As a child, I felt there was something very special about the nights of the full moon. For two days before and two days after the night of peak fullness, the natural world is aglow with the blue silver illumination that is fascinated mankind for thousands of years in the days when superstition ruled the mind of man. Our ancestors assign great powers to this otherworldly light and the unfailing cycle
of the blue white orb which produced it. Because we have a weakness not shared by the predators of the night, we naturally fear the things that come out to hunt in the darkness. Human beings have eyesight that evolved for daylight activity, not foreseeing the details hidden in the shadows of a forest after the sun goes down. Therefore, we have an innate fear of the darkness and the beasts that inhabit it. There are those among us who seem to lack
this fear, at least they give the appearance of not being afraid. Those are individuals who will have the opportunity to see what I have seen. Only recently have I developed a deeply felt well. I started to say, respect, Let's call it what it is. It's fear. That's right. I now fear the things that I know to be out there in the dark.
We've all heard the stories of were wolves and their remarkable abilities and characteristics, at least the ones that Hollywood has bestowed upon these terrifying creatures of legend. I will now tell you about my experiences with the things in the dark. These are my only encounters with what I believe to be one of these nocturnal beasts. I pray they are my last encounters. It was early spring, and the nights on Lookout Mountain in Alabama were cool enough to be uncomfortable without
a jacket. It was a kind of night that you can see your breath as you exhale. I owned a four wheeler, and I frequently rode the south ridge of Lookout Mountain. I especially enjoyed riding trails in the thousands of acres of woods near my home on the nights of the full moon. The silver light shining through the trees on the narrow, winding roads and trails is usually bright enough that headlights are optional at low speeds. Riding by moonlight had
always been a special experience, and I looked forward to it. But the events of two separate nights. This year would change that forever. It was a Friday night and I had worked later than usual, which caused me to miss connecting with my riding buddies as was the usual routine. This was before cell phones were common and very few of my friends had one, plus where we rode, a signal was hard to find on a good day. I had called, but had reached no one, so I would have to catch
up with them on the trail. It was well after dark and the moon was high in the night sky. I grabbed my cooler and shoved off, hoping to link up with my friends and have some fun. After a short ride on the paved road, I climbed a steep bank off the road to
access the trail where I expected to find everyone. Fifteen minutes of bouncing over rocks and roots found me past the roughest part of the trail, and I was now slowly rolling along on a smooth, sandy road without my headlights when something roughly the size of a coyote dashed quickly across the road in front of me, moving left to right. It was no more than a flash in
a tangle of shadows. I hit the brakes and I shut off the engine so I could listen for whatever it was as it continued its flight through the undergrowth. The natural predators in these parts are not generally large enough to be a threat to humans, so I was not alarmed. There are black bears and mountain lions here, but we see them so rarely that no one worries
about them. I sat silently on my four wheeler, listening, looking, and hoping to hear or see if whatever had dashed across the road was being followed by another similar creature, or possibly being chased. After a minute of silent vigil, I stepped off my ATV, thinking whatever it was was long gone. I opened my cooler and I took out my first beer for the evening. I popped the top and took a long drink. Coffee would have been a more practical choice on the cool spring night, but the beer tasted
good. That night, the whipperwheels were out early this year, and the night air was filled with their unmistakable calls. These woods at night are such a sensual place. Your pupils dilate to take in the maximum amount of light. Your hearing seems to become more acute. Even your sense of smell now picks up things that ordinarily it would not. One's mind could quite easily run
away with itself on a night like this. To my left, some distance off the road, I could hear movement in the thickly matted leafy ground cover of this dense hardwood forest. I first assumed it was a raccoon or a possum rooting for grubs in the foot deep leaf cover. After only seconds of listening, I could make out distinct footsteps. They were the same noises a man would make while walking through the leaves. It certainly was not a possum.
The spot where I had stopped was sheltered. On each side, short needle pines spaced close together obscured my view on both sides of the road. The fifteen foot stretch of pines, almost like a tunnel, shaded the road from the moonlight. I listened as the footsteps came closer. It had to be a hunter, so I made some noise to alert him to my position. I didn't want to be mistaken for game, and I spoke up, don't shoot, partner, I'm standing right on the road in front of you.
