Now one of your pudding. I got a string going on here, something just because my dog. Something killed your dog. My dog. We're flying through the air over the tree. I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over the fence and he was dead. And once you hit the ground, like, I didn't see any cars. All I saw was my dog coming over the fence. What are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling around out here. Did you see what it was?
Or was it was?
Standing up? I'm out here looking through the window now and I don't see anything. I don't want to go outside. Jesus Quice, you better hello, get somebody out here. What quin I'm out there?
That's thought of a bitch.
About sixty forty nine. I don't know. Easy announ there. Yeah.
I want to welcome you to the latest episode of my series, The Strange and Unexplayed Phenomena of the South Mountains of North Carolina. I love hearing and collecting the first hand accounts of people who have a witness things, especially the people who have witnessed the phenomena that are known to occur here in the South Mountains area, there's a couple of subcategories that intrigue me even more. One of those is hearing the accounts of the old timers.
There's a couple of reasons for that, but one of them is it helps date this phenomena. The common myth is that all of this began in December of nineteen seventy eight, in the early part of nineteen seventy nine, that's when all this started. That simply is not true. Talking with the old timers who tell me of their accounts when they were older, tell me accounts of their parents, their grandparents, it helps date this and it goes back
decades and decades. Today I bring you the story of one of the old timers, a dear friend of mine who has since past all and I've just referred to him in this episode to Smitty, but I dedicate this to Smitty. May you rest in peace. Brother Smitty was a hardcool country boy, outdoorsman, fisherman, haunter, camper, hiker. He knew these South Mountains like the back of his hand. The only time that he didn't live here in this area is when the United States Army drafted him and
sent him to Vietnam. The year was nineteen seventy one. He had just finished his two year stint in United States Army. He was home back in his beloved South Mountains and was just readjusting. And he had an offul with whom he was particularly close and his uncle again rekindled their relationship. On a certain day, he suggested going squirrel honey, but he suggested that they visit an area
that was particularly rich in squirrels. The day that I interviewed Smitty about this, he said, I didn't want to go, and I asked him why, and he said, because that area is further back inside the South Mountains. He said, we were always uncomfortable there. We felt like we were being watched. Many times we heard strange noises, especially when
it was close to sundown. But on this occasion, he said, he agreed the idea of an area plenty full and squirrel And you got to remember, to this day, there's people here in this area that are poverty stricken, but even more in this area's history and back in the nineteen seventies, and the idea of putting some food on the table wasn't just as for it, it was a necessity.
So they went, he and his uppel. This particular area, as I said, was deeper into the South Mountains, on the Cleveland County, North Carolina side of the South Mountains, so it required a hike. They began their journey about ten that morning, wanting to get there and do early
afternoon and early evening journey. They begin their journey that day, and it required them to ascend one of the small mountains on the south side of the South Mountains and then from there they would have to descend back into a creek bottle go partially upward up the next mountain to this area that was rich in squirrel, rich in hickory trees, rich in oak trees, with the acorns and
the hickory nuts particularly concentrated in those trees. As they reached the peak of the first mountain that they needed to cross, they stopped for rest. Smitty, freshome from the Jungles of Vietnam, was still in a state of hyper observance. He said, as he looked around. He looked downhill in approximately three hundred yards away there was a large hair covered creature kind of laying on a large log, and Smitty told me, he said, I actually thought I was
seeing things, he said. He questioned what he was seeing, so he pointed out to his uncle, who verified that's what they were seeing. And I asked him to describe it. He said. It was very large, completely covered in hair, with a pointed head. The whole back of its head was covered in hair, and you couldn't even see ears.
