SO EP:697 The Dark Ones

So here's what's happening. Jerry was kind enough to give me permission to share stories from his TikTok channel JR. Millwood, which I'll link for you down in the show notes.

Jerry's invited me out to his research area in early December, So with any luck, I'll be boots on the ground out there soon and maybe, just maybe I'll get to experience these boogers for myself. We'll see what happens. All right, let's get into it. Here's the first installment of Encounter Stories from the South Mountains.

one hundred thousand acres. It is in the counties of North Carolina Cleveland County, Burke County, Rutherford County, and McDowell County. The surrounding areas of wilderness around the South Mountains in the periphery of the South Mountains easily encompasses another one hundred thousand acres of wilderness and rural farmland, creek bottoms, deep river bottoms. The terrain is beautiful, but in places it's unforgiving and very steep. It's Appalachian forest, and we

are the first step to the Smoky Mountains. It's a paradise for a wilderness lovers, hikers, campers, hunters. The account shared to me by this family that I'm about to describe proofs that around here the paradise can be turned into a nightmare after the sun goes down. The story begins on the afternoon of July the twenty sixth of this year. A family who, by the way, that I know very well and I'm friends with them. They arrived

here to camp in an undisclosed location. I will not disclose the exact location, although it is very near to where I sit right now as I share this account with you. Send in a creek bottom of a small stream that feeds one of the major creeks here in northwest Cleveland County, very isolated area, and I'm not going to reveal the family's identity either. I will respect their request for anonymity. But they arrived that beautiful July day.

They began to set up camp in the secluded spot, and I joined them, and the sound of their children laughing and playing the forest. They were just having a great time. Mom, dad, twenty two year old son, nineteen year old son, nine year old son, and seven year old daughter. They got camp set up, just a wonderful day. As nighttime started approaching, they lit a campfire, and I bid them adieu and left them. I wanted them to enjoy their family time, and as they reported, they just

sat relaxing and talking about whatever subject came up. The kids were playing. They had no idea the terror that they were on experience that night. As the fire died down and the conversation died down to a more hushed voice, they begin to hear sounds. Now, it's important to note that they were not unaware of the reputation of this area.

They were very educated on things. The dad experienced outdoorsman and hunter, and he has hunted this area and he has heard sounds like I'm about to describe, So they were unexpected. But first they begin to hear the sound of a distant wood knock. Now, that is a well known sound in the world of cryptid investigation, and it's simply where something or somebody picks up a piece of wood and that strikes a tree very distinct soil. They heard that, and then from another location in the distance,

they heard more wood knock and it stopped. And as they listen, then they begin to hear whoops. I will try to mimic that sound for you. It's a well known sound again in the area of crypt investigation, but it sounds something like this. I don't do it justice. It's far creepier in real life. And they begin to hear that and They report to me that they were put on guard, but they were excited that they got

to hear this. They had to anticipated not getting to hear it because I told them the chances of it happening was probably pretty slim. So they were excited and they began to drift off to sleep. The fire had died down even more. Dad went out first and soon was sleeping. Mom was drifting off to sleep, but she was suddenly awakened by her children and they alerted her with some very ominous words, and they said, Mom, there's

something in the woods. And so she came out of her tent to investigate, and suddenly there was a voice. This is very close to them, very close to their camp inside the woods, across the crew, but very close. And she reports to me that this language that she was hearing was not quote. It was not a human language. And Mom is a very educated and very intelligent person, and I believe her when she says that. But she

said it was not a human language. She said she responded in a strange way with only things she thought of at the time, and said she said that she out loud, stated, I am sorry if we disturbed you, and we were making too much voice. And in reply to that, from a second direction, a different source, she heard a voice speaking this same strange language and it sounded angry. And then the first voice from the first location said something else in this strange language, and then

that was it. They heard no more of the language anymore. They were up and they were all duard and alert, and they begin to hear walking near their camp in the woods. Now, the husband being an experienced outdoorsman at hunter, he reported to me that it was something walking on two feet. And then from a second direction they heard the same thing of something walking on two feet in the woods, not far from their camp at all. And then from a third direction behind them, and it became

