Welcome to Big for Society. If you have bigfoot activity to report from the same areas discussed in this episode, please reach out to me directly after this episode. And if you'd like to be on the podcast to discuss a personal bigfoot encounter, please reach out to me directly at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. Do you wish there was more Big for Society to listen to you
every week? Well there is now. If you become a supporting member over at Patreon, you get a special members only episode every single week on Wednesdays, and sometimes even more episodes. Head on over to patreon dot com. Forward slash the big for Society and now let's get on with the show. All right, Bigfoot Society. But the privilege of talking to John today. John is an individual that reached out to me. He is a hunter. He's got some interesting things happen over the years. So John, welcome
to the show today. How's it going man, it's going great. Thanks awesome. You know I'd say let's go ahead and get right into it. I'm going to pass things over to you and feel free to take us back to when you first started to experience things out there.
Okay, this was back in twenty eighteen. I started hunting. It was some family property over in Illinois along the Iroquois River, not too far west of the Indiana Illinois line, and I hadn't hunted there. I'd been to this property before, but I had never hunted there. So my wife says, well, why don't you go hunt this property because you've always wanted to. So I said, okay, I'll go do that. So I went there. I set up a stand, set
up a trail cam. This is a river bottom, so usually there's quite a bit of activity and along the river. About a month later I went for the opening weekend. It was in October for bow for deer went down there. I went on a Saturday afternoon. The first thing I did was grab my trail can, went back and looked at it. I had seventy pictures on it, but there were no pictures on it, so I thought that was rather odd. And the camera had been turned to the opposite side
of the tree. And found that real strange. So got ready started to go hunting. Went to the stand and I had a real uneasy feeling. It was actually silent. There was no birds, there was no squirrels. There was no bugs or anything going on. I thought, boy, this is really strange. Got to my stand and in front of my stand there was about a ten inch round maple tree that was bent over and cracked. I thought it was something from the wind. You got to realize I have no idea what's going on at this point.
But then I'm thinking, get up in the stand. I'm like, boy, that is really strange looking at this. It's probably two foot off the ground, and the tree looked like it was cracked, and there really hadn't been any storms or anything that came through there. So I hunted that evening and I just had the strangest feeling. Now I've hunted all my life and I have never felt like this.
I'm hunting. I mean, I heard nothing there was, Like I said, no birds, no squirrels, no bugs, didn't see anything that evening, kind of shaking my head, going back, thinking, well, just a bad night. So there's some cabins on there that I can stay in, So go in, go to sleep. That night, at three forty five in the morning, there were a bunch of coyotes that had surrounded this cabin. Is the best way I can put it, one right, on the front porch and they were screaming like I've
never heard coyotes before. I jumped up out of bed trying to figure out what is going on here, and I thought, this is stranger. There's one on the front, there's one on the side, and there's one off the back and they're all yapping. So I was startled. They jumped up, went to the door, looked out. It stopped. I didn't see anything. I'm like, so now I'm up, and they started again, which I pinted all my life.
I funded coyotes. Usually that doesn't happen. So now they've moved off a little bit, but they're still out there, and then they stopped. I waited a little bit. I thought, well, I'm probably not going to see any deer today, but these coyotes going crazy. Go out to the stand, just a real eerie feeling. Again, got up in the stand, silence once again. There were no birds, no squirrels, a running around do nothing. Hunted for a few hours and I did see one dear about one hundred yards away
running for its life. I never saw what was chasing it, but that was it. So I called it a day left called the landowner and said, hey, you have a serious coyote problem here. I've never heard anything like this in my life. He's like, well, I've never heard of coyote there at all. I'm like, well, okay, well, I'm just telling you there's there's something going on here. So I left. I'm still not realizing what was going on, but just shaking my head like something's not right there.
Went home, told my wife that. I said, well, I'll go back again next the next week. Come back the next week, same scenario that whether it's been nice all week. This time I come back, I pull up. Now there is a huge tree broken backwards, leaning up against the cabin, and I'm like, you know what's going on here? So I called the landowner and I said, hey, you've got a tree down here. He's like, what do you mean there's a tree down? You haven't had any bad weather.
