Today, I want to tell you about a journey that I've been on for most of my life. Ever since I was a kid, I've heard tales of bigfoot and wild men while spending time with my friends and family. As I grew older and read more about the paranormal, my interest in encryptids and other things strange only deepened. That's why I'm so excited to share with you
what I've personally become involved with the Untold Radio Network. The Untold Radio Network is a live streaming podcast network that airs a new show every day across all podcast platforms, YouTube, and more. They have eight different shows on all sorts of exciting topics such as bigfoot, cryptids, UFOs, aliens, and much more. I even have my own show called Weird Encounters, where I talk about all things strange. This is more than just a podcast network.
It's a community that allows me to meet so many amazing people who share their stories and experiences with strange. If you're interested in hearing more of these stories and learning more about the paranormal and encryptids, make sure you check out the Untold Radio Network for all kinds of exciting shows. It's free to subscribe. So what are you waiting for visit www dot untold radionetwork dot com today. Now, what are your reporting? I got a string going on here.
Something just kid with my dog, something to kill your dog? My dog. We're flying through there 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 name was dead once you hit the grill. I didn't see any cars. All I saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what are you reporting? We got some wonder or
something crawling around out here? Did you see what it was? It was enough out here looking them new to window now and I don't see anything. I don't want to go outside, point Kara. Hello, hit the buddy out here? What went on out There's thought of a bit? Is about sixty nine? I don't know. Easy him out there. Yeah, I'm walking right away. Greetings is Fred in Alaska. What I wanted to share with you today came in from Jack and his buddy. We'll name him Eric.
Okay. Jack emailed me to tell me about three years ago they were up at the McLaren River off the Dnelly Highway where they had a friend launched. Them launched in kayaks and him and his buddy were gonna go caribou hunting. They're gonna take the McLaren River on down to where it reaches up with Tyrone Creek. They launched and they start paddling away. They're doing their thing. They're making headway. It's an adventure, you know. They packed light,
just little single man pop up tents. They're doing state camp as they went along. Caribou in this area. For those of you who have been out there, you know what I'm talking about, Like the Alphabets and Gulkana River and all that. South of the the Nalley Highway, you'll find little pockets of caribou seven or eight together, maybe three or four. They're kind of spread out and kind of over here and over there, and with the hunters coming, they kind of even break down in smaller groups at times.
So these guys figured they would hedge their bets kayak in super quiet and stealth, just kind of peeping things out. So they had quite a way to go down to the McLaren River. As they're coming up to where they're going to meet the branch of Tyrone Creek, they stopped there for the night. They set up their camp on the west side of the McLaren where the two creeks kind of meet now. He said. It was uneventful, a lot of birds chirping and things going on up until about the last mile before they
stop to set up their spike camp. They're hours into this hopefully one week long adventure. They had their friends drop them. They planned on having their friends pick them back up at the same spot. Why they chose kayaks to caribou hunt, I don't know. I didn't get a clear answer on that. I was told for the adventure of it. Caribo ain't overly big, but it'd be kind of cumbersome on a kayak. I think they set up their spike camp just a little bernerstove. They had no fire or nothing like
that. Going during hunting season, We're damn near twelve and twelve light cycle up here. Things are dark at night. They had all their provisions and gear, a lot of freeze, dried goods, things like that, easy to cook stuff. As they're plotting out where they were going to venture. They were going to stake camp there and then the next morning wee hours of the morning they were going to go on foot and check out the immediate area
to see what animals were moving. As got up the next morning, it was what he expressed was a deafening quiet, the kind of quiet that makes you feel like you lost your hearing. He tells his buddy Eric, Hey, you know something's I think there might be a bear in the area. Jack is First Nations. He's from a village. He asked me to leave that portion out, but he is First Nations. He's avid hunter outdoors men can read the signs. He knows what's up. I was aware of the
hairy Man, but never bought into it. He never had anything to tell him otherwise, so he was a huge skeptic. As they started out that morning, just light enough for them to see the game trailer walking down. This is kind of a marshy area. I've showed you examples of that before. So as they're going down this game trail and there's literally very little cover until you start getting back to the hills, and then you got all the
thick alders and willows and stuff. So they were making their way and they're being real quiet and whispering now and then they would stop and kind of glass down because there's a little bit of a fog lifting Eric was doing the spotting. Oric says, hey, we got movement, you know, eleven o'clock. So immediately Jack grabs his rifle and he's looking through a scope to see what kind of movement do we got? Do we got moose, caribou?
