Best of Dixie Cryptid Vol 10

The man who sends this email wants to be anonymous, and that as cool as it can be. My wife and I live in deep southern Illinois. This area is reference to as the Illinois Ozarks, with a topography being much different than the bulk of the state. The terrain is more diverse, complete with crystal clear creeks, steep hills, river bottoms, and large swaths of wooded areas and swampland. The Shawnee National Forest comprises a large part of the

portion of the state as well. I'm a dog trainer. I own a kennel operation outside of a small community. We live approximately five miles from town, with stretches of woods and creeks surrounding our home in kennel. Ten years ago, on an October evening, I was sitting in my recliner in the living room watching television. My wife was in the back bedroom watching TV there. I would guess that it was around eight PM, possibly a bit later. Our living room where I was at is on the back side of our

house, which butts up against the section of woods. We have large windows on this back wall, providing a great view of the backyard in woods. My wife was in the front porch of the house on the northeast corner. There's only one window in that bedroom, and it's normally difficult to hear much going on outside from that area, while closer to our kennels, the house is well insulated and you can barely hear the dogs barking from that position,

even though the end kennels are only thirty feet away. Here's my point. If you hear anything from that particular bedroom, it has to be loud. I was startled by a very loud noise coming from the backyard, maybe the woods directly behind the house. It was loud, I mean really loud. The best description I mustard is the sound of a tornado siren. It started low and increased in pitch until it was ear splitting. I would say it was about fifteen seconds in duration, with no let up. I remember this

vividly. I was actually shocked, just sitting there listening and trying to wrap my head around what I was hearing. I finally jumped up and I was heading for the back door and almost ran into my wife, who was coming around the corner from the bedroom. She was pissed. She thought I had the TV turned way up and was disturbing her show. I quickly informed her that it wasn't me and that the sound was coming from the backyard. I slept out onto our back deck to listen. And this is where things get

crazy. From our perspective. At that time of year, my kennel is full, meaning there are probably twenty five dogs kenneled within twenty yards of that woodline. Not one single dog made a peak, all of them. We're laying very still, watching towards the woods. I can't begin to expound upon how unusual this is. Generally, anything that gets their attention causes them to bark. It could be a deer, or possum, a cat, squirrel, literally just about anything. But in this particular case, not a single

dog made a noise. Meanwhile, my wife had joined me on the deck and we were discussing how quiet the dogs were. Just then a pack of codis began to throw a fit. These guys were closed, i'd guess no more than a hundred yards across the creek, and still the dogs made no sound at all. We finally went back inside and didn't hear anything else the remainder of the evening. The next night, my wife was awakened around two thirty am to an identical howl, but much farther away. I slept through

it and she told me about it the next morning. After that, we had no more such incidents near the home. We had another incident in May of two and eighteen. One of my training locations is actually in the Shawnee National Forest, at a little ball diamond set in the valley. It's surrounded on three sides by high hills, with a tree line creek running on the northwest side. There's a particular drill I like to do in that spot,

and the seclusion of the area allows me to work within frequent interruptions. The Shawnee National Forest has a history of sisquat sidings, but I never really thought much about it while working there. On this morning, I pulled in, set up my drill, and brought the first dog off the truck. The drill involves teaching the dog to respond to a whistle. I started to put the dog through its paces, and I blew the whistle for the first time.

Within a few minutes, a tree crashed to the ground on the east hillside. I couldn't see it come down because the leaves are fairly full by then. But it was obviously somewhere up the hill. I didn't given any thought since I was surrounded by trees and they obviously fall from time to time. I continued the drill. A second tree fell from the opposite hillside there was little to no wind. While quite possibly coincidental, I still find it

odd that two trees fell in short succession on such a calm day. I've trained it that spot prior and since, and if yet to hear another tree fall, you may laugh. But now, whenever I trained in that spot, I announced that it's just a dog trainer. No need to worry. These are just two scenarios that I've experienced, and neither provided a visual, which I'm perfectly fine with, if you know what I mean. Admittedly, the second account could very likely have been coincidence, but I found it odd.