They never saw the front at that time, and they watched it in shock, And as though this creature knew that it was being watched, it suddenly got up and didn't turn all the way around, but turned slightly and then proceeded north in the opposite direction downhill, which was the direction they were headed. They discussed the matter. They knew of the phenomena in this area, the old phenomena, but they decided to continue anyway, part out of curiosity and of course part out of wanting to get a
good hunt that day, And so they proceeded. They began to ascend from that peak they had previously occupied. They got down to that next creek bottom. They ascended up the next mountain partially to the area in question, and they begin their swirl. But to their surprise, that day, they all not one squirrel. Very unusual, extremely unusual. Never before, said Smitty, had they not left there with less than a dozen squirrel But that day they saw neary a squirrel.
As it came close to time to pack it in and leave, they heard what Smitty described as a deep hollor, like something was mad at them. They said it was very close, but they could not see it, and they froze in place and watched. And as they watched, they soon began hearing footsteps. The footsteps were getting closer to them. The problem was that the footsteps was coming from the direction they needed to go, and they didn't know what
to do. They didn't want to go the opposite direction because that led further into the interior of the South Mountains. Then suddenly they saw it. The sun wasn't set yet, but it was getting close. They saw what Smitty described as a giant Harry booger. Now booger is a Southern term for a monster. I asked him to describe it. He said it went five six hundred pounds easy seven feet taller, covered in hair except for its eye area, its nose area, in its mouth area, and that it
was a dark reddish brown hair. It came closer and then it stopped. The men were completely shocked and terrorized, and for good reason. They were only armed with sixteen gage shotguns, and those shotguns they had bird shot, not a very effective thing to defend yourself with, and they were just unsure what to do. But it began to move closer, and it would stop and do another one of those yells, a showling growl, and on several occasions
they saw it show its teeth. It would stop and put on this display of aggression, And so they decided to had the opposite direction of the way they actually needed to go, and to go up that hill to the top of that mountain, and it pursued them the whole way. They would to get a breather. At one point the awful fail and Smitty had to help him up, but they got to the peak and it was still coming.
They descended back down that peak, heading toward the creek bottom that Smitty knew would take them to a road, and as they got halfway down that other side of that small mountain, they heard that yelling, growling howl once again, and they looked up and this creature that they reported was standing there, putting on the biggest aggressive display yet repeatedly yelling in the manner that had been yelling and showing its teeth, was rocking back and forth and back
and forth, and then would start yelling again. They kept going. They reached the creek bottom. By then it was dark down there in these woods at night, and at dark that's not a fun place to be. They reached the creek bottom, they made the road, they got out of there. My friend Smitty said, Jerry, I never went back to that area again, And he said, I never went hunting again without also being armed with a forty four magnum pistol.
And the man was terrified when he told me. The story tonight's episode involves, like last week, a uncle and nephew duo. I'm not using the real names here, but we'll start off with uncle death. Uncle Jeff lives in this area here south of the South Mountains mountain chain, just a few miles from the southern border of the state park, a country boy, outdoorsman, hunter, fisher, camp or hiker, that kind of thing. And then his nephew Jake, who
lives about an hour east of here. Now, there was a certain period of time that young Jake would travel up here on Thursdays to spend time with his uncle. And on those Thursdays they would attend the local bluegrass church, which is a regular church. They just do bluegrass music. They don't have a piano. They got a banger. They got to get to our dog house base, a mantlin, a fiddle, a doughbro. But Jeff and his nephew, Jake,
had that in common. They were both blue grass musicians, Jeff's bluegrass vocalists that were both heavily in the bluegrass, So they had that link and they had a really good relationship for an awful and a nephew. And then after each service, Jake would follow his uncle home endings stay another couple hours, sometimes on up into the night, just hanging around, maybe picking cutting up, talking that kind of thing. But on one particular cold November night in
twenty eighteen, things happened as I described. They went to the service, Jake followed his uncle back to the house and they spent some time together and a little after eleven o'clock, Jake said, I'm going to have to go. Uncle Jeff walket him to the door and they said they're goodbyes. Jeff started the process of getting ready for bed.
