolute, like my body knew something my brain hadn't caught up to. Then I heard breathing, not mine, outside the tent, close so close that at first I thought an animal was pressed right up against the rainfly. It was deep, slow breathing in and out, in and out, and I could hear a slih wheeze on the exhl, like air passing through a restricted space. It was rhythmic, patient. There was no urgency in it. Whatever was out there

wasn't winded, wasn't stressed. It was just standing there, breathing like it had all the time in the world. And the smell came with it, thick sour like body odor and rotting leaves and something else underneath, something animal that I couldn't place. It came through the tent fabric. It was inside with me. I was breathing it. I stopped breathing myself. I put my hand over my mouth because

I was terrified it could hear me. I lay there, completely rigid, staring up at the inside of the tent, and I listened to that breathing for what felt like forever. My whole body was locked up, every muscle tight. I could feel my pulse in my throat, in my wrists, behind my eyes. Then something touched the tent, not bumped, it touched it. I watched the fabric press inward near the top, on the side closest to my head, slowly, like a hand pressing against it from the outside. The

shape of it was clear against the nylon. It was a hand, a huge hand, fingers spread wide. It pressed in far enough that the fabric was almost touching my face, and I could feel the heat coming off of whatever was on the other side. That's the detail that gets me the most even now. The heat, whatever was touching my tent was radiating warmth through the nylon, like standing next to a wood stove. It was alive. It was right there, inches from my face, with nothing but a

thin sheet of nylon between us. Then the hand moved, It slid downward along the wall, slowly. I could hear the fabric whispering under the pressure, like something feeling the shape of what it had found, not trying to get in, not tearing at it, just exploring. That realization hit me in real time, and it made everything worse, because it meant this thing was curious. It meant it was thinking. I didn't scream, I didn't move, I just lay there.

The hand pulled away, the fabric settled back into place. I heard movement outside, not footsteps exactly, more like a shuffling, a shifting of weight than nothing. Silence again. I don't know how long I waited, an hour, maybe maybe longer. Eventually the insects started up again, slowly, at first, a cricket here, a frog there. The woods came back to life, and I took that as a sign that whatever had been out there was gone. I waited until gray light, and then I got out of the tent. I won't

pretend I wasn't shaking, because I was. My hands were trembling so badly I could barely work the zipper. I stepped outside and looked around, and everything looked normal. Trees, leaves, morning, fog, nothing out of place except the ground about five feet from my tent. There were impressions in the leaf litter, two of them side by side, where something had been standing,

and they were enormous. Not prints exactly, not in the way you'd see in mud, but compressions, like something incredibly heavy had stood in that one spot for a long time and packed the leaves and dirt down under its weight. I packed up faster than I've ever packed in my life. I stuffed everything into my bag, without organizing it, without folding anything. I was on the trail within ten minutes. I made it about a quarter mile before I saw it.

It was off to my right upslope, maybe eighty yards away, standing between two trees watching me. I stopped walking. My feet just stopped, like my legs decided independently of the rest of me that this was as far as we were going. It was tall, very tall. I'm five six, and I'm used to men being taller than me, but this was a different skin. It was easily seven feet probably more. It was hard to judge from that distance, and at that angle uphill. The build was what got me.

It looked like a man, but a man who'd been scaled up and thickened in every dimension. The chest was barrel shaped, the stomach wide, the legs like tree trunks. There was no definition the way a human body has definition, no visible waist, no tapering. It was just massive, from shoulders to hips. It was covered in reddish brown hair, not long, flowing hair, short and dense, like the coat on a chow. It covered everything except the face. And the face. The face is what I can't get away from.

It was broad, flat. The nose was wide and pushed in, not like an ape's nose, more like a man's nose that had been broken badly and never set right. The mouth was a thin line, no lips to speak of, just a slit. But the eyes are what held me. They were dark, very dark, sat deep under that heavy brow, and they were looking right at me, not through me, at me. There was something behind those eyes. I don't mean intelligence exactly, though I think there was intelligence there.