very obvious that they were surrounded. And they huddled and they were terrified. It's happened to me, and it is a terrifying feeling being in the dark woods being surrounded by something and you don't know what that something is. And they debated on what to do, so Dad decided that they would just stay in place, huddle together. They were armed, but he said that being armed didn't do

anything to help alleviate the fear. And I understand that the walking from the three different directions continued for what seemed like an eternity, and they endured it. They wrote it tonight. They were afraid to try to leave. They were afraid to do anything other than sit there and watch. And they began packing up thirty minutes after they stopped hearing the sounds of these things walking around them, And that was well before son. By sun up, they were

packed up and leaving the area. So he texted me and asked me to call him, and they told me the story over the phone that morning, and I heard the terror and the fright and their voices. I asked, did dis language sound like gibberish? And they said no. The mom said no, it sounded like some form of communication. It just wasn't human. So I sent them a link

to what is called the Sierra Sounds. It was some tapes made in the nineteen seventies in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, and you can easily find that on TikTok or whatever platform. You can google it and you'll find these tapes and you'll get to hear them for their cell. The family still talks about it. They bring it up often, and I can tell that they are

deeply impacted. But oddly enough, they have asked if they could come in camp again at a later date, and they've asked if I would come camp with him and maybe bring somebody else. But that's what happens when you have your own experience, you kind of get bit by the bug, so to speak, and you be in the wann Itchers. So that's their story, and I believe every word of it. This is a Dark Roads and red Eyes.

In the summer of twenty twenty one, I was approached by an elderly gentleman who said that he had an encounter many years earlier that he wanted to tell me about, as a matter of fact, the words he uses to get off his chest. He said that he had not spoken of it since the night it happened, the night that he described to his father what happened. So we sat down and talked, and I listened to the man's stories. I saw his eyes glaze over as he went back

in time. I would say that almost immediately that you could see a fear in his face. He said November nineteen fifty two, he was fourteen years old and was living on a small family farm northeastern Rotherford County, which

was budded right up against the South Mountains. That at that particular night, he was getting ready to go to bed, and his father came to him and said that he needed him to go down to the shed and check the gas valve on the tractor, and said that it was about a quarter mile from the house down a little narrow dirt road, So that immediately he was frightened

to do that. He was scared to do that because the local guidelines was you simply didn't go outside at night far away from the house unless you absolutely had to. But also the encounters and the stories that his grandfather had shared with and regarding a wampus, which was just an old fashioned word for a booger or a monster. The grandpa's stories will be included in a future episode. But he was also raised that if an elder asked

you to do something, that you did it. So he pulled his overalls on and he grabbed a lantern, and he lit the lantern and he went out. He said, immediately upon going out of the house into the darkness that he felt just a sense of uneasiness that was very uncomfortable, just a bad feeling in general, and that he chalked it up to his mind trying to play games with him. That he was determined not to be

a scaredy cat. He said, as he walked down that dirt road and he started this journey down to the shed in the barn area, that feeling increased, the bad feeling, a feeling that he was being watched by somebody. That it just got worse with every step that he took. He said, as he approached the gate to this area, that he heard off to his right an animal sound,

and I asked him to describe it. He said it was an animal sound he had never heard before, that it sounded like a sick owl, only with a really deep voice. And I further pressed him, and he made the sound of it, and he continued his story. As he was trying to get the gate unfastened. He said he was already nearly to a state of panic and his hands were shaken as he was trying to get that chain unhooked. That he heard something the walk just

behind the sh shed this barn area. He got through the gate and he got to the shed where the tractor was, and that he was immediately overcome by this foul stench. He said that he had smelled it a few times in the past, only it was very faint. But he said that night it was so strong that it was nauseating. And I asked him to describe the odor to me, and he said that it was smell like a pig that had been watering in a pig

