You're listening to Big for Society, and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Tonight's account is from a retired detective who has come face to face with an interesting area in the Adirondacks of New York, bigfoot activity, and so much more. You'll not want to miss this episode, so stay with us, all right, Big the Society. You've got the privilege of talking to Dave today. Dave is an individual that has
an interesting background. He's from the southern Vermont in eastern New York area and he's been a lifelong hunter and outdoorsman. Also has a background of being a retired police officer where he was a detective for many years. So welcome to the show, Dave.
How's it going, man, I'm doing good.
Absolutely. We were talking a little bit before we started recording that it's pretty rare to be able to get individuals talking about Vermont on the show. So really glad to have you on the show today and just to hear some different things about what you've experienced and what you've heard. You know, I'm going to go ahead and pass things over to you, Dave, and feel free to you know, take us back to the first account that you'd like to share and what exactly happened that day.
Okay, sounds good.
The first one who is on the Vermont side. It's probably in the late eighties, reflecting back probably eighty seven eighty eight, and there's an area in southern Vermont the people that listen called the Bennington Triangle, more specifically Glostonbury Mountain.
So at the time that time, back in the late eighties, my brother and I had decided to go hiking, and basically there's a fire tower on top of Glossombury and we're looking to do the shortcut via the snowmobile trails to get to the top versus the long I think it's twelve thirteen miles if you come in from either the north or the south. And so we were going to do this just as a quick overnight and we had gone up there for the most part following a
log road. Then we were trying to do the cross country method and it was getting a little bit later, and we didn't have a whole lot of gear with us. It was summertime, so we basically had some rope start
or piece of plastic. I think my brother had a military poncho or something like that, and it also looked like it was going to be storming here shortly, so we had to quit something to eat, set up our camp, and probably an hour or so later it did start raining thunderstorm, and we just basically called it a night. Through the night after it rains, it's very quiet. The grounds went Obviously, I was woken up and by something
stirring around in our little camp area. The other thing is we we had to hike quite away in around to find a flat spot big enough for two of our little ten type things, and so we didn't have a lot of room between them, I would say no more than six feet, and whatever was moving around was was moving kind of around the circumference of the camp site, and then at one point it was actually between the two tents and laying on the ground, I could actually feel the impact of the when when the foot hit
the ground, I could just feel it in my body and at the time just remember thinking what is that? And nothing really, nothing else happened after that, listened to that, and eventually it just kind of went away. And so in the morning when my brother and I were talking about it, I said, did you hear that too? And he said yes, And we did a quick little recount of the area to see if we could see tracks
or anything like that, and there was nothing. The only odd thing that we did find was like the stone post of a house or a cabin at some point that was maybe seventy five yards away. But nothing, no tracks, anything like that. And I've hunted my whole life since very young. There's basically three animals deer, moose, and a bear that could that are on the large side.
I've hunted in Alaska, so they.
Will walk through a camp, but this just didn't sound like a moose. A bears very quiet in the deer certainly with the human set is not going to go anywhere near that. So Clostenberry's quite tall for a mountain in the northeast, it's a little over thirty seven hundred feet, and I would say we were probably two thirds away up somewhere on there on one of those little shelves
at the time. You know, back then, the Big Vote was a thing, but not really on the front pages of everything, not common, and I never put that together. Just we just wrote it off and moved on and didn't really think too much about it. That's kind of my Vermont side of that is.
That is very interesting, Dave. And it's an area where you know, you mentioned the Bennington Triangle and there's so many weird things that happened in that area. Probably listeners are aware. I know Small Town Monsters is coming out with a documentary soon on it. But I mean, you've got missing people, you've got Bigfoot reports, you've got all sorts of really weird stuff. Were you then at that
time in your life? Were you interested in Bigfoot or aware of it or what was your relation to the topic at that time?
At that time, I was certainly aware. I think when I was very probably a teenager, we went and saw I May Butcher the name, but the legend of Bobby Creek. I was aware of the Patterson Gumblin pictures. But I think there was some TV shows that might have had some big push stuff too, But it certainly wasn't on my on my radar.