Bear? You know? Is it the we're suspecting? And all they saw was a dark shadow just off in the distance, moving to their left. They figured it, huh, well, it's coming towards the game trail we're on. Let's continue on. Let's keep our wits about us and keep looking around. See what this is. Maybe it's a nice bull moose, you know, and we philip moose tag. Eric had the moose tag and his caribou tags and Jack had his caribou tag. So they got kind of anxious
for a moose. And then they started talking, well, if we get a moose, it's gonna take a couple of trips to get it all back up the McLaren River to the landing there at the bridge. So they were discussing it, and they decided, well, if we get it, we get it. They wanted meat, and that's what they were there for. They weren't trophy hunting. They were there to eat, so they continued on down this game trail. Now, I've been in situations where you're going through
a misty fog that's lifting up off the tundra in the hills. The visibility nearby is okay, but it reaches a certain point that no matter your vision, everything is just then the fog. There's nothing you can do about it. It's like it reaches a certain point of distance and it's like a wall. So as they're going along, they figured, okay, we should be coming up to where this thing was moving unless it moved out of our direction.
We should be coming up on where we should cross paths soon. The whole time they had been hiking, it had been in the course of about two and a half hours. But they're moving real slow, so they didn't make a great huge distance from their camp, but they had made some progress going up towards some of these little mounds that come up out of the tundra. They're kind of like little buttes and a rolling hill. Others down south
tod probably call them mountains. They're keeping an eye on this fog bank and their limited visibility, so they hunker down on this little knoll, a little tundra knoll, and it kind of slopes down away from them, and it's open. It's open for about If the fog wasn't there, they could easily see for miles in all directions from this particular point. So Eric's doing the glass thing. Jack was adjusting his pack. He had something in his pack
digging in his back and it had been kind of painful. It was the first time they stopped for any length of time for him to adjust his backpack. All of a sudden, he feels a hand on him, like banging him, like really hard, and he was like, hey, what the hell. And Eric's like, there's something in the fog over there, and it's moving, but it's moving laterally back and forth. Jack goes, no,
it's probably just the wind's blowing just a little bit. It's probably just willows or alders blowing and it's just looking that way, and he goes, no, No, I saw arms. So immediately that got Jack's attention. He hurries up with his backpack and stuff and gets it all shut up and set off to the side and grabs his rifle as he's glassing. He's not paying attention to Eric. Eric has grabbed his stuff, moved around behind him, and came up on his left hand side and goes, I'm going to
flank you. Go forward, and he goes, We're not going to split up and go after a dark shadow on the fog. It's just not going to go down that way. His buddy was a little overeager, a young hunter, maybe three or four hunts under his belt, so he kind of buck fever kind of. He was a little over zealous, and Jack got him calm down and says, look, we'll methodically move forward, keep an eye on where it's moving, keep an eye on our wind, all the
standard hunting stuff. You know, he's trying to bring him through the ropes. So as they're moving forward progressively, they're kind of going back and forth in the tundra. Meanwhile, they keep an eye on this thing moving. But as they're moving closer, it seems to stay just inside the fog to where they can't fully make it out. They'll catch a dark shadow moving or just kind of partial silhouette. You know. They didn't have anything confirmed.