pen that was full of rotten bodies. That's pretty characteristic of that smell in terms of correlating it with what other people have reported. But that as he got to the tractor, he said, his lantern down and he looked under there for where that valve was, and as he began to move the valve with his hands were shaken. That he heard the walking again close to him, and that stench was even stronger. He managed to get that

valve turned off. He said, it seemed like an eternity getting that valve to shut off, but he got it, he said, picked his lantern up, and he hurried back to the gate and he was trying to close the gate and heads shaken and he was fumbling that chain around. He finally got it latched, and he again heard the footsteps, only they seemed to be paralleling him. That it was just out of the reach of his lantern, out into

the pasture beside that shed. He said that he turned around in before he knew that he was running, but the problem was he was carrying that lantern, and you can't see very far ahead of you carrying a lanner five six feet something like that. He forced himself to slow down. He said, the oddist thought popped in his mind. His daddy had this old plow setting beside the dirt road, and that he pictured running into that thing in the dark, and nobody wants to run into an iron plow with

their shin. He said it forced himself to stop running and was at a quick pace, and that as he went up the dirt road, that plow came into view and one more step revealed that someone. He said he thought someone was standing behind the plow, but another step revealed in his words that it was not somebody, that it was something.

to think about those eyes looking at him. I asked him to describe it. He said, as he held that lantern up, that those eyes shined a red and that it was just staring at him, and that it would blink and turn its head off to one side, turn it cock its head to the other side, and he said that in his words, he said he couldn't go anywhere. He felt paralyzed, And his exact words was that he said he felt like he was standing in two deep postholes.

Said he couldn't yell, that he couldn't move a muscle, and that thing was just staring at him and moving its head a little bit. He said that it grunted, and I asked him to describe the grunt. He said it was a very deep version of something like you would hear out of a boarhog. But he said, finally he was opening his mouth. Nothing was coming out, and finally something came out. He was yelling for his father,

and he finally was able to vocalize it. He said, by then he was shaking so bad that his heart was going to beat out of his chest, and that when he yelled that, the thing moved its head and grunted again and stared at him for another couple of seconds, and then just calmly turned and walked away. He said that had approached the fence just beside the dirt road. He said it stepped over the fence. He said, it didn't jump the fence. It didn't have to have any

effort getting over the fence. He just stepped over the four foot fence, walked into the darkness, and as soon as he lost sight of it, he started running. He said, if I ran into something, I was just going to run into it. But he ran all the way back to the house, screaming for his father. His father come out the back door onto the back porch and met him at the steps and said, what's wrong. What's going on? He started telling me. The father said, lower your voice,

and he began to tell his father what happened. His father said, I don't want you to ever forget this. He said, if you ever go back out at night again, you take my pistol. If I can't go with you, you take somebody. If somebody can't go with you, you have that pistol on you. But never forget this night. And he said that his father told him never speak of this again to anybody, and that his father also said that they would talk more about it later, and they did. I'll share that part of this in a

future episode. But he said that this day that he has an nyightmares about those red eyes real quick. An elderly couple came to me in the winter of two thousand and in 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 kaser and as they went up a hill off to the right, he

said he noticed this large person. He said, as he got closer, he said, it was way too large to be a man, and he said, I seen that it was covered in the hair. He thought have slowed down because I was afraid it was going to step out in front of him. As they approached it, it turned its head and looked at him, 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. Now, I want to take your attention back to an elderly friend of mine a couple of years ago related to me the story of when he was a kid in the late fifties, late one night, he got sent down to the barn slash tractor shed area by his father. He had a horrifying experience. I also explained that he said his grandfather and his father had told him later of some incidents in the experiences

that they had. Tonight's is about experience that his grandfather and his great uncle, his grandfather's brother, an experience that they had. Matter of fact, it was the first experience that his grandfather ever spoke of to my friend. The

year was late nineteen sixteen early nineteen seventeen. He said his grandfather was able to confidently mark that as the time frame for this incident because he said it was the winter prior to the United States being involved in World War One, so that would make it winter of nineteen sixteen or early in nineteen seventeen. Now, they lived on the same farm that my friend grew up on. That farm's been in that family for a number of generations.

