I was seventeen years old in nineteen sixty nine when my brother asked me if I'd like to join him on a three day hike up in the back country of Yosemite National Park. He had just come home from Vietnam. Even though I had camped out many times with my family, I had never been on a hike for that long before, so I said yes. The first day, we followed a steep path that dropped a thousand feet to the river.
It was about the end of April, which is early spring in the high country, and Yosemite is a big place. We didn't see anyone else throughout the entire trip as we traveled over hill and dale in the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains. The first night, we camped near a babbling stream. After lunch the next day, we walked through a sunny alpine meadow covered in light green, knee high spring grasses
and flowers. The meadow was situated in a valley surrounded by tall wooded hills, and it was a spectacular sight. And then we entered an aspen forest dappled with sunlight. There we noticed the faint smell of a skump. It was weak enough that We figured the skump must have left some time ago, so we kept on walking further into the grove, we came across a newly built windowless
ranger shed constructed of thick corrugated steel. All the necessary tools and equipment to repair trails in the back country were kept there so the forest rangers wouldn't have to haul them back and forth. We knew this because the front and one side were torn off, with the heavy metal corrugated panels scattered all over the nearby woods. We stood there gawking at it for several minutes, trying to
figure out how this could have happened. My brother said it must have been a big bear, freshly awake from its winter hibernation that did it. But on closer inspection, there were neither claw marks nor teeth marks on any of the eight foot long panels. Some of them were curled into themselves like a sea, and others were thrown up to thirty feet away. It was as if someone tall had peeled the sheets off like peeling a banana and tossed them aside. Nothing inside the shed was disturbed.
Whatever peeled away the panels had no interest in the contents The bears in California are mostly small brown bears like on our state flag. A doubt a bear like that could have reached high enough on the shed to grab the top of a panel and rip it away. It was unnerving to consider what might have been able to do that kind of damage. Let's get out of here and put a few miles between us and this place before we stopped for the night. My brother said,
I was more than happy to comply. Neither of us had ever heard the word sasquatch or bigfoot at the time. My brother was carrying a small hunting knife, but that was it. We had no guns and no bear spray. A small, steady breeze kicked up in the late afternoon
that stayed with us all night. When we got there, we were too tired from our long hike to build a fire, so we had supper of salami and cheese on bread with a sigh of fruit, and then we hung our food pack up in the tree and went to bed, and the wind gently swayed our tent for the whole night. The sun had not quite set behind the tall trees when we fell asleep. Sometime later, something woke me up. I had been dreaming that I was having a conversation with someone who reminded me of Little Abner.
I know I'm dating myself now, so I should explain that Little Abner was a comic strip character in the Sunday Comics when I was growing up. He was a big, dark haired man with muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm not entirely sure the person in my dream was human, or that it was even a dream. In any case, we talked for a short time, and then something completely woke me up. Instantly, I realized something heavy just outside the tent was hitting the ground next to my head, and
I could feel the vibration of the impacts. I laid there, frozen in fear as it, whatever it was, took a long inhaling sniff only twelve inches from my head. There was no doubt that it had taken in my scent right through the thin material of our pup tent. Too afraid to move, I listened intently to see if it would move to my brother's side of the tent and sniff there. Instead, he grabbed the tent pole by our
heads and started shaking violently. Wake up, Wake up, I screamed, and as soon as I began to speak, the shaking stopped, so my brother didn't see it. He accused me of having a nightmare induced by the sight of that shit, and told me to go back to sleep, and then he rolled over with his back to both me and the tent pole. Again, something grabbed the pole and shook it violently for three seconds. There's something outside shaking the tent, I said, It's just the wind. He answered angrily, Please
go back to sleep. My brother is more than just a brother. He and I are great friends. Never before nor since had he ever spoken so gruffly to me. That was as much a shock as the tent shaking. I was between a rock and a hard place, and I was sweating bullets from the fear of what was outside, and thoroughly crushed by my brother's reaction. Well, I laid there and fought back the panic and frustration, and listened for anything that might be moving around outside the tent.