He went to plug his phone up to charge it in at rank it was his nephew who, in a very frightened and anxious voice, simply said, I need you to get out here right now, and he hung up. Jeff had fortunately not shed his boots, she had grabbed the coat, and he got outside, not having a clue what to expect, and he found his nephew to simply be standing over in the yard, which is on high ground. And he walked up to him and said, what's going on?
And his nephew said, pointed across the way, and he said, listen, something is over there. Sure enough, in a few seconds, Jeff heard the distinct sound of something walking in those woods across the way from them. Now they were on high ground. And then that went down to a little country road that's the dead end road, and then a fence, and then about ten yards past that fence was the woodline.
And this woodline was the starting area of a higher or what in other parts of the country you might call it a drawl or a valley, but it was the starting point of a hollow that was very deep and run all the way to a major creek. Here in northern Cleveland County called Wards Creek. So they listened, and they kept hearing the sound of something moving, and it was clear to Jail that it was something walking
on two feet. He made a mental note at the time that it was heavy footed, that it seemed to be walking slow and deliberately, and all the while getting closer and closer to them, And he told Jake, he said, I've got to run inside and get my spotlight. And he left Jake there for just a couple of minutes, and he run in and found the spotlight, came back outside, and the sound of the footfalls continued, and he began
to spotlight those woods. Now, keep in mind, though this is November when this happened, and the leaves were off the trees, it's still so thick in some of these parts of these woods, with the big trees, medium trees, saplings, the undergrowth, you can't see far into them at night, even with the flashlight. So he just continued to scan with spotlight, trying to hone in on the source of the sound. It had stopped getting closer, but it had
not stopped. It sounded as though it was pacing back and forth just inside the woodline, and as he spotlighted. He stopped because he thought he saw movement, and he concentrated any focus and was trying to figure out what, if anything, he was looking at, and then without warning, there was this angry sounding guttural, low based yell or shout, followed by what was described as an ape like sound. Rather than describe it, I'll just try to mimic it the way that they mimicked it to me, and it
sounded something like this. They stopped. He didn't see anything. He didn't see any movement. Now, we all face points in life on when we have the fight or flight reaction, and young Jake had the flight reaction, and he broke out and ran toward the house. Now, Jeb being an old country boy, he knows if you're out in the woods or something in some situation like that and your buddy runs, the best thing to do is follow him
and ask questions later, and that's what he did. So they got into the house and they were talking to each other for what was that. Now they were both well aware of the Lord. Jeff had actually had some experiences in the past, and curiosity got the best of them. If you haven't experienced that, curiosity bug is gonna bite you. Trust me, it will change things, and that curiosity bug will get you. They elected to come back outside. Jake said,
let me grab my piece out of my vehicle. He grabbed a handgun, so at that point in time they did have some protection. Jeff resumed spotlighting and they could hear the source of this continuing to walk, pacing back and forth, and it stopped, and after a few minutes they decided to go downhill, cross that road and go to that fence. And they still had the relative safety of about ten yards of clear area between that fence and the woods. And they got down to the fence.
The walking resumed, except now it was walking away from them, and it was clear to them that it was descending back down into the depths of that holler, and it continued to get more distant. But then they could tell that it was not moving away from them anymore, and it was pacing back and forth and back and forth. They would hear more of the sounds, and then it all stopped. And stay tuned for more sasquatch hot to see.
