SO EP:495 Bigfoot And The Hunters

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

Open up to an A C or there's something in the.

Woods anat te what you're about to see you?

Or something in the woods knocking the park con changeer Ry the Oman said, don't go outside.

There's something in the woods tonight.

I hear rim knocking, shaking bushits footprints.

Howland on my lung.

Open up to an hot Assey something.

In the woods he didn't.

Thanks so much for joining me for the show. I wanted to drop in here before we get into this latest episode from North of the Border. We've got Fred back here. The first thing you're gonna hear is Fred interviewing a guy who had some experiences and they're out on location. It's a really cool interview with this guy. He had something pacing him and stalking him in the woods. It's a really story. If you want to see the full video, I will link to it over on the

To the rest of us.

And they're just as important as any other encounter story that we have ever featured on this show or will feature in the future.

But enough of that.

I know you guys are ready to get into it. Bread's on the line, He's ready to go. All this left for you to do is sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Is Fred and Alaska. Thanks for joining me. We're here with Ryan.

He's taken us to a spot where he had some things happen. He's gonna fill us in on that once we get there. We're just north of Willow a little ways. So I continued along the ridge line. This one behind you here, This is a ridge line, he was telling me. It wraps around going to circle in about four hundred yards. That way is a swamp.

As I was coming up this ridge here, that's where I initially heard another noise, like something just slowly moving its way towards me, or maybe something coming up on the game trail. Can't assume anything curiosity to me, I'm gonna go that direction and check it out. Either it's a bear, it's gonna win to go the other way.

But he was explaining to me he came here.

He was on the opposite side of this mound right here.

Go ahead, explain what you're explaining to me.

Came in from the ridgeline, came to the edge of this paring. As I was coming this direction, I was upsetting to see if this noise followed me and changed direction. Wind did change. It was blown forwards. Whatever was there again, we were talking about the bears. Once they smell it, these show.

Away typically unless it's a problem bearer. Then that's a cool different rodeo right there.

So I came to the edge of this clearing. The noise was coming along and paralleling me. I was on the far side of this mound. It was on this side. It was maybe twenty twenty five yards away. I was listening to it come in and it stopped, and my dogs both were looking at me like it's time to go. They were just all hackled up, just super alert and nervous. I'm like, okay, let's go. Because it came in, it stopped, whatever it was, so I decided to leave started heading

The left, over this way.

Yeah, followed along the tree line. The trees open up, and I'm going nor and it parallels me, and it sounds like maybe sixty or seventy yards away. It was loud enough you could hear it moving through the brush, and it paralleled me all the way back almost to the beginning of the trail.

Okay, so maybe half a mile here. Let's go to the other side of this mound.

We're just giving a little perspective on the back side of the mound, and we'll record from the other side to give reference to what he's described. Because, like we were saying, bears will wind you and take off before you see him, or they'll hear you and circle until they could wind you.

That's typical bear behavior.

Bears will not usually just come right up on you, not typically, unless, of course, that's a real bad day. You caught it off card, then that's a very bad day. They write books about it far attacks in Alaska. Don't read them before going camp in Alaska. But we're going to navigate and negotiate this wide open terrain here on the other side of this mound.

Here you were saying, I came in to this clearing on this game trail. I was constantly listening to this thin parallel to me as coming in and get about another ten or fifteen yards here, it changes direction. As soon as that mound gets in. It came right in. I was right here, pat too, the little group of trees, I would say, right with that big spruces. I couldn't see it because this still had leaves on it. You couldn't see through any of it.

Once you put leaves on that, I could squat down in there. You'd never see me.

It just gets thick quick.

We were on the other side of it just a moment ago. He was going on in the dusk, dealing with this sink pacing him. You were saying, you were just on the other side over here. Yep.