I said, I'm telling you, there's a tree down and it's leaning up against the cabin. It's perfect, the top is just touching the side of the cabin. So once again I go out hunting. Same scenario, silence, and now I'm getting a little edgy. Didn't have any issues that night. I got up the next morning, same thing. Nothing around there. Now I'm really stunned. I don't know what to think about what's going on here. So I left still not really thinking anything about what else would happen. So went home,
came back again the next weekend. Now, this weekend I did see a few deer. There was birds, there were squirrels, there was bugs. Everything, It was noisy, saw a couple deer. Didn't really have any problems, so I thought, Okay, well, starting to come around here. Now we're getting into the end of October. Came back one more weekend and the feeling was there again. It was just uneasy and it was silent Saturday afternoon, saw nothing, heard nothing. I had
moved to it. He had another cabin there, so I'd moved to a different cabin. Back. Well, it gets kind of it gets dark down in the river bottom, So when i came out, it was still a little bit light, and I'm walking back to the cabin. Got about fifteen yards from the door. I heard a huge stick crack and a big thud, but nothing ran away. So I'm just standing there kind of looking into this thicket. Whatever's there. I know it's still there looking at me and it's
only maybe fifteen yards away. I thought, well, it's got to be a deer, but it didn't run away. Nothing. Yeah, maybe a minute goes by, still nothing. I'm looking in the thicket, and then across this meadow and another thicket along the river, I hear a scream. It sounded like a young woman screaming. So now I don't know what to do. So whatever's still in that ticket is still there. I heard that scream, so I decide, well, I'm going to walk out in this meadow because now I'm thinking
somebody might be hurt. But I'm also thinking, why is there some woman in this thicket down along this river? And now it's getting dark. So I walk out into this meadow and look around. I don't see anything. So I start walking down towards the river, and whoever or whatever it was started talking, and to this day I can't get this out of my head. The best way to describe this was it sounded like like a language I had never heard, almost like a I have to say,
like a Samurai, Japanese, Chinese thing. It would start out low and get real high. And now I don't know what to do because whatever is behind me is still there, and now I've got something. So I'm kind of in a pinch point here, so I stopped walking. I'm like, yeah, I don't know, I better not go down there because and this is still the talking is still going on, if you want to call it talk, and I don't know what it was, so I decide I better go back.
I go back to the cabin. I'm kind of sitting there trying to figure out what just happened, and all of a sudden, Uh, there's a wall right in front of me. There's two big knocks on the wall. So now I'm flipping out. I'm a red I'm a fairly large guy. I'm six 't six, two hundred and seventy pounds. I'm starting to get mad now because I'm thinking somebody's messing with me. So I had I did have a pistol, So I grabbed a pistol and I start walking to the door and something I don't know what it was
that don't open the door. In my mind me telling them, you know, don't go out there, because now it's just pitch black out there. So now I'm a little scared. And you don't get good phone reception out there, so I'm trying to rationalize in my head, well, now somebody's messing with me here, just relax and you know, don't do anything. Turn off all the lights. I'm sitting there somewhere in there. I fall asleep. At about three o'clock in the morning, I start hearing something hitting the roof
of the cabin. It sounded like rocks and it was just there was like five of them that hit, and they were in a rhythm and then they just stopped. So now I'm kind of I'm actually scared. I'm thinking, if somebody's here, they've been here all night long, out here in the pitch black. No, what are they going to do to me here? So if I sit there in the dark, I wait, tell myself, I'm waiting until it's going to get light, and then I'm getting out
of here. I fully expect to go to my jeep, which was parked I don't know, about hundred yards away, and my tires were going to be flat or something. The sun comes up and I kind of hurried up, gathering my stuff, went out. There was nothing, There was nothing wrong. All my tires were intact. I'm trying to figure out what's going on here. So I went back. I had to grab the rest of my stuff. I decide, I'm going to go look in this sticket where I first heard the stick crack, and it was about twenty
yards away. So I go in there and there is a area probably ten foot round, completely flattened. And that's not like where a deer had been laying or anything like that.
Big So a society who will be right back after these messages.