The first defies explanation. I sent, we have no answer other than a sasquatch was passing through our area and decided to announce its presence for reasons only known to him. The email is from Mark Mark Rights. I'm a lifelong resident of eastern Tennessee, and I'm located about thirty minutes from the Great Smoky mountains. Three years ago, I went bass fishing on a little Tennessee

River one late summer afternoon. I fished until it was almost dark, and I decided to find a cove to anchor down in and spend the night. I do this quite often so that I can start fishing again at daybreak. I found a cove and I was surrounded by woodlands, and I anchored down. It's always so nice to sleep in my open boat on a clear night. I usually lay back and look at the stars until I fall asleep. Close to one am, I was awakened by what sounded like someone walking through

the woods. The crickets and frogs had suddenly stopped making any noise. The walking sound got closer and closer until it stopped right on the edge of the lake. I could hear something breathing heavily and what seemed like a slow sniffing sound. Then it made a deep, guttural growl. I've been hunting and fishing since I was young, so I pretty much heard all the sounds any animal around here can make. Whatever that was didn't sound like anything I had

ever heard. I reached from my maglight and turned it on the bank where I heard the noise. I scanned the edge of the lake, and I caught the shine of two big yellow eyes that looked like they were up in the trees. No sooner did my light hit those eyes than whatever they belonged to turned and ran into the trees. I listened for a minute as it tore through the woods until the sound faded in the distance. I thought about pulling up the anchor and leaving, but I was in the middle of a

cove, so I felt pretty safe. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much of the rest of the night. The next morning, when I checked out the location where I had seen the ice shine, I decided it must have been an eight or nine feet tall animal. I went over to the wood line and looked for tracks, but I didn't see anything. I wasn't about to go in the woods on arm, so I let it go. I went on and I fished the rest of the morning without any further incident.

The following year, twenty eighteen, I went fishing on the Little Tennessee River again, but this time I took a friend. That morning, as we approached the cove where I had had my experience the year before, it started to rain I'd forgotten to bring my rain suits, so I told my buddy that we'd better head for cover. We pulled the boat up on the bank at the mouth of the cove. I tied it off and we sat down and we started talking. After a few minutes, I told my friend

about the experience I'd had while anchored in the cove the year before. Jokingly, I said that we'd better be careful because a bigfoot was going to get us. We were still laughing over that statement. When it sounded like a huge tree fell. It had to be a tree. It was so loud to be anything else. There was no wind that day, and it scared the crap out of us. I jumped up and scanned the trees, but the leaves were too dense. Afterwards, I could hear something running through the

woods. I had my nine millimeter pistol with me, but I was too afraid to go chasing after it. Once the rain finally stopped, we went back to fishing. Maybe it was bigfoot, or maybe it wasn't, but my instincts tell me that it was. Recently, I shared my experiences with a well known bigfoot reas searcher, and he was shocked to learn that he'd received several reports from around the boat ramp where we had put in, as well as the park across the cove from the ramp, very close to where

I had my experiences. This story is submitted by MJ and she lives in California. I think she still does. Let's just read the story. I think you're again. I think you're going to find this crazy. In the summer of nineteen ninety four, my husband and I bought a brand new home and one of the many housing subdivisions being built in the Sacramento Valley during the

nineteen nineties housing boom. The area had originally been mostly farmland and floodplains, and there were dozens of subdivisions being built, and each subdivision displayed beautifully decorated home plans. The homes were much more affordable then, so we applied for a first time buyer loan and crossed our fingers. The loan process seemed to take forever, but when we were approved, we got to pick out our very own flooring style and upgraded the kitchen appliances, which was so nice since

the apartment we lived in had no dishwasher or self cleaning oven. We moved our family, which consisted of the two of us, our four year old son, and our future baby girl, who was due in mid August, and we were happy to have accomplished so much in a relatively short amount of

time. The house was on a dead end street since the owner of the property behind the subdivision did not want to sell any of his property, which would have allowed for the street to go through and join up with other subdivisions. There was still a lot of open land and homes in various stages of construction, and our neighbors all had kids about the same age as our son, and he made new friends and all the kids played on the street was

no traffic during the day while most people were at work. Unfortunately, my husband was not able to find a job in Sacramento right away, so he would stay with his mom back in the Bay Area during the work week, and then he would drive back to the valley to check in on us so we could do our grocery shopping and other errands. At that time, we only had one car and I was left stranded until he was back from the