So I stopped here on the other side of these trees and just listened for thirty seconds, and it was almost like the thinking down the hill behind this mound. That's when the dogs were just starting to freak out. They weren't making any noise, but normally they stick right next to me. They were both to where I could barely see them, like fifty or sixty feet away, and they're like looking at me. They were just super freaked out, and they were like that all the way until we got back to the car.

Just to play Devil's advocate, someone may say that was a bear pacing him. That was maybe old and he was looking for an easy meal. If that had been the case, typically there would have been grunting involved and very clear hoffing from the bear teeth chatter. For that close of a distance, a bear closing in like that, they make certain noises that our tell tale I haven't heard of anyone saying a bear came in super silent, unless it was something being caught unaware type of deal.

Or maybe a black bear. Sometimes black bears get curious. They'll come in, they sniff you, and then they leave.

But usually there's some sort of snorting or grunting that you can easily perceive as, oh, that's bear activity. I'm trying to cross off the list of suspects, right. And the fact that it was pacing you and then was coming in closer, that's the concern part that splashes.

In my mind.

Let's go ahead and continue on so you can lead the way there. Yeah, we're not horribly far from homes. There's some mushers that live back over that way with their dog sled teams that run the Iditarod and whatnot. But like I was saying, before you step off the road anywhere north of Anchorage, even a near anchorage, you're in the wilds of Alaska.

Even with all the leaves off the trees, there's a lot of stuff.

This was the perspective that I had when it stopped. And you can see the mound now, but before they will lead and everything, and I was about ten or fifteen feet closer. This is the perspective I had. So the dogs left, I decided to follow the dogs. I'm like, that sounds like a good idea.

Yeah, time to roll out.

Then when I started moving, I got about fifty or sixty feet out, I heard it start moving around the ridge, this little mound to the right. After that, it basically pastes me out parallel all the way out to.

That other opening back over there.

All right, let's go over that way and then we can check out that other that you were describing to me on the way out. Just beautiful out here, man, be a nice spot right here in this clearic for a nice little cabin, and basically point anywhere it's a good place for a cabin, all right.

So we're a couple hundred yards further up the trail here.

So I came out on the trail, hear this noise paralleling me maybe fifty sixty feet away in the woods. It wasn't trying to be quiet. This is right about the spot that I stopped hearing it, and we're almost to the gravel bit we got out.

Right, so it stopped pacing him right in here right behind us that it opens up into the gravel pit here, let us continue on.

So the dogs were about one hundred feet into me. They were just you didn't line in sight. So I was in the corner. It'd be on this little ridge and the run further.

Gotcha.

I came over this rig right here. They were both standing in the middle of the pit daring that opposite ridge plane, this one just straight ahead right yeah, at Spruce Street that's about twenty feet tall there, about thirty feet off Foller Trail. They were pointed like right there. So I caught up to him because they weren't moving, they were just sitting there, alerted, ears up, hackled up. So I got to the dogs, just watched and listened for a few seconds, and turned my flashlight on, lit

Yeah.

See, with the way my mind works is that one got the dog's attention, got your attention, Now you're focused over here.

Yeah, that whole ambush.

Those types of things is what really bothers me about kind of encounters. So roughly that taller spruce there is where the dogs were alerted to about a month ago. The sun was going down a little bit later from over this direction, it would be a perfect just everything would be silhouetted.

It was dark, the sun was down at that point.

You had the dust after glow of.

The sun twilight basically.

Yeah, And it wasn't dark enough needed a flashlight, but I was like, that's a dark pitt of trees. I'm gonna light it up and see what's there.

Yeah, definitely, we're not all that far from dwellings. I shared an experience with Jonathan, who lives in the area somewhere around here in Willow that happened roughly a week ago, but his experience was a little different than Ryan's. Ryan didn't go through everything that Jonathan did, but we're within reason of the same proximity.

Yeah, stop right here and lit up that tree line. That was it, and then I could hear it shuffling. It was about right there where I just couldn't hear it anymore, and I waited, and then I went through because it's almost if it was a person and they're waiting at the end. This is the one way to get in and out of this area.