I mean awareness, recognition. It knew what I was, It understood what it was looking at. We stared at each other for probably fifteen seconds, maybe twenty, And in those seconds I felt something I've never felt before or since. I felt observed, not watched, observed, the way a person looks at something they're studying. It wasn't aggressive, it wasn't curious the way a dog is curious. It was something else, something deliberate, something that made me feel very small and

very exposed. Then it turned, It turned away from me and walked uphill into the timber, and it moved with a fluidity that didn't match its size. Nothing that big should move that smoothly. It was like watching a shadow slide between the trees, three or four strides, and it was out of sight, and the only proof it had been there was the faint sound of brush snapping higher.

I cried hard, not because I was hurt, because I was so relieved to be inside four walls, and because I knew deep down that I'd never feel the same way about being outside again, I didn't tell anyone what happened for almost five years. The first person I told was a boyfriend who laughed at me, and that was the last time I mentioned it for another decade. After that, I learned to keep it to myself. You learn quickly who you can talk to about something like this. The

answer for most of my life has been nobody. I haven't camped, since, I haven't hiked alone, since I live in Northern Virginia, now near the suburbs, and even here, when I drive past a tree line at dusk, my hands tightened on the steering wheel and something in my chest constricts.

Karen didn't describe something that was startled by a hiker. She described something that was studying one. Our third account comes from Minnesota. A man named Marcus and his buddy Travis were on a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters in the summer of two thousand and four. Something circled their camp in the middle of the night, and what they saw the next morning from the water in broad daylight is something neither of them has been able to shake.

Here's Marcus. My name's Mark, and I live in Duluth. I'm forty eight, I'm a high school shop teacher, and I've been fishing and hunting in northern Minnesota since I was a kid. I want to start by saying I don't have a history of seeing things. I'm not someone who's into paranormal stuff. My wife listens to your show and she forwarded me a few episodes and I told

her it sounded like entertainment. She told me to write to you and tell you what happened, because she says I turn into a different person when I talk about it, and she thinks I need to stop carrying it alone. So here goes. August of two thousand and four, I was twenty six. My buddy Travis and I went into the Boundary Waters Canoe area for a five day trip. We've done it before a handful of times. We had

our route, planned, our permits, all the gear. We were experienced, not guides or anything, but we knew what we were doing. The first three days were great, good weather, good fishing, no bugs to speak of, which is rare up there in August. On the third night, we were camped on a point that stuck out into one of the bigger lakes. Good sight, flat ground, good fire, ring, some big pines around the perimeter. We had dinner sat by the fire for a while and turned in around ten. I woke

up sometime after midnight. I know it was after midnight because I checked my watch when I heard Travis whisper my name. He said, Marcus, that's it, just my name, but the way he said it. I'd known Travis since middle school. I'd been in a lot of situations with him. I'd never heard his voice sound like that then, controlled like he was trying very hard to not raise it above a whisper. I said what he said, something's walking around the camp.

It circled the camp for at least ten minutes. I'm not guessing at that. I watched the minutes tick on my watch, ten full minutes of something walking around us in the dark, And each time it completed what seemed like a full circuit, it got a little closer. The footsteps got a little louder, the brush it was pushing through was closer to the edge of the camp. I could feel it tightening the circle, like it was testing

how close it could get. At one point, the footsteps stopped directly behind the tent, six feet away, maybe less. I could hear it breathing deep, slow breaths. Each exhale had a rasp to it, like air moving over gravel. Travis grabbed my arm. He didn't say a word, He just grabbed my arm and squeezed, and his hand was trembling. Then it stopped on the side closest to the lake and we heard something else, a sound I've never been

able to describe adequately to anyone. It was low, so low it was almost more vibration than sound, like a hum that you feel in your sternam before you hear it in your ears.

wait for light, don't go outside. At one point Travis whispered that he wanted to look outside, and I told him absolutely not. I don't know what I thought would happen if he unzipped that tent, but I knew with every fiber of my being that we needed to stay inside. We needed to be small and invisible and still. When the sun came up, we unzipped the tent and got out. The first thing I noticed was the smell lingering, faint, but there sour like old sweat mixed with something spoiled.

Travis smelled it too. He looked at me and I could see it in his face.

different than a human. Foot they were shorter and, wider and they were splayed, out more like the foot had spread under enormous. Weight we packed. Up we broke camp in about fifteen, minutes which is fast when you're dealing with canoes and portage. Gear we were on the water as soon as we could. Manage neither of us said what we were. Thinking we didn't name, it we didn't try to explain.

portage trail to the next lake. South the shore was, rocky with pines growing right up to the water's, edge and standing on a rock shell partially hidden by the trunks was Something i've been trying to make sense of for over twenty. YEARS i saw it from maybe one hundred yards. OUT i tapped my paddle on the gun or to Get travis's attention and pointed he saw it. Too we both stopped paddling and just. DRIFTED i Heard travis say something under his. BREATH i don't know what it.