Bay Area. It was a long commute, but my husband was so happy to buy us the house that he was willing to commute with the hope that he would find a job in the valley soon enough and stop commuting. It was a whole year before he was hired at one of the local auto body shops. When our daughter was born, my husband was able to take a week off from work to be with us and enjoy our new baby girl,

and then he went back to work and to his commute. He would get up at three am and make his coffee in get his overnight bag, and leave at three thirty am so he could be at work by six thirty am. Back then, he was the breadwinner, so we really needed him to keep that job, even if it was one hundred miles away. I would normally get up with him and spend a few minutes with him before he would be off. I would go back to bed and try to sleep before the

baby would wake up to nurse around five thirty am. I would feed her in bed and then lay and lay her between me and our four year old son, and the three of us would snuggle in sleep until around eight thirty before we started our day. We were so spoiled. On this Monday, after he left for his commute, I felt uneasy and I felt scared, but I didn't know why. I decided to go back to our bedroom and lay down, thinking that the baby would be up soon enough to nurse,

so maybe it would be better just to lay back down. I fell asleep and I had a horrible night. I dreamt that our sun was missing, and that we were running to different streets looking for him and calling his name. I woke up suddenly and I was relieved that it was just a horrible dream, and my boy was fast asleep next to me, and the baby

was still in her bassinette next to the bed. I turned over on my side facing the bassinette, and I saw a bright light coming in between the window blinds, and, thinking out loud, I said, is it morning already? The light was coming in between the blinds and it was so bright, but the rest of the room looked dark. There was a bright light on the wall next to the window, and I looked up to see where the light was coming from, and to my horror, just above the bassinette

was an alien gray's face. It was just the head, no upper body, legs, her arms. The head was dark in color, very round, ending in a pointed chin, and there were small sleeps for mouths for his mouth and nostrils, but the eyes, the eyes were large and almond shaped and very shiny black, and it had some sort of glass lamp on the top of its head. The light on the wall was coming from this lamp. The being was looking down at the baby in the bassinette. Oh

my god, I couldn't speak. My heart started pounding so hard that I started trembling uncontrollably. It saw me, and it scowled at me when it realized I was looking at it, and it moved towards me, and I started screaming and swinging my arms and kicking, and I remember that I set out loud. Oh my god, I'm going to lose my mind. I felt that I could not take the fact that this creature was there, and it was just there in the room above my baby's bassinette in the house.

It floated from its original position above the bassinette to just above my face, and I remember saying this light blue fog build up in front of my face. And then, in a dreamlike manner, I remember a sound like pigeons mate, like a cooing sound. I remember feeling that whoever was talking to me was stern and was telling me that it was for our own good.

And then I woke up again. When I woke up again, it was still dark out, but it was around six am, and the blankets were perfectly made around the bed like nothing had happened, and everything felt still. My son was asleep next to me, and the baby was in her bassinette.

And I got out of bed and turned all the lights on in the room and the rest of the house, and I checked all the rooms in the house, and I checked the locks on the front door and the lock in the backyard sliding glass door, and everything was just like I had left it. After my husband had left for work, I decided to stay up and just at my day. In fact, I got in the shower, even though that was not my usual time to shower. When I was washing my hair, there was a sore spot on the top of my head.

There was no blood, no bump, just it was very sore. I got dressed and I went to the kitchen and I had some coffee. While having my coffee, I was trying to make sense of all those events. Now. I remember the nightmare that I had woken up from, and how relieved. I had felt that it had just been a bad dream, but then that thing was there, and I couldn't decide if it had been another bad dream or if that second part was real. It didn't make sense,