Back then, in nineteen sixteen early nineteen seventeen, the grandfather and his brother had scouted an area into the interior of the South Mountains that they determined will be a good area for rabbit hunting and trapping. It was a creek bottom area, but up on high ground there was an open field and there was an old homestead there and it was a small, little, small subsistence farm apparently, but it was a band, a cabin, a small barn, spring house, chicken coop, covered pig pen. But they had

to secure permission. Now there's the ethos to this day in areas like this, especially in the mountains, in the fields, if you're gonna be on a man's property, you need to talk, or a woman's property, you need to talk with them in secure permission. Trouble was, the man did not live in the immediate area. He lived in town, and back then town that might as well be on the other side of the country. They had to wait until their dad had business in that town to go

with him to find the men. And the families knew each other, and the man knew them, but they had to get his permission. So they came when the father had to go into town, and they went with them, and they found them in and explained what they were wanting to do. The grandfather said that the man was hesitant at first. He said, I know you boys, I know your trustworthy, I know your families, and you can do this. You can hunt and trap the area. But

there's some rules you're gonna have to abide by. First and foremost, he said, do not sleep in any of the structures located on that old home. Now stop. My friend, when he was telling me this, I said, do you know why he said that? And sure enough, the man explained to him. He said that homestead now belongs to the dark Ones. Now, come to find out, the dark Ones is just another term for bigfoot nobby sasquatch booger, certainly one of the more ominous sounding terms I've ever

heard for a cryptid. But he said the area belonged to the dark Ones. Now. Secondly, he said, if you kill any rabbit in the area, leave some rabbit on the porch of the old cabin. They didn't ask any questions. They agreed and then begin to plan their two or three night trip into the interior. They asked their father

about it. They were teenagers, early teenagers. The father said that interestingly enough, that they couldn't take any of the hunting dogs, and they couldn't take a mule or donkey as a pack animal, because he said, they will get away from you and you will lose them. Too many animals that has been lost in there. We'll elaborate on that more in a future episode. And he said, you boys are absolutely at no point to be split up, and you're not ever to be without your shotgun, and

you're to take pistols with you. And they agreed. So the morning came and they left it sun up for the roughly half day's journey into the interior to get to this area. They arrived in the early afternoon and they first set up camp in the woods down below this open field. They had enough daylight left that they decided to go out and do some squirrel hunting and along the way set some traps and they did so.

They had some pretty successful hunting. They got back to camp, had a bite to eat, son went down and they called it a night. But at some point in the night. The grandfather report that they were awakened by the sound of what he thought sounded like the sound of a heavy door slamming repeated, and that went on for a while, and to be followed by, in his words, according to my friend, it's an all manner of squaling broke out.

Now squaling is just a Southern word for hollering and yelling in Norway's And that went on into the early hours of the morning and cost them the better part of a good night's sleep, but it finally stopped sun up. The next morning, they built a fire, and they went out and did some squirrel hunting, and they came back ate some breakfast, and they started checking their traps, and they were found that they were very successful, that they

had done very well into trapping. They reset some of the traps, but also they decided to relocate some of the traps on the higher ground in the periphery around that open field where the old homestead was. They took the traps up there, and along the way they did some rabbit hunting and was fairly successful of that too.