Was it might have been a. Prayer whatever it, was his voice was. Shaking it was standing, upright completely, still like a. Statue the first THING i registered was the. Color it was, dark not, black but very dark, brown almost. Mahogany the hair was, thick and it hung, slightly especially on the forearms and the sides of the torso not long like you'd picture on a movie, costume just hanging enough to have a little movement in the. Breeze the

body was unlike ANYTHING i can compare it to. Accurately it looked, human but only in the way that a rough sketch of a person looks. Human the torso was too, long the legs were shorter in proportion than they should have, been and they were bent slightly at the knees even while it stood, still like it was always ready to. Move the arms were long and, thick and the hands hung below the. Knees and the hands were what struck me. Most they were, massive whiter than a human hand should.

Be the fingers were thick and curled, slightly like a person who's been doing, hard manual labor their whole. Life the head was the part that stays with. Me it was, conical not, dramatically but. Noticeably the crown came up to a slight ridge or, crest and the whole skull seemed to slope back from the. Brow the brow itself was pronounced a solid ridge of bone above the, eyes and

below that, BROW i could see the. Face the skin was, dark, weathered looking like tanned leather that had been left out for. Decades the cheekbones were high and, wide the jaw was. Heavy the mouth was, closed and it was just a flat, line no expression at. All the eyes were the worst. Part they weren't just looking in our, direction they were locked on, us on. ME i was in the front of the, canoe AND i was, closest and those eyes tracked. Me when the canoe drifted slightly to the, left the

head turned slightly to keep me. CENTERED i felt that in a WAY i can't. EXPLAIN i felt watched the way an animal must feel watched when it doesn't know if it's about to be. Killed we drifted for maybe forty five. Seconds nobody, spoke nobody. Moved then it, turned stepped off the rock, shelf and was gone into the. Trees not, fast not, slow just. Gone travis AND i

paddled to that portage in total. Silence we portaged to the next, lake and then we looked at each, other and without saying a, word we turned south back toward our entry. Point we cut a five day trip down to three and a. Half we paddled harder than we needed, To we portaged faster than we needed. To we didn't stop for, lunch we didn't. Fish we moved like men

trying to outrun something they knew they couldn't. Outrun when we got back to the, TRUCK i Remember travis stood by the tailgate with his hands on the canoe and his head. Down he stood like that for a long. TIME i didn't say. ANYTHING i loaded the gear around him and. Waited when he finally looked, up his eyes were. Red he wasn't. Crying it was something, else something that looked like, exhaustion but. Deeper he looked like a man

who'd used up something he wasn't going to get. Back we drove home and didn't speak about what happened for the entire four hour. Drive the radio was, off the windows were, up four hours of nothing but engine noise and the sound of our own. Thoughts that, Night travis called. Me he said that was, real, RIGHT i said, Yes he said, okay good, night and he hung.

go up, north BUT i don't do overnights. Anymore day trips only And i'm always back at the truck before the sun gets. Low my wife thinks that's the result of getting. Older she THINKS i just don't want to sleep on the ground. Anymore i've let her believe. THAT i tried to camp again, once five maybe six years after it, happened a different, lake farther, south with a bigger. GROUP i lasted until about nine at. Night the sun went down and the woods got, dark and something in

my chest started. TWISTING i couldn't sit, still couldn't focus on the conversation around the. Fire every sound in the trees was something, circling every breeze was. BREATH i told the GROUP i wasn't feeling, well AND i paddled back

to the trailhead in the, dark alone on the. Water and the crazy thing, IS i felt safer out there on that black lake by myself THAN i did sitting at a campfire surrounded by six other, people because the campfire reminded me of that night of lying in the, dark knowing that something was right there right, outside, patient taking its. Time that's not something you get, over that's something you learned to live. Around but that's not. It