But how can a bad dream? As scary as that could be was still making me afraid. My son was up at nine am, and I kept checking in on the baby, and she kept sleeping. She should have been up once to nurse, but no, she wasn't. And I called to my sister and I told her about my weird dream, and I started crying because it seemed like it had been real, but I kept thinking that it couldn't be real. I checked on the baby and she had no fever, no rash, but she did not wake up to nurse until two pm that

afternoon, and by the end I was sore and engorged with milk. As the day progressed, I became anxious, and before it was evening, I called my sister, asking if she could come over and pick us up. I didn't want to be there alone with the kids when it was night again. She came over and took us to her apartment. My sister wasn't sure what to make of this whole thing. I was just grateful that I didn't

have to be alone in the house. We stayed in her kid's room that night, and I remember feeling very scared because I didn't know if it would happen again. But I put both kids in me under the under the twin bed we were supposed to sleep on, but we slept under the bed. I called my husband and told him about my bad dream, but he thought it was just stress from being left alone so many nights and taking care of the kids in the house. My husband picked us up from my sister's place

and drove us back to our house. That evening. I tried to go about my normal routine, making dinner, bathing the kids before bed, and watching a movie. And then it was time for me and my husband to go to bed, so I put both kids in the bed between us, and I put a large toy sword next to me in the bed. I was terrified that it would come back, that I would wake up and that

face would be there looking back at me when I opened my eyes. I knew there was nothing I could do to protect us, and that made me more frightened than anything. My husband continued to commute for another six months, so I was still alone in the evening, and that was the worst part. For weeks, every night, I would stay up just until I could see daylight before I felt safe to fall asleep. I would leave the TV on and the bedroom lights on and fight sleep until I would see the early

sunlight peek through the windows. I didn't feel safe until around early spring, when the morning light starts just a bit earlier each morning. I went on like this for three years every winter, and for years I was terrified to look out any window in the evenings. I would close all the blinds in the house at night and leave some lights on before going to bed. My husband would just tell me that it had been a bad dream, and after a few months he didn't like me to talk about it. My daughter was

only three months old when this happened. She doesn't have any strange scars or ill effects from the experience. I no longer fear the winter nights, but I know that it was not a dream. Regarding the description of the creature I saw in the book titled Operation Trojan Horse, there is a description of an et that has been described wearing some type of light attached to or on the top of his head. All of this has really been blocked out until

recently. I've heard so many stories and started putting two and two together. I didn't know what it was that I saw until recently, and some things leading up to it and things that happened afterward have put it all in perspective. My name is John, and I'm a firefighter and a minister of the Gospel. What happened to me happened when I was twelve years old. That

was back in nineteen eighty seven. I lived in a neighborhood in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and the neighborhood was not huge, but not small either. However, every bit of it was surrounded by woods. There were also buy us not too far away that we would sneak away and fish in. And we knew most of the woods around there like the back of our hands. We had bb gun wars and pine cone wars and bottle rocket wars, and

we camped out and we built forts and you get the picture. We loved the woods and we played and we played hard, except there was this one section of woods when you first entered the neighborhood that we just never felt comfortable in. We call those woods the creepy woods. When you entered the neighborhood, they were on the left hand side. I remember my friend's dad took us back their mudding in the back of his pickup truck, and they seemed

like they went on forever. In reality, I believe if you followed them far enough, it would drop into a huge subdivision several miles away. We could never put our finger on it. We just didn't like going back there again. It was just creepy. Thinking back, there was a ground road that us kids used to take to the Old Country's store a couple of miles away. We were able to avoid the busy main road to get there,

and that gravel road covered a section of those creepy woods. It was just close enough to the main road where you could hear the traffic, so it didn't seem quite as creepy. My dad used to send me to that Old Country store to get his newspaper every Saturday and Sunday morning. I would guess

that walk was between one and two miles. There were so many times that I would take that walk and feel like I was being watched, and I would stop walking and I would listen, because even though I was walking on the gravel, I swore I could hear leaves crunching, like something was keeping pace with me. Many times I was with my friends and we would all get the same sensation. Somebody would tell everyone to stop and be quiet, and we would just listen. It was eerie, but we almost always chalked

it up to us being scared of the creepy woods. One night, my dad was driving me home from a little league baseball game. He was president of the league, so we almost always got home late. As he took a right into our neighborhood, the creepy woods were on the left. We went in a hundred yards and then took another right. There was a field that we played baseball and football on right across from those woods. As he took that right, our headlights shined into the field, and that's when we

saw it. The lights caught glowing amber colored eyes and a shadow of something that was absolutely huge. We both saw it for a split second, and we passed it. It was so quick that neither of us could get any great detail, and Dad let out what the heck was that and slammed on the brakes and he threw the truck in reverse, and then it was gone. We sat there for a minute or two in discussed what we had thought we'd seen, and after a short discussion, we determined that we both saw