They had plenty of daylight left, so they decided to investigate the buildings the old structures there at the old homestead, and a grandfather of arch that the cabin door was open, and that there appeared to be some kind of a nest in there, that there were small branches, pine boughs, leaves and that type of thing shoved up over into the corner of the cabin, and that there was a bit of an odd smell my friends, that he didn't elaborate best of his memory. They never went past the

threshold of the cabin. I don't expect I would have either. But as they turned around, was getting ready to start heading back to camp from the woodline, from the woods on the periphery of this open field, the grandfather said, and this is the oddest vocalization I've ever heard described. He said that it sounds like something in the woods in a deep, gravelly voice was saying hob hob and would grunt, hobb and would grunt, And that it stopped. They had it on back to camp, I'm sure, discussing

what in the world could that noise have been. They got back to camp and ate some supper, and before the sun was eating down, it all started more of this slamming sound. I wonder if that was WOODKNOCKX. I don't know, I hypothesized, but the howling he described, howling and whooping, it was closer and closer, it seemed finally to the point that in the near distance they could hear from multiple directions the sound of things were running

in the woods. The grandfather said, it just sounded like somebody was running through the woods, but in several places around him, and that they would stop and more of the yelling would continue, and that they even heard more of this weird sounding hub hub with the grunts, and it was getting closer and closer to them. The sun was almost down. They didn't know what to do. We're gonna pick up from here in part two. Part one ended on a cliff finger. These two young teenage boys

were in the deep wilderness. They were in the woods, and they were downhill from high ground and high ground there was an open field, and in that open field was an old homestead. They had secured permission from the property owner to hunt in trap around this abandoned homestead. The property owner had told him that his request were that they were not to sleep in any of the structures because the homestead belonged to the dark ones. You know, that is a term, just another term for a knobby

or sasquatch or bigfoot or booger. And his second request was that if they killed any rabbits, that they were to leave some of the rabbits on the porch of the old cabin. The boys were in their camp. Something they visited the camp earlier in the day at rummage through some things, and they had lost all the traps they had previously set, but there was one trap that was brought back by someone or something. It was mangled

and bent, and it was put in their camp. But they were being approached from up on high ground from the direction of this old homestead that was yelling, as the grandfather said, there was time than his account, squalling, which is just an old word for hollering and screaming and yelling. But also this strange and always the grandfather he kept coming up in his account over and over this strange voice, very deep voice, and this strange sound of hob hob hobb over and over throughout the night.

And also the strange sound of what he said sounded like a door slamming, which occurred several times during their encounter. But they were in their camp. They were being approach from up on high ground. To make matters worse, on both their left and the right, they could hear someone or some things running through the woods closing in on them, and they had to think quickly. It wasn't an attractive option to stay in camp and try to fight it out.

They didn't know what they were up against, but they knew that whatever it was intended them horror. But at the same time, it was late in the day and then how much daylight left in the fallt of plunging headlong into a deep, dark creek bottom because they had hours and hours to go to get back home. Remember it was a half a day's height to get there during the daytime. But at some point, I spect the moment of decision came, probably spurred on by fear and

sheer necessity and not being overrun, not being attacked. They grabbed a couple of sacks. They had the shotguns that they were on with pistols. They left home armed in such a manner at the request of their father, and they fled downhill in the direction whilce they originally came when they came into the area to camp, the direction

going back home. The grandfather said, they got down into the creek bottom, and interestingly enough, he added that during all of this, while they were running, he only turned around and looked back one time, and it was about the time they reached the creek bottom and they were running along the creek, he stopped to turn around and look, and then when he turned back around to start running in they're standing in front of them, and his words, was a big booger. Now. He described it as being large,

very large. Harry looked kind of like a man in the face, but had a mortal pointed head covered in the hair, and that its hair was gray. That it just stood there looking at him. The brothers had stopped, I'm sure out of bewilderment, and shot, but also they couldn't go back the way they came without wanting the brother. His brother fired a shotgun blast into the air. The grandfather said that this creature didn't so much as flinch.

That his brother fired another blast into the air, and as his brother was reloading, and his brother would later telling the next two shotgun blasts was going to be at the creature, but that the creature made a face at him, in the grandfather's word, made a face at him and turned around and walked off. Now, during all of this encounter, which I'm sure lasted seconds thirty seconds, of men had at the most all of the noise behind him had stopped the sound of their pursuers, had stopped.