Gotcha so Stormy, Rainy. Were there any weird smells out of the ordinary during that time?
You know, thinking back to it, Uh, the only thing it's gonna sound weird, but like stale air, Like the air was just still and stale, like a very human room, walking into a human room.
Gotcha And it wasn't like a I'm just trying to think of the last storm I went through out in the Midwest. Not like an ozone type, you know, when there's lightning strikes and you smell that ozone. Nothing like that.
No, okay, no, you know, we were uh that area kind of it's on the eastern edge of the Hudson Valley Hudson River Valley, so you can see quite a ways out through depending on what other mountains might be in your way. But so we could see the storm in the valley.
And as it came.
But I don't recall any lightning anywhere near us, but we could see some.
Oh, I'm definitely sure. It's it's such a beautiful area. When you were looking around for tracks the next day, did you notice any let's say, maybe any any broken branches or anything that would have shown that something large would have been walking through the area off the trees.
And no, and no moose tracks. You know. Since then, since that time, I've kind of reflected back and like I said, I've hunted Alaska with moose, and I know what I'm looking for or you know, is whether it's a cow or a bull they'll just charge right through and they'll break stuff as they go along. So but there was nothing and we didn't even see any kind of tracks. You know, if it was a move, you would see the impression in the ground, and we saw nothing.
Was there any Did this affect you emotionally in any way after? Is it maybe just a thing where you're just like, well, that was kind of odd hearing footprints and not seeing anything after.
At that point in time, Yeah, that's really what it was. It was like, well, that was weird and I can't really explain it, but okay, and you know, since learning more about that area, because the years progress, you know, you can make an argument that it was definitely a weird experience and I don't have answers for.
It, absolutely, And what you just said is kind of similar to what I'm about to ask, you know, And after this time, it sounds like then you became a police officer or detective specifically, and so you're constantly looking at anythings into two things. Did you did you at any point look back at this time and say, oh, you know, there's something else that happened close to this area that was reported regarding bigfoot or something else. Any connections like that.
The only thing a guy I knew one day, you know, we were just we're just literally talking and we're talking about weird things up on the mountain and this would have been well into the two thousands, and he said, yeah, I was riding my ATV up there, and you know, I saw this and it was a flip phone and it was a picture off a flip phone. And he's like, what is this? And I looked at it and I'm like, well, I don't know, but it's big and it's brown and it looks like a gorilla.
And I tried getting that.
Picture from him, but he since passed and it's gone to wherever now. But you know, and I told him about the experience with something walking through our camp, and you know, it would have had to have been something very good on its feet, because these tents weren't very far apart and only talking the foot or two between the two tents, and to walk between them without knocking things over is.
Almost like it was able to walk in a straight line. It would have to, yes, exactly. Hmmm. I love hearing stories like that where it's like you saw something on a flip phone, because you know, in that time, you didn't have to worry about AI photos or anything like that.
You know.
It's just it was a different time when it comes to bigfoot photos. Even though stuff could be faked, it's I think you had a less of a chance of it. So that that's so, it looked very similar to a gorilla. You were saying things you've seen before.
The picture. The color was like that of alliance that that can brown color. And it was very muscular on its front half and it was squat The front half was taller. It was like a gorilla stands almost and you know, the back was at an angle. It was definitely going down on all fours. And and again I don't know of any animals that are up there. The state of Vermont probably has mountain lions up there, and that's what you know, it could have been a rather
large mountain lion. They'll deny that they're there, but they're there, you know, because the quality of the picture wasn't that great, but it clearly was a large animal. Wow.
So it was definitely it was a front front view of of whatever was in that photo. Then yeah, okay, gotcha any any and I know you said it was a low detail of it, we were able to see that the head or the face at all.