AND i think you know That. Marcus two witnesses on that, one two grown men who both saw the same thing in broad daylight from one hundred yards. Away and the detail that stays with me From marcus's account is the. Eyes the way they tracked him as the canoe. Drifted that's not a bear standing on a. Rock that's not a trick of the. Light that's something locked onto a target and making sure it knew where that target was

at every. Moment our fourth account is a little. Different this one didn't come from the person who had the. Encounter it came from his, nephew a man Named, michael who's telling me about something that happened to his Uncle jesse in the fall of nineteen eighty. Five jesse was a logger in Southern. Oregon he went to work early one morning and found something waiting for. Him jesse told this story exactly three times before he, died And michael

is the last person alive who heard it in. Full Here's. MICHAEL i want to be upfront that this didn't happen to. Me this happened to my Uncle jesse in nineteen eighty five in Southern. Oregon he told this story exactly three, times once to my, grandmother once to my, father and once to me WHEN i was seventeen and he'd had a few beers At. Thanksgiving he passed in twenty, nineteen And i'm the only person left in my family who heard the whole thing in his own. WORDS i don't

want it to disappear with. ME i should tell you about That. Thanksgiving it was two thousand and. One my uncle hadn't had a drink in a few, years AND i think the beers loosened something he'd been keeping clamp down. Tight everyone else was in the living room watching. FOOTBALL i was in the kitchen getting another, plate And jesse was sitting at the table by, himself just staring at his. Beer he looked up at me and, said sit, Down, MICHAEL i got SOMETHING i want to tell, you And

i'm only going to say at. ONCE i sat, down and for the next forty minutes he told me everything, quietly never raised his, voice never got. Dramatic he told it like he was reading a report and his hands were shaking the entire. Time this was a man with four arms like fence, posts and his hands were shaking around A budweiser. Can my uncle was a. Log he spent his twenties and thirties in the woods of Southern

oregon and Northern. California he wasn't a small. Man he was six three two, forty most of it in his shoulders and. Forearms he was strong in the way that people who do physical labor for a living are. Strong Not jim, strong work, strong and he wasn't afraid of. Much my father always Said jesse was the kind of guy who'd walked toward a problem while everyone else was walking away from. It in the fall of eighty, Five jesse was working a cut on some private timber land

east of The Rogue. River he was running a saw on a crew of about eight. Guys they'd been out there for a couple of weeks and the work was going fine. Routine one, Morning jesse went in. Early he liked to be the first one on. Site he told me he'd get there at least an hour before the rest of the. Crew walk the, cut checked the equipment plan out the. Day it was still dark when he

pulled in that. Morning he parked his truck and walked toward the, landing which was a clear area at the edge of the cut where they'd stage the.

his first thought was. Vandals his second thought was a. Bear but bears don't throw. Logs they might roll, them they might drag them looking for. Grubs they don't pick them up and throw them thirty. Feet he walked past the scattered logs toward the tree line where they'd been. Cutting he had a flashlight and he was sweeping it ahead of. Him the ground was torn, up deep gouges in the, dirt like something with enormous strength had been

ripping at the, earth not digging with. Purpose jesse, said it was more like, rage like something had been angry and had taken it out on the, ground the way a person might punch a. Wall and then he found the, tree a hemlock maybe ten inches in. Diameter at the edge of the, cut it had been snapped off about four feet from the. Ground not, cut not knocked down by a falling, tree. Snapped the brake was, splintered raw, fresh and the top of the tree had been dragged

about twenty yards and left in the. Brush jesse told me he put his hand on that broken stump and felt the. Fibers they were. Twisted whatever broke that tree hadn't just pushed it, Over it had wrenched, it torked it until the wood gave. Way jesse had been felling timber for, years and he told me that the force required to do that to a green ten inch hemlock

was something he couldn't wrap his head. Around you couldn't do it with your, Hands you couldn't do it with a. Truck jesse told me that he stood there looking at that broken, tree and for the first time in his adult, life he felt a chill run through him that had nothing to do with the. Temperature he told, Me, michael it was like my body was telling me to, leave but my brain hadn't figured out why. Yet then he heard it behind. Him stay tuned for More backwoods bigfoot.

Stories we'll be back after these. Messages in the timber on the opposite side of the landing a sound he described as a grunting, exhalation like a person clearing their, throat but deeper than any human chest could. Produce he said it. Resonated he said you could feel it in the. Ground he said it wasn't, loud but it carried it moved through the trees like it didn't need, volume it just.

