Archive 110 Dogman and Bigfoot

and for washing. Sometime around the summer of nineteen fifty there was a drought, which in North Alabama means it didn't rain for two weeks and that creek almost dried up. They had to install a hand pump on the spring to get enough water to keep the farm going. Everybody and everything was hot, drumpy, and thirsty that summer. It was an area where electric lights were still considered a

modern convenience and air conditioning was unheard of. With no breeze, the world baked on under a hot, still glaze of sweat and dust. To alleviate some of their misery, they'd eat dinner early and then go out and sit on the front porch to give the house time to cool off. Before bed, they drag a big oscillating floor fan up to the screen door and sit and talk while doing the sort of light chores that could be accomplished while

sitting in a rocking chair. Socks and clothes were mended, and peas were shelled until the sun went down, and then it was time for bed. That's when the screaming started. Somewhere in the woods across the creek. Something was screaming like a woman who was being strangled. Those were interspersed with long, mournful howls loud enough to hurt your ear drums.

In the gloom of the dusk, they could vaguely see the trees shaking in the distance and hear something stomping on what sounded like two feet through the thick growth around the spring, but they never saw an anni. As soon as the racket would start, the farm animals would stampede to the other end of the pasture as far from the spring as they could get. They wanted nothing to do with whatever was over there making that noise. Our neighbor owns six big hounds trained to hunt raccoons.

Raccoon hounds can be mean, and these dogs were vicious animals that weren't afraid of anything. They tore off across the creek to hunt down and kill whatever was making the noise and shaking the trees. Six dogs went, but only four came back. Of those four, one had its back ripped open so badly they had to put it out of its misery. That was when the men knew that they had to act. My grandfather, my two oldest uncles, the neighbor, and his sons loaded their shotguns and rifles

and went to see what this thing was. They found the two dead dogs ripped into pieces and thrown up into the tree, but they didn't find what killed them. The next night, the screaming returned with a vengeance. The dogs were put on chains and the children were kept inside. It screamed until after midnight, while everyone stayed in their homes and hoped that whatever it was would eventually go back to where it came from. The men didn't want

to see if it was going to return. The following night, they were already in the woods with their guns loaded for bore and waiting for it. That night, they stalked that thing and hunting it down, and they killed it and buried it somewhere in the woods. Everyone in that hunting party is dead now. When I was a child, I asked, but none of them ever told me what they killed that night. It is conceivable that it was

a panther. Panthers, or so i've read, can sound like a woman screaming, and since panthers or a protected species, shooting one would have been illegal, they would have had a good reason to shoot it. Shovel and shut up about it. But do panthers shake trees when they walked? Do they sound like someone stomping around on two legs? Do they throw bodies of dogs into the trees? Honestly, have no idea what those men killed that night, and now that they're all gone, we'll probably never know.

and was sliding into the seat next to her. Even as she was saying, get in, mister tailed from her rear tires. As the creature hit the road, a long, ear shattering screech echoed through the cars. The thing's claws left four deep trails down the back quarter panel. It's following us, she said, looking in a rear view mirror. Reaching down, she pulled an air horn from under her seat, rolled down her window, stuck it out, and squeezed the trigger. Ah.

The jogger moaned at the sound. Sorry, she muttered, it's just that they hate loud noises. Taking advantage of her captive audience and the fact that he had to be a believer, she went on, I suggest, if you plan on continuing to jog, you get yourself one of these and take it with you. And get a flashlight too. It has to be a bright one, at least fifteen hundred lumens. They hate bright light as much as they hate loud noises. Using them could give you the chance

you need to get away. She checked the rear view mirror again. Inside it looks like he's gone, she said, reassuringly. Another thing, though, she thought to add, they can disguise themselves as humans. She didn't bother to look at her passenger when she said that, she knew she sounded crazy, but when he said nothing, she continued, Look as crazy as that sounds, these things are smart. I've seen them

dressed in human clothing before. Sometimes if you don't look directly at them, or if you only get a glimpse, they actually look like people. I swear you could walk right past one on the street, and maybe only for a minute or two, they look completely human. As she spoke, she saw it out of the corner of her eye. It was too late, but she flinched anyway as the long hair covered arm reached across her face, grabbed her head by the other side, and quickly snapped her neck.

