While I was in elementary school, my family lived in Lancaster, California, in the Mahave Desert. I loved that desert and spent a lot of time on my own, exploring and riding horses there all by myself. In the summer of nineteen sixty seven, once I finished sixth grade, we moved north to Bishop, California, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. This is where my father grew up. He had family who lived in nearby Lone Pine, and
they still did. Dad made the decision to move as a result of a deal with his partner, wherein they split the business geographically and Dad took over the northern half. In Lancaster, we spent a lot of time outdoors in the desert, and this didn't change when we moved to Bishop. It was an absolutely gorgeous place to live, and my love of nature grew as I was afforded the same
freedom to roam and explore with my horse. As a family, we often traveled via our Willis jeep to remote spots where Dad taught us all about camping and how to fish and shoot rifles. One weekend, my mom and Dad me and four of my five siblings went on one of those camping trips to the mountains. Remote camping is exactly what it sounds like. There was no campground, no showers, and no playground for kids. It was just us in nature with no one else around for miles and miles.
We set up camp at the end of the long clearing that had a nice fire burning as night fell. I loved camping back then. There just wasn't anything like sitting around the fire with my family and taking in all the feelings and sounds of the great outdoors. Eventually I needed to answer nature's call, and I had it away from the firelight along one side of the clearing. Once I felt I was far enough away from the camp, I squatted down behind a bush to empty my bladder.
Our camp was to my right. As I stared straight across the clearing, suddenly I saw a large creature step out of the brush on the other side of the clearing about my one o'clock. It made no sound, as if it were trying to be quiet. I was immediately gripped with fear at the sight of something I had never seen before. I processed every possibility through my mind, but I could not identify it. I checked the bears off my list. This thing was big, but it wasn't
shape quite right. Plus it looked too natural walking on two legs. I decided it had to be some kind of ape, not a chimp, gorilla, or orangutan. It was six feet tall and had a coat of medium length hair that looked golden or rusty. The full moon in the glow of the campfire provided more than enough light to allow me to see it incredibly well. I was terrified, but I was also an awe and more than a
little curious. I sat perfectly still and made absolutely no sound as I watched it walk along the edge of the clearing away from the camp. Once it got to about my ten o'clock, it stepped back into the woodline and continued on its way. I held my position as I listened to its footfalls in the forest until I couldn't hear it anymore. Only then did I stand up,
pull up my jeans, and head back to camp. As a young girl trying to analyze and understand what I had just witnessed, the thought occurred to me that it might be a member of my family messing with me. But I could see everyone sitting around the fire at the opposite end of the clearing from where this thing had slipped back into the woods. It had to be a real animal. There was just no way someone could be wearing a costume. Nevertheless, I made up my mind
not to mention it to anyone, just in case. I figured if someone was messing with me, eventually they would be unable to resist saying something, so I kept my mouth shut and the subject never came up. That seemed to solidify my analysis that it had to be a real animal. My parents had been struggling with the business in their marriage as well. That next summer, they closed a business up north and sold our house in that
beautiful place. We moved back down below, as we called southern California, back then to Riverside near Los Angeles, where my dad got a new job. A few months later, my parents divorced nineteen seventy two, Mom remarried, and we moved to Texas. I never told a soul about my encounter for years. Initially I didn't want to cause it any additional stress on my parents, who were having their own problems at the time. And then life went on and I pushed it to the back of my mind.