Was he spun around and put his flashlight on the tree, line and for just a, moment maybe two or three, seconds the beam caught something standing at the edge of the. Trees jesse was not a man who. Embellished he was, dry, straightforward didn't care about impressing. Anyone so when he described what he, saw it was, plain matter of, fact and that's what made it so. Unsettling he. Said it was shaped like a, man a very large.

were curled like a person making a loose. Fist the legs were shorter than you'd expect for the, size and they were thick from the hip to the knee in a way that made the thing look, planted. Immovable but the face is what he talked about. Most he said it looked, old not elderly. Ancient the skin was, dark increased deep creases around the eyes and across the forehead and along the. Jaw he said it reminded him of

leather that had been left in the weather for. Years the nose was wide and, flat with nostrils that flared visibly even in the flashlight. Beam the mouth was partially, open and he could see, teeth not, fangs teeth flat teeth like a, human's but. Larger and the. Eyes jesse said the eyes reflected the flashlight the way a dog's eyes. DO a tapatum layer that, shine but the color of

the reflection was reddish, orange not bright. Red a, deep, dull reddish, amber and behind that reflective, shine he said there was something, aware something watching him with. Intent he said it didn't look scared of the. Light it didn't look. Curious it looked, annoyed like he'd walked into its living. Room the beam was on it for two maybe three. Seconds then it, toned and when it, Turned jesse, said the speed of it was what almost broke. Him something

that large should not be able to move that. Fast it was there and then it, wasn't just a crash of brush and then. Silence jesse walked back to his. Truck he didn't, Run he told me that. Specifically he, SAID i didn't run BECAUSE i didn't want it to. KNOW i was. AFRAID i don't know if that made any,

sense but that's what was in my. Head don't. Run, Walk walk like you belong, Here walk like you're not, scared even though every step felt like it took a. Year he sat in the cab with the doors locked and the engine, running until the rest of the crew showed up an hour. Later he said that hour was the longest of his. Life he kept the headlights, on pointed at the tree. Line he said he watched the edge of those woods the entire, time and twice he

thought he saw movement back in the. Shadows he couldn't be, sure but he thought something was still, there watching him from the, dark waiting for him to, leave or waiting for something. Else he didn't know. Which he told the foreman that the landing had been vandalized overnight and they should be. Cautious he didn't say what he. Saw he, finished the, day he, finished the week he finished the. Job jesse never talked about it, Publicly he never reported.

It he kept logging for another twelve years before his back gave, out and as far AS i, know he never saw anything like it. Again but my father told me that after eighty, Five jesse always carried a side arm in the, woods a forty four. Magnum he'd never carried one, Before and when my father asked him, Why jesse just, said because NOW i know what's out. There there was one more detail he told me That thanksgiving

night THAT i haven't shared with anyone until. Now he said that when the thing turned and moved into the, trees he heard it make a, sound not the grunt from, earlier something. Different he. Said it was almost like a, word like it was, speaking Not, english not any language he, recognized but, structured a, short low vocalization that had what he called intent behind, it like it said something to him or to something else in the woods before it.

Left he said that was the detail that haunted him more than, anything more than the, face more than the, eyes because it meant this thing. Communicates it means there might be more than. One my uncle passed from cancer four years. Ago he was seventy, one tough right to the. End at his, FUNERAL i thought about telling the other family members what he told. ME i, didn't BUT i think about it all the. TIME i think about that,

landing those scattered, logs that snap. TREE i think about a wire brush haired thing with an old face standing at the edge of a flashlight beam in Southern, organ looking annoyed that someone had shown up. EARLY i think About jesse sitting at that kitchen table with his hand, shaking trusting me with something he'd barely told a soul in sixteen. YEARS i think about the way he looked

when he was finished. Talking he took a long drink of his, beer and he looked at me and, said now you, know don't tell your, Mother and then he got up and went to watch football like nothing had. HAPPENED i Think jesse would be okay with me sending. This he was, private but he also wanted people to understand that The woods aren't always what they. Seem he said that to me once years. Later he, said The woods have their own, Rules, michael and we don't know

half of. THEM i believe, Him, michael The woods have their own, rules and we don't know half of. Them jesse said, That AND i think about the Detail michael shared at the, end about the, vocalization the thing that sounded almost like a, word almost like. Language that changes the calculus on all of this if you really sit with.