They didn't really see anything other than this figure moving. So after about a half hour forty five minutes of this, Jack said, screw this, I feel like we're not getting anywhere on this. Let's back off whatever it is. We'll, you know, let the morning sunlight come up, burn off this bog, and maybe it'll just be bedded down right in this area. So they go back up to where they were. Eric is very rambunctious and
anxious. He wants to go get it. Jack's trying to call down, like, hey, look, if we rush in there, we potentially scare off that and while that runs off, it could scare off caribou that were after and various other things. Calmed down, Let's let this fog rise a little bit. So they sat there for approximately two hours started raining on them. Things were kind of socked in and it didn't look like it was going
to make much progress. And then after about that period of time, all of a sudden, the sun broke through in one spot, and little by little, the whole area was clearing out of the fog. Once the fog cleared, they noticed caribou way across moving along the tundra away from them well over a thousand yards. Because Eric was using the spotting scope, they weren't
catching up to those cariboo, but they were excited. There's game in the area, at least, you know, within visual sight, something positive to look forward to instead of this dark shadow in the fog. So they get geared up to start hiking down the direction of Cariboo. Were going in hopes that there were other ones bedded down that hadn't gotten up to move around, do their thing, go eat, so they get their gear on. Jack
said that's when they first caught whiff of a god awful smell. He said it was like boiling cabbage with foot, funk, body odor, dog piss and dead meat type of smell. So they continue going slowly, keeping their eyes out for any movement of cariboo. As they're moving along, they get up to the area where they last seen this dark figure moving in the fog. Jack is all of a sudden bumped again against his arm as they're walking along, and Eric is going down to the ground trying to pull him down
with them. So he kneels down and it's trying to assess, what the hell do you want. Eric is explaining, there's movement right over there in those alders. So there was a group of alders about fifty yards away. Alders in those areas they look like small bushes from a distance, but you
get up on it and it's twelve foot tall. So Jack was aware that, well, whatever's over there, because Eric said it was peaking his head out the top, it had to be one big freakin moose or caribou to peek its head above, you know, ten twelve foot alders to look at us, and he goes, what are you talking about? Eric was like it was a bigfoot. Jack immediately shut him down. He was like, there is no way in hell there's a big foot out here. You're crazy, and Eric's like, no, I know what I saw. I saw
it through the spotting scope. I saw it clear his day as soon as I scanned over that way, the kids walking with the spotting scope and stopping periodically and glassing, which it's doable, not very practical. So he viewed this thing through the spotting scope that he was carrying with him. Jack could see the fear in his eye, so he took him a little more serious.
He still dismissed it being a sasquatch or Harryman, but he took him more serious that he actually saw something and it spooked him so out of respect for that fear, he said, well, let's check it out. We don't want to get stalked and eaten by a bear. You know, it could have been a big bear, you know, eyeball on us to you know, potentially pounce on us. So they split up. They kind of they're going to flank the alders. Jack made it clearer to Eric and don't
shoot me out of fear. They got it worked out, so Eric was off to his left and he goes basically almost straight in the direction from where Eric had saw this thing. Jack went straight and Eric kind of did a flanking off to the left just to get two sets eyes of different vantage points. But as Jack is getting up closer to these alders, they hear crashing way off, way way off to the right. So they were like, oh, They look at each other in recognition. Whatever it was is now
gone. So they kind of laugh and chuckle. Jack is giving Eric a hard time about, oh they're bigfoot. Oh yeah, it ran off, it smelled you and you know this guy stuff. But he was mocking Eric, you know. So they get back on their trail. They start back in that direction where they were looking at the caribou. Now as they're coming down because it's sloping down in this area from where they were up on the low knoll. It kind of slopes down into the valley and then it slopes
back up to these other rolling hills in the area. And as they're coming down to almost where it levels out way off to their left, they hear this god awful grunt noise. It appeared to be coming from Alders Way further down off to where this valley splits off into two places, and they got this rise in front of them right, so they're looking off at this grunting sound towards where the sound is originating. Jack said there was something off about
the grunt. It wasn't a bear grunt. Someoney mentioned me previously in an email. It sounded similar to a sea lion grunt. They don't have those kind of critters out south of the d Nale Highway, for one thing, So it was this guttoral grunt. It got their attention. They were not necessarily freaked out, but more inquisitive at this point until as they're sitting there, they kind of squatted down on their knees and Eric is trying to glass
in that area. They heard a return grunt from the Alders just back up behind him, upslope a little ways up to the side of the trail where they had just gone looking to get vanished point flanked us things with no avail. But they heard a grunt coming from that direction. So they heard the one off that had their attention, and they heard a response grunt from over
off to their left at this point, from the direction they're facing. Immediately, Jack said all his self preservation alarms alerts and everything within him went off. He said, we didn't see anything at that point. I just knew there was something not good. Bears, for one, don't communicate like that. Nelse in the area. So he asked Eric again, are you sure
of what you saw? What did you see through that spotting scope? Eric said, I saw a face of what looked like a Neanderthal man, big white jaw, grayish complexion, no hair around the face except no hair around the eyes and the or whatever. And it appeared to have just all black, shaggy kind of hair. He goes, are you sure about that? And it goes, I had full facial view in that spotting scope. It filled the whole scope of what I was looking at. I know what I
saw. He started taking them a little more seriously, and he goes, okay, well, we're going to go back to camp. We're going to kayak further the hell out of this area. So they agree. He says, be on your toes. Put the spotting scope away because you need both hands, because this kid was going along with the spotting scope and the rifle slung, so he would stop and use the spotting scope and not necessarily be ready for instantaneous immediate danger threat. He would have to drop the scope,
you know, wield the rifle and all that. So he gets them to put it away. Got someone point with this gun, and he lets him take the lead. As they're going back up their trail, they got to pass right by the spot where they heard the grunt. No other sounds have been made since they heard the grunting that got their attention. Then they heard the return grunt, had their conversation, and they're going back out of there.