Sometime in the nineteen nineties, I ended up sharing the entire experience with my husband. He is an open mind and trust me to be a person of integrity, and therefore he accepted my story as real. We've since spent a great deal of time analyzing my encounter, and he has had some excellent thoughts about it. First, since what I saw wasn't a giant of over seven feet tall like so many others have reported, he suggested that perhaps
it was an adolescent. He also thought that its young age might have predisposed it toward curiosity about the strange creatures that had entered the remote territory. Also, the young sisquatch might have become alarmed when I left the campsite and headed closer to his observation point. My husband thinks it remained close to the edge of the clearing to
reduce noise in the possibility of being seen. Finally, he posed the theory that the fact that it never made eye contact with me or even looked in my direction could be indicative of an animal behavior, and that they think if they can't see you, you can't see them. These thoughts all seemed feasible to me. I cannot describe the creature's facial features because I saw only the profile. I did not notice any bad odors, but I might
have been upwind. Nor did I hear any sounds other than when it exited the clearing back into the brush. Around two thousand and eight, I finally mentioned my experience to my two sisters. I don't recall any reaction from my younger sister, but my older sister responded by laughingly saying that I must have seen a bear. I mentioned this because I want others who have had been ridiculed that I know how it feels. My advice is to not worry worry about what others think. Trust yourself to
know what you saw. Well, it may seem incredible. I do know what I saw. I grew up to be a wife and a mother of three, a Girl Scout leader, a Sunday school teacher and a Little League team mom, a room mom at my kid's school, and a licensed, successful self employed realtor in Houston, Texas. Then I returned to university and became a registered nurse, and I retired after twenty five years. I'm sixty three years old now and enjoying my retirement in Costa Rica with my dear husband.
I'm not a believer in Sasquatch, i am an observer of Sasquatch. And then she signs off, peace and love, Celeste. It was a weekend of my wife's Baby Steps five K Memorial Run at Tannehill State Park in Alabama. A couple of our friends founded the run to raise money for the Amelia Center division of Children's Hospital of Birmingham. The Amelia Sinner helps grieving parents who have lost children cope with the loss and learn how to go on
with their lives. Abby and I, unfortunately know firsthand how consuming and unforgettable such a loss can be. We lost our twin boys, Brady and Brody, to pre term labor at five months. They weren't able to survive the delivery. This is hard to type and even think about, even thirteen years later, but God has blessed us with three handsome and fun loving boys. Bryant is eight years old we call him bub Bub. Barrett, who we call bear Bear, is three, and our two year old, whose real name
is Brandon, we call Bobby. In addition to our sons, my nephew Nick or Nick Nick has lived with us as our own son all his life. I know what you're thinking, why Bobby, Well, we thought it was because Bear Bear, who was one when Bobby was born, was trying to save baby when we realized he could save baby just fine, So we figured we just wanted his brother to be called Bobby, and we went with it. We always stay in an old time cabin at Tannehill for three or four days of the week of the
five k run, and this year was no different. We loved being in nature, and we especially love hiking, so naturally, after the run was over and Abby and the little ones were taking a nap, Nick, Bryant and I grabbed our walking sticks and we hit the trails. We had previously asked the rangers and the other park employees which trail would be the longest and least occupied. We'd been coming here the same month every year for the past eleven years, so we'd already been down roughly ninety percent
of the hiking trails. Everyone suggested the same trails we'd already won, except for the maintenance man. He said we should follow the creek that runs through most of the park, but to be careful because it connected to privately owned land that is nothing but acres and acres of woods. The no trespassing signs have all fallen over the years, but if we stayed with the creek, we would be okay.
We followed the maintenance man's instructions and had been walking the creek bank for a little over two hours, stopping to examine every bug, rock, and stick the boys found interesting. When we came to a fork in the trail, we stayed true to our course, but the creek trail soon ended. We weren't willing to call it a day yet, so we headed back to the fork and took the other
trail to see where it went. It led us uphill away from the water, and we hiked another forty five minutes when it brought us back down to what must have been the wildest, deepest section of the creek. It was a peaceful, serene southern landscape that made me want to sit down on the bank and watch the clouds as the setting sun turned the sky to evening hughes. We were relaxing while I was letting Bryant beat me at tic tac toe because I'm a dad and that's
what dads do. When Nick pointed out the fact that everything had gone silent. There were no bugs chirping or birds singing at all. Even the wind had gone silent, secretly reveling in Bryant's glee at each momentary lack of reason that would lead another victory for him. I glanced over at Nick and realized he was sitting there frozen in a shivering, frightened state. I jumped up and went over to him, with Bryant holding onto my belt loop.