IT a large unidentified animal is one. THING a large unidentified animal that communicates is something else, entirely And jesse carried that knowledge with a forty four magnum on his hip for the rest of his. Life our fifth and final account comes From. ARKANSAS a woman Named tomorrow was twenty eight years old and twenty sixteen training for one

hundred mile Trail. Ultra she was deep into a long run on The Buffalo river when something stepped into a gap in the canopy and looked at her and the way she describes what she, saw particularly the face is unlike Anything i've heard in almost forty years of collecting these. Accounts Here's. TOMORROW i almost didn't write. THIS i started it twice and deleted at both. Times i'm not a person who shares things like. THIS i don't post about it.

ONLINE i don't go to. CONFERENCES i don't even know what i'd call WHAT i, saw because every name people use for it sounds ridiculous when you say it out. Loud So i'll just tell you what, happened and you can call it whatever you. Want my Name's. Tomorrow i'm thirty. EIGHT i live In, Fayetteville. Arkansas in the fall of twenty, SIXTEEN i was twenty eight AND i was training for a trail. ULTRA i was running sixty to seventy miles a week and doing most of my long runs on

trails in and around The Buffalo River. CORRIDOR i knew those trails. Well i'd been running them for three years by that. POINT i felt at home on. Them on A saturday in Late, OCTOBER i did a long run on a trail section that follows the river through a canyon, area lots of, bluffs big, timber dense understory in the, bottoms beautiful. Country i'd started, early around six and was planning on twenty two miles out and. Back the first half went, fine, cool, morning, light, wind the. USUAL i

hit my turnaround point and started heading. BACK i was feeling, good moving. WELL i had my earbuds in listening to a, podcast not paying much attention to anything except the trail and my. Footing around mile, SIXTEEN i pulled my earbuds. OUT i don't know why something made me do. It it's the same instinct you get when you're driving and you turn the radio down because you need to, concentrate even though the music has nothing to do with. Driving

something in me wanted to hear what was around. Me the first THING i noticed was THAT i couldn't hear. Birds i'd heard them all, morning, Cardinals jay's, woodpeckers but now there was. Nothing just the, river which was off to my. Left about one hundred yards through the, TREES i slowed to a. WALK i was in a stretch where the trail cuts through thick timber with a lot of dead fall on both, sides not great, visibility maybe forty yards in any direction before the woods got too

dense to see. Through i've been asked IF i was scared at that point BEFORE i saw, anything and the answer is. Yes but it wasn't a rational. Fear nothing had happened, yet no, sound no, movement nothing. Concrete it was something deeper than, that something. Physical my skin felt, Wrong the hair on my arms was standing, up AND i had this crawling sensation across the back of my, neck like someone had their hand hovering an inch from my.

Skin my body was reacting to something my brain hadn't registered. Yet i've talked to other runners about, this about those moments where your instinct fires before your senses catch. Up this was, that but dialed up to a Level i've never experienced before or. SINCE i smelled it BEFORE i saw, anything AND i need to explain this Because i've read people describe the smell AND i always thought they were being.

Dramatic they're. Not it was like someone had taken a dumpster full of wet garbage and left it in the sun for a. Week it was, powerful and it was, sudden LIKE i walked through a wall of. It one second it wasn't, there and the next second it was. Everywhere my eyes WATERED i. GAGGED i actually put my hand over my mouth and nose and stood there trying not to. COUGH i stopped. WALKING i stood on the trail AND i slowly turned in a, circle looking into the.

Trees nothing just. Woods but the smell was getting. Stronger whatever was producing it was getting closer to, me OR i was standing in the middle of its. Path THEN i heard a branch, break not a, twig a, branch a thick. One the sound was like a gunshot in the. Silence it came from my right, uphill maybe sixty yards. AWAY i turned toward the, sound AND i saw a, movement something, large moving between the, trees not, running walking.