it, so we knew we were not making it up. We told my mom and sister when we got home, and they thought we were trying to scare them. Well, we went out the next day and we walked around the field where we saw it, and there was a lone pine tree on that end of the field, twenty five feet from where we had seen the shadow. At a best guess, we determined this creature was at least eight

feet tall. Now I remember the ground was dry, so we never found any tracks, and over the next week we had to quit talking about it and we got back to our daily routine a few weeks later. I remember this it was the same summer because we moved away shortly after. My buddy and I were walking to his house. It was just after dark and we

were going to see if we could stay the night. We had to walk by the field my dad and I saw this creature in and honestly, I hadn't thought much more about out it, but as we walked by, I got another uneasy feeling that we were being watched. I did the best I could to ignore it. I didn't mention anything to him because I didn't want him to think I was crazy or scared. We got to his house and his parents would not let us stay the night, so I was stuck walking

back home by myself. As I once again approached the field, this time it was on my right. There were two ways that I could go home. I could either cut through the woods to the left, which shortened up my trip quite a bit, or I could go straight and take the road, which I added several minutes. I was going to take the woods. I'd done it a hundred times, and as I was about to take the turn into the woods, the hair on the back of my neck stood straight

up, and my heart started racing, and I literally became fearful. Something on the inside of me screamed, do not go that way, and I listened to that voice, and I took off, running as fast as I could down the gravel road. I ran all the way home with tears streaming down my face, and I never looked aback. I think I broke a world record that night. I opened the door and went straight to my room, and I never discussed it with anyone. I've never had that kind of

fear come over me before, and I've never had it since. But after listening to so many encounters, there's no doubt in my mind what was out there. Again, I never talked to any of my friends about it, and only recently I'm forty four years old. Now did I ask my dad if he remembered that huge creature we saw in the field that night. He had not thought about it until I mentioned it, he said, And I told him what I thought it was, and he didn't disagree with me.

That is what I believe to be my encounter. It may not be as exciting as some that I've heard, but I will always remember the fear that I felt that lone night. I will always remember those amber colored eyes and that dark shadow that stood in the field. God, bless you, and thank you for taking the time to read my story. I just love it when people think me it's just so nice. And he signs off sincerely, John. John's a firefighter, John, stay safe, brother. You know

kids have these experiences. I probably had something like this where there weren't many woods around my house, but there were a few and at night. I don't know. When we were kids, the night seemed so dark. Now I walk out in the woods at night, I don't think anything about it. But when I was a kid, it was spooky. And what's the first thing you do when you're in a position where you're spook as a kid,

you run like crazy. And that's what I would do. I would tear through the woods, through the trails, pop out under a street light, and then I would tear all the way home. And that's just what kids do. But I have no doubt out what you encountered that night. And the last couple of podcasts I've done, I've talked about it may seem like I'm discounting feelings. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, be a critical thinker and think this through. Think it through, and don't

let these things change. Don't let one event or one feeling change your life forever. Stay out in those woods and have a good time. There's no reason to be afraid of the woods. And I know I say this all the time, but I really care that people get out and enjoy that stuff. So that was on my mind. I thought I'd say it all right, let's go to another one. Here's an email from Jeffrey. Here's what he writes. It all happened back in the summer of two thousand and two,

but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was about to be deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom as part of the National Guard out of Cutsdown, Pennsylvania. A friend off or to take me on a short camping trip to a little pay site on the west branch of the Susquehanna just west of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was meant to be a relaxing trip before I deployed. We were going to drink a few beers and look for Indian arrowheads

in the nearby fields. He was also going to give me a flint napping lesson. It didn't take us long to get bored walking that field. There was a good flowing feeder stream emptying into the river just downstream, called a Big Run, and I wanted to explore it. I've been hunting for arrowheads for many years, and I found that almost every stream that spring in Pennsylvania has a small Native American hunting cap at the head where the water first pops

out of the ground. Because it was really hot that day, my friend got tired and wanted to turn back after about a mile or so. However, I was determined to find a camp, so I went on alone. I followed the stream for another mile or two until it got so thick with rhododendron that it became nearly impossible to follow. At that point, I started to hear the sound of the highway off in the distance. I then decided that the head of the stream was somewhere on the other side of the highway

and farther away than I was preferred to travel. At the bottom of the mountain, I remembered seeing an old logging road that ran up the gorge to the left of the stream. I decided that would be the easiest and quickest way to the river. After fighting my way through the thick undergrowth, I finally found the path beside. It was a nice flat spot with a pushpile left for making the road, so I decided to scratch around and see if I could find any traces of flint chips and the soil in the past.