It's a funnel point, really a choke point, a good ambush point. But again that's speculation. I'm not trying to say that's what it was. I'm just saying if you knew something was coming through a certain area and you were hunting, and they're funneling through a small trail like we're about to.

Go through here. It's wide enough for a pickup four wheelers.

You could see the tracks in here from people coming through, but it's all relative in the darkness. Right.

So here's that little creek up here, well.

Trump through that. I walked around and I don't have on my water boots. But here's the backside of that ridge. As you could see what he was talking about here, it falls away pretty quickly here down this backside. Whatever was making noise was further down.

That ridge just out of side of here.

I know there's all sorts of squirrel tracks, just game tracks through here, especially moose. I haven't seen any predator tracks, but definitely an active area for snowshoe hair, squirrel, moose. Isn't there a wolfpackground here somewhere? Is that one further up north?

Oh?

Okay, all right, we're back at the starting point. But there are some things that we didn't touch on. Now, what were the feelings during this whole experience, because there's that component to it. I think that is overlooked. What did it feel like while this stuff was going on? What were your inner feelings on it?

When I changed direction and started coming off that ridgeline, it's like a change direction with me. That's what initially set off the alarm bells, and I was like, okay, could be a curious bear. Whatever, let's see what's going on. As it kept closing and closing, the wind changed directions and started blowing towards it. I was like, okay, So I stopped as soon as the wind changed because I wanted to see what the deal. Is it going to turn around? Is it going to leave or is it

You, or you'll hear them tear out of there. Just crack it.

Because when bears are leaving, they don't give a shit who's hearing them.

They're like, I'm the boss, I'm leaving. Yeah, they don't care. This was not like that. The way it paralleled me out Like the whole time, I was just adrenaline was on the max and I wasn't panicked. Maybe if it had started making noise, right, vocalizations or something like that, then I might have started jogging.

You were trying to keep your cool, in other words, and not get panicked by it. Yeah.

I got back to the trail. It was like, okay, whatever I stopped, I couldn't hear it anymore. Getting back to the car was fairly uneventful.

Once that one stopped making the noise basically behind you. At that point you were coming to the clearing when the dogs alerted to the other side, to that other small ridge we're pointing out.

What did that do to the whole experience?

Did that just totally change the whole thing? That just the mindset of wait a minute, what's that?

Yeah, I can't really explain it. It was not like a betrayal, but it was just a very uncanny feeling. What really sketched me out on that was when the dogs stopped. Because the dogs has been running ahead of me. Hey, let's get away from whatever this is. But when they stop like that, I've learned to listen to their body language or body language in the woods just three for a loop. And it took a couple of days, like calm down from that, but it was really unsettling. Again,

Now, you're a lifelong Alaskan, you've been around bears before. I have bears ever given you that sense of feeling to where it lingered.

No but you have a bearing counter. You might wake up one crossing a field. There'll be fireweed four or five feet high. They'll be bedded down for the day, and you might stumble on one. I've done that before, where I'm three feet from a bear. You both make eye contact, both go opposite directions.

Yeah, you want nothing to do with each other, but that initial startled after a few hours and you calm down and just subsides and it's almost forgettable after that point.

Oh, that's a bear experience. That was a bear that was spooked. Haven't run into a bear with cubs, luckily, because yeah, they get pretty angry when that happens.

For sure.

That squirrel chatter is we've been down here almost a couple hours, there's been have you noticed any bird noises?

I haven't noticed any.

Typically we'd hear some, and I just heard a squirrel trip over that way and that's the only sound outside of the dogs over here.

Hey, thanks for joining us, Ryan and sharing.

With us, and stay tuned for more Sasquatch out to sy We'll be right back after these messages.

I wanted to share with you today was email a little while back from Louis and Franco down in South America. What intrigue me is these guys came up to Alaska three years ago in the spring to do a wolf and bear hunt combo. If anyone's ever researched guided hunting trips of any kind in Alaska, you're looking at a.