Uh. And and again it looked just like a gorilla's base. It was if I was looking at the picture, it was a side profile shot looking to the right, and the animal or whatever it was was looking right straight, like completely to the right of the screen. So I
had a good profile shot. It's hard to judge size or judge distance based on that picture, but forty to fifty yards maybe, And you know, it had that I hate to sound like everybody else, but that cone head shape with the extended jaw right, and that's really what it looked like.
That's wild, That is absolutely wild.
The thing that impressed me was just the muscular of the shoulders and like the arms seemed to be very muscular.
Since that time, have you ever seen any other piece of meat? Yeah, that comes close to what you saw in that Uh, in that photo, I.
Have not having come from that area. There's always stories and stuff. There was a story of one supposedly crossing Group seven. Somebody supposedly admitted to that dressing up in a suit and crossing. We don't, I don't know, gotcha.
So and so you're saying there's Over the years, you've heard other reports uh from this this Bennington Triangle area southern Vermont as well. Did you ever get any any calls or anything when you were an active police officer or detective that you're like, oh, the one that might be connected to uh to Bigfoot?
Not really. We did have a couple of people getting it get lost stuck in there because our area would have covered that. And you know, unfortunately, everybody that was lost was lost for just a short period of time and we were able to get them out, you know, with the agencies that were involved. So nobody when I was active, there was nobody that was lost never found.
That's good, I mean, that's the best. That's the thing you want to hear is that the people that were lost were able to be to be found. I mean, so often the story is different than that. I mean, especially if you get out in places like the Pacific Northwest. But you know, after you had this this is odd experience, How did this affect the rest of your life when it comes to Bigfoot?
I would say that as Bigfoot became more of a thing and more socially accepted, I had thought back to that and said, you know, maybe because I don't have an answer as to what went through there, And so the biggest thing is that I'm more open to the idea now. That area is not too far from Whitehall, so, you know, which is supposedly one of the hot spots in the Northeast. So I look at it as, yeah,
that that's very probable that there was something there. And the other thing is, you know, it's kind of a stats kind of person in statistical probability and different things, but Vermont is very for There's a lot of mountains, a lot of forests where something could in fact travel very easily from north to south with no problem not be seen.
Absolutely, and yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize how wild it can get in that area of the Northeast. So I definitely definitely agree with you on that, Dave.
There's a reservoir on the backside of Clawstonbury that we used to go fishing at, and you know, it's a fourteen mile ride just to get to the reservoir of just a dirt road, so it's very vast up in there, and people just don't realize you can get turned around pretty easily.
Absolutely. We took a trip over there when I had visited New England a month or so ago, and uh, it's just crazy. Once you drive into Green Mountain National Forest, Uh, you can just go and go and go, and it is very daunting area for the for the northeast is very I would say, it's very easy for something to hide out in there and for people not to see it. I did notice a lot of prior camp sites in that area had been shut down for different reasons, so
that was interesting as well. But uh, Dave you said that you you also have another interesting experience too to share about an area kind of close by, but uh, maybe a little a little further.
Yeah, someone friend has a a hunting camp and it's it's basically the center of the Adirondack Mountains and and that's what it choose for is uh hunting area. It's a small cabin on some lease logging land and he's had it for about five years ago or five years now, and the first couple of years, you know, we're just
kind of learning the lay of the land. That would be myself, him and another guy that would go up there primarily, and there's some others that go later, but I've not yet met them, So he relates this story to me.
I wasn't there.
I got there about a week later. I live in South Carolina, so it's a pretty good hike for me to get from there to New York now or Vermont. But I do make it up there a couple of times a year. And so a couple of years ago he and a friend, the other guy that's in the camp. It was opening weekend of their season, I believe, so late October, and they were just up there. It might
have been the weekend before opening weekend. I'm not one hundred percent sure, but it was the end of October and they were up there and they'd had a few beers and they're sharing war stories and what have you, and about midnight they decided to call it a night and go to bed. So I'll give you the layout of the camp. First. It's on a killed that it slopes to the back, and on the back of the camp there's a door, but there's no steps or anything yet.