Deliberately it stepped into a gap in the canopy where the sun was coming, through AND i saw it clearly for about four or five. SECONDS i wanted to describe this carefully BECAUSE i thought about it almost every day for the last ten, years AND i want to get it. Right it was walking on two legs. Upright the posture

wasn't perfectly, vertical. Though it was leaned slightly forward at the, hips and the arm swung as it, walked but they swung wider and more loosely than a human's arms do like the shoulder joints had more range of, motion like the arms were attached. Differently it was. Tall i'm five to eight And i'm telling you this thing was at least two feet taller than, me probably. More but the height wasn't what struck me. First it was the. Proportion

everything about it was. Thick the thighs were. Enormous each thigh was probably the diameter of my. Waist the hips were, wide whiter than the, shoulders which made me think, immediately almost, clinically that it was. Female that thought came, unbidden and it shocked. ME i didn't think creature. FIRST i didn't think monster. FIRST i thought female because the proportions told me that wide, hips heavy, thighs a thick torso that

tapered slightly at the. Shoulders there was mass around the chest and mid, section but it was distributed differently than a male body would carry. It the hair was reddish, brown auburn, on almost like fall, leaves and it wasn't. Uniform it was thinner on the inner, arms thicker on the shoulders and back on the. Head it was longer hanging past the, ears and it was, tangled matted in. Places there were spots where it looked like it had

been rubbed off or worn away on the. Elbows particularly the, face it was. Expressive that's the thing nobody prepares you. For it wasn't a blank animal. Stare it turned its head toward, me and its face. Changed the brow, furrowed the lips pressed, together the nostrils. Widened it looked at me the way a person looks at something. Unexpected it looked, surprised and underneath the surprise there was something, else, displeasure maybe Like i'd interrupted something and it wasn't happy about.

It the skin on the face was, dark not quite, brown not quite, gray something in, between weathered creased around the. Eyes the eyes themselves were, brown dark, brown and they were proportionally small for the size of the. Face set, deep the nose was broad and slightly, upturned with wide. Nostrils the jaw was, heavy and the chin was almost non. Existent the forehead sloped back dramatically under that ridge of.

Brow it looked at me for maybe three. Seconds its head was turned toward, me but its body was still oriented in the direction it had been, walking like it had only bothered to glance at, me LIKE i wasn't important enough to stop. For then it kept. Walking it turned its head forward and continued through the, trees and within maybe four, strides it was behind dense timber and. Gone the only sound was the faint crunch of leaves getting quieter and. QUIETER i stood on that trail AND

i didn't move for at least two. Minutes my legs were, trembling which is something BECAUSE i was sixteen miles into a run and my legs should have already been. Tired but this was a different kind of. Trembling it was a, adrenaline pure cold. Adrenaline my hands were, shaking my vision had. NARROWED i could hear my heart beat in my. Ears stay tuned for More Backwoods bigfoot. Stories we'll be back

after these. MESSAGES i turned around and, ran not back toward my, car because the thing had been moving roughly in that. DIRECTION i ran in the direction i'd come. FROM i ran, hard ultra training pace out the. WINDOW i sprinted sections of that trail that you're not supposed to sprint because of the roots and rocks and drop. OFFS i didn't. CARE i ran UNTIL i hit a

section near a trailhead where there were other. PEOPLE a family having a picnic near the, river AND i stopped and put my hands on my knees and tried to. Breathe the family looked at me LIKE i was. CRAZY a woman asked IF i was. OKAY i SAID i was. FINE i was not. FINE i sat at that picnic area for over an. HOUR i couldn't make myself go back to the trail to get to my. Car EVENTUALLY i called a friend and asked her to pick me. UP i told Her i'd rolled my ankle and couldn't

finish the. RUN i sat in her car and stared out the window the whole drive. BACK i went back the next day with two friends to get my car from the. TRAILHEAD i didn't go. ALONE i wouldn't go. Alone one of them asked me what, happened AND i Said i'd gotten dizzy from low blood sugar on the trail and wanted to be. Careful another. Lie here's WHAT i need you to, Understand. BRIAN i was a trail. Runner that was my. IDENTITY i was training for an.

ULTRA i was going to run one hundred. Miles that was my dream AND i was close to making it. Happen and after that day In. OCTOBER i never ran another, trail not ONCE i switched to road. RUNNING i run on pavement, now in neighborhoods where there are houses and cars and. PEOPLE i tried going back to the. Trails about six months. LATER i drove to the, trailhead, parked looked at the tree, line and drove. Home people in my life THINK i just changed my. Preference they THINK

i REALIZED i liked road running. Better my running partner from back then still gives me grief about. It she calls me a. CONVERT i smile and go along with. It i've thought about telling. Her i've thought about it one hundred. Times we'll be running a neighborhood loop on A saturday, morning and she'll say something about how she misses the trails and how we should go do a long run on The Buffalo river, sometime And i'll feel this wave of nausea hit, me And i'll change the.