The gentle breeze covered all the subtle noises, and finally, either from shock or exhaustion, I fell asleep. At daybreak. We got up. There were no signs of anything having been around the tent, so we took down the pack and had some water. We decided we walk a couple of miles of then stop and eat breakfast. My brother was like a mountain goat, and I had twisted my ankle on the first day, so I was constantly lagging
seventy five feet behind him. But as we walked along, I began to have a dialogue in my head, as if someone were interviewing me in a sort of a get acquainted, friendly talking manner. It was as if someone else was asking the questions and I was answering them. We were still in that high valley, so there were no trees on either side of our trail. Clearly there was no one around me, but the conversation continued in
my head for a mile or so. I felt a presence, so I kept glancing around to see if anyone was there, but no one was there, and still the questions kept popping into my head and I kept answering them, and then suddenly it stopped. It was as if the interview was over, and when it was over, I felt a little silly for having thought about myself and my life as if someone were there listening to me. It was a bright, sunlit day, but I was alone, Why would I go on and on about my life and my
family like that. I've only recently learned about mine to speak, and knew nothing of it at the time, and it was a very strange feeling. Well, at that point I decided to enjoy the walk, and eventually we were back at the Big Trees again. There we came across a log jam around a deep pool blocking our way. The trees were about three feet in diameter. My brother went around to the riot, where it was real swampy, and I chose to go to the left and jump from
log to log while keeping my feet as dry as possible. Well, one log turned out to be a bad choice. The far end was anchored on the bank, but the end closest to me was under the log that I had been standing on, and I soon learned it was just floating in the water, and as soon as I jumped down on it, it began to sink. The crystal clear pool was about eight to ten feet deep, and as
I jumped, I heard run in my mind. With a burst of speed, I made it to the other end of the twenty five foot log before it sank too deep and dumped me in the icy snow melt. It was the easiest run I had ever experienced. It felt like I was feather light, even with a pack. It was almost like someone was pushing me while lifting up the pack to take the weight off me. The log was sinking fast, but I seemed to be flying over it. I managed to get across with only one wet foot.
Even as I was running, though, I couldn't help but think, what is happening to me? At the other end, my brother was blanched white as he fumbled to get his pack off. He thought he was going to have to dive in and help me out. At seventeen, it hadn't occurred to me just how dangerous the route I had taken was, and that maneuver in particular was very dangerous. If I had fallen in with the backpack, the water absorbed by the sleeping bag alone could have been enough
to drag me under. This probably all sounds ridiculous to anyone listening, but it is how I remember it. Something weird happened on that log. There's no way anyone could have been behind me. No one was there but my brother. He was in front of me. Even if someone had been there, their weight would have caused the log to sink even more. The explanation I have come up with is absurd, to say the least. Many thoughts have run through my mind. Was an invisible, hovering sisquatch pushing me
along and holding up my backpack? Or was something helping a human to save a life. It's definitely one for the book of the Weird. Now I know I'm probably making a mountain out of a mole hill. I wouldn't blame you if you laughed at my story. I'm laughing right along with you. The only reason I think sisquatch is because of the destroyed ranger shed and the smell of the skunk just before we found it. And I suppose it could have been any benevolent spirit who saved me.
But something did. As unbelievable as it sounds, it is exactly what happened. Nothing else of any significance happened on that trip. We never spoke of it again, and I forgot all about it. In recent years, I've listened to a lot of bigfoot stories on YouTube. It wasn't until recently, though, when another person mentioned being sniffed through their tent, that all that came back to me. Having something large sniff you through a tent is incredibly unsettling. Perhaps that's what
caused me to repress the memory until now. I never saw a side squatch, nor do I know what the interviewing thing was. I'm just glad that whatever or whoever it was was there to save my life when I needed it on that log, God blessed them for that. Okay, here's a story about a dog, and you guys are going to have to decide whether this is a Bigfoot event or something else. But it's a great story. It's really a good, real mystery kind of story. This is a true story about my dog and our farm near
North Ogden, Utah. Crystal Blue is my dog's name, but everyone calls her Mama. She's a Blue Healer mix and in twenty nineteen, she was a year old. She loves to run all over the property and she roams the neighbor's property too. Around midnight on a cold night in February, I led her outside to do her business. It was snowy and a fresh blanket of snow covered the ground. After letting her walk outside, I walked back to my
room to get a cigarette. It was a few minutes before I got back to the porch and I lit up and finished my cigarette, and then I called for her. Typically, she comes back to me right away, but she didn't on this night, so I yelled louder. Still she didn't come. After several attempts, I became warmed. I rushed back inside and found my roommate and asked if he would help me to find my dog. I think he saw the worry in my expression. Well, he agreed, and we went
back outside and we called some more. She was gone. She never came back. Her tracks in the snow were obvious, so we began to follow them, and from the tracks, we saw that she left the porch and then made two circles around the yard and then headed for a fence that separated our property from our neighbors. The tracks finally turned and it appeared that she had gone under the fence. From there were three tracks and then nothing but pristine's snow. This area is open, with no trees,
shrubbery or buildings close by. It was as if she vanished into thin air, and to us it looked impossible. Neither of us could wrap our head around this. But here we were looking at it By this time, I was beginning to panic and on the verge of losing it. My roommate calmed to me a bit and said that we would keep looking. And we spent an hour searching
everything and everywhere on our property and the neighbors. There was no sign of the dog anywhere, not a sound, not a track, zero evidence that she went anywhere after the tracks ended under the fence. I wanted to keep looking, so we split up and we searched everything again. This took about an hour. It was still snowing, I was bawling uncontrollably, and we were soaked and freezing. We needed to get warm, but I wouldn't give up, so we split up again to cover the same ground a third time.