It just opens up and it's probably seven foot drop, maybe eight foot drops if you were to walk out there. Windows on either side. The bedrooms are more to the back, the back corner and along the wall is one room, so that's where the beds are, and in the other room there's a wood stove in like a camp sink and a little stove and that sort of stuff. In the front door has a twist lock and a dead bowl, and the dead bowl is a pain in the neck to get open. You really have to pull on the
door to get its a lot. It's just difficult. So on that particular night they go to bed in. About an hour later, my friend, he says, he tells me he wakes up. He's standing outside. He's got his shorts on, his T shirt, and he's standing there in his socks, and he's kind of gazed a little bit and starts yelling and for the other guy. You know, I forgot to add that they started the wood stove. It's just good to keep the warms up the camp a little bit. But it had gotten hot in there, so they had
cracked the windows, which have some screens on. And so anyway, he's outside and yelling for the other guy, and he ultimately opens up the front door and goes up there, and my friend, who stand there in his socks and again a little bit confused as to how he got there. His socks weren't muddy. If he had walked through the front door, Uh, he would have had a very difficult time, and he would have needed his keys to lock the door. The guy that came back out, his friend or our friend,
said the door was still locked. The dead boat was still locked when he went to get the owner. And anyway, they're a little rattled by this, and they go back inside and they're looking and none of the flashlights in the camp. Fork is light that he keeps primarily wasn't working. And there's always a couple of headlamps hanging up, you know, in case somebody gets a deer or something. He's an extra one. None of those who are working. And after a while they finally drift off and go to sleep.
He thought it was around four o'clock. So in the morning they get up and the kind of looking around the outside of the camp so on that let's see, it would have been the southern wall. There's a window in that screen door or the screen had been opened. The window had been open, but the screen was pulled off the upper left corner from the top down. That's fairly tall. We measured it and it's you know, between eleven and twelve feet for something to reach up there
and pull that screen down. The interesting thing is is he said that they saw a handprint on the screen the size of a basketball. He has no idea how he got outside, no recollection of how he got outside. You know, I've asked him how many beers did you have? And he said we had luck too, so and again I you know, we're good at busting each other's chops, So I said, are you guys pulling my leg now?
And my friend's over six foot there is no way that he fit through that little hole, you know, Like if he had was trying to play a prank on the other guy and get through that hole, there is absolutely no way. And he has bad kneeds from the army. So had he jumped out of there, he would have been in a pile outside had not been able to get up. My friend was actually a little rattled by that, which kind of surprised me. He told me he wasn't going back up there by himself, and he really didn't
for a little bit. So I was able to get there the next week, I believe it was, and we were doing some it was probably two weeks, and we were getting ready to my friend and I were getting ready to go out for the morning and had our coffee. What have you? And our phones charged overnight. Now sale service isn't the great it is up there. It's actually pretty bad. Unless you get to the top of a couple of the mountains, you can get some service, but
it doesn't drain them. And and I had shot my wife at tax and was getting, like I said, getting ready to leave, and next thing I know, my phone's power is at two percent. And my friend checked his and his is the same same thing, Like they're both drained, not dead, but drained, and post them like, what's going on with that? And I guess my desire to hunt was more than my desire to figure out what was
going on with the phones. And we went our separate ways, and you know, when we met back up later that morning, he said, Hey, we're happen to your phone? And he said, well, it was a couple hours later, an hour and a half something like that. He said, my phone came back to full power and minded as well. So I've had phone since they'd come out, and I've never had one to do that, so especially to of them at the same time, I'm really not sure what would have cause that.
So the year before that, so that would have been three years ago now, I believe. He said. I mentioned the back door, and there's a house out behind the camp. It is very dark out there, and generally you're not wanting around too far out there after dark, and so as guys, oftentimes we would just use the back door, open it up, take care of business. Well I had done that, and I was standing there and I'm watching
these lights in the sky. It was almost like in the shape of a W, like each point on a W. And then all of a sudden they start dancing all over the sky and going at right angles and different things. And they stayed long enough for me to yell to Scott or my friend, and he comes over and looks at it and sees them doing the same thing. And he has a military background and four drums ways away from there, and I said, any chance in the military messing around and he's like no.