The footsteps stopped abruptly, followed by several seconds of silence, during which I expected to hear a man's voice reply telling me that he wasn't going to shoot me. That never happened. I spoke up again to confirm my presence, and still I got no reply. I knew someone was there, but for whatever reason, they refused to respond. My concern was growing. It's
not unheard of that marijuana growers will guard their grow in this area. The month of April is a bit early in the growing season for this to have been likely, but I wondered if I was about to meet one of these guys. I heard a twig snap to my left. I began talking to reassure whoever it was that I meant them no harm, and I walked slowly towards the twig snap. I came to the end of the short needle pine thicket, where the moonlight was bright and I could see better into the woods.
I heard it breathing, and when I looked in that direction, I saw the steamy exhaust. When it exhaled, it was panting fifty feet in front of me. A dark form of an animal crouched. It was motionless and in front of me, and the steam from its exhales was rising above its head. I froze. My eyes began to adjust to the moonlight now illuminating the woods. Two pointed, fur covered ears were visible. Its head turned ninety degrees, and the silhouette of a large canine muzzle became apparent.
The ears moved in a manner of a horse as it seemed to scan the immediate area for sounds. I'll never forget those ears. The steam from its breathing, illuminated by the bright moonlight, rushed from its snout and drifted upward. My legs suddenly felt weak. The beer can slipped from my hand and hit flatly on the sandstone road with a clank, causing it to shoot a stream of foam into the air, which lapped over into the woods in the
direction of this thing. The bea to an upright position on two legs, revealing its height. It was bigger than me, much bigger. It was staring straight at me. It paused long enough to issue a deep growl and calmly strode away into the woods with the same rhythmic leaf crunching footsteps I had heard moments earlier. I was terrified. Tears poured from my eyes. I ran for the four wheeler, jumped aboard, and hit the starter. In a flurry of lightning fast moves, I rode away at full throttle, like
the devil was chasing me. I don't remember driving home, but I know I covered that eight miles in record time. When I slid to a stop in my driveway, I jumped off the four wheeler and ran into the house, locking all the doors and windows. Never had I felt the way I felt that night. I didn't sleep at all. Rather, I sat in my living room with my shotgun in my lap until dawn. I contemplated calling the county Sheriff's office to report what I had seen, but I knew that
I would sound like a nutcase. I picked up the phone several times, but I never made the call. Over the following days, my mind replayed the events of that night over and over, each time with the unsettling conclusion that I had seen what had to be a werewolf. Either I had seen one or I was delusional. I had always been the guy that made fun of people who said they saw werewolves and ghosts. I never believed that stuff. If what I saw was a werewolf, why didn't it attack me.
It had every opportunity to make a meal of me, or to slaughter me for the fun of it. I can't imagine that it was some trickster that took me in. Looked and sounded way too real. Besides, most trail riders are armed, and a joke like this could get a prankster shot. What I saw was a large, fur covered animal that walked primarily on two legs. It had very long arms in the head of a canine. Having considered this incident time and time again, I know what I saw and will
always believe that it was a werewolf. I'm now an undoubting believer in the existence of werewolves, and that fact would be confirmed a few months later. By September, I had changed my riding habits. I didn't ride at night. One Saturday night when my friend Larry called to tell me that he was in the woods and his ATV had quit on him. To my dread,
he was close to the location where I had seen this creature. I almost made an excuse to get me off the hook, but this particular friend had pulled me out of bad spots before with no hesitation, and I felt obligated to be there for him. I told him that I could be there in an hour. I was apprehensive about going back at night. I had not told my writing buddies about what I had seen because I knew they would rib
me until the day I died. They had noticed that I spent a lot of less time in the woods than I normally did, and had asked why I didn't ride at night now. Rather than fess up to my unbelievable encounter, I made lame excuses, jokingly allowing the conversation to move on. I wanted to tell someone what I had seen, but I didn't feel that they would take me serious, so I kept it to myself. I got dressed in warm clothing and strapped on my forty caliber and stuff too magazines in my
