My grandfather worked for the Forestry Service all his life. He and my grandmother lived on the edge of the Sam Houston National Forest in East Texas. I grew up in Dallas, but often spent summers with them when I was younger. My grandfather knew the name and benefits of every tree, flower, plant, and critter in the forest. He could read the soul and tell exactly what it was made of and how long it had been there. He knew what the weather was going to be like days
in advance, and could identify birds by their calls. I was certain he knew almost as much as God did about all those woods, and to my reckoning, my pap Paul was better than Sanna, the easter Bunny, and the tooth Fairy all rolled up into one. He was my hero then and he still is today. The summer and I turned ten began like many had before it. My mother drove me from Dallas to Trinity, Texas. After school was out. I had two suitcases stuffed with nothing but
t shirts, shorts, and flip flops. I decided that since I was practically an adult, I should be able to go to work with my grandfather in the woods instead of staying inside with my grandmother all day. I nagged her relentlessly until one day she finally agreed to let me go to work with my grandfather. She packed us both a lunch and issued several dire warnings from my grandfather about what would happen to him if he brought me back with even a single scratch. He listened to
her and promised to return me in one piece. As we walked to the door, he winked at me and whispered that sometimes she did enough talking for three women. My grandmother hollered. I heard that, and we both ran laughing to the truck before she could come after us with her spoon. As we drove off towards the woods, I asked him all sorts of questions about the types of trees we were passing, what types of clouds those were up in the sky, and anything else that came
to my curious mind. He listened to and answered all of my questions, even though I'm sure I must have tried his patience with my chattering. By the time we reached the point where we would have to walk, it was later in the morning, so we decided to take our lunches with us and have a picnic. When we found a good spot. My grandfather walked ahead of me in the overgrown path, pointing out things of interest along the way. Suddenly he stopped and turned to me as
he brought one finger to his lips. Well excitement rose in my chest because I knew from past experience this meant he had something he wanted me to see. It was usually some type of animal or an insect. On previous trips into the wood woods, I had seen deer and raccoons, rabbits, possums, snakes, a bobcat, turkeys, and even a sounder of feral hogs. He crouched low in the long grass and pointed down the embankment, through an open space in the brush, to a pond below. He was
pointing at a figure hunched over by the water. At first I thought he was looking at a hobo washing something, but when my grandfather handed me the binoculars, I saw that it looked more like a bear or a gorilla. It had shiny black fur that glittered in the sun. Its arms were fur covered too. I could see a white patch of fur on its left shoulder that looked like a scar, and I stared at the creature. Searching my mind for something I could connect it to something
I recognized, but I couldn't make it fit. Lowering the binoculars, I looked at my grandfather for an answer, and he mentioned that we should quietly go back to the truck. We had walked quickly for a quarter of a mile when he asked if I might like a hamburger for lunch instead of the food my grandmother had prepared. He
didn't have to ask twice. I agreed immediately. My Pappaul took our paper sack lunches and left them on the side of the path, and then he let out a long whistle that sounded a little like a bob white quail call, mixed with a little warble at the end. A few seconds later, the sound was returned from where we had just been, and my Papa smiled and turned and began walking back to the truck. I thought him silently, knowing he would explain everything eventually. Later, as we enjoyed
our burgers, he told me what we had seen. He said, what we saw today is something that not many people have had a chance to see. Those animals live in the forest and have probably been here much longer than people have. We share this world with them, the same way we share the earth with all of God's creatures. Well, I ask what are they called? Well, some people call them boogers, he said, boogers? What's a booger? Why didn't
that try to kill us? I don't think it would hurt us unless it was scared or in pain, or trying to protect its babies. It's always best to leave them be, he said, and we sat for a while in silence. Papa, I asked, well, what is it? June Bug? That was his nickname for me, and I loved it. How come you never told me about the boogers before? Well? Now, sometimes the things you know are see are like secrets. If you keep them to yourself, then it's more special
