SO EP:711 Let's Kill This Thing!

They found her two year old grandson in the back of the truck, no sign of her except some belongings a mile further up to Stampede trails. It really sparked his curiosity. He had been going to that area for forty plus years, never had any weird occurrences, never, which really intrigued him because he had been there so often. So he took it upon himself. He goes out by four wheeler as he's coming up to where the trail comes to meet up with the Savage River. He had

gotten a late start that day. He had planned on camping out anyway, so it was no big deal. He didn't care how far he got before he set up camp. He already knew the area. He was good to go. So as he's coming up to the area, he's contemplating camping at just ahead of him in the trail, you got to understand, everything is just dark, silhouetted underneath the

canopy of the trees, especially that time of year. It was the beginning of August, probably about eight hours of darkness that time of year, and so it was getting on in sun had set. It was before twilight, but still light, getting in the dark. And from what he was saying, as he was coming up the trail, heard some weird noises, very loud up ahead of him, almost like someone partying or something like that, because he said

it sounded like it allowed yell. So he slowed down, killed his motor on his four wheeler and was listening. As he was doing so, something crossed the path totally silhouetted. Couldn't make it out it was too dark. So he's like shit, So he fires it up, goes up, looks for any sign. Didn't see any tracks. So he decides, I'm going to camp right here, breaks off the trail and goes towards the Savage River to camp out. He didn't camp in the tents. He just laid his stuff

out on the ground to each his own. I asked him why he did that, and he said he always did. He set up his camp real light, no big fire or anything like that. He went to sleep feeling watched how he fell asleep. I asked him. He said he didn't know. He was just tired. He just fell asleep and he was packing a three seventy five h and h a very high powered rifle. Very high powered, so he wasn't overly concerned about bears, moose, or anything else.

He found a cluster of trees, picked his spot, used a little stero Bernard to heat up some some soup, and brooke some coffee. He laid there until it got dark, and as he was laying there trying to doze off, he heard weird noises coming from the direction of the river, which where he ended up camping. It would be to the northeast of him from that vantage point of where he was camped out, not very far, less than one hundred yards. He was hearing these weird noises and he

had doze off. Wake up still those weird noises, still sounding like it's at the same distance. He's okay, I know where I'm going, first thing in the morning. So he ended up getting some fairly decent sleep about three or four hours, considering the environment what was going on. He gets up in the morning, way up before the sun came up, and started heating up coffee. As he's doing so, he hears those noises again. They start up. I asked him if he could elaborate on what those

noises were. He said it sounded like children laughing, but in a deeper tone, a different octave. Just the thought of that sounds creepy as hell. He said. He'd drank his coffee and he's trying to stay calm because he was feeling excited, like he was going to find something. He felt encouraged. There's weird noises, weird circumstances of this person missing. He wanted to find something tangible during all

his unpacking and everything. He has a video camera, he has microphones, he has all these things that stayed strapped to his four wheeler because he was setting up camp. He just left them in their waterproof bags and stuff on his four wheeler. It totally went out of his mind. Not him, but the thought of them went out of his mind. Hearing these noises and getting up the next morning, he gets up after drinking the coffee, still the weird

kind of laughing sound coming from towards the river. So he grabs his rifle and heads that direction, totally ignoring that he brought the camera and all that stuff, all that gear, just totally ignored it, wasn't thinking about it, went about his way from what he explained. When he was coming up onto the river, he broke through the

tree line, tall grass and stuff. He was walking through and he noticed different trails through the grass near the river's edge, and so he was following this one particular trail, the whitest one, looking for any sign of tracks, one for kids' boots, any sign of children. He wanted to knock that potential out of there, because people take their kids out there all the time. So he's lugging around this big, heavy rifle. He gets up to the river's edge. Looks like a little bit of an island. That's a

gravel bar, he said. So if you look at that portion of the map, the way that its teardrop shaped just would be to the east side of that is this little nub. According to what Douglas was saying, where that little nub was was tall grass, and he was coming up. He was about two hundred yards from it. As he's coming up, he noticedes movement in the grass and stops down into the grass keeping a look holding his rifle. He had no headlamp, nothing like that. It

was still twilight. There was light in the sky, but everything was dark and he could just make out movement. Couldn't make out definitive color, our, definitive shapes, just dark movement. So he's standing there. He's squatting down trying to get a better look. He doesn't want to move forward and potentially ruin anything. And it was at that moment he realized, crap, I don't have my camera. Let me go back and

get my camera. So he starts backtracking, still looking in the direction he saw the dark movement in the grass. As he's doing so, something hits him. He tries to figure out what hit him, something through something adam hit him. He didn't see what it was, pebble or whatever, because it bounced off him and landed in grass. He couldn't find it, so it got his attention immediately he yells out, hey, don't throw stuff at me, I'm armed. Just as he