pocket. The equipment I needed to retrieve a disabled four wheeler was sitting at the ready in a watertight box in my garage. I strapped the box on the back of my four wheeler and made ready to head for the eight mile long trail that would take me to my friend's location. I could not believe I was really going back there, but I couldn't leave him stranded, and
he didn't know what I knew. The moon was bright again, and clouds moved silently across the sky, dragging their dark shadows over the mountainous terrain and adding a creepy element of mystery that began to play on my mind. The closer I got to the area where I had seen it, the more apprehensive I became. I stopped long enough to chamber around in my pistol, and I put it back into my holster. Before I continued, I topped a rise in the road and I caught a glimpse of a fire ahead. Larry
had started a fire. Somehow that fact gave me a measure of comfort. As I approached the fire, it occurred to me that if I could see it from a distance, other eyes could also see it. That removed the comfort factor. I could see more than one person standing there. Larry had not mentioned that there was someone with him. Maybe some help had already arrived. The more the better, as I saw it. I rolled down the rough, narrow road and stopped about ten feet from the fire. I shut
off the engine and remained seated on my four wheeler. Susan, Larry's girlfriend, rushed over and threw her arms around me, greeting me as their hero and rescuer. She was relieved that I had arrived, to say the least. I moved near the fire, warming my hands and asking what the problem was. Larry indicated that the chain had broken and he didn't have a replacement or any of his tools. I didn't see his four wheeler anywhere, and
I asked about that. He grinned and said that that was the other thing. He had not set the brakes while working on the chain, and it had rolled off the road into a steep ravine. We walked over to the spot where it left the road and he pointed down into the darkness and said, it's down there. My flashlight is bright, but it only dimly illuminated. The machine lodged against a tree halfway down the slope. It was a job for a wench or a bunch of strong men. Realistically, the two
of us could not extract this ATV from its precarious resting place. I expressed this to Larry, and he was not happy about the prospect of leaving a rather expensive machine in the woods overnight. I assured him that no one would notice it that far off the road and it would be safe until the next day. We were going to need a winch attached to a truck to get this thing up the hill. Susan was standing by the fire. As we
walked back towards her. Suddenly there was a horribly loud howl coming from the ridge above us. My heart began to race. Susan rushed Larry and clung to him as though the devil himself had walked by. Larry's expression was that of unwonted surprise and fear. The sound came from a big animal, and it was too close. We gathered around the fire and we listened, Not wishing to frighten Susan. I jokingly urged our hasty departure while I was experiencing
flashbacks of my first encounter. My hand rested on my pistol. Larry sensed that I was only half joking and agreed with the suggestion of a prompt exit from the area. Actually, he looked more puzzled than frightened. I was keeping an eye on the woods around us. Again. I suggested that we leave immediately. Susan agreed with my assessment of the situation and became insistent that
Larry speed up the process by leaving their cooler and other gear. To our right was a thicket of dense growth, from which, during a moment of silence, came the sound of footsteps. I pulled my pistol and started telling them the abbreviated version of the story of what I had seen very near this place just months earlier. Susan was almost in tears and begging to leave immediately. I completely agreed with her. I just wasn't as dramatic about it.
We stacked one behind the other on my four wheeler, with Larry upfront driving. I took the rear position, thinking that it would offer the best position to shine a light behind us and allow me to shoot anything in pursuit if it became necessary. The box trapped on the back made things a little cramp, but oddly gave a measure of comfort as my back pressed against it. We began to move away from the fire, and I was constantly twisting and
turning to maintain vigilance of the area. Still dimly lighted by the fire, I swung my flashlight back and forth to illuminate anything that might be approaching. We quickly moved up the rough slope from the fire in the direction of home. As we approached a rock outcrop that spanned the road. Larry gave it some throttle to increase the engine power to get us over the rock. Suddenly, the engine went dead and we rolled back a short distance and we stopped.