So they're looking around. They hear four wheelers way off in the distance, and they're like, okay, there's other people out here, so God forbid something go wrong. We could pop three shots in the air. Maybe they can hear us. This was all twenty twenty hindsight he was sharing with me. They continue on up the trail past this point. Not a sound
comes from those bushes or anything. They get back up to the spot where they were spotting from earlier that morning, and they decide to stop and take a break there because they were a little winded trying to rush and hurry through tundra like shit. So they get up there and they're taking a break. Eric breaks out the spotting scope and starts glassing back down into those alders. He bumps Jack again as Jack's trying to pour some coffee. He's like what,
and he goes, it's there. It's looking at us. So Jack grabs his rifle. He's looking scanning in the area that Eric's telling him to look. Now. Jack is looking at the immediate face of this alder brush patch right. Eric was actually trying to get his attention for about ten yards back because it kept poking his head up looking and as it went down, it would pop up in a different place like it was moving, kind of
sighting them and then moving again. So finally Jack got a beat on where it was moving, saw a movement, couldn't make it out, and decided our break is over. We got to go since within him told them we got to continue moving. This isn't normal. So they immediately grab their shit and they're going down the trail and they're a little more motivated this time,
especially Eric. He was really spooked. Jack was nervous about him having a gun just because of how he was swinging it around as they're going down the trail. They were in the open at this point, so it was kind of one of those just calm down kind of moments. As they get down from the rise back towards the flat plateau that goes over towards where they had moored their kayaks and their little spike camp, they're packing up their camp.
Jack is having small conversation with them about are you sure you saw what you saw? Because time had passed, things had calmed down, so some doubt was kicking up with Jack like what did you really see? Are you sure you saw bigfoot? Kid? Eric's like, yeah, I know what I saw, man, I don't care if you believe me. I know what I saw. So when he said that, Jack took him very serious,
and they were discussing what they should do. Should we continue on or should we just kill this trip and try again, you know, next weekend or something. They had a little bit of time for the season. Jack was like, well, we're here, let's see if we'll go down a little ways and see if we can find the caribou or something. You know, at least we're a day in. Let's check it out. We left whatever back over there, nothing followed us, you know, let's just go on
about it. So they go down a little ways and they get down to Tyne Creek. But when they're there, this is a little scrub brush. All theres willows and stuff. There's no really big trees. You're not going to find force like this, you know, it's just not in that area anyway. It's a lot of marshy, you know, tundra, good berry picking. So they make another spike camp. That night, they were sitting there discussing over their dinner what they would do if whatever these things are came
in on them. And of course, you know, guy Bravado stuffed our world, shoot them, will shoot him, all that kind of talk, and Jack laughed it off because Eric was young and a little over zealous. However, he knew that something wasn't right with the situation, because as it was getting dark, and they had their spike cants set up. They were hearing weird noises way off in the distance, but they were hearing these god
awful types of the end of a scream. It seemed like, he said, they were only getting part or the last portion of a very loud scream the way it was echoing through the small valley. They decide, well, maybe in the morning we'll just go back, because things were progressively getting creepier. Because once they got their kayaks were going down to Tyle Creek, it was quiet a good portion of the time going through there. They heard no
other four wheelers or anything of that nature. They didn't hear any of the birds that are typically around. It was just a kind of an ominous, creepy type thing. As they were coming into where they set up to second State camp. So they decide, well, it'll be light, you know, at whatever time in the morning, let's just plan on going. You know, we'll call it a trip. There's something off here, let's just
go. So they agreed. Well, the next morning, after a night of being woken up periodically by these god awful screams that sounded like they were getting closer but at a safe distance, just closer from what they were before. Jack said he didn't sleep well. He kept he was tossing and turning, just listening to every sound there was out there. Now. When he got up that morning, he was up before Eric because Eric was a snorer, I guess, And he just sat there heating up coffee, listening to