says that something else lands near him. Couldn't make it out. It was still too dark, just light enough to make out darkness in the grass. Everything was just silhouetted light in the sky, but no daylight yet, no drag sunlight to light up everything a little more. So he's contemplating do I backtrack and grab my camera or do I wait here and see what comes of this. So he decides he's gonna wait right where he's at and maybe

move towards it. So, from what Douglass said, he squatted down, he gathered up his nerves, made sure he had around in the chamber, had the safety on. He had an elevated scope that raises the scope above the open sights, so he could shoot open sight or through the scope. Not uncommon. I've used him. I'm not a fan. So he decides he's gonna push towards this thing and cause a situation. He wanted to provoke something, so he starts

chopping through. He was intentionally being inspect He would swer back and forth in the grass, stand up all the way, lower back down, swer back and forth in the grass, going towards this dark object. He said, he had probably crossed another fifty yards going towards it in that two hundred yard estimation. Once he got to that point, he stood up all the way and started yelling, Hey, I'm right here, I'm right here, he said. At that point he had the rifle lowered down by his side, trying

to block its view from whatever was over there. He said, when he did that, this thing stood up and a big grass clump of dirt and everything else that he didn't even see this thing throw hit him in the leg, startled to liv and shit out him. All he heard was the last few moments before it hit his leg. Just well hit his leg. He said, it hit pretty hard. Had it been a rock, it probably would have broke his leg, but it was just a dirt clump with grass.

So he yells out, hey, stop throwing shit. I'm gonna shoot you. Now he's yelling out at one hundred plus yards. You got to understand that distance. It's one of those things. Because he was unsure of what he was dealing with. This thing obviously could throw that distance with some force because it hit his leg pretty hard. So he was in freak out mode. But he was heavily armed, so he felt confident in that three seventy five h and h that whatever this thing was, he was going to

drop it. He said it was standing there. He thought it was standing up all the way. He said, it looked like the grass was about three foot tall, and it looked like it was about five foot taller than the grass initially. Now he starts pushing forward again, yelling, hey, I'm over here, stop throwing stuff. Stop throwing stuff, I'll

shoot you. At this point, he said he was uncertain of exactly how big it was because he knew he was freaking out and he didn't want to unnecessarily point a gun at a person, and so he wanted to get closer. He wanted a visual confirmation outside of a silhouette. So he does the same thing again, starts lowering himself down, zigzagging back and forth, moving towards and he said, this thing stayed right there, perfectly still, and he got to within ninety yards or so eighty to ninety yards, yells

out again, hey I'm over here, don't throw anything. I'm armed. I will shoot you. This thing doesn't move, doesn't make a sound. So he decides he wants to kind of circle half moon circle around because the vantage point, he said he had, he didn't feel comfortable with the lighting and with the low visibility. He wanted to get to where he could better have a site picture through his open sights. So he does this little half moon off

to his right. He said he got about forty five feet doing this, keeping his eyes on this thing the whole time, watching his feeling with his boots as he moved along on even ground and grasses, you gotta be careful. So he gets to that point and as he does so, he squats down, and he's trying to talk. Hey, I'm Douglas, Who are you? Who are you? Not a sound? The word's a dead quiet, just real eerie feeling, he said, in that moment when he got to that point and

squatted down, he felt imminent danger. And immediately he starts looking around behind him, because this whole time he was focused on this thing standing there and nothing else around him, he said, in that moment, he realized he had been making a very fatal mistake by moving towards this sing, circling around, and not paying attention to his backside. So he takes that moment, whips around, looks around, he's looking

for anything, doesn't see anything out of the ordinary. Initially says, all right, looks back, no sign of this thing that he had been stalking. Basically, So what he does is he starts tromping directly towards the last spot he's seen this thing not the wisest thing. And those are his words. So you know, Douglas is just below mid sixties in age, all right, But a veteran of the woods, been going out that way forty something years. He knew the area.

He wasn't intimidated. He was nervous, but not scared. More balls and brains in the moments with trumping straight towards where he had last seen this thing. He said, he got to within about thirty yards of where he last seen it, and he's hearing this weird noise and it dawns on what he's hearing. He's hearing the movement through the grass. It sounds like he's coming right Adams. He's got his rifle up and he was like, you better stop.

I'm gonna shoot. Let's a round off. He didn't see anything, but he shoots just to let this thing know that he meant business. Bow racks in another round. After he shoots, he stands there a minute listening. It goes dead quiet off to his right hand side. He said, about less than fifty feet away, which would be he guests made approximately not quite thirty yards to the river bank. This thing stands up, and he said, this time when it stood up all the way and he guestimated it taller

than ten feet. Immediately he's shocked. He was already nervous seeing it silhouetted at the height he thought it was now that is closer to him and standing up, he was really freaked out. He whipped that rifle, popped a shot off at this thing. He said, once it hit, it went down, but the grass moved like it went down on all fours. But he couldn't see. He was trying to rack another round and the movement. All he saw was a little bit of darkness on top of

the grass and just movement. Heard splashing the river, and then immediately started running towards the river. After this, think to shoot it again, I asked him. I was like, were you trying to bring in a specimen? And he said when it stood up, he said, he felt in danger of his life and he wrecked the way he did, and he wanted to finish the job. He didn't want an injured animal potentially running around hurting somebody, so he was trying to finish the job. He runs over the river.