Larry had forgotten to open the gas pitcock, which I had closed out of habit. He quickly opened it and restarted the engine. As I look back towards the fire, I could see a large figure moving about in its dim yellow orange light. We moved forward, and as we topped the slope, I grabbed Larry's arm and got him to stop. We were about fifty yards from the fire, and at our position on the high ground we could
see the creature clearly. The three of us stared in disbelief as the upright, hair covered manlike creature leaned its head back and let out another bone chilling howl. I could see the same fur covered ears and the wolf likes now that had haunted my dreams since April. The howls subsided, and we saw the beasts look in our direction, and it began to move towards us. Larry gunned the engine. Our retreat was like a blur. I remember slowing
down only once about two miles away from our starting point. Larry shouted and asked if I could see anything behind us, while Susan pounded on his back, insisting that he speed up. I wasn't seeing anything, and I assured them that we were safe and that it would be advisable to slow down and proceed with caution. I wanted us out of those woods in one piece. An accident would have been a big problem. We arrived at my house and a spirited discussion began. As soon as Larry shut off the engine. We
hurried inside to warm up and sort out the facts. Larry and Susan had questions. I had no believable answers. I explained the details of my previous encounter, and our conclusion was that there was a werewolf in the woods near our homes. If it wasn't a werewolf, I don't know what to call this thing. Susan assured us that she would never try ride again. Larry retrieved his ATV the next day while accompanied by five other well armed men, and immediately put it up for sale. I still own my ATV, but
rarely use it, and only in the daylight. In all the years I have been riding trails, I have never seen, or for that matter, heard of, such an animal. I don't know if I'm glad I saw it, or if I would prefer to have remained blissfully ignorant of its presence. I do know my feelings about outdoor activities have changed. I know I'll never camp out on that mountain again. I know I'll never walk in the woods unarmed again. The thought of that thing is always with me now.
I'm like a five year old when the sun goes down. I even get the creeps when a window shade is open after dark. I often wonder if others have seen it. I've heard nothing about it. If they have, then again they may be doing what I did, keeping their mouth shut for fear of ridicule. I feel that I should warn anyone going into the woods of what I saw. But I've only told a few people, and they're
still making fun of me. I shouldn't care if they laugh. I should tell everyone, because I'm going to feel responsible if someone is hurt or killed by this thing. The thought of organizing a hunt to eliminate this terrifying threat has crossed my mind, but I'm not that brave. An undeniable truth that can be drawn from this story is just because you've never seen it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Stay out of the woods after sunset. It's very
unlikely that there's only one of these things. It most likely has relatives. As long as I can remember, I've been a hunting fanatic. I've spent many days in the field with my buddies in pursuit of the wild and wooly beasts, mostly deer and elk, can occasionally bear. In the rocky mountains of Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, my friends and I would spend many fall nights and we would sit around a crackling fire in the high
valleys of the mountains, weaving tales of hunts gone by. Each story told would seem to top the one previously recited. Some were new adventures, while others were old ones revisited every year, but with new, slightly enhanced details. As the night passed and the stories progressed, they inevitably morphed into tales of mysterious and unknown, like ghosts, goblins, and bigfoot. None of
us had actually seen a ghost, a goblin, or a bigfoot. In fact, none of us had ever even heard of anyone in countering any of them, especially a Bigfoot anywhere near the areas where we hunted. But for some unknown reason, each of us had experienced strange happenings that we were sure could be directly attributed to Bigfoot. I don't know how we knew they were connected to Bigfoot. Nevertheless, we were darn sure, convincingly so when telling
our tales of intrigue that Bigfoot was the culprit. I guess one could say that we were embellishing the truth slightly, maybe even a little more than slightly. But it was all in fun, and everyone had a great time trying to outdo everyone else. Due to the convincing manner by which some could relate their stories, the lines between truth and fiction often blurred in the minds of
the recipients, making it difficult to decipher between the two. This resulted in doubt and sometimes confusion in each of our minds about what really lurked in the shadows of the forests. We hunted one particular warm autumn day, when the air was clean, fresh and filled with the fragrance of sage, and the sky was clear blue, and the golden aspen leaves shimmered as a slight breeze
blue and rattled them around. I leaned against the stout but thin, chalky white aspen tree trunk, intently scanning the grove for movement, hoping to spot a sly old moss back buck, as my hunting buddies pushed from the opposite direction. Just when boredom and daydreams started to creep into my mind, Larry, my hunting buddy, came thundering down the hill from right to left.