Subject she doesn't. Know she doesn't have any idea WHY i. Stopped nobody. Does my husband knows something happened out, there because he's seen me freeze up when we're driving through wooded, areas and something about the light or the density of the trees triggers. Me he's, Asked i've told Him i'm. Fine he doesn't push. It but the truth is THAT i saw something in those woods that broke something in. Me not broke in a dramatic, way broke in a quiet, way like a bone that heals wrong and you can

still walk on. It but its when the weather changes the woods make me. Ache NOW i see a trail disappearing into the, trees and my chest tightens and my hands go, cold and every cell in my body, says, no not, again not in. THERE i want to say one more. Thing the expression on its. Face that's the THING i keep coming back. To it wasn't, Fear it wasn't. Aggression it was something more unsettling than either of. Those it was recognition without. Concern it saw me the WAY

i might see a squirrel on the. Sidewalk it acknowledged THAT i, existed and then it DECIDED i didn't. Matter and in that split second of eye, CONTACT i understood something about myself and about the world That i'd never considered. BEFORE i understood that there are things out there that are bigger than, us older than, us and completely indifferent to, us and that understanding changed something fundamental in the WAY

i moved through the. World WHAT i saw was, real it was a Live it was aware of, me and the look it gave, me that, brief, dismissive almost irritated, glance told me EVERYTHING i needed to know about WHERE i fall on the hierarchy of things that live in those. Woods i'm not at the, top and neither are you. Tomorrow five, people five different, decades five different places across this. COUNTRY a hunter in the fog of The Olympic, peninsula a young woman alone in a tent In West. Virginia

two friends on a canoe trip in The Boundary. Waters a logger standing in e wrecked landing before dawn in Southern. OREGON a trail runner on The Buffalo river In. Arkansas none of them know each, other none of them were looking for, this none of them wanted, it and every single one of them described something that if you line the accounts up side by, side share certain qualities that

are hard to explain. Away the, size the, build the way it, moved the intelligence behind the, eyes the smell, well and that, feeling the one they all describe in their own way of being in the presence of something that understood exactly what they were and made a choice about what to do with that. Information that's the part that gets, me the. Choice these weren't accounts of something

charging out of the brush and. Attacking these were encounters where something looked at a human, being considered, them and either walked away or stood there long enough to make its presence. Known that speaks to. SOMETHING i don't know exactly what it speaks, to but it's not the behavior

of a mindless. Animal it's the behavior of something that's, aware something that has, boundaries something that on these particular nights and mornings decided to let these particular people walk away with a story they'd carry for the rest of their. LIVES i think About dale sitting in his truck with his hands on the, wheel staring at the tree. LINE i think About karen shaking so badly she couldn't work

the zipper on her. TENT i think About Mark arcus And travis paddling in silence for four, hours unable to say out loud what they'd both just. SEEN i think About jesse carrying a forty four magnum for the rest of his working life because of three seconds in a flashlight, beam AND i think about, tomorrow a woman who was weeks away from running one hundred, miles who hasn't set foot on a trail in ten years because of one

dismissive glance from something she doesn't have a name. For these are the accounts that sit with, me the ones where the aftermath tells you everything you need to know about the encounter. Itself you don't have to believe what these people, Saw you don't have to accept any of. It but what you can't, do WHAT i don't think any honest person can, do is listen to the way these five people describe the way their lives changed and

walk away thinking they're making it. Up there's a cost to these, experiences a, real measurable, cost and you can hear it in every. Word if you've had an experience like, these if you've been carrying something and you've never had a place to put it. DOWN i want you to know that this is that. Place you can reach me through the website or at my. Email, brian that's a n At paranormalworldproductions dot. Com first names only is fine as much or as little detail as you're comfortable, Sharing

AND i promise. You whatever you send, me it won't be met with, laughter it won't be met with. Skepticism it'll be met with the respect that it, deserves BECAUSE i know what it costs to tell these. Stories i've been in this field long enough to. Know until next, time stay safe out. There and if you're in the woods after dark and something tells you to pay, attention pay. Attention these five people will tell you.