He gets to where that little nub would be by that tear drop gravel bar was. He's looking down in the water, doesn't see nothing, doesn't see nothing here, splashing over to his left, looks over on the opposite side of that gravel bar. He sees it standing on the other bank.

was trembling really hard. The reality of what just transpired freaked him out, and so he's digging in his pockets and he's adding the couple spent rounds that he had shot back into the rifle, so he was fully loaded. He gathers himself and heads back to where he had camped. When he gets back to where he was camped, his campsite was demolished. One of the front four wheeler tires was missing. It looked like it was somehow just ripped right off. The contents on it were strewn about all

his other equipment. He didn't go in there super heavy. He went in there fairly light, so it wasn't like a whole shit ton of stuff was destroyed. So he's not sure if that happened during what he was going on or after he had shot and was chilling because he said he lost track of time a little bit on the riverbank calming down, He said he wasn't sure if it was a time slip or something like that. He didn't want to get into that. He just said the more time had passed than he had realized, and

he didn't hear his stuff getting thrashed. At this point, it was one hundred yards wast what are you going to do? So he has to walk out. He gathers up this stuff. He's still freaking out. He's constantly watching his back trail heading back towards the road. As he's doing so, some people are coming in from when he had shot. Hours had passed to the point of where he's hiking out daylight. People are coming in off four wheelers and he asks one of the first people he saw, hey,

can I get help? And he's he to go and meet up with some people I can't help whatever. All he told the people was is he wrecked his four wheelers, so he said, more people are coming. There was more people down there offloading their equipment or whatever. Just keep on truck and I'm sure someone will help you and stay on the trail. Of course, Douglas already knew that, so he hikes back, didn't get picked up by anybody. He gets to his truck, goes and retrieves his buddy

and comes back the next day. When he comes back the next day with his friend to retrieve all his stuff, his friend's kind of leery about what he had told him and what transpired. His friend really was, okay, man, but if you said it, I believe you because you've never lied to me. But that's one hell of a tale you're telling me. They get back over to where he had his little campsite, couldn't find the four wheeler. What the hell, So they're assuming someone took it. They go.

Douglas wanted to show his friend where the incident happened. He takes them to the spot, shows them the trail in the grass of where he walked, showed where he was when he shot. The empty shells are still in the grass and telling him everything, walks him through up to the river bank. They get to the river bank and he's I'm assuming it went in here, and as I was looking, it made noise over here. When they turned to look, they noticed something weird in the river.

It was his four wheeler. So something, this thing, whatever, moved his four wheeler into the river. They got wet, they drug it out, They had to fight and get it back across, and it was a whole ordeal. But luckily his friend had a winch. They were able to cut a trail, drag it out, and all that stuff. So with that, I asked him if he's going back out in the woods, and he said he is, just not in Alaska. He's in the process of not just because of this incident, but just being in his sixties,

the winter suck. This was the little extra push to make him move down with some relatives down in the States and be closer to his son. I'm gonna thank Douglas for sharing that anyone going out into that area, this happened less than a year ago, just beware out there by the Savage River in that area. He's confident he hit it the way it moved after he shot it. He's confident, not saying for sure, but he feels very confident that this thing was shot and potentially aggravated. So

be aware, Savage River area. Douglas had a hard time with it at first, but I understand. Like we talked about Douglas, it doesn't matter if anyone believes you. Dude. I want to share with you today is an email. I got it just last week. What I try to do, just so everyone's aware, I read your emails repetitively because I've been through some things. I relive it in my mind, the person's experience, so I could better explain it to you, guys. It's just how my mind works. I look at things

from all sides. Gale, I don't know. Maybe it's OCD and I don't know it.