We'll be right back. After these messages, Jeff and Jake, after a few minutes, decided to go back up into the yard on high ground, and they heard the steps coming back up out of the holler toward them, closer and closer. They knew at that point that it was as close as it had been yet. Jeff was faithfully spotlighting those woods, trying to hone in to see anything
that he could see, and finally it happened. He testifies that he clearly saw a mouth and an upper chest, and that the only thing that wasn't covered by hair was the mouth. To the best of his knowledge, it was a reddish brown colored hair, and he was mesmerized by it, caught up in a moment again and looking, and suddenly the shout, these guttural yells started again with
those a black noises. They clearly heard stomping and the yelling and the stomping, and then he saw what the spotlight that one of the trees was shaking violently back and forth. And they felt relatively safe, they had protection, they had a lot of distance, but both were very uneasy, and both were very frightened. And that continued for several minutes, and then finally it stopped. They heard the footsteps. They heard the footsteps getting more distant and more distant until
finally they didn't hear them anymore. So they were just standing there wandering what just happened? Whatever this was, what was it doing. Was it toying with them? Was it sending out a clear message this is my area you need to leave. But to this day both men are deeply affected. As a matter of fact, that night, Jake said, I'm not sure if I want to drive out of here. The rock going to come out of the woods. It's something going to step out in the road, and said
I'll provide over watch with the spotlight. And Jake was able to safely leave. But to this day they were both deeply assafted that And so would you. An elderly couple came to me in the winter of twenty twenty two and said that they had an encounter that night before. This was a November of twenty twenty two, and that they was riding up a road here in this area north of Kayser. As they went up a hill off to the right, he said he noticed this large person. But he said as he got closer, he said it
was way too large to be a man. And he said, I've seen that it was covered in the hair. He had slowed down because I was afraid it was going to step out in front of him. But as they approached it, it turned its head and looked at them, and when the lights hid its eyes that they shone red and him and his wife were both shaken and said, we'll never go out after dark again. But it's some events that spend the time period from November twenty eighteen
until August of this year. Are they trying to herd us? In the fourth week of November of twenty eighteen, a father son duo ascended a ridge and separated and went to their respective deer stands. Well, we're going to focus on the sun. Young Calvin is very experienced, mature for his age, old man who had hunted since he was very small, and was a very capable of pondering outdoorsman. But he got into his tree stand at four thirty
that morning and simply began to wait for slom. And he said that about four forty five he heard the distinct sound of footsteps, and as an experienced hunter, he said that he knew that it was something walking on two feet, and the footsteps got closer and closer, and suddenly the footsteps became slower and more deliberate, and it put him in mind, and I agree with him that his position was being stalked by something. And then the
footsteps stopped. Within a few minutes, he heard what he described as so ape like whooping went on just for a minute or two, and by then he was frightened, according to his testimony, but just being on Hiler and the listening and intently watching into the darkness, it suddenly heard the sound of something crashing through the tree limbs, and he said that he just instinctively knew something had been thrown. He heard a thud, and the tree in which he
was in vibrated. It struck the tree in which it was sitting, And by then he was ready to go, but he did not want to descend out of the tree stand And I think that was a very wise move. It's better to stay twenty four feet up than down on the forest floor and you don't know what's going on. The next morning they got out of the tree stands and he fell a large rock a little smaller than a volleyball, had hit the tree that he was in.
It had knocked bark off the tree, which was a large tree, and also dended the wood underlying the bark, so it was thrown a tremendous force. Not only did they not harvest the deer that morning, but he and his father said that they saw nothing. No deer, no raccoons, no skunks, nothing, which is very unusual for this area. I allow looked. The retired deputy sheriff from Burke County
investigated this. We saw the rock, the damage tree, and we found about thirty five yards from where his tree stand was, something very large had been bedding down there. You old Calvin nasty, he said, are they trying to hurt us? And we both agreed it. It's just probably not a good idea to ever go into these woods after dark by yourself. The second event I want to tell you about was a group of hikers, not hikers, and they were hiking a high ridge not far from
where I am right now as I record this. They were doing it for fun. They were talking, laughing, no reason to be quiet or not use their flashlights, And as they descended the end of the ridge, the group was caught by surprise by again the sound of something crashing through the trees. A large rock came in from their right and impacted, almost hitting one of the members of the hiking party, and there were five of them.