The car careened out of control, spun rolled, landed on its side, and slid for several yards along the ditch before coming to rest on its roof. The creature in jogger's apparel quickly kicked out the front windshield, and, dragging the body behind it, ran into the field where the

other one was waiting somewhere off in the woods. They had their meal, reveling and a feeling of intense satisfaction at the knowledge that this woman would never sound one of those horns or shine one of her flashlights at them again. Yeah. You can laugh at my story if you want. But I've been a deputy in this county for thirty years, and all the craziest calls I ever took were at that woman's house in the last five. She wasn't from around here. She was one of those

city people looking for an escape. Thought she'd found it too, Just her and her dogs, a lazy old fat cat that spent all its time sitting in her front living room window, and a dozen or so chickens. But things started happening, and I started getting called out there pretty regular. The last time I was there, she told me she'd figured out how to keep them away. And when we found her car out there in the gravel road, the airhorn was lying in the ditch by it, and her

flashlight was still sitting between the seats. Her front window was broken out. We never did find the body, but the drag mark's clearly indicated someone or something had taken her. So this is what I think happened. Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe I'm right. The wife and I put a bit on her farmhouse just the other day. It's prime property and worth a lot more than it's being sold for. I couldn't pass up the opportunity. That's why I'm on my way to the store right now to get myself

an airhorn in a good bright flashlight. Fifteen hundred lumens are better, I think she told me.

be behind the scenes. I know, but I wanted you to tell everybody how nice they were and how much I appreciated them coming to talk to me and my wife. April says thank you to everyone that visited our booth and was so nice to her. She was the little, short, gray headed girl in the middle between Naoma and Nance. If you guys didn't know who she was, I think a lot of people thought she was Nioma, and a lot of people thought Naoma was my wife, and a

lot of people thought Nance was my wife. But no, it was the girl in the middle with the black T shirt on and the totally gray hair, which I absolutely love. Heck, I'm just glad that woman likes me. I'm a lucky man. Okay, let's get into this story. This person wants to be anonymous. Here's what they write. My first encounter with what I respectfully call the old Ones occurred in nineteen eighty one, when I was sixteen

years old. I've always loved driving onto our farm and parking the truck and taking long hikes through the woods. On this occasion, I came to a wide intersection of two of our farm roads. I turned on to the left fork to get a drink from the spring thirty yards down the path. As I headed down to the ford, I noticed footprints. My first thought was, now, who in the thundered nation is down here barefoot? And then I

realized two things. First was the size I've worn the same size eleven and a half shoes since I was twelve years old. These prints were half again as big, easily eighteen or twenty. The second was the gate from the heel of one print to the toe of the opposite print was nearly six feet. I followed them down to the water and stopped. They continued in the same unbroken gate up the opposite side, and disappeared where the road leveled off again. I got my water and then

debated whether or not to follow. My better judgment said no, and I returned to my trek back to the truck. In the ensuing years, there have been several incidents, particularly when walking out on an afternoon of deer hunting at what we call good dark. Several times, when leaving my stand, I knew I was being followed. Whatever it was, it stayed far enough away to be disguised by the dusk,

but close enough to be felt. I detected no hostility towards me, just as presence and an overwhelming sense of you've had your fun and now it's time to leave. In January of twenty and thirteen, I was forty eight years old, married and we had kids, and I was living and working eighty miles from my hometown. I had been to visit my mother and was driving back home

as the daylight was just beginning to fade. As I rounded a curve, I saw about one hundred yards in front of me a massive dark object crouched in the road, right on the double yellow line. It moved to my right about thirty feet in three steps, and was against a brush line, trying to blend in. I watched it in amazement. It was approximately nine feet tall, with at least four foot shoulder span. It was covered in dark hair, and I estimated it to weigh around nine hundred pounds.

Its face was very much like a gorilla. It was dark and leathery, with a broad, flat nose. Its eyes were the most intense yellow green I've ever seen, and were space six inches apart. As I approached him, he threw his left arm across his chest, as if to instinctively ward off a blow. I suppose he believed I was about to hit him. I rounded the curve and kept going, passing within thirty feet of him. By the spring of twenty sixteen, we have moved back to our hometown,

and the kids were all familiar with my encounter. One Saturday afternoon in April or May, my youngest son came to the house, ashing and shaking all over. I saw it, Dad, I really saw it, he exclaimed. I asked him what he had seen, and with eyes wide and full of wonder, he said, I saw the bigfoot. I asked him to show me where, and so we went into the backyard and he showed me the tree the creature had peered around.

We estimated it to be around nine feet tall. We also found and took pictures of several very large footprints. Since then, my son has seen what he calls Rocky several times in the backyard. In February of last year, twenty twenty, my friend Mike and I were in my backyard and found tracks. They came across the face of the tree line, stopped, and then faced to my house. They then turned and went into the bushes. After Mike left, I went inside and told my son and daughter about

seeing the tracks, without the least prompting. My son smiled and said, yeah, I saw Rocky yesterday. I was playing in the sideyard and bent over to pick up a stick, and as I stood up, there were two fur covered tree trunks in front of me. When I straightened up, there was Rocky facing me twenty feet away. He chuffed at me and stepped into the bushes. Well. I was amazed I had gotten into my story only far enough to say Mike and I found tracks. He had described

what we had seen to the last detail. Mike and I have been chuffed at several times on the farm. In March, we had a visual of what I believed to be a mated couple on the shoreline of a large pond. Within a few yards of where they were standing, we found two bedding sites where they had slept. A few weeks later we had another sighting of the same pair about a quarter mile away, standing in a tree line watching us. It's now mid June and I must

admit i'd like to see them again. I'd like to see them soon.