Right now, it wasn't the main Yetna let means passed by. It was glorified river creek that fed into the Vietna. It was fairly shallow, fairly narrow, and the trout were in some deep pockets and that's where they were going for So they ended up parking their boat, their canoe, they get out and they walked along a grassy edge

on either side of this creek. Now when they get to the point to start fishing, initially there's two of them, and as the day goes on, because they were there for three days before this incident occurred, so they were basically repeating the same thing they had been doing for a couple of days, going to this little honey hole for pan frying trout and loving it. They're having a great time. They had a successful hint. They're living the dream. You got your caribou meat for the winter. Now you're

gonna go man land is a trout? Cook them over and open. Oh, it doesn't get much better. So they're doing their thing they got their little thing, they got a little rhythm down with their movements and stuff. And their third buddy shows up. He was in hip waiters, and he had just gloshed on through the water and took his time hiking around on some of the game trails to get back to where they were. They were

very comfortable where they were at. There had been nothing out of the ordinary, not during the caribou, none of it. They were just having a great old lasting experience. They're all local. Okay, that's to leave that out because where they happen to live is a very small place, so

i'll respect that. Now. As they were talking across this little creek, it's not very wide, and there's this one particular honey hole where there was some old either alders or willows that had been broken, and it hung down by this little creek. Now right off the side of this little glorified river creek. It was about ten twelve feet to where the alders and the willows got thick. So you had tall grass on either side at some

scrub brush and some berry bushes and stuff. At this particular spot there was these willows or alders popular or something. They didn't go and inspect. It was about thirty feet from them, where these branches and stuff were going off into the water and just towards them from that little blockage hanging over the water. It created a shadow in the water and the trout would pock it up in there in the relative safety. So they're doing the fly fishing thing instead of just walking up the creek and

scooping them out, and that they were fishing. So they're doing the thing. He's working his fly rod and as he's working it, his buddy on the opposite side is trying to time here while his fly lands, and then he's pulling it back. The other guy's trying to land his fly pull it back. They're just dicking around. They're just doing guys, just doing stupid shit, and so they're having fun and are laughing because eventually they started laughing at each other because it was going really well, and

then all of a sudden they got tired up. They reap in so they're closer together and they can lash the lion. Now they're on opposite sides of this not very wide creek. It is about three times as wide as a canoe, so you're looking at sixhudred feet wide, not very wide at all. So they're reaching out, flinging their lionstone tagger. They got boots on, but they're just they're digging around. They were young early twice, so they're doing their thing. Third guy who had on chess waiters

goes around. Let's call him Chris. The guy across the creek, we'll call him Doug. And we'll call the guy in the hip or chess waters, we'll call him Fred. Okay, just keep it simple. So Chris jugging Fred. Okay. So Fred goes around him and he's going up to check out that blockage and him he's laughing. He goes, I'm gonna see if I could massage one's belly and fling it out of the creek. He was gonna check his skills out see if he could do it. And so

he goes. He starts moving the brush that was stuck in there, and he was like, is there beavers around here? And he holds up one of the branches and his freight and broke it. It wasn't chewed off like a beaver. Anyone ever see a beaver chew if you haven't googled it, it's very distinct. He can't mistake it for anything else. There was no beaver shoe mark, so they're like, what then, that's weird. It's almost like someone must have did this

on purpose to make a little shadow area for the fish. Right, he goes, okay, I get it, So he stops destroying it. He respects the fact that, oh, someone intentionally did this, and that's why we're able to fish for these trout right here, because it's given them a sense of safety in the shade and the shadow from hocks and whatever. So he's okay, he fixes it, and he backs out. He gets out of the creek, and he goes okay.

He recognizes he was about to destroy something that worked for somebody that could be potentially feeding him or whatever. So he backs up on the bank and they got their lines untied and stuff, and as they're discussing what they're going to do, kabluk, they hear something hit the

water and they're like, who offs is nearby? Because where they were staying, you have to follow this creek dap back our river back down to where it meets the Yentna, and then you got to go back up river to where they were camping, where the cabin was where they were at, right, So they're a little ways away from the cabin, where remote as hell. And so as they're sitting there discussing who could possibly be thrown rocks in the creek and that type of thing, who would want

to do that? One of them was armed. Only one of them had a twenty two pistol for spruce grouse. Small gay bears weren't on their radar. It didn't feel like a threatening environment. Nothing had happened, so they felt, we don't need a gun, nothing big. We got a twenty two. We'll make noise, it'll run whatever it is.

So periodically rocks drop, and it's starting to get to the point where they're looking because they're figuring they would see the rocks fulling in like this, But these things were coming almost straight down, so whoever was throwing them was throwing them real high, so they'd come straight down into the water. Right. So they catch on to this, and they start looking in what they thought would be

the direction they were coming, trying to figure out. As they're doing this, Fred and the chest waiters, he gets hit with one of these rocks and he gets hit in the back of his chest waiters. Right, he heard it hit didn't really feel it too much because they were really baggy. They blown out on it and with the straps anyway, so he did really feel the impact. But he heard the vocal against the niopried and he was like, hey, whoever, it has just hit me in

the back with it. So they all turn around to look the direction that he got hit in the back.

just like that. And they're immediately like, what the hell is this because all the shit that was in that canoe is now raining down and decorating the opposite side of the creek where their canoe is now got a new home resting in the alders. They didn't know what the hell to do. They were stuck they were stuck, and they were trying to make out what did we see cut into those trees? What the what was that bigfoot? Harry Man? None of that was even on their radar.