I mean, like crop circle flattened, and I have no idea. I'm like, what could have done this? So I got my stuff when I got out of there, and I never went back, and I didn't tell anybody because I didn't want to get ridiculed. But I knew something was not right. So I actually didn't tell anybody for probably a year. Decided I kind of at this point kind of had a feeling what was going on, because I had done some research and some things popped up about sasquatch,
and I was kind of beside myself. I had been listening to a few things and other people had the exact same thing happened to them that happened to me, and I just I didn't want to tell anybody, just because I thought nobody's going to believe me anyway what went on here. So I decided I did go back a few months, and then I did put out another trail camera, and I'm like, I got to know for myself, and I put that one out, and that one was fine. I had deer all over the place on it, all
kinds of wildlife. But so whatever was there didn't go back there or wasn't there when I was there in this summer again, so I decide, well, there was another thing that happened, and I hadn't, Like I said, I hadn't told anybody this yet. So at my house now it's an hour and ten minutes away. My daughter had told me about a couple of months after this happened. She said the next day she's like, Dad, there was
a baby crying outside my window last night. And I'm like, well, it's probably a rabbit or something going on, you know. She goes, no, it was a baby crying outside my window. And now we do have a big woods behind her house. So I in my mind here, knowing all this other stuff, I'm like, nah, this can't be. About two weeks later, I have this. I'm gonna call it a dream. I popped up out of bed in a cold sweat, and I had all I'm this, all I can think of is I had a something behind my house talking to
me in that language. Again, now I'm thinking I'm really crazy, except the fact that I have a dog that is standing at the doorway growling like I've never heard of growl before. It's something exactly where I pictured this happening in the backyard. So now I'm kind of like, did this thing follow me home? I don't know, I don't know.
I don't know what happened there. So then another strange occurrence, a couple probably it was probably two months later, I started hearing owls in the backyard every time I would go out the back door, and how I would hoot for seven days straight. Found this to be just bizarre. So I don't know. The one thing I can say is I never saw what this was, but I had a lot of things happen two Really, I don't know what else it could be. So then I decide, now it's a couple of years later, this is back. So
now we're into twenty twenty three. My wife, who's putting up with me listening to all this stuff that I'm telling her. She said, well, let's take the dogs and go back there and you can show me, you know, where all this happened. I'm like, all right, now, this was in September, late September, a beautiful day, got down there, opened the gate, still had the key, go back down to by the river, and I had my two dogs
with me and my daughter and my wife. As soon as I stepped out of the jeep, I knew something wasn't right again, same feeling, just silence. My one dog wouldn't even get out the jeep. So I was a little on edge. I told my wife and like, yeah, I'm not feeling feeling it right now. He said, well, let's go kind of walk the dogs around a little bit. You can show me where all this happened. So we start walking the dogs and I'm uneasy. She's kind of
looking at me like, yeah, okay, whatever. The dogs are silent, which is one's a beagle, and you know beagles, they're never silent. They're walking just not really doing much. Take her show her where everything's at, and it's kind of funny. She starts to whistle. She goes, I heard you should never whistle in the woods. I said, yeah, you probably shouldn't. So she's whistling and I'm like, you know, stop, So I take her where, show her where all this is.
There was no flattened circle or anything at this time. So my daughter decides she goes, well, I'm going to go back, and I said, okay, we're going to walk the dogs. And looking around a little bit more, well, I kind of got that uneasy feeling. I said, now we're going to go back with my daughter. My wife starts whistling again, which I'm kind of laughing. Now. I said,
all right, I'll start whistling. So I started whistling and we turn this bend right around this road here, and at the same time, my wife and daughter say, there's a beagle right there and there's some somebody with it. Now I'm fifteen yards away from this, so I said, get the dog. And the dogs are silent. They're just sitting there looking. So I run that. They couldn't have taken me five seconds, ten seconds to get to where this is at. There's nothing there. So I'm looking at him.
I'm like, you sure you saw something like yeah, and my daughter's like, yeah, I saw like black boots running. Now this is an open field. I would have seen something in that amount of time. So I said, well, get the dogs in the car, so we're getting out of here. I looked around nothing. So as we're driving driving out now there's no wind or anything. That day, there is a across the road blocking me from getting out the gate. So I had to stop and I I mean, if it would have fallen, I would have
heard something. So now my wife and daughter are scared. I get out. I moved the log. I'm looking around. I don't see anything. I get out of there, and I have never been back. Now. I did talk to the landowner about it. I finally got the courage to tell him and he said, well, I've never had anything like that happen, he said, but I was out here one night building this cabin, and across the creek we see this light dancing through the trees. Like he goes.
It looks like a lantern that's just going up and down through the trees. And he went over. As soon as he got there, it just disappeared. So I don't know if it's something at this place, if it's paranormal, but there is something definitely going on there. Like I said, I have not been back there. Don't know that I want to go back there again. Don't know if I want to see what actually is there, but pretty sure
it's still there. So that's my story. I don't know if anybody else has had any issues in that area, but this is along the Iroquois River in central Illinois.
John, that's absolutely incredible. Thank you for sharing what you experienced. When you when you're saying central Illinois, you know myself, I'm from Iowa, so when I think central Illinois, I'm thinking like Springfield, Peoria. Is that what you mean by central Illinois.
No, it's more towards Watsika.
Okay, gotcha, that's just h.