His pants were partially down, one hand holding them up and the other hanging onto a roll of toilet paper that unraveled as he passed, trailing behind an apparent white flag of surrender. Si squatch, he screamed. Larry was the kind of young that fancied himself a tall, tough cigar smoking beer, drinking four by four driving lumberjack of a man that could fell a tree with one
swing of his axe. I started to laugh at the sight of such a man, nearly streaking past as he half mooned a mother nature, while I wondered what had rattled him At that exact moment. However, a heart stopping roar erupted from just over the ridge top twenty yards to my right and slightly behind me. I jolted to attention, darn near snapping my neck while trying to orient my head to see what could have made the startling noise, all
the while trying not to move my body and reveal my stealthy position. In hindsight, I suppose Larry, having just blown by me with all the stealth of a fire truck on its way to a fore alarm fire, probably negated that need. That roar was nothing like anything I'd heard in the forest before, and it scared the crap out of me. The top of a young aspen tree about seven feet tall, rooted just on the other side of the ridge, top shook like it had been hit by a truck. A deep
moan followed in a second roar or agonizing growl erupted. Holy smokes, what the heck is that? I thought, as I turned to face the unidentified creature. Another sapling, a six or seven foot or just over the ridge for me, rocked and fell like it had been run over by a bulldozer. Whatever the heck this thing was, it was big and powerful, and from the sound of it, it was upset. My mind raced, trying
to categorize the sound into something familiar, but nothing fit. Needless to say, by this time, I was more than a little concerned for my safety, as my only defense was a fifty pound recurved bow, not ideal for toe to toe in your face confrontation with what was Larry screaming? A sisquatch? But there weren't any sasquatch in this area of the country, I reasoned,
was sasquatch even real? By this time, the unidentified creature had just crested the top of the ridge twenty yards from me, but I still could not see it through the younger tree growth. Do I run or stand my ground? I asked myself. My curiosity wrestled with my common sense, and I couldn't quite decide until I knew what was confronting me. I crouched and stretched, peering and peeking through the trees, just catching glimpses, trying to get a better look at what was coming at me. A moan and a
growl and a roar in sequence. One part of me screamed run, The other part said, find out what this is and then run. Another tree bent over and then snapped back into place. It was like in all the stories you hear around the campfire aint. It looked huge, It was black, It was covered in fur, and on all fours. There was still not enough visible yet to make any kind of identification. By this time, I had no time to run this thing, This big, black, hairy
thing was almost on top of me. I had dilly dally too long, and all I could do was thump it with an arrow. As soon as I could get confirmation of identification and a clear shot corridor, I drew my bow and I took a deep breath, and I let it out halfway. Tunnel vision was in full effect, and I could only see what I was looking directly at in front of me. A circus elephant could have walked right up beside me and even sat on me. I wouldn't have noticed it until
I was as flat as a pancake. Sweat was rolling down my brow and stinging my eyes. My arms were shaking with fatigue. With my bow at full draw, the seconds turned into hours. I needed to release my draw, rest my arm for a moment and wipe the sweat from my eyes, and quickly I did so, and just as I again drew my bow, the creature emerged through the thick underbrush into full view. I expected to see a siequatch, and for just a second I did, but my mind was
playing tricks on me. It was not a sasquatch or a bear. It was a huge, one thousand pound bull, as in bovine bull. I released the tension on my bow slowly, and I took a deep breath. The bull walked painfully past me, moaning and groaning and growling as he took each step. His wide horns would push saplings down as he passed by, and they would either break off or snap back into place. I looked for the source of his pain, and I quickly discovered its call. The bulls
testicles were inflamed and swollen to the size of a small watermelon. Every time he took a step forward, his rear leg would contact the inflamed portion of his male anatomy and make him grown and roar with pain. The roar he made did not in any way sound like a bovine, at least none that I had ever heard. Of course, I was no expert on the sounds such an animal made when in extreme pain. He was such a massive bull that he had a very deep, raspy, grown and roar that sounded like
nothing else I had ever heard. His hair was long, shaggy, and tangled with sticks and tree leaves and mud. He looked old and fatigued and almost lost. He could have been blind. I was relieved it wasn't a sasquatch and that I wasn't going to be torn limb from limb. I began to laugh and almost cry at the same time. When I emerged from the tree line, I met a rancher in an old Rundown GMC pickup truck making his way up the dusty dirt road. He was looking for his bull.
He had not seen it for a while and was concerned that it had been taken by predators or had died of old age. I told him if he just waited a few minutes right where we were, and if it didn't deviate from its downhill course, they would be reunited. Shortly. The rancher was relieved to hear his bull was still alive and close. He used the CBE radio to call his sons in another truck to come and get the distressed animal. That night, back at camp, Larry took a brutal onslaught of jeers
and laughters as I recited the encounter. This ended up being one of those stories told around the campfire every year. Larry didn't laugh about it the first few years, but eventually he found the humor in it and laughed right along with the rest of us up the Sasquatch that wasn't m