So this went on probably.
Thirty seconds maybe, and they were just at one point they just basically dissolved and disappeared. Now that direction would have been to the west. There is really not a lot out there for many miles to the west, so
I'm not sure what that was all about. And then last year, my friend was up there with his dog and he had gotten a new bird dog, and he was up there by himself, and there's the camp is built on a side hill with a log road, and then there's this pretty significant mountain to the east and kind of a bowl between two mountains to the west, and a creek down in the bottom and some pines
and that sort of thing, good size. And he was up there with his dog, and in that valley below the camp, he said he heard this long, loud how and that's what he just described it as. And he said he could hear like trees being broken, branches being broken, that sort of thing, and his dog is a hunting dog. His dog took off and went for the door for the camp and wanted inside. He said this went on for a couple of minutes, and he went and grabbed
a weapon of some sort and went back out. He actually called me the day that happened, and I'm like, try to record it if you can, and he called me from right up there, and he never did get it recorded. And you know, I used to do forensic interviews with the cases, so you try not to ask
leading questions. And I just suggested to him go to YouTube play some supposed big foot hollows and sounds and that sort of thing, and and you know, see if you can find something that matches or an animal sound that matches.
And you know, it was I don't know, probably a.
Week later it comes back and he says that I think it's at Ohio sound. He said it sounded just like it. So that was rather interesting to me. And that was just last year. And I went up the week after or let's see, I was there. I got there on election day, so November fourth, and and nothing, nothing, no, And I was there by myself for most of.
The time, and you know, I didn't have.
Any issues at all. So this year, in June, so just a month to go, we had gone. I'd gone up there. My friend was up there, and we're kind of getting ready getting the camp, some things that we wanted to do with the camp. And he had a contractor guy that had a skid scare and we were going to fix the if you want to call it a driveway where it loops in front of the camp, and the way the land is it gets kind of
soggy right there in front, you know. So hence, like this story earlier where he had gone outside, his feet would have been muddy had he been there walking around with his socks out there. But anyway, we had this guy uh coming up and it was a Friday, and he did his work with his machine, and they were him and his worker. We're going to spend the night.
Nine thirty. He went out to his truck to get some stuff, and he said he got a very uneasy feeling about being there, and like something was watching him,
and he could actually hear some stuff stirn around. He didn't say that he saw anything, but my friend and I were talking about it after the fact, and this guy was supposed to spend Saturday night and did not, So we don't know if maybe he got a little spooked by that, because my friend did tell him about some of the strange things that happened the next day, but nobody had said anything to him about some of the strange things that happened, I can't before that, so
he was completely oblivious to that sort of thing. And you know that Saturday, I had taken the side by side down the road because I was looking and going to look at a little spot where to put up a trail camp. And as we come back around to the camp, it's two three miles back in there, there was a bear right there in the road and the dog was running beside the side by side. So when he sees us, he turned around and he stood up unassigned legs and just kind of looked at us for
a few seconds. And there is no way that a bear could have reached that window. It's just not They're just not that big. And this was probably a two hundred pounds bear. So yeah, that area has certainly got some weird things happening. It seems to center primarily in October, late October. So that's the story of the camp. Wow.
How tall would you estimate that bear to be when it was on its hind legs.
He's probably four foot between four and four and a half feet. You know, he wasn't right up there tall tall, but he was kind of on his unches a little bit, and he wasn't moving. I had to yell at the dog, and you know, I finally yelled at the bear and he finally took off, so he wasn't afraid.
Wow, So you have this area not only potential Bigfoot activity, but some kind of either lights in the woods or UFOs in the sky, something weird like that. It is a very very strange area. Have you looked to see if there's been reports in that area by other people of strange things? I know you said that it's in the adirondackx somewhere.