I actually quit hunting for a couple of seasons there after that, and to this day, I can still hear that talking. That's the thing. Whatever that was H was not anything that I I have ever heard or no, and I've never felt that way anywhere else I've wanted, and I've hunted for forty years now, and it still gives me goosebumps talking about it.
Well, I can tell you're incredibly emotionally affected by by what happened, even today, and thank you for being able to talk through what you experienced. You you have You've never heard anything like what you heard that day anywhere else? No?
Never, okay, never. Yeah, it was a you know, the scream. At first I thought it was a woman. It was a high pitched scream, and it was down in this thicket, this real dark thicket, which you know kind of when you hear that, like what's going on there? But then the talking Actually, as I'm walking down to look, they started talking and then it was a It started out low and then it got real high and it was just gibberish and iman can hear it in my head
right now? Have you ever heard stuff that happened at home? Yeah? You know, I don't. I don't know. You know, there's times I thought, hey, I'm I'm going crazy here, but I don't think.
So big for a society will be right back after these messages, hmm. I mean, just the fact that your dog was also affected by the same thing at the same time. Have you ever listened to what's called the Sierra Sounds at all? Do you ever look at that?
Yeah, yes, similar on some of it, but not the whoops or the It was more it was like it was it was a conversation that was going on, hm, but it was the same between the two or possibly three. But I mean, I ran this scenario through my head so many times. I think, now there's some fruit trees and things on this property. I think maybe they're coming
in to feed there. That's all I can guess. The landowner did tell me, He goes, yeah, my peaches keep disappearing, and he doesn't know where they go at that time, you know, in the fall. But I think I startled the one that was right by the door of the cabin, and somehow the other ones were trying to distract me. But you know, all this stuff runs through your head and you never really I really, I'll never probably ever know.
Well, yeah, that's that's the trick about it is, you know, you just there's no way to know that the actual answers, and then your your mind just keeps working and working. And do you know is this location usually empty? There's not people out in this location, or is it pretty busy in the fall.
In the summer they use it more, but in the fall, no, it's it's empty, okay. And then that log across the road when we were going out that last time, that that's pretty much stealed it for me. I'm not I really have no desire to go back there.
Yeah, I don't blame you, And it kind of makes me one of the things I always think about, you know, when it comes to a situation when you have a hunter in a area where there's some of these bigfoot you have food sources and and you said peaches, but then you also mentioned how there was the deer that was running for its life from something, and you almost have to wonder if the way that they are viewing you is something that's taking away there or potentially taking
where their food source, and that's why they wanted you out of there, no matter what, you know.
They definitely want me out there. Yeah good, I mean that just I mean, think about that first that I was there with those coyotes. I mean, right on the porch, out of a dead sleep, waking up with that screaming. And these were the loudest coyotes I've ever heard in my life. So but I at that point, I don't think of anything else, you know, possibly mimicking a coyote, right, But there was just too many strange things that happened
over that time. And then when you put them all together. Yeah, whatever it is did not want me there.
There's something that I want to clarify. It is back at your house. So whenever you left the house, you would hear owls throughout the day.
It was in the evening. Seven nights in a row. I would go out on my back deck and it would start. It was only me. When somebody else went out, it didn't happen, and I thought that it was really strange. Especially after about the third night. I'm like, yeah, here we go again. So I don't know. And then when my daughter swears it was a baby crying right outside her window, brings back, you know that scream that I
heard too. So I don't know. I didn't see anything, and I'm kind of glad I didn't see anything, but it sure has affected me.
Oh absolutely. I do have another question about the owls. You know, sometimes I get people that report something similar to that. But then, were there any other details you remember about how they sounded or anything that was off about it? Or did it sound like pretty much a normal owl?
It sounded the it was kind of a louder owl. Who but they were the same every night, and I couldn't see the owl, but it wasn't too far away from me, but I thought that rather out every time I came out for that week, it would happen, and then I just quit, and I had never happened.
Since I was going to ask you that too. Is so after that last interaction where it was you and your family at the property and then you were able to get out of there, did anything else the ordinary happened since then? Or it's been pretty much cleared out.
It's been pretty calm. I have not had any more instances.
And your daughter as well too. Yes, okay, interesting. Have you ever done any research to see if there's been other encounters reported near that area?
I did look up. I saw one that was actually along the Iroquois River there, but it was further west and south, and somebody had seen had actually seen them a couple of nights in a row along the road. But then that was that. But no, I've seen I have heard other instances more in southern Illinois. People have seen them.