Very heavy price tag, especially to be taken.

Where they went was just on the outskirts of Katmai Wildlife Refuge down on the Alaska Peninsula. When they arrived, it was for bear and wolf. When they got there, it was a little early for the bear. The guy told them the bears aren't moving as much, so it'd be a perfect time to get those wolf tags filled. Got them to the spot. Him and Franco had did their background work. They took survival classes, bear recognition classes

They were given the lay of the land.

When they were flying in, the pilot that was dropping them off gave them the heads up over here where they ended up going. The pilot pointed out that up on this ledge the shelf that ran across this basically big butte that sit up before it got into the mountains. He said, it's a very good place for the wolves that come out from a very long valley and a couple finger little short finger valleys. They could sit up there,

So they were stoked.

They planned on being there just four days to kill some time, let the bears come out of their den, start moving a little more.

It's still cold in the spring in Alaska. Don't let anyone flye to you. Not a joke.

They were prepared. They had a two man tent. They get unloaded, they had to wait. One of them was missing some kind of documentation he had left at camp, and they wanted to make sure that they would have the tag. If something had happened and he got a wolf. You can't just take a wolf and say, oh, my tags are over there. You have to have those physically on you and punch immediately after the kill. That's what's required by state law. So there was a little hiccup

He said.

They packed out this cove into some willows because there was really not a lot of trees to pitch tents to or stak down. He wanted a little better cover because of the winds that blow over that way. They hacked out about a ten foot radius into these willows with their machetes. They set up their camp and they had their fire pit just outside of it. Basically horse you into the willows, their tent in the middle, and the willows surrounded the backside. Now, he said, they did

That time of year, it stays lighter.

It's not full on bright sunlight close to midnight, but it's still on the upward scale of more and more daylight by the day. They decide they're going to go up on that shelf and just look around, familiarize their self with their topographical and put eyes on what they're seeing on the map type of thing. They get up there, since Franco didn't have his tags, he had left him at the outfitters base camp or whatever. He was going to spot, and Louis was going to shoot, I believe.

There's too much.

It's making a lot of noise, for wolves are too small to make that kind of noise and hold that kind of bellowing howling scream. He heard a scream that sounded a lot closer Bupe. He was up in an instant. He even got out of the tent. It wasn't still quite dark, but it was twilight. Even though the sky was a little light. Everything else on the ground level with the brush and everything was just dark.

It was really hard to see.

He grabs his flashlight and he's scanning around way off in the distance. When he was passing with the flashlight, he got a glimmer of some eyeshines, so he went back to it. Saw just one eye and it disappeared.

Nothing of it.

Figured, oh, that must be one of the wolves or something. Because it was at such a distance, he couldn't put nothing to it. So he's looking around. He doesn't see anything, so he decides to call it a night again. He crawls back into bed. Here's another screenway off in the distance, and ends up falling asleep. He's woken up just before daybreak by Franco shaking his leg, telling him something outside. I think that bear is outside. So Franco slides the

He unzips it. He leans out with the rifle and it's still dark. He can't really see anything.

So Franco, being a good dude there to help his buddy, he beams a flashlight out and panning it back and forth. Now, he said, they didn't see anything but some darkness move The darkness would move along and stop, move along and stop,

Nothing.

So now they're awake, they decide, let's stoke the fire, let's make some breakfast, let's get a higher vantage point and find this bear. They do their thing they get back up and they decided to go back up to the spot where the Franco had seen what he thought were two black bears and one big brown bear. They get about halfway back up to that shelf, Franco they're taking a breath or whatever, and Franco decides he's going

Now.

His impression from that distance was a really big black bear, really big. He was basically trying to size it up. They weren't there for black bear. They were looking at what they had available. They were discussing, Hey, maybe we should get down off of this high ground and then get out into the open and cross over via sandbars and get to the opposite side of this little valley and see what we can see from there. So they decide that's what they were going to try to do.