his buddy snore, and kind of contemplating. You know. The day they got it ahead of them, it wasn't light out yet. As it started getting light out, he got Eric up and moving. They had all their stuff just about packed. They had it all loaded up. However, they had it situated in their kayaks. They hear that god awful scream again. This time the scream is coming from the direction they have to go. They have to go back up Town Creek, up to the McCleary, and then
the McCleary back up to the boat launch right. That instantly made Jack nervous. When they got in their kayaks to start going, he told Eric, I'm gonna let you go in front of me, because I don't want you getting nervous behind me and accidentally shooting me if something comes up to the creek. I'm gonna let you go first, because you're a little more high strung. I don't want you accidentally shooting me in the back. Eric kind of laughed it off and was like whatever, but he agreed. So he led
the way, and you know, they got a paddle. They're going up a creek. They're doing their thing. Jack has his rifle kind of barreled down towards his feet, laying on his lap while he's doing his kayak thing. Eric done the same. As they come around this little curve, they see a dark thing jump away from the river bank off on their left hand side. They couldn't make it out. It was just all of a sudden, something dark just flopped and they heard a bump and they heard grass movement.
So like, what the hell that must have been what we heard? You know, maybe it's a sick bear. He just said, keep paddling, Eric, you just keep paddling, dude, Just go, just keep going. I'm gonna keep an eye. I'm right behind you. As they come to the area where they saw this thing jump, dark motion, just jump into the grass. We're out of sight. They hear this chatter.
He said, it sounded like someone imitating an old kunk fu movie. But it was a little different, those deeper toned, shorter type of speech. He said it was really odd because at this point they were splashing with their oars. They were really digging in. He said he could hear it over that and was scared to look off to his left hand side because they heard movement in the now as they were going along. At one point, Eric gets real nervous and just stops paddling, drops or in his lap, picks
up his rifle and points off to the left and fires around boom. Jack said it startled the shit out of him because he did it so fast, just drops boom, fired a shot. So Jack immediately starts chesting, what the hell are you doing, man, what are you shooting at? There's nothing over there? He goes, No, No, there's something in the grass. It keeps looking, it keeps looking out the grass, don't you
see it? And Jack's like, I didn't notice that. And Eric's explained to him, as we're going along, I see something dark peeking out of the grass at me every so often, like it's stand up with us. And Jack had heard the movement in the grass, but it didn't seem like it was that close. So they're freaking each other out by going holy shit, Holy shit, what are we gonna do. Jack's like, well, you know, let's just keep paddling because we just need to go. You
shot a shot, there's no other sounds. Let's go. They keep paddling and paddling. They get back up to where it meets up with the McCleary River, and stay tuned for more sasquatch out to see. We'll be right back after these messages. Now, as they come around the bend, they see what their spike camp was. They decided to take a break there because it's a nice open area. They'd familiarize themselves with the area and all the
little bumps and stumps. So they took their break there because they were wiped out just paddling hard. You know, they had gone miles at this time. As they're taking a break, Eric laid out his backpack and was kind of laid back on it, saying, hey, I need to catch a quick nap, but I didn't sleep too good, and Jack was thinking, well, I didn't sleep at all, basically, so whatever, go ahead
and get you some rest. As he's taking himself a cat nap, Jack is drinking some coffee he hears movement in the grass, but the movement he hears in the grass is behind him, up the trail where they came from the day before. So he's looking the grass doesn't look that tall from a distance. It looks like prairie grass maybe to your knee, but in actuality
it is up to your waist or taller. He's kind of checking out the movements in the grass and you know, the wind blowing the little breezes, and as he's looking along, he sees a dark spot in the grass and he was like, well, that seems different. That seems like a different it's darker, it doesn't match everything else around here. So he's keeping an
eye on that dark spot. Well, as he was getting up to get a better vantage point, he had accidentally kicked Eric's foot and Eric kind of woke up as Jack came to get a better vantage point to look through his scope. That immediately sparked Eric to jump up and start like, hey, where is it at? Is it creeping on us? And moderately freaking out. Jack had to say, calm him down, I'm just looking over at a dark spot in the grass. And as he's trying to explain where the