Stumbling now in the snow, I started for the front end of the property while my roommate went the other way, and I suppose I walked less than a football field when some my dog was right in front of me. She acted like she had not seen me in a month, and I immediately scooped her up in my arms when I hugged her, and then I stood and yelled for my roommate, I've got her. My roommate, Jim and I had spent hours out looking for this dog, and we
were both soaked and cold. The weird thing was is that Mama was dry, like she had never gone outside. Even her paws were dry. How was this possible. I don't know what happened to my girl that night, but I know that several times that month, I saw lights in the sky that I had never seen before. And it wasn't just me, many people who lived in that area saw them. I believe my dog had been abducted
that night the lights were there. I remember telling them, thank you for sending my dog back in, to please never take her again, and since then they have not. She's almost four now, and I thank the Lord for her every day. All Right, this last story is from Bruce, and you're gonna think this story is totally nuts. You're gonna think this guy's office rocker. I wouldn't say that, because as weird as this story is, it actually jogged a memory that I had that I had forgotten. And
I'm not gonna tell the story. I'm gonna tell his story, not my story. But at some point I'll probably tell my story, but I need to think on it so that I can remember. Try to remember as many details as I can. But let's get into Bruce's story, because this is a doozy. I've decided to tell you about my encounter I had back in the early nineteen seventies. Something tells me that even the diehard bigfoot enthusiasts might
think I'm nuts. But after listening to one of your tales about two duck hunters seeing a bigfoot and then telling everybody they knew in spite of not being taken serious, I knew that I would eventually tell this story to you. Like the duck hunters, I too, tell the story as often as I can, not because people believe it, but just to tell the story. I have yet to have anyone stop me in mid stream before the tale is over. I'm in my sixty third year now, I don't much
care if people believe me. When I was fifteen, I decided to hitchhike to Atlanta, Georgia, where my older brother had moved a few years before. It was summer break and I had nothing but time on my hands. I remember the day was hot when I departed an arbor, Michigan. Now remember the further south I went, the hotter it got. The weird thing about this trip was the first guy that picked me up was going all the way to Florida,
and he happened to be a real friendly guy. This was when Interstate I seventy five was just being built through the tallest mountains of Tennessee, and though the road was perfect, the downside was that there were no rest stops where one could stop to relieve himself, nor were there gas stations or anything else. By the time we got to the Kentucky Tennessee state line, I had to pee, but for some reason I decided to pass up the offer.