They never entertained the thought ever. And I asked him when I was talking to him about his experience, I said, what was your knowledge of the harry matter bigfoot before this? He's like, ah, you'd hear stuff. But he is like, that was garbage. There's no way I was going to rop my mind with that. He called it hell billy bullshit. And I was like, oh, okay, so pin you on no prayer experience with these kind of things. So they're stuck. They're looking at each other, but none of them have

the words. None of them have the words to get out and express how they're feeling. It wasn't like PTSD traumatizing, but they were in a certain level of shock. I could imagine, You're in the middle of nowhere, don't believe in this thing. All of a sudden, your canue goes flying and you see a dark figure going into the trees. Canoes are not light. This was a sixteen foot marine grade canoe of coal mid Those things weigh g's almost two hundred pounds just in of themselves, plus it was

loaded with cooler gear, all this stuff. This was their little base camp when they got away from the main camp, because they would spike camp along the river and stuff anyway, so they had some stuff in there. It wasn't just some empty, lightweight thing. This thing was long a good thirty feet. So these guys are obviously creaked. Their canoe

went for freaking ride. They stuck on stupid on the opposite side of this creek because once this stuff went down and the rocks were being thrown, Doug on the opposite side of the creek from Chris and Fred got on the other side of the creek during the rock thrown before he got hit in the back and they kill went for a ride. So then being on the

same side, they all look at each other. Doug is the one that had the little twenty two pistol for the shrub grouse or whatever the spursh chickens, and they immediately recognized, we need to freaking go or they were not going to go and retrieve that canoe because it was in the direction of that big whatever and the hell that just was and they weren't having none of that, So they start backing out of They're just real paranoid, understandably that all their funny games just went out the

freaking door on a canoe ride into the shrubs, right, So they immediately recognized a threat. The way Chris had explained it to me was it was a very unspoken thereat, I asked him, but did seemed like it was in the air, And he said that was the closest kind of analogy he could come up with two and.

flight chase kind of thing. They get down to the Vietna and just as they meet where this glorified river connects with the Vietna, they're cut up because the trail kind of cuts off the point and then drops down onto the bank of the river and it cuts up onto the bank and then back down as you're going back up the river, just because brush will hang out too far and then you go around it and it

just overtime becomes a game trail or whatever. So they're doing this number just as they get around on the jetna and they start down the bank a little bit, trying to discuss a little more because they're snapping out of their shock of what the hell through a canoe like that, And they're talking about it couldn't have been a bear? Could a bear do that? They were debating the bar thing, which is understandable they had no other reference.

As they're starting to get up on the bank to go around this bundle of shrubs to get onto the other side of the bank and continue going towards the cabin, they heard a series of gruts and screams. Said he couldn't even put it in the words, but a woman being murdered is a close sound like a lion roar type deal, but same time. And so they're immediately even more motivated now because after this scream sounds, they hear something paralleling of just behind them in the tree line.

But it's catching up fast, right, big impacts on the ground bump, bump, and they're like, oh sh So Doug with the twenty two, shoots two times in the air just to make noise bay Bane. Once he did that, the movement came even and it passed them just out

of you. They're seeing trees and stuff shake. So they're on the river bank and they said it sounded like a bulldozer going eighty miles an hour through the trees, because it sounded like it was the biggest thing around and it was making a large show of whatever the hell it was doing. And as it got a little bit of ways away, they heard the crashing circling back a little further distance away. So they snap out of it and they say, okay, we need to get moving.

Since this moving back this way, let's go that way and get to the cabin. So they're doing their thing. They're doing this little jump up the bank, follow the trail, get down on the river bank again, because that's how it is. You got shrubs hanging over. You're not going to take a swim. So they're doing what they have to do to get the hell out of dodge. Doug's in the rear with this twenty two, and he had

no confidence in it. After hearing that whatever it was crashing and banging through the woods, he knew that it'd be better off shooting. Chris are redding the knee to get away. So they get to a point to where the trail cuts up onto the bank, and then it goes up this rise past some tundra and some muskeg and some black spruce, and then comes back. The trail cuts back down to the river, and there's four large rocks or something like that, kind of offset of each other.

How to get back across the n at that point to get to their cabin about another a mile or so up the river, right, So they go up the rise and they get to the point to where the tundra and the black spruce meet the muskeg or whatever. They get to that point and they decide they're going to look back because the whole time there was noise going on, but it stayed in that general area when

it circled back and they made their move. So they're at a higher raised area and they're trying to get advantage point to make out what is doing this because they felt they were at a safe distance. So as they're standing up there, they get the idea, because once they got and actually trying to started looking in that direction, all that show or whatever was going on, stop dead silence, right, So dug it again said I'll shoot one more time

in the air, and he had reloaded. At this time, he'd took an out the two dead ones, put in two fresh ones. There's just little six shots, single six little ruger, single action. Any hunter out there knows exactly

what I'm talking about. So he goes, I'm gonna put one in the air and see if we can get a reaction out of it and get a look at this thing, because this was a good At this point, they're looking down into the trees and it's a good one hundred and fifty yards away, and they felt very confident that they could just get out of there and have enough room to move anyway and make them move or defend themselves. Whatever. Okay, yeah, do it, do it.