As we approached, we all saw movement in the thick brush on the opposite side of the creek, and then it happened, to our surprise, a massive rock the size of two tree truck tires stacked together, came flying out of that brush at an impossibly high arc and then splashed down in the creek, sending water up in the air like a geyser, with ripples in every direction. I was stunned for a minute or so, but I managed to come around, and then I grabbed Brian and literally
had to shake Nick back to reality. Nick, you take the lead, I said, laying out our exit strategy. Bryan, stay in the middle and hold Nick's walking stick in one hand in mine in the other. I'll follow in the rear, and that'll keep us joined together and still give us room for fast walking. I had barely finished my instructions when a rain of small rocks came flying across the creek, some hitting the water, but most hitting the bank at our feet. We didn't wait another minute.
We took off, heading towards the main trail and back to our cabin. Once we made it out of the woods and safely back to cabin, we sat on the porch and pondered what had happened. Nick would not, actually could not talk about what he saw that had frightened him into a near catatonic state. Brian only saw the
rocks being thrown. I don't know what to think, but I can assure you I didn't see a catapult set up across the creek, nor any other mechanism that could throw a two hundred pound rock that high and that far. It made me think though about how far it could throw me. I am one hundred and seventy five pounds, so I know I could be thrown as far as the rock, and Brian is only about sixty five pounds. He'd land a mile away. It was eerie and weird,
and I replay it in my mind frequently. The scariest thing to me was the lack of sound from the woods. What would make birds, squirrels, deer, frogs, and even the breeze stop. I'd love to hear your thought and the thoughts of your other listeners. I still have trouble coming to a conclusion about the events of that day. It's like I know what it was, but my mind won't accept it. Oh and by the way, on our way out, we realize we'd strayed thirty minutes outside of the park's
borders into the neighboring woods. Well, Gary, first, let me say I'm really sorry that you and your wife lost your twin babies. That's heartbreaking. I've had some friends lose some kids and and there's no way for any of us who haven't to know how that feels. But all we can do is have some sort of non experience empathy for you. It just must be horrible, I mean, good grief. I just lost a dog about a month
ago and it just kills me every day. But moving on, What a great dad you are and mom, what great parents you are to take your kids on these trips and to organize that five k run. What a great way to give back and use your path to do something good with But taking your kids on hikes, man, that's a great idea. These boys must be rare to go all the time. And I don't really know what
to think about your experience. I mean, I cannot imagine anything that's natural in the woods that could throw a two hundred pound rock as big as two truck tires off of a bank and into the middle of a creek and blow water up in the air and then throw rocks at you and things like that. Yeah, I would have got out too, but I think if it was me, I would have trouble accepting it too. But you just have to realize that these things are probably there,
and they don't like us in their habitat. They've been pushed out of so much habitat already, although we still have millions and millions and millions of acres for these things to live. I mean, if you travel across the United States, we haven't encroached that much, at least with urban development. Maybe with the farming and the agriculture we've ruined, not really ruined, but we've transformed the land to suit us and to benefit us and to provide for us,
and that does push them out. But you know, there are so many sightings and so many experiences like this that apparently the population is doing okay, because based on the encounters, if you just took every story that I've done up to this date and you counted in, assuming every one of them is a separate entity or a separate being or Bigfoot, We've got hundreds and hundreds of these things in the United States and they're all over
the place. They're in Canada, Alaska, the continental United States. Haven't heard anything from Hawaii yet, but even internationally, we've got stories from Europe and different places, the Philippines and Indonesia and different Australia is a place where we get a lot of stories. And so, you know, I'm kind of contradicting what I say. I don't know that that encroachment on their habitat is that big a deal, because there seems to be a lot I'm around. But again
I'm just rambling saying whatever comes to my mind. But Carrie, I really appreciate the story, and again, best wishes to your family and I appreciate what you're doing. Thanks Carrie.