I found whole arrowheads in these top soil piles. All I found in this one was a few northern ring necked snakes. It was getting hotter and I was almost out of water, so I decided to pack up my scratcher and head back down the mountain. Not two steps into my journey home, standing about sixty yards in front of me, was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. Honestly, I would like to think that I'm a fairly brave

man, but I was not prepared for this encounter at all. I'm an experienced infantry soldier and an avid big game hunter, so it takes a lot to writtle me. What was standing in front of me was enough to do just that. It shook me to my core. I froze instantly. A flood of thoughts raced through my mind. I wanted it to be a bear, but it wasn't. Once I accepted what I was seeing, I was overwhelmed with fear. I felt like I was going to vomit. And then

it turned and started running to the stream where I had just been. I could not believe its speed. Its massive legs were thick and muscular and reminded me of a hair covered telephone pole. He was covered in dark brown hair that probably wasn't any more than four inches long. Judging from my experience as a bear hunter, I'd guessed his weight to be somewhere between eight hundred and

twelve hundred pounds, and he was easily eleven feet tall. He sounded like a bulldozer, busting through the roadodendron, snapping branches as thick as my ankles. I remember thinking, there's no way I can outrun this thing. If it wanted to, it could easily catch me. The fact that I was unarmed didn't alleviate my fear at all. I knew if I got out of this though, I'd never venture into the woods unarmed again, and my mind continued to race. I knew in order to get back to camp, I

had to go towards where this thing had just been. I was suddenly tying the sounds that I had heard earlier in the day attributed to the deer to this thing. I realized it must have been following me when I was trying to get out of the rhododendron. I must have inadvertently flanked it, I thought, or it was stalking me. At that moment, twenty years of infantry training kicked in in an ambush situation. Always charge into the contact,

never go any other direction, because that's where the real trap is. It may sound crazy, but I bolted in the direction where I first saw it. To be honest, I didn't know if I could run that fast. I didn't look back. I was in full panic mode, but I knew I had to slow down a little or I'd eventually fall on the rocky downhill terrain. I knew if that happened, I'd surely be in even bigger trouble. Somehow I regained my composure and I slowed myself down a little, while

still running for what felt like three miles back to the river. I don't know why, but I never did tell my buddy what I had seen. I'm not even sure I got to look at its face. Maybe fear caused me to block it out of my memory. I may have gone a little bit into shock because I felt sick instantly. I know it saw me first. As I started moving down the logging path. I heard it move and look up, and it broke into motion so fast, with so much power,

breaking through those branches like they were nothing. I still have nightmares about it. In the nightmares, the face seemed more human than not, with a head sort of shape like a coconut still in the shell. It's never aggressive in the dreams, but its size still scares me. I know this much. If I'd had a camera with me, I would have never taken the picture. I wouldn't have even tried to. It was too close since it moved too fast. I really hope I never see another one, at

least not that close. I've heard they're supposed to smell bad, but I didn't smell anything out of the ordinary. Its hair was not as long as I have heard. Maybe summer hair is shorter. I don't know. I've often thought that maybe the area is a migration route, but I have no idea where I got that idea. I'm thinking that's why I couldn't find Indian hunting camps along the streams. Maybe the Indians new and they stayed away.

If I had a topographical map, I could easily pinpoint that location. Even today, when I go hunting or in the woods for any reasons, this event is always in the back of my mind. I swear this is true to the best of my recollection. Signed Jeff. Here's an email from someone who wants to be anonymous, and here's what he writes. It's an Ohios to worry. It has a little bit of a woo theme to it at the end. Just hang on and wait. You're gonna like this, he

says. I live in central Ohio, and I'd rather remain anonymous, no problem. I go out hiking in the woods looking for sasquatch in the ark they make in the form of structures and arches. Earlier this year, I started exploring a forest where just driving through it, I found all kinds of signs on both sides of the road. I've hiked this area for maybe three or four months now, and everywhere I've been so far has had evidence of structure, brakes, arches, uprooted trees, busted trees, and tracks.