They stopped, certainly, not expecting that, and they listened and observe, and nothing else happened, and they went back to their camp. Nothing else of note happened the rest of the night, except to say that at about three point thirty in the morning, from several locations around them, they heard the sound of a low frequency growling howl, and they felt as though they were surrounded. And that's horrifying. I've been
in that position, and it is truly horrifying. Two of the members of the group has not been back since the third event. I want to tell you about two people,
and one of those people was me. We were out scouting areas along creeks and along the Broad River looking for footprints, and we came to a bridge on a dirt road, and underneath it we failed one single print on a sand bar in the middle of the river, and the print was three and a half inches d From the water line to the print it was four feet, and from the print to the other water line in the direction of travel, it was four feet, meaning whatever
made that print and the weight sufficient to depress its foot three and a half inches into hard packed rocky sind and it had a stride of four feet at least. We took pictures of it. We got in my friend's brand new jeep and we commenced to driving up the dirt road in about one hundred and fifty two hundred feet away. Suddenly something hit the jeep. I thought that one of the windows had been blowing down. I thought
that we had been shot at. But the driver, my friend, said that it hit the roof above his head and it was apparent to him something had been thrown. And I said, do you want to go back and look for the rock or check the damage? He said no. So we got back to my place and in the top of his jeep was a very large gouge. The rock, which we never foiled because it had gone off the jeep into the woods down a hill, was large and headed hard enough to damage his new jeep. He wasn't mad.
He said that was a pretty good way to damage a jeep if you're going to damage a jeep, and he has not been back on those excursions with me. The fourth and final event that I want to tell you about is probably the most horrifying. Two people, Ray who we've talked about before, and his friend Vera, were
creek walking. Now, creek walking is simply where you walk in the creek rather than hiking along the sides of the creek, and the advantage to that is that you don't have to negotiate the thick foliage of the creek bottom. And this was in August of this year. But they were creek walking for fun, but they were aware of
the reputation of this area and had some experiences. And as they acting in the creek, they came to a point to stop to take a water break, and Rist and Ray, being somewhat mischievous enjoying the prospect of aggravating Vera, picked up a stick and swatted a tree twice, mimicking a woodknock, which we've talked about old previous episodes. This was at four o'clock broad daylight. Now I can tell you from my experience, you don't hear many sounds or
vocalizations before dark. I've heard five vocalizations in ten years or wooden knocks combination thereof before dark in ten years. But immediately after hit that tree off to their right, which had been to their east, something hit a tree and it hit it with a large piece of wood ray pictured maybe a semi rotted log to hit the tree, and it could hear the sound of what hit the tree breaking, and that it was very close. He felt
that it was one hundred feet or less. Now one hundred feet might as well be a mile in the foliage of these creek bottoms during the cellar. But immediately within a couple of seconds after that, one on the opposite side of the creek heard another sharp, very sharp, distinct wooden knock, and he reported that one too, was
also very close to them. So he convinced his friend to just stop, and they wanted to watch and observe and listen, and nothing else occurred, and they begin walking again, and roughly about five minutes later, without warning, without any of the pre cursory sounds, a rock was thrown, narrowly missing Vera's head by inches. It was throw from their left went over her head and impacted the creek next to them, and it was a piece of quartz slightly smaller than a softball and had to hit her in
the head or him. It would have sent them to the hospital seriously hurt them if not kill them. They didn't stop and observe or listen. They kept going and as they were moving along at a hurried pace, they began to hear the distinct sound of whooping and unmow frequency growling. How that was very close to them and they have not been back.