Now.

As they were getting ready to do that, Franco had to put the spot and scope back in its case get their gear back together. As he's doing that, louis looking through his scope in that area, trying to zoom in. He had a nine x twelve or something like that, or three by twelve type scope. He was fully maxed out on his zoom checking out that black dot. He noticed that this black dot looked like it was doing tumbles.

As it's going along.

It's like it was whatever was pacing back and forth, and as he was listening, he thought something was odd about it. He had his rifle loaded. He was prepared in case a bear rushed out. But Frankel comes out of the tent. When Frankel comes out of the tent, he asked him, do you hear that? Do you hear that, and he said, yeah, I hear it sounds like that, Barry, and he goes two fee walking, not four. So he was like, nah, I couldn't tell that. So Franko told him, no,

Be aware.

They do that, the thrashing stops and it goes dead silent. So they decide, let's make our way around this because these willows weren't just knee high, they were ten twelve foot tall. So they start going around this game trail to intercept this. They didn't know what but they wanted to either confirm it's a bear, run it off if it's not.

Whatever. They basically checking it out.

So as they make their way around, they noticed that there was a different feeling in the air. He said it almost felt like when he was stalked by a jaguar one time down in the jungle.

He said, it's very similar to that.

So he immediately thought, oh, it is a bear because I'm feeling that sense of a predator nearby. Franco notices dark movement just in front of him about thirty five feet away. They decided to scream out to scare because Franklo thought what he saw was all black, so they thought black bear. So they start yelling, screaming, he's not pointing the gun in that direction this thing.

Then it stands up, he said.

When it stood up, they stumbled back, startled because of how tall it was.

He said.

It was over seven foot tall, slender humanoid figure, not big, broad, bulky shoulders, but slender like a basketball player. But what they saw was pitch black. When they stumbled back and felt he had dropped his gun and they were just awestruck by what's unfolding in front of him. This thing made a grunt or two and then ran off, quartering away from him, but going uphill towards the shelf that they had been spotting from the day before, and they

He didn't know what to do with that information. He was just watching it.

Now. As he's watching it, he would every once in a while take his eye off the scope and speak to Franco, who was getting the gun out of the case and finding his ammunition. He was telling him, hey, there is that dark spot up there. It's not standing though. It looks like his croups back down. They're immediately red flags waving. They don't know what to do. They don't know if they should confront it. They know if what exactly it was. They were trying to run down the list of possibilities.

They didn't think.

The outfitter was way too professional to play stupid games like that with people with guns. That would just be a good way to get shot. As they're assessing what they're doing, he would periodically look back through the scope. The second time he did that black dot was gone, so he said it must be moving on. They heard nothing. Now Franko's armed, he's got his binoculars out. They come back up to this game trail and they start to

He said.

It ruined the rest of the bear hunt as well, because where they were taken for the bear hunt wasn't all that far away from where they just were.

They couldn't get into it.

Where they went for the bear there was another hunt from out of state, somewhere in Idaho, and they asked him, Hey, have you seen anything weird like this out of state hunter? I was like no, I haven't sounds like a bigfoot and blaughed it off. And they just took that information, stored it away, left it alone, didn't really get into the hunt from there.

And ended up going home.

He said that he would pay that money again for the same experience, but this time he'd be better prepared. And I was like, fair enough, But these poor guys went through all that trouble just to be stunted and not complete their hunt.

He said.

They didn't come in again close to him or anything else like that. Once they were praying and they heard the screams and the brush breaking. Everything just subsided with the prayers, and he was thankful for that. I wasn't there. I would have been praying too. Man again, thank you for joining me. We'll catch you guys on the next one.

They say, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay, and I don't want to feel.

A world happened. Step child, this chid, that chart everything, call me ride back right back, joy.

For me, enjoy, stay right.

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