We'll keep an eye out. So they're looking bang, they're shoot in the air right the direction they have to go, because they came up a trail with the tree line on the left. They come up the rise, the tree line still on the left, it curves around and goes back down to the end. Now the ruckus is coming down where the trail meets the river where they gotta go in the tree trees just basically behind him when they shot. So they're looking over here, Bang, where's it? A, Oh,

it's down here behind us, doing the same shit. Now they don't know what the hell to do. I wouldn't either, So they went off road, and so to speak, they started b learning across the tundra to the next little black spruce across the way, and what their plan was to get the frick out of there, get some clear tundra between there so they can see where it's moving,

because they didn't see it moving. The trees to get back behind them basically now I wasn't directly behind him, was offset back to their right, but it's still behind them and they didn't hear it. They get across the way there, and from what he was telling me, when they got across there, he was having a panic attack. He had dealt with childhood asthma that it felt like a very bad asthma attack, so he had to meditate because he hadn't used halo in years. So he's trying

to calm himself down. He's on his knees threading the chest waiters. He now has the twenty two pistol. Doug is relieving himself in the trees right. So they have no game plan. They just let their game plan follow the trail, get back to the cabin across the Vietna. They weren't having a good time at this point. Doug finishes his business, comes back out. He wants the pistol back, and Fred said no, he goes, I got it. Don't worry that way. You don't have to be the one

in the rear. I'm a little bigger than you. You could lead the group. We'll keep Crispy twin us or whatever, and we'll make our go. So they come up to the game plan. We'll follow this tree line down, because they had like a V shaped wedge to their left in that tree line over there, about sixty yards or so, was where the ruck has happened behind them when they shot at the top of the rise. Now they're going down to their right, so it's a wedge shape, so

noise over here. They're over here. They want to get down here and look for another way to cross further up the river. They want to continue to the cabin. So they work their way down, just edging the tree line. As they're going along the high bush, cranberries happened to be in season, and they had this weird odor too. If you've ever been out of the bush Alaska, you know what I'm talking about. Not a musty, but it

doesn't smell ap peely, we'll put it that way. And so they're catching this whift of it and they're about half the distance they have to to make it down to the end because they're not moving fast. They're moving stopping and listening. Now, Fred having the gun, he's a little bolder. Don't know why. It's only twenty two, but because he had the gun, it was a mental thing. Far So he's a little bit further away from that

tree line as they're paralleling each other going down. He's about ten feet away and he's stepping in the thunder and the marsh and stuff. They're making their way down. What Chris and Doug didn't know was Bred wanted to try to shoot it. That's what he learned later. Right, he's saying he's gonna get him a wild man dragging in make money or something. He found this album what they made to the cabin anyway. So they're doing their thing, and this guy's bold with the twenty two for no reason.

He doesn't realize the day putting everyone in with this garbage. So they make their way down. They get down to the Vietna Now they were looking and paranoid and saw nothing move. However, at that particular side of the Yetna River there was about a three foot river bank that you could see down to the edge, but you can't see that three foot it's shielded. Unbeknownst to them, this thing had dropped down of the river and crawled and was now in the trees over parallel, you know, just

as they were getting down to the Vietna River. So this thing didn't give a shit about up the gunshot, actively intimidating them and following them. Okay, not a good combination. Doesn't stir happiness and enjoyed friendship to me. So the realization of what the hell's going on came. No liver threads to the outside of them. You got Chris and then Doug. So they make like a triangle shape if you were to look down. If you're looking down at it,

we got the tree line, dug Chris. Fred once they hear the noise and the grunt, they all turn to their right into the tree line. And on this tree line it's more broken and open, so you have a stunded growth black spruce, and then you have some willows next to it, a little more sporadic growth versus the denser on the opposite side where they just let their trail now when they recognize that danger, because they were just getting down to the river.

the pacing thing again. They turn around and kicked the river bank back to across those four rocks to get across the river. So they're able to do that. He said everything was a blur because I asked them, okay, you're telling me that it was off following you, paralleling you, but yet you were at the apex of the turn. And then it started moving. He goes, I realized when we were coming down it actually paralleled U because if we kept hearing stuff, and then it came to a

head when they got down to that trimming port. So I was like, Okay, that makes more sense. Now they backtracked and they get across the rock. Now they still hear the movement right over there. And now when they get across these rocks and they get up on the other side, they're feeling a sense of relief. Now they got a natural barrier a little wider than that little creek, and they know they're on the right side of the river to get to the cabin. That was their motivation.