There are a few other camps up in the area. So my friend one day he was he met up with one of the other camp owners and uh, the other guy had had a feudy drink and and my friend posed that question, you know this some weird things up here, and he just got an eye roll. So, and there's another guy that that we just back in June. We kind of I'm trying to walk him down that path to see if he would say anything, and he hasn't.
He didn't and he's a lifelong I think he's a lifelong resident there of the closest town.
Gotcha, has you know experiencing and hearing about these weird things happening around this cabin. Has it affected you going up there in any way? Or what's your what's your viewpoint now going up to this area? I mean, you have to travel all the way up from the south.
You said, yes. I think at this point I'm more curious trying to figure out what impact is going on, and who knows, maybe I'll never know, but more curious and just kind of looking for answers. I think prior to the weird stuff, and I don't know if there's any connection between the lights and what had happened to my friend. But prior to that, if you had asked me what bigfoot was, I would have said a flesh and blood animal. And I guess I kind of maybe
opened that door to something else. Now I'm not really sure.
Yeah, I mean it's one of those things that makes you wonder, especially when you hear something like the guy that found himself outside and the door is still locked. I mean, there's not many logical I mean, I really can't think of any logical explanations for that man. That's just pretty weird stuff.
And he has an extensive military training where he spent time in the field. You know, I don't want to put too much information out there, but he was highly trained, now leave it at that, so for him to be a little bit rattled, it makes you wonder.
Yeah, absolutely, anyone that's been up in that area. Have they started to have things happen afterwards that are unexplainable, like at home, Like all of a sudden, it's like, oh, now there's weird stuff happening at at our home residence.
Not that I'm aware of.
And you know, after he relayed that story to me, I did some quick looking online and stuff for the Adirondack Mountains and there's nothing really specific about you know, you know, the woods being hontaged or anything like that. So it's very dark because there's not a lot of popular population in that area. So uh, you know, you can see the stars very well. There's not a lot of aircraft traffic, if anything. I've I've heard the mill carry jets overhead and actually see them, so they go
do their things. Sometimes that's during the daytime, but yeah, it's it's again, that's a very remote area up in here, day walk for miles.
It's a fascinating account, and I think even even coolers when you have accounts like this where it is continuing. I mean, you guys are going to keep going up to that area at certain times of years, and it'll be interesting to see if it continue, if weird things continue to happen or you know, yeah, I'd love it if you were able to keep in touch if things continue to occur up there.
Absolutely, we were discussing plans for this year's season already, so there you go.
And Dave, I want to make sure you know before we we close out our time that you were able to share everything that you had wanted to share on the show today.
I believe so.
Yes, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming forward and for sharing a few just very interesting things about an area of the country we don't hear a lot about on this show, Southern Vermont and the Adirondacks. And thank you for coming on and definitely keep in touch if things continue to happen up there in the Adirondacks.
Dave, I will, and thank you for having me.
Just wanted to take a minute to say thank you for listening to this episode of the Bigfoot Society podcast. Dave's stories are the kind that stay with you, not just because of what walked between the tents or what ripped open a screen eleven feet off the ground, but because of who he is. A lifelong hunter, a detective, a man who can't be rattled easily and yet something
about those mountains in Vermont, New York changed everything. If you enjoy this conversation, please subscribe to the channel on YouTube, hit the bell icon so you don't miss any new episodes, and share this one with a friend who's in a Bigfoot weird Lights in the Woods are just a good mystery and the Northeast. If you're listening to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, make sure you're following the show and if you can leave a positive five star review,
it really helps more people find us. And if you or someone you know has had a big foot encounter, especially in the Northeast near the Bennington Triangle or the Adirondacks, I'd love to hear from you, so please send me an email at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com and let's talk. So thanks again for listening to the Bigfoot Society, and until next time, keep your eyes open, trust your gut, and never stop asking what else might be out there, And see you in the woods.