The yelling and the squalling and the whooping, and all of that had stopped.

of trees and sheer panic. And for hours and hours these two young boys ran for their lives. And the grandfather said that it was strange, but sometimes it would sound like the pursuers were back and off. They could still hear them. They were still carrying on, but they would back off, and the moment that him and his brother would stop and maybe stop running just a walk to catch their breath, that their pursuers would gain the grounds on real quickly. Maybe they were playing cat and

mouse with the boys. I don't know. That this went on into the night, and they finally got out of that particular creek bottom had crossed through some woods, and finally they came to the field, and that was the field was the last thing between them and their home. They ran into and got about halfway into the field, and all the sound behind them stopped, and that all was quiet, and then they both just stopped and looked around, and they collapsed onto the ground and laid there for

an indeterminate period of time. I was here catching their breath, just scratched up their clothes, torn exhausted mentally and physically shaken up. And they finally got themselves together and got up and made the walk the last stretch to get to their house. They stopped, and grandfather said they sat down from in and on the stone steps of the porch, and then his brother simply said, we shouldn't tell anybody

about this except for Daddy. And that's the way that it would remain for you years and years until this man, the one I keep referring to as the grandfather, told my friend, the elderly man that I met a couple of years ago, told him later in life about this encounter, as well as some others. They got up to go in the house, and just as they were about to open the door, all of it erupted again, way back

at that wood larn. Grandfather said that it reached the pitch they had previously reached with the hooping in the highland. Did it reminded him of the sound a pack of dogs or pack of wolves would make after they had made a kill, and they were celebrating. They went into the house and closed the door, and that that went on for a number of minutes and finally stopped. They went to bed and got up the next morning, and

there were questions. Grandfather said, Daddy took him outside and talked to him, and that they told their dad the whole story. When the dead said you'll not go back into that area, None of us will, the grandfather remarked. He said, all of these years, I keep wondering were they celebrating that they had chased us out of the woods or was that their final warning that we wasn't welcome to come back there? And I only maybe a

little of both. So I've got a couple of other accounts that this grandfather had shared with my friends about years ago, and I also have one account that my friend's father had shared with him, and I'll cover those in later episodes. But this particular area in question is apparently a hot spot. I'm going to share with you the experience of two men dealt with something on a cold November night that changed their outlook on a number

of things. A uncle and nephew duo. I'm not using the real names here, but we'll start off with uncle Jeff. 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. The 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 doghouse base a man on a fiddle, a doughbro. But Jeff and his nephew, Jake, had that in common. They were both

bluegrass musicians. Jeff's a bluegrass vocalists. They were both heavily in the bluegrass so they had that link and they had a really good relationship for an uncle and a nephew. And then after each service, Jake would follow his uncle home Indians 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 tw 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 walked him to the door. They said their goodbyes, and Jeff started the process of getting ready for bed. He went to plug his phone up to charge it in at ranked 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 yet. He grabbed a 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 a 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 Jeff 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 a 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. And 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, oh oh, oh oh. They stopped. He didn't see anything. He didn't see any movement. Now, we all face points in life 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 Jeff, being an old country boy, he knows if you're out in the woods 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 with 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 buite 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 house some protection. Jeff resumed spotlighting and they could hear this, 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 some more of the sounds, and then

it all stopped. Jeff and Jake, after a few minutes, decided to go back up into the yard on high ground, and they did, and they heard the steps coming back up out of the holler toward them closer and closer, and they knew at that point that it was as clear 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 in an upper chest, and that the only thing that wasn't covered by hair was the mouth, and to the best of his knowledge, it

was a reddish brown colored hair. And he was mesmerized by and caught up in a moment again and looking, and suddenly the shout, these guttural yells started again with those ape like noises, and 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 wondering 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. As a rock gonna come out of the woods. It's something going to step out in the road. And Uncle said I'll provide over watch with the spotlight. And Jake was able to safely leave. But to this day they are both deeply affected by that. And so would you. You guys, take care. I'll see you next time.