So now Fred with the pistol, he's standing on the river bank and he had a false sense of security with this river dividing them right. So this yahoo puts around into the trees. He shot high, but from what Chris said, he had a look of yeah, I'm I'm gonna draw it out kind of thing. He shoot high in the trees. That wasn't smart. Scream, loud scream, and then view from where they came across the tundra a little further up the rizon and came down this way and then came back. They had an open view of

that little wedge shape. They first shot over to their right, and it was down here behind them. They ran across the tunder this way and came down to the left side, you know what I mean. So they had a view of this like wedge shaped alleyway going up the rise. This thing screamed, broke some trees and stuff on its way out of that tree line, and ran across in front of them, going towards where the whole shebang started further down river. So this thing was actually leaving the area.

Smart Fred starts trying to pop shots at it as it's running because he just sees it. Freaks up. Pomp starts feathering there, dumb.

start winging shots at this thing. It wasn't necessary. They were in survival model lists. Get out of here. So after winging the shot, they're running and they start hearing splashing in the river. Now Fred just emptied the six rounds. Doug is in the lead a good distance ahead of Fred because he was an idiot and stood behind. He has a twenty two animal, so he's got an empty gun, he's got a paperweight, and he's the last one in line, and he was the one winging shots at this Now

they're hall ass. In this particular part of the trail was pretty well worn and they knew it well. They've been going on it forever, so they knew their way, and they were hauling ask and they hear it paralleling them in the river. Now where the cabin is on a bit of a rise. It's a single room cabin. He said, it's approximately twelve by twenty right on the dimensions of this cabin seven foot walls, cathedral like ceiling, just a shell basically with some two by four in

tywood box with the low rollout mats on it. Just a glorified shack for sleep and to go hunting. You know, nothing more, You don't mean more. So they're allassing to get here. Meanwhile they're getting paralleled. Red's is one in the rear, and this thing is the splashing, is passing them. So the water at this particular part of the river, he said, was at least three to four feet deep, and this thing was splashed through it like it was a puddle. So they're shook. They are shook, and they're

motivated with their running. They all make it back to that cabin right so as they get in the door and shut the door, Bred in the rear has a severe leg cramp. It's so cramped that they have to dugl and Chris have to grab him by the ankle and pulp his leg because it was trying to bend up and lock up on him. Off. Jeez, that kind of cramp that would just suck. So that so they're tending to Fred, they hear splashing out in the river and then a moment later they hear some hit the

door of this cabin. And when this thing hit the door, it dawned on them. This isn't a very safe place. Immediately they let go of Fred's leg. He's on his own with his cramp. This asshole. His wingshots at this and that's why we're here. So they look out the window to see what the hell just hit the cabin right, and what it ended up being was this huge clump of grass that was eroded overhang, and it was basically

have you ever worked with sod? It was similar to sod, but a big chunk with more dirt rocks stuck to the bottom and then the grass out the top.

And now they have a little bit of a ways to go before the trail that will lead a few miles to where they had parked their rig to get out of there. So if you got something that big chasing you, you don't want to be on that kind of journey. You don't even want to be on a ten foot journey, let alone a couple of miles through the Alaskan wilderness with this thing pissed off. So at their options, we got food, we got sheltered, we got ammo here. We're good. We'll hold out. If it keeps

us in here, someone will eventually come. But we can defend this place. There was three windows into the place, one on each of the walls, and then there was a narrow window next to the doorway, and it was a solid steel door, and they had some kind of bear detoried nail boards and stuff that they would put over the windows and on the door to keep bears

from breaking in and tear it up. Their shit. So they had all that bareboard stuff stacked in a neat way right outside the door against part of the windbreak of the porch. Right where it particularly had to be was the stairway down to the ground, so when you went out, you had to step around all these bare boards. So they decide, we got these guns, screw the sing let's kill it. That's what they think. We're gonna kill it and get the hell out of here and then

we'll get help and then come back. Because it was big when they saw it moving. He said he didn't want to guess the size, but he said it was massive, massively tall. He guesstimated because he only saw it in the water really well, when it was standing in the river and the water was just above its knees, and he thinks that particular spot was at least four to five feet deep where it was standing and it was

barely up just past its knees. Of this creature at this particular point, it went from it through the clup of grass. They freak all that, they check it out. They all armed up. Moments later during their discussion, it was Doug looking out the narrow window out the front door that looks down to the river when they saw it standing in the water, and that's when they all went over and Tommy took a look out the window. They saw us up what they're dealing with. They said,

we're gonna kill it. They go out and I'll bring up the bearboards because it comes into play in just a moment. So they go out and there's a good gap in between these bare boards and the stairway because it's thirty six inch wide stairway right, so they easily get by it as they're sitting and they're going down discussing which direction they go because it was no longer standing in the river. It was nowhere in sight. It was just caught. So they're standing out there a moment.