dark spot is it wasn't there anymore. So immediately Jack's like, it's time for us to go anyway. You got yourself a cat nap. Your adrenaline's got you going. Let's continue paddling. So they jump in their kayaks. They start paddling up to McCleary. Off on the right hand side. Is the direction of that pat they took, heard the grunts and got out of there. They're going along. They're just getting into this getting back onto the river type thing. They just got a pace going. They hear thrashing off
to their right hand side. At this point, Jackson the lead, Eric's behind him. Just how it worked out. They were getting out of there right. Jack is deafened by a couple of gunshots, one routter or the other. Boom boom. Is this he got this ringing going on? Because Eric was just off behind him on his right hand side, shooting away from them. He wasn't in danger. Eric wasn't like, you know, muzzling him or anything like that. But he pops off two shots and immediately it
gets Jack's attention. Jack turns them, what the hell he goes, it's it's following us. It's following us, so Eric is freaking out. Jack hasn't really seen what he has. Eric has seen this thing trying to look at him through the grass or whatever. So Eric's on a different level than Jack is. At this point. Jack's trying to get him to calm down. So they continued paddling harder than ever. Jack asked, did you shoot it? He goes, no, I didn't shoot it. I shot in
its direction. So they get about a mile further up the river, and they've calmed down at this point because there's no further action going on. They get up beside each other. It was in a shallower spot, so Jack dug into the gravel to keep them from pushing back and was just kind of sitting there taking a rest as he's holding the oar. He's got Eric on
his right hand side. He's looking at Eric, talking to Eric, and he sees a figure he guesstimates about twenty feet back from the riverbank stand up full on view from just above the knees up to the top of his head. A hairy man stands up he estimates almost twelve foot tall. He said this thing was Chewbacca looking skinny, but instead of the orange kind of cinnamon
color hair. It was a dark hair chro magnum, looking in the face, big jaw, and he said what really stood out was the hair was matted on the back of its head, kind of like not necessarily dreadlocks, but like just matted. It kind of had this weird look to it. As he was talking to Eric noticed it, he gets stuck. He's no longer holding his ore. He's basically in shock, you know, and so
catches himself. He's drifting away from where he dug his orange, so he grabs it, gets older and starts saying, paddle, paddle, paddle. Eric takes off, just digging in, digging in. Jack's kind of thinking, should I shoot around that way because this thingem's just standing there At this point, they just start digging in, start paddling. They felt confident enough that they had enough distance between where they've seen it and it making a move
on him that they could get some shots on. So they wanted to progress and get the hell out of there. They paddled like hell, he said. He looked back a couple different times, saw nothing, because once they initially got away from that area, it basically disappeared into the grass again. Whether it was crawl around to whatever, He had no idea. They get back to the landing hours later. I've condensed because traveling by river that remote, it's not as simple as you know, a couple of paddles in your
back where you were. It was a journey. So they get there. They're beat to shit. They're tired, basically exhausted from paddling. Their arms were stiff and sore. They'd been at it for hours. They get to the landing and there are some other people there getting ready to end the day, so to speak. Both there, Jack and Eric's cell phones were dead, and they asked the people there, can we use your phone to call
our friend. The people were nice, they allowed them to call a friend, but their friend was going to make it out to the next day, so they had to camp out right there at the landing there by the bridge, basically reminisce over what had happened. Nothing happened further from that point. That would be some real creepy stuff. Essentially, it sounds like they were being stocked over the course of a couple of days. He no longer hunts that area. He won't go anywhere near the Naley Highway, or south of
it, and Eric no longer hunt together anymore. That was the last time they really even hung out, which is unfortunate. A lot of these instances people that don't talk to each other anymore. It should bring people closer. You woul Dank getting ready to float this to sit in a river. A couple of encounters that happened over that way very recently. Gonna go check those out. What I wanted to share with you today happened to a cyclist approximately
fifteen years ago. There's this bicycle group that likes to pedal across the state. So they'll start down in Homer, I think it is something like that and then bike all the way up pass Fairbanks on the road system up here. I don't know if they still do it. Used to see some of the riders every once in a while on the side of the road. A commitment to cycling, that's for sure. It's a long drive, let alone pedaling a bike. Chad, he doesn't live in Alaska. He would only