Oh absolutely. I mean you get down to southern Illinois and it does get extremely wild down there. It's come up a few times on the show recently. There's some that aren't even out yet. But yeah, southern Illinois is interesting. That's why it's special to hear about this area of the state. You don't hear a lot of it. Usually hear around Peoria or down near Shawnee. So it's very cool to hear about this area.
Although there are some big woods there. Yeah, and like I mean, there's a river. Yeah, I don't know.
You know, John, it sounds like you've you've thought about this a whole lot over over the years. And I don't blame you. I would as well when you think about Bigfoot, and I know you didn't have the chance to see anything, but you really experienced some intense things. So when you're thinking about that in your mind, what do you do? You have any thoughts about what Bigfoot might be that's out there.
Well, I do believe it is an entity that maybe interdimensional. I mean, there's so many people have seen them and experienced things. There's got to be something there. Uh got to be a lot smarter than me.
It definitely knew where you were on the property and where you were headed, which is pretty wild. How it had the the trees against certain areas.
Yeah, two trees down, one right in front of my stand. I mean, it was a green tree just broken half, and then the one the big tree, and it was perfect and it came back. It was backwards and it was perfectly lined up to the cabin. The tip of the top of the tree was touching the cabin. At that point, I thought, oh, this is how lucky can you get that it didn't.
Destroy the cabin right exactly?
But then I was looking at it. There's no lightning strikes and it was just broken.
At any time, did you see any anything that looked like it could be like tracks or you know, disturbances in the ground anything, I thought did.
Along the river, it looked like something had been walking and it sunk deep down. I thought, you know, maybe it's a deer because you can't tell, but it was. It was rather large, but I couldn't at that point. I'm not really when I saw this, I wasn't. I wasn't really thinking of that, right, but you know, it could have been somebody walking through the mud down there. But I didn't really see anybody fishing or anything along the river either.
Yeah, And that's that's a good point to bring up, because you know, you're just you're just a hunter out there trying to figure out what's going on and trying to to get what you're out there for, and you're not in the mindset where, Okay, how long are the tracks? How long between the tracks? Are the tracks in a straight line, or are they by themselves? You're not thinking like that, You're just like, what what is going on? Yeah? I get it.
Yeah, it was something I don't ever want to experience again.
I'll tell you that, would you ever want to to see what one looks like if you had the.
Chance, I guess I would, just out of curiosity. But I don't know that. I you know, I don't know what I would have done if I would have saw one, know that that one night. Yeah, I don't know. I guess it would be interesting to see one, But with the stuff that's happened to me, actually, I don't know if I do.
Sure. Yeah, it's a tricky one, for sure. I mean, yeah, definitely you can say that that you do. But then there's the old saying where it's it's be careful for what you wish for, and I get that too. Do you have any thoughts as to do you feel that it's helpful for an individual that's had an experience like this to share to someone rather than to keep it all in. Was that something that you had to work through or was there a difference in how you felt after you finally shared it.
Well, at first I was I didn't think anyone would believe me when I if I told them, so I to, you know, I just kept quiet, But then it kept eating away at me. And then once they finally did say something, it did feel better. And it does feel better to talk about it because I know there's other people out there that have probably had some type of similar occurrences that might be like I was, and they're not saying anything about it. So I would tell them it is good to tell somebody about it and talk
about it. It kind of helps with understanding what happened.
Absolutely, I agree one hundred percent it is. I've never found it where it is not helpful to the person that's sharing it. It always seems to be helpful in some way.
Yeah, And you know, our government has to know someone about this. Why they're quiet, I don't I don't know, but I guess they don't want to panic people.
But well, you know, John, I don't know, because, like
you know, we're recording this on the day of the inauguration. Correct, yes, and I mean not to get overly too political, but there's a chance that some things, well some things are definitely going to be released if if the current president has his way, and I don't think it's too far out of the picture that potentially, I mean, if there's ever going to be a time, it is going to be you know, President Trump, that he's going to see the folder as his bigfoot and he's going to say,
just put out there. I don't care, like it's all about getting the right person that can be like, yes, why don't you throw that out too, you know, And I don't know, man, it could happen, It could happen. Yeah, we'll see, we will see. But man, John, it has been a privilege having you on the show tonight. Thank you for reaching out. I'm glad that you're able to respond to me after I put a comment on your comment. I'm still at the point where I'm able to read
through all the comments. A lot of the interviews come from those comments on YouTube, and I just appreciate you coming on the show and sharing something that I can tell is still very fresh in your mind.
Yes, it definitely is. And thank you for having me on here and letting me express myself. It does help.
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