Now at this point, it is starting to get to dusk, and in the trees it's really dark shadows, but there's still plenty of daylight up in the sky and in the grass and stuff. But anything in the tree line is damn near pitch black. So they figure out, okay, it must have ran over the trees. Dug with the shot good wing some rounds over to those trees. Let's see if we can get it to move. Everyone be

sure we don't accidentally shoot each other. So they're standing kind of shouldered the shoulders so they don't swing into each other's fire. Great planet, right. He lets a couple shots off across the river. Boom, boom, not a sound. They hear nothing, So they decide, maybe we'll use one of the big boar rifles and wing a shot a little further down the trees that way. Let's see if we can coax it out. It came before we've got shots, so see if we'll do it again. Boom, shoots a

round off. They hear or something behind that, something coming from behind the cabin. So they turn around immediately, and they're looking because the cabin's elevated. It's about a foot and a half in the front elevated, and it drops off a little bit so it's up to about two and a half three foot on the pilots of the back. So they could bed down and look underneath the whole place. And they do that and they see nothing. They see nothing that would have made the noise that smacked or

hit the cabin. So they figured, oh, it's throwing stuff like it did at the cree Yeah, through something, and it landed on the cabin, and that's what got our attention. Okay, okay, this thing's sart. So they think they got to figure it out, and they turned around. They're looking for the direction this thing whatever was thrown, and they hear that noise together and they ignore it because they think they're

being tricked. They think they're being tricked, that something's making that noise intentionally to distract their attention that way while it does something in front of them. So they want to be ready. They're not follow for it. They're not dumb. They're doing their thing. They hear a screen across the river, just like they right, oh yeah, okay, it's right over there. Try to pinpoint it. Put another big caliber rock around straight that direction. You're not gonna hit it. It's gonna

hit a tree, But should it that direction? Let them know we mean business. Right wings the shot, they hear another noise behind them at the cab. They're ignoring that noise at the cabin, ignoring it. We're not followed for that crap. We know it's over here. So Doug, who operated the shotgun couble more rounds put back in that bad boy. He decides, I'm done with this. The shotguns short range. I'll go inside and way. He turns around to go just short distance to the stairs up the walkway.

The bare boards were all turned nail's facing out, leaned up and stacked up in front of the door. This thing distracted them because they were smart, went and turned the bareboards around, nail sticking out to them from getting back into that freaking cabin. What like, dude, Yeah, So when they saw that, the realization was we're being freaking played. Guess what. They didn't go back in the cab. They took their happy asses with the ammal they had and

the guns they had, going in the dark. Three soldiers out of there. They said they thought it sounded like they're being paralleled. A couple of different times they would fire affle volley of shots. Now they're doing this, it's going in the darkness. They got no gear other than their guns and a bunch of animal they do in their pockets to accost this thing. And they're getting the

hell out of dodge. It's accumulated about three and a half miles to go from where this particular cabin was, through the muskeg in the trails and the black spruce on into higher ground, then lower ground then higher ground up into where they parked the truck troopers. They did it, they stomped out. The main reason I'm going to share that with you is the cunning turned the bairboards around. Dude. That's genius kick keep them from being able to run

back in easily. Wow, just wow, What are you doing in the situation like that? What can we make of that? That's just on some other level. That's like imitating the baby crying, laurying my cousin Elizabeth out. They're gonna pray on a woman's instinct and nature to lure them out. Dude, There's more going on with these things. We know they're smart, we know they're very smart. But I think they're smarter

and just as cunny as we are. They just go about it in a different way because we live in a different world, not ooh oh yeah they come out of a portal, No, the woods being the different world. They're there twenty four to seven. I'm sure they've been around who knows how long they live, what they've seen, so this thing new enough. I'm assuming it was one distracted by one another. One did something. I don't know. They didn't see it, but they heard the noises and

they ignored it. Hit I tell you what, Chris, Doug and Fred they will never ignore a noise behind them again. And I'm not trying to make light of it. I'm just like, can you imagine your escape is right there? You feel your safeties right there, and lo and behold it's turned on. Yet you got this man made porcupine facing you to get in the door. Oh jeez, man, they still go there. This was just two or three years ago, I think he said, not very long ago.

Be safe when you go, bro, and keep the bear boards somewhere else to where you don't get porcupined out of your own damn cabin when you got one of these things ticked off at you because your buddy wants to wing shots at it. I'm not making light of it. Me and him laughed about it on the phone conversation. So take no offense, buddy. No disrespect is just holy shit, What do you do with that? I'm sure these guys will never look at bear boards as the same again.

Oh jeez. Anyway, thanks for listening. Sorry for laughing at you, guys. I'm pictures to have to think you're gonna kill this thing and all of a sudden, this move, it's behind you, just setting a trap for you all. Jeez. I'll be safe out there. Guys. We'll talk to you later.