come up for this bicycle excursion. A lot of these guys will tow a little pull behind thing, kind of like you would for your kids, but it had their camping gear and stuff. He had been doing it for a number of years before this incident, and he was north of Trappers Creek. He was in a group of three cyclists. The other two he was with continued on. He decided he saw a little spot he was going to get off the road, take a break and get some sleep. He had just
been run ragged. So as he's ungearing and getting all his stuff out, he picks a spot off the side of the road with the small clearing probably similar to what I'm sitting in right now. He had a hammock tent. As he's stringing up the hammock tent, he hears movement off to the side, and as he hears this movement kind of semicircle around him, he gets real paranoid, not so fresh feeling, you know, not so joyous and
peaceful. Well, as he's sensing this movement, hearing it for the life of him, he's trying to figure out, is that one of these guys come back just to mess with me, or you know, something along those lines. Well, it wasn't. He had these small ratchet straps he was using to wrap around trees to hang his lie hammick tent from. He was adjusting one of them, and he was looking past the tree because something caught his eye. Now, as he's at the tree looking at this thing that
caught his eye, he hears a branch snap behind him. As he turns around, half expecting another cyclist that he had been talking to on the ride to be standing there. There was no one there, So immediately he's on edge. He has no firearm, he has some bear spray, so he goes all the way back up to the road. He said approximately seventy five yards off the road, so he didn't hear as much of the road noise. So as he gets back over to his little container he was dragging along
behind his bike to get his bear spray out. He turns around from grabbing it and a couple other little odds and ends, and he's walking back the same trail. As he comes up, he notices one half of his hammock tent the ratchet strap was torn, like ripped, not just undone, it was tattered, ripped. And those things are nylon. You know that takes a lot of brute force just to rip that shit off of there. You need a lot of strength to do that. I mean, go get a
ratget strap and just yank on that, see where you get. So he's trying to figure out what the hell and it's not adding up. There was movement, there's sound. He noticed movement going on. He wasn't putting it all together rightfully, so he was kind of confused, like, what the hell is going on here? What's really happening? As he's sigzagging through the trees around trying to see if he sees any sign of anyone who may have been messing with this shit, maybe someone cut it, you know, something
along those lines. As he makes a complete circle around this clearing area, as he comes back around to where half his hammock is hanging, he gets an overwhelming sense of dread, like fear he's never had. He's trying to figure out why am I so scared? You know, he's done this trip many times. He's camped in more remote places than off the side of the road, you know, So he's trying to trying to figure out why am
I so scared? As he's deciding what he's going to do, there's more movement that catches his eye, so he pays more and he's looking through the break in the trees and watching this movement, and he said, at first he thought it was a guy in a gilly suit. He came across someone'st hunting area and they didn't like it too much, so they were going to run him off. So he yells out, hey, hey, over here, did you tear my shit half? Accusing this person of destroying his stuff?
You know who else is around, you know. So after he yells a couple of times, there was no response. Everything just went dead quiet. He said he didn't even hear the bugs, which that's a nerving shit, trust me. He don't want to be out in the middle of nowhere and it goes dead quiet for a multitude of reasons, Bear Harry Maan whatever. It's not a good environment. So as he's contemplating what he's going to do, he's gathering a shit back up. He's just going to pedal on,
is what he decided. He has his bear spray on his hip. He's gathering up his stuff. He's getting the last bits of it. He starts hiking it back out. He had a couple like one more trip to grab the rest of it. But as he was hiking out to load his shit up, he gets to his little buggy. He commences to fiddle with things in there and readjust some things. Once he got out of the trees, he didn't have that overwhelming sense of fear. However, he did have
an overwhelming sense of being watched. So when he turns back around to go get the last of his stuff, he noticed his movement off in the trees, just cut behind some trees, just out of you, just the movement. He couldn't make anything out. He's sitting there, perplexed on what to do because it's in the same direction he has to go to get the rest of his stuff. So he gets off his bare spray, he's holding it in his hand, and he walks in. Now he's dead dog tired.