Since approximately a year ago. We had an expedition that took place down in South Carolina at a hunting reservation. On that day, we were very fortunate because this area is a lowland area, very swampy, a lot of water, a lot of standing water year round. However, last summer it was a very dry summer, so we were able to access this one area where normally you can't walk into without chest waiters. So Dwight and I took off
and we start walking down through the swamp. He had his dog, Fendy with him, and they were to my left and I was to the right. And as we were making distance down through the swamp, Dwight and I separated. He was about fifty yards away from me. He dropped back behind me for a little ways, then I'd move forward. I was specifically looking for footprints or any type of structures I could run across. I happened to run across
a print. That print was the first one that I had found down in South Carolina, and I was extremely excited about it. So what I did was I took some red flagging tape and I flagged a tree with it. It was still earlier in the afternoon, and I wanted to keep moving forward to see if I I could find more prints or more evidence, hopefully a squatch or a dog man or something along those lines, some type of creature. I kept pressing forward, and then Dwight. I
could hear him. Every once in a while, we'd let out a little whoop to each other, just to let each other know our general location. I had taken my audio recorder and placed it on a stump about halfway into my walt, hoping to catch something on.
The audio recorder.
So I leave my audio recorder on the stump and I keep pressing forward deeper in the woods. I'm going deeper, and I'm going deeper.
I guess.
I was walking for what felt like a good solid thirty forty five minutes. I had basically gotten to the point of where I was a long way from base camp.
I knew that at that.
Point I hadn't heard Dwighte in thirty minutes. There was no interaction with me and him. Come to find out, he and Findy at that point had turned around and started going back to base camp.
So I get to the end of my walk and.
I'm feeling solid about the footprint that I've already captured.
I've got it flagged.
All I've got to do is retrack my steps back to it, picked my audio recorder up if I don't get something, and then go check my track. So I'm at the end of my walk. This was when I first started researching, and I was in an environment by myself. I had seen all these other people, all these other researchers. They were doing the whoops, they were doing the calls, and I thought I'd give it a try. I figured, what the hey, I'm by myself, there's nobody around.
I can make a complete fool out of myself.
So I picked a branch up that was broken on the ground, and it was about a good three inches in diameter. Mind you, it was completely so it was not a dry stick. And so I grabbed the stick. I hit the tree with it and it made just a thud, nothing loud. The sound didn't really carry. I wasn't happy with it, so I was like, screw that, I'll give it another go. So I took the tree land this time, and I hauled off and swung it as hard as I could to try to get a noise out of it. And I got a great noise
out of that one. So I'm standing there and I'm happy with that result, and I'm like, okay, waiting on a reply, waiting on possibly another wood knock. I hear absolutely nothing, dead quiet in the swamp. Mind you, I'm still standing there in this location and my feet are maybe two inches in the mud. That's what I was standing in. So walking through the swamp made no noise.
It was just silence. It was easy to navigate, very quiet and.
Stay tuned for more sasquatch out to see we're right back after these messages.
So as I'm standing there, still beside the tree that I just did the two wood knocks on, what I did next was I said, I'm gonna let out a yell. I gave one of the kind of a reserved woo, stood there for a moment, had nothing reply back, and I was like, oh, come on, I've gone this far I've done tree knocks, I've done a yell.
I'm going to do another yell.
So that's when I let out the best yell, of the loudest, most vocalization that I could throw out. So I do that, nothing happens, and I'm like, Okay, that's fine, I'll just turn around and go back.
That's the end of this. Just as I was about to.
Turn around and retrace my footprints out of there, that's when I got screamed at. The scream came from the left hand side of me, and the tree was directly still to my left, and when it screamed, I completely froze. I just completely tensed up. My body was just tight. I shut my eyes, and I was just standing there. I'm like, oh my god, what was that? Because I've heard Dwight call, and I've heard Dwight do hollers in the past, and this was not anywhere even remotely close
to what a human could let out. Matter of fact, Bob our other investigator in Sasquatch recn he probably lets out the loudest yell that I'd heard. This tripled what he could do. So once I heard it and the shock set in, I was just like, oh hell, this is not from the guys. This is from a creature, an animal, a being, a something. There's something out here,
and it just completely floored me. So I opened my eyes up and I'm just looking straight out ahead of me, and this tree is still to my left, and I just said to myself, Okay, Chris, now is your time to prove to these guys.
That you're not scared. You're not a freddy cat.
You're not going to be talked about if you don't move forward on this sound.