When I had the chance, somewhere in the highest elevations of Tennessee, I practically ordered the driver to stop as soon as he could so that I could get rid of what felt like several gallons ready to explode. He told me that he would pull over at the next lookout pull off, which was a paved area for equipment and supplies used earlier before the crews headed further down the road. It was like a sign from God when we came upon one of these lookouts and the place
was full of cars. I bolted from the car and hopped over the guardrail, and I made my way down a paved ditch, I noticed that the older lady we had parked next to was watching me the whole time. I thought I had found a place to peace so that I had some privacy, But when I looked up over my shoulder, I could see her stretching her head watching me, and I walked further down past a hill
that blocked her view. It was a long time emptying my bladder, and while I stood there, I heard a noise that sounded like a chipmunk, but it was a lot bigger. It was coming nearer, and I expected to see it cross the ditch any second. I don't know if I was in shock or that I had to pee so bad, but when this thing popped out of the woods just fifteen feet below me, I didn't move a muscle other than a steady flow from me. Relieving myself, I didn't move at all and became part of the
landscape as best I could. I was thinking that if I lived through this, no one will believe me if I tell them. And as I was musing over the fact that these creatures have been extinct for millions of years, the creature turned its head my way and made squeaking chirps as if from a giant chipmunk. But mind you, this was no chipmunk. It was a five foot tall dinosaur. I'll give you a moment to compose yourself. It was standing broadside in front of me, facing to my left,
and he was fixed on my position. This thing had huge muscular legs with a stretched out tail, just like in the pictures, and it had little arms which were bent up at the elbows with its hands closer to its head. Its head was a dino typical, having a large jaw filled with several razor sharp teeth. At least that's what they look like to me. This whole encounter lasted for no more than thirty seconds, but in my
vulnerable position, it seemed much longer. With a couple of more squeaks, it turned and continued its journey to the left of me, and it disappeared into the woods. After I finished my business, I walked up the mountain, hoping that the old woman had seen what had just taken place,
but she was no longer there. So of course I had to tell someone about my strange encounter, and I told the dude that I'd been traveling with for the past few hours, and even though I felt better about telling someone, this man didn't have a thing to say, but I could tell by the look on his face that he thought I was crazy, which after I had finished telling my story, he didn't hesitate to confirm. I saw what I saw, and it doesn't matter what people think.
I know it's true. Over time, people have suggested various animals that it might have been, but nothing ever came close. Years later, I happened to be in my home in Michigan and a TV commercial came on advertising the new King Tut exhibit, which would open the following weekend in Chicago, Illinois.
The commercial was from the view of a man holding a camera as he walked past a giant dinosaur on the main level of the museum and up a set of stairs to the Tut exhibit, and then down the hall to the left, where there was a closed door. The camera came to that door and then slowly opened the door, revealing my old friend from Tennessee, meaning I
could see the dinosaur there in the background. I instantly blurted out to my wife, who, by the way, also thinks my Dino's story is a figment of an overreaching imagination. We're going to Chicago, I said. The following weekend, we were in the car headed to the dinosaur exhibits, King who I wasn't interested in, some old has been King. No, I had unfinished business and I was about to have
the proof at my fingertips at any moment. We arrived in Chicago and pulled into the museum, and it didn't take long before I was viewing firsthand the same view I'd seen days before in the commercial. We quickly passed the giant dinosaur on the main floor, and I was thankful that it wasn't the one that walked out on the trail so many years ago, because it was a big one. We flew past the King what's his name, and as the door down the hallway was beckoning me
to come closer. Finally, after decades, I would soon be standing face to face with the creature I had seen in Tennessee. My hand turned the knob on the door, and when it swung open, there it was on a platform three feet off the ground behind the door. Honey, that's the exact same one. This is the creature I saw,
I said to my wife. I wasn't aware of how many people were in the room until it suddenly got quiet, but now only in a whisper, I repeated myself, to make sure my wife understands and what I had experienced all those years ago. I still don't think she believes me. Well, that's my story, and I'd be interested if anyone else has had such an encounter other than that. Thank you again for allowing these kinds of stories to be told. Have a good day, Bruce. Oh, someone sees a dinosaur
in nineteen seventy, Okay, that sounds pretty crazy. However, like I said before I started this story, I saw something when I was a kid. I think I was maybe ten years old. We were at a vacation property that my parents owned, and I had been out hiking all day with my brother and my sister and my cousins, and we kind of got split up and I was on my own and I saw something like this for a brief second, and then it was gone. And I'm gonna try to put my thoughts together and tell me
that story. I'm saying this all in response to the writer who says he was wondering if anybody else had had such an encounter. Those are his exact words. I don't know what I saw, but I'm going to try to think on it and try to recreate that image in my mind and see if I can't tell you all that story. So thanks to Bruce for sending this story. It was great. I really appreciate it. I love stories like this, and I actually believe him. I believe he saw something strange that day. I don't know if it
was a dinosaur, but it's pretty interesting. Good stuff, good stuff,