He's been peddling a bike for miles and miles and miles. He does not want to be doing this. So as he gets back in there, he notices his stuff is not where it was. He had his hammock tent kind of coiled up in a ball with the ropes wrapped around it, and he couldn't find it. He's looking around for it. He finds his little water jug and the little day pack thing that he gather those up, and he's kind of looking around. He hears something off in the distance, and he
looks in that direction. Up in a tree, and now this is not the first time we've heard of this, but up in a tree, his little bundled pack was up in some branches, way up. He said it was thirty foot plus where this thing was up in the trees. For the life of him, he could not figure out how in the hell his shit one got torn and then to be put up in a tree. Who's going to get it up there? He didn't climb up to get it. He immediately decides it's go time. I'm not sticking here. This is some crazy
shit. He felt like he was in the twilight zone. Nothing was making any sense whatsoever. Is making his way out, he keeps hearing this grunt sound. He said it sounded just like a bear grunt. So he turns around, half expecting to have to spray a bear. His mind's really racing because he's got this thing, this figure in the distance. His shit's missing up in a tree, and now this bear grunt. So it's a whole multitude of just different shit going on in his head. There's the tree line,
and as soon as he clears the tree line. Just to his right hand side, a tree gets knocked down in front of him, kind of at an angle. If he had kept walking instead of stopping, the tree may have actually hit him. It was a light birch crack crack. I mean he heard it snap, he heard it break. It was about eight inch diameter. And he looks over in the direction and he sees this thing standing there just looking at him, And as soon as they make eye contact,
he said it was really black in the face. It was kind of silhouetted, so all he could see was a little gleam in the eye, kind of like the light reflecting off the eye. Not in a luminescent type thing. It just eyeshine, not in the sense of a flashlight shine, but just life in the eyes. And he yells, hey, what the dude. This thing just walks in the tree line, but coming in his direction. Now he's only about five ten feet out of the tree line.
And up here on along the sides of the roads, you'll have the road drop off into a ditch typically, and then it'll kind of bank up. Then the trees start well. In this particular area, it was flat across. He's literally on the same flat ground. This thing is walking along and as soon as it gets parallel with him in the tree line, it screams at him, and he's stuck. He's holding this bear spray, stuck. He doesn't know what the hell to do because none of this is making sense
to him. As he turns and he's pointing the bear spray at this, saying, it just walks backwards, looking right at him, but smoothly walks backwards and gets in a little ways and it steps out of you. Now he's really stuck. He doesn't know what to do with this. As a matter of fact, when he was sharing it with me, he was just questioning me, why did they do that? Why this? And I was like, dude, you know, hey, your guests as good as mine. But for whatever reason, as it stepped out of you, the scream
was still ringing in his ears. Before he knew it, he was on his bike peddling. He must have been about two three miles from that particular spot when he came across another cyclist that was packing up his camping shit. Because he heard the scream from a couple miles away. This dude, another bicyclist, heard that scream, gathered up his shit, decided he was going to pedal on, so as he catches up to the other guy coming up, he stops and says, tells him what happened, And the guy was
like, I heard that scream. I'm packing up, I'm leaving. The other bicyclist had a gun, was carrying it in his hand. He was like, hey, just put that away. It's back there. It could have attacked me. It didn't. You know that kind of thing. Guys, I don't give a shit if it didn't attack you. That sounds humongous. And I don't know what it is. And he tries to explain to him, I saw it whatever whatever, basically describing the sasquatch to him.
The guy kind of chuckles and puts his gun away. This guy just heard the same scream enough to cause him to pack up, to freaking leave. But he's gonna mock the guy who came from that traction and told him what it was. I don't get that. He continued. He pedaled on. No further instance or anything like that. But this poor guy was just out
pedaling, pedaling his bike, doing something he's done a million times. Be a running theme with that, there's a lot of people who have been out here for many, many, many years, never had a single problem, not a single instance of anything, to all of a sudden have that shit shattered in a heartbeat. It's unfortunate. There's no definites none. I wrack my brain every day on something definitive, something concrete, but it varies so
much. There's nothing really tangible yet. I'll be getting back to you guys soon, getting ready to take off into the wild. So until the next one. They say, you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay. I don't want to be. We're all ouppen chid. There's child that chid everything. Can you ride back, cry back for joy, for me enjoy staying right you come it right aways, sat doss stasssssssss.