than if you were to go and tell everyone. People don't always like learning new things. Sometimes they can get scared or mad if they don't understand something. Do you understand what I mean? Yeah, Papa, I think so. I think this is going to be our secret, just you and me and the booger. He laughed and put his big work callust hand on top of my head, messing my hair up. I think so too, June bug, he said,
still laughing. During the rest of that summer, we often heard those same bird calls on our walks, and when we did, my Papa always left our lunches on the side of whatever path we were on, and he whistled back. I was grateful to the booger because it meant that we would be having burgers for lunch that day. He said it was his way of making friends. He said, you should never pass up a chance to share a little good will, because it will always bring you blessings
in return. My grandfather was a wise man. Years later, after both of my grandparents had passed away, I returned to those same woods. I hadn't been back there in a very long time, but it was largely unchanged from what I remember. I still knew the names of the plants and the trees and animals and insects my grandfather had taught me, and soon I was lost in the happy memories of our summer walks. Ironically, I had brought a lunch that was very similar to the ones my
grandmother had packed so long ago. I had a thermos of cool sweet tea, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, and some fig newtons for dessert. I had inherited my grandfather's love of those cookies. I found a nice shady spot and was about to sit down to enjoy my food when I heard what sounded like a Bob White call, with a little warble at the end. I immediately froze and felt my heart skip a beat.
I was confused by my reaction at first, but then the memory of that day so long ago came rushing back. I could almost feel the presence of my grandfather in those moments. Without any hesitation, I returned and the call. I left my lunch on the ground and began to walk back to my car. After what I thought was about fifty yards, I turned to look back. The booker was there in the middle of the path with my
sack lunch in its huge hand. I guess that he must have been about eight to ten feet tall, but he was stooped over a little bit, like an elderly man. He had hairy arms, and his head seemed almost too small for his shoulders and massive chest. His eyes were the color of honey but were cloudy with age. He had a broad, flat nose and lips that were very human looking. The skin on his face was wrinkled and looked like sun bleached leather. His eyebrows and the hair
around his mouth were gray, like an old dog. I saw him move to the side, as if he were trying to see behind me. Maybe he was looking for my grandfather. Maybe this was the same booger we had seen that day. I wasn't afraid. We looked at each other for a few seconds. I saw him open the bag and carefully remove the sleeve of fig newtons inside. He removed the plastic and began to eat them slowly. I swear I saw his lips curve into something like a smile. As he turned and started to walk back
into the woods. I saw he had a white patch of fur on his left shoulder. I returned several days later to leave some more fig newtons for the booger in the spot where I had left my lunch the previous time. I saw something glittering on the crook of an old oak tree. When I got closer, I saw that it was a beautiful crystal quartz stone that had been polished to a high shine. When I held it in my hand, it felt heavy and warm, as if it carried the memory of thousands of days in the sun.
It was a gift from the bugger. I whistled like a Bob white Well and added a little extra warble at the end, and then I waited, hoping for a response, and I was not disappointed. It's true what my pau Paul said about secrets being more special when they are kept. I've kept our secret for over fifty years until today. I think he would approve of my sharing it with you now. Until August of twenty twenty, I had really never paid attention to Bigfoot or necessarily bought into the
fact that it's real. I've always liked the totem poles and the occasional tales, and of course the jerky commercials. Although I was never a non believer, I hadn't really given the subject much thought. That all changed last summer. I didn't have a sighting, but the event and circumstances are hard to make sense of without going down the Bigfoot path. Owned five acres and a getaway cabin on the sky Comish River. I'm sure I pronounced that wrong.