And that's what I did. I told myself.
I said, Okay, I'm going to take two more steps and look at see if I can see what it is that made that sound that scared me so badly. And I had a firearm on me at the side, and I remember doing this. I put my hand on my firearm and I said, Okay, I'm going to see what's out there, and I took two steps forward. And as I took two steps forward, that's when I told myself, there's no way I'm making another step towards this thing.
There's no way.
All I wanted to do is get back to base camp. And I turned around and did a three sixty in the mud right there and started stepping back in my footprints that I had made because I could vividly see him, and I was looking down. Because one of our fellow researchers, Tim Dills, I had asked him in the past. I said, man, when you saw your first bigfoot, I said, what advice
would you give someone? Tim told me to drop your head, don't make eye contact, look at the direction you're wanting to travel into, and don't take your eyes off of it, and just walk slowly.
Out of the woods. And that's exactly what I did.
What I feel like happened was I was so deep in the woods by myself alone that when I did the two tree knocks that got its attention, and then when I did the yell with no reply back that after I did that second yell, apparently I upset it. It screamed at me with such a vibrating scream that it vibrated my chest and the hairs on my arms and my neck stood up, and I was just goosebumped
from head to toe. I've told this story a couple of times, and a couple of people that I told it to said, you possibly were zapped.
I didn't know what ZAPP was. I knew I was shocked.
I knew that I was scared, and I knew that I was being honest with myself by wanting to get the hell out of there in one piece, because whatever creature this vocalization came out of it had to have volume, it had to be big, and it had to have one heck of a set of lungs on it to get that type of velocity to come through the woods or the swamp.
Yeah.
I was basically scared shitless. So from that point I just started walking back. And as I was walking back, I walked back over and I found my audio recorders where I'd left it.
I grabbed it.
Then I kept walking and I walked to the spot where I found the footprint because my flagging tape, so I knew exactly where it was at. And I'm like, okay, I'm going back to base camp. Now, I'm going to get the guys. We're going to come back out here and we're going to cast this. And as I was walking, it probably was another forty five minute walk because I was moving slow. I was completely exhausted. When I came out on the long road back to our base camp.
I came out.
Maybe six seven hundred yards up the road from where I had entered, because I knew basically my direction, so I was staring at my footprints. I was more concerned with just getting back. That's all I really wanted to do at that point was just get back. In the meantime, I had composed myself to where I wasn't gonna just come walking up to the guys that waving my arms and going, guys, you're not gonna believe what happened. You have no idea what happened to me or anything like that.
I just said, I'm going to tell them what happened, and I'm just gonna try to take it nice and cool. As soon as I walked back up to base camp, Bob and Dwight asked me. They said, to how did your walk go? And I said, I think it went really good. I said, I think I found a legitimate footprint. That's when Bob said, did you hear that scream or that yell? And I said, oh, yeah, I heard it. I said it was like thirty forty yards from me
when I heard it. We caught the audio pretty good on my audio recorder, even though my audio recorder was probably a quarter mile I will guess a quarter mile from where I ended up at and it got screamed at. But from where base camp was to where it screamed at me was comfortably three quarters of a mi all I would say comfortably. And that's when Bob said, yeah, he said, I heard it all the way back here.
So if that tells you anything, this was a very loud, very dominating sound that came out of the forest.
I never got to see it.
And Bob and I came back down a few months ago to the exact same location and we tried to recreate our steps to go back out there, and unfortunately we couldn't do so because the water level was so high. It was knee high in places, and we didn't bring chest waiters with us. We weren't anticipating that much water
level to be there. We had much on and that type of thing, but we were specifically going out there, or at least I was specifically going to retrace my tracks and then hopefully see some more activity or see if there's anything else going on out there. But the swamp had turned back into the swamp. But that was the scariest that I've ever been in my entire life, and I've had some scary instances, but this time it was beyond scary for me.
That's my story.