Sky Commish River off Highway to just outside of gold Bar, Washington. It is a beautiful parcel of peace and quiet that's about forty five minute dry from the sprawling suburbs of Seattle. Last summer, my girlfriend and I were relaxing by the campfire next to the river bed just as dusk set in. We were watching the spawning salmon slap at the eddy
on the other side of the river. It's a perfect holding point for the salmon and steelhead, as a huge spawning flat is the next thing waiting for them up the river from this pool. We were sitting there enjoying the evening when we heard a loud crack like a tree limb breaking about one hundred yards down stream and across the river. We didn't pay much attention to it. Occasionally a tree fall isn't that uncommon some of Only ten minutes later we heard another limb or a small
tree break that was odd but not especially concerning. Somewhere around fifteen minutes after that, we heard a couple of heavy splashes in the Eddy that was distinctly different sounding than the fish jumping. These were rocks. They were big ones. I've been a competitive fisherman and outdoorsman my whole life, and I know the difference between a fish jumping and slapping the water and a heavy rock splash. A big enough rock will hit the bottom of the river bed,
making a distinctive sound, and fish don't do that. They live to tell about it. The sounds were intermittent, and directly across the river from where we were sitting. We'd hear fish slaut, and then a heavy rock or two plunge in right on top of the school of salmon. Our gaze was now fixed on that spot. We were
asking ourselves what the heck was going on. Suddenly we saw a rock that was at least as big as a grapefruit, but probably more like a bowling ball, fly out of the trees and hit where the fish were jumping. We first thought, who would be over there heaving small boulders at salmon just before dark? And then it occurred to me to wonder how they would have gotten there. I could see half a mile up and down the river. If anyone had crossed, I would have seen them, even
if I'd missed them. The terrain is next to impossible to stand in, let alone walk through for that distance. That side of the river is extremely steep, nor is there any reasonable access from behind. There's just miles and miles of mountains, evergreens and undergrowth. As this continued, my curiosity got the better of me, so I walked out across the dry portion of the river bed to see what was up. You got your gun, my girlfriend asked nervously. Well,
of course I did. I'm never without it these days. It's about one hundred yards to the edge of the river bed from my property during the summer, and about another twenty yards across the river to where the rocks were flying. I got there and fixed my eyes on a spot where the rocks were being catapulted. Everything ceased, even the birds went quiet, total silence. There was only the sound of running water. Well. I stood there for a good twenty minutes or more. Nothing happened other than
the occasional salmon jumping. I walked up and down the river bank, changing my levels and vantage point to see if I could get a glimpse of what or who was doing this. I never saw anything. After ten minutes or so, I turned and walked back to the campfire. My girlfriend and I were dumbfounded. We thought it was weird and somewhat freaky, but we couldn't figure out what had thrown the rocks. A few minutes later it started again. The rocks weren't massive, but they weren't small all baseball
sized rocks either. I estimated them to be the size of grapefruits and bowling balls, and they were being thrown with velocity. I started thinking, how could anybody be that strong? Earlier that year, I had been on the bank of the river with my two sons. They're nineteen and twenty one, and we were throwing big rocks, a sort of a macho man competition. None of us could heave rocks like that.
My sons are six foot five and six foot eight, the latter being a four A All Conference defensive end and a four A All Conference offensive lineman with Division Ie offers. Yes, he played both sides of the ball and never took a playoff. He's been referred to as a gorilla in a man suit. I tell you this because even he could not throw rocks as big as bowling balls. The rock throwing went on for a few more minutes, and then it stopped, just like that, went
back to nothing but salmon slapping the pool. I spoke with a couple of different people in the area about it, and someone suggested that it was a tweaker over there doing what tweakers do. That sounded plausible, so I just went with it, even though my instincts told me otherwise. Of the countless days and hours we've spent there over the last few years, we've seen only one questionable person on the riverbed. They were on our side and acting
as if they might be high. To get to the other side, then maneuver to the spot where the incident occurred would take a superhuman feet, and then to get back in the dark, there's a slim chance of survival doing that. And the following days it really began to sink in just how much strength would be required to do what we saw that night. That's when I began to think, could this be Bigfoot? Thus my journey into research began. Several things jumped out at me while studying
the subject. River slash, creek beds, salmon dusk, tree brakes, and rocks thrown with velocity. These were all tail tail signs of bigfoot. I now realize how easily things can be rationalized and explained away, even when you know better. That sixth sense told me that it wasn't a tweaker, Even though I was first willing to accept that explanation. I know now that it wasn't. This was not Captain Tweaker America. So what could a bigfoot have been doing
trying to bonk salmon on the head with rocks? And how could he get them? If he did? A short way down river it flattens and widens to an area of thirty yards wide and only about two feet deep. Could he have had help down stream? Waiting for the fish to float by the current certainly lends itself to
that they are intelligent creatures? Are they not. Finally, earlier in the summer, on two separate occasions, I checked the trail cams I've set up around my property for security and captured a strange and very distinctive orb of light the size of a softball. These orbs could not have been lens flair because the sun was behind the camera at the time. I never gave it much thought until I discovered that it is an occurrence possibly related to Bigfoot.
It may be nothing, or it may be something. Also, on one of the bigfoot Facebook pages I belonged to, someone from the town of Skykamish, which is several miles up river from my property, posted pictures of possible footprints. When I asked them when the photos were taken, they answered last August. It was the exact same time of our incident. I have a theory on the tree breaks that we heard. Perhaps they are a warning to other
predators that they're coming to a food source. It could make sense, and that it would be beneficial to warn other predators such as bears, that they're coming. Even though a black bear may be no match for a bigfoot. In nature, it is better to avoid any fight to risk injury. I look into the woods now with a different wonder than I had before. I know my story isn't exciting as many that you come across, but this is exactly what happened to me. Thank you for taking
time to read it. Signed John Well John, this story was very exciting, man, What are you kidding me? And you've really thought this through and I would tend to agree with every conclusion you come to. I say on this channel a lot of times that I'm a skeptic and I question some of these things. I question just the whole theory of Bigfoot, but I believe Bigfoot exists. I really don't. I don't know why. I don't know
unless you're like a total zealot for this topic. Some people think you're you're a non believer and they kind of brush you off, and you know, don't you appreciate your audience. I don't know where people get all that stuff. I'm just reading the stories lighting up. I mean, we just had another story earlier in this podcast of huge rocks being thrown in a creek where a man and his son's were on a hike. Now here's the same thing,
that the rocks are not as big. What's fascinating to me is that you put together, Uh, he's throwing the rocks in the middle of a school of salmon or where they're congregated in a pool while the water's low and there's still a current. There's you know, the water's still moving, and could there be another one downstream collecting fish that he hit as they as they float down the strap And that's a brilliant way to think about that. I would have never come up with that. But all
in all, this was an awesome story. It's very exciting and I love these stories, these anecdotal kind of evidence, especially when the writer does a lot of thinking and critical thinking and puts these things together, and now he walks into the woods with a wonder he had never had before. Did you guys hear that? And that's what the woods. Being a part of this story reading project and learning about everybody's experiences, how I look at the woods in a different way. Now. I'm not afraid of them.
I don't ever carry a weapon unless I'm hunting, which I don't really hunt much anymore. But I'm not really afraid of anything out there. I just have a great time in the woods, my dogs and I and I don't live in the Pacific Northwest. I live in the southeastern United States, which is you know, we just don't have predators down here. Just car dogs or coyotes don't get after you. There's nothing here that will really, you know, big predators. And there's snakes, and you know, there's I
don't even think there's any spiders. I ride through spider's nest every morning. I'm covered with spiders. When I get back to the house, my wife has to brush them all off of me. And some of them will bite you.
I mean, they buy it, but they're not venomous. But there's really no big predators here, but I do when I go on rides and I, you know, we've been riding four wheelers on different trails and stuff and going deep into the Holly Springs National Forest and I look through the woods and I'm like this, man, I have a new sense of wonder after doing this for three years. And it's a good feeling. It's a it makes me feel like a kid again going through some of these
woods and having those feelings. And so that's one benefit to doing this. It's kind of it's kind of changed the way I look at things and made things a lot more fun for me when I'm away from this microphone. But listen, I really appreciate you guys listening to this few And hopefully this week work will slow up a little bit and I can get a couple out. But I appreciate you listening, and we'll see you on the next podcast. Thank you.