I always whistle a couple of times because I'm just hiking in, just to let them know that I'm here. There's no doubt that they have been in this forest for years. The area is ideal for them, with its sandstone cliffs and small streams. I found my first prince here along one of those streams. It runs up a small valley with steep cliffs on both sides. After hiking for a while and following the stream, I found a spot that was dammed up with rocks. There was a small sapling that had been pulled

out of the ground by its roots and debarked. It was shoved upside down with the roots in the air, in the middle of the small dam. This is also where I found my first prince in the mud. I wanted to take the sapling as a souvenir of the day, but I didn't because, to be honest, I was kind of scared too. Two weeks later, my wife and I came back on a rainy day, and as always, I whistled a couple of times on our way in. I also used this as a way to build trust with them. Usually after I whistle,

I hear tapping from different parts of the woods. This isn't always the case, but it was generally so, but not today. Everything was just wet and silent. We came up on some arch trees, but there was too much a brush to walk through to get to them, so I zoomed my camera lens in and I took some shots. Then I tossed a rock towards the arches and I hiked on for a while before leaving That night at home,

I kept thinking about that sapling. It had still been there, and I just kept thinking that I wanted something of theirs and that sapling was pretty cool to look at. The Next morning, I decided to go get it. I hiked in as far as the dam in the stream. I took a quick look around for more prints and thought, okay, I'm taking this sapling. So I did. I was pretty nervous on the way out.

I didn't feel right about what I had done. I got back to my car and found a small tree branch on my windshield between the wiper blades. I was parked under some tree, so it could have just fallen there, but the way it was positioned just seemed too deliberate. It would have been a one in a million shot in nature. My wife was with me and we both had to use the bathroom. We drove a mile up the road to a small public restroom. The whole time I couldn't get rid of the

feeling that I shouldn't have taken that sapling. The restroom was a small building with a metal roof and a concrete block wall separated the men's side from the women's. We were only in there for about three or four minutes, I could hear the rain pinging on the tin roof, but then a rock hit the side of the building. When we came out, I asked my wife if she heard anything. She hadn't. Furthermore, the sun had come out and there was no rock on the ground. Now I was getting scared.

I told her that we were going back right then to return that sapling. We got halfway back to where we would have to park the car, and I got a really good feeling about taking the sipling. I suddenly knew that it would be okay to take it home with me. Later that evening, I was thinking over the events of the day, and I came to the conclusion that the bathroom experience was them letting me know that they knew I was in the woods that day. Now I am certain that they have supernatural abilities.

Thanks for reading my story. Here's a big foot story from Florida. My story begins in nineteen seventy eight or thereabouts, when I was a young man of nineteen years old. My friend Kenny and I had been writing on some property that we frequently hunted on the Mayaca in southwest Florida. We had Kenny's dog Duke with us, and as we rode, a herd of hogs ran across the road in front of us. We stopped and Kenny released Duke.

Within thirty seconds could hear a hog squeal, meaning that Duke had called a hog, and we headed out in the palmettos to dispatch the hog and reap our reward. We found Duke with a sixty pounds sow and I killed her with my knife. Duke caught her underneath a solitary oak tree in the middle of the palmettos, a hundred yards off the road, and as I prepared the field dresser, I noticed this She had tumors around her stomach and

we decided to leave her well. That evening, Kenny and I took our girlfriends out for dinner and later went to the hunting camp for a few drinks. I told Kenny that we should stop and get that hoghead that we had left in the palmettos and scared the girls on the way to the cabin. I told the girls that I left my knife with the hog and we were going to stop and pick it up. Back then, there was no sich thing as a good flash light and the one I had was about dead.

It was a moonlight night, so we didn't have any trouble navigating. When we got to the hog, I began to cut its head off. That wasn't a simple task in the dark. With a dull knife, I worked and then I heard a noise in the pal meadows. I thought it was probably an armadillo, because, believe it or not, they can sound like a bull coming through the woods. As a sound approached, I heard a grunt. Well, it was more like a growl, or more like a

fifteen hundred pound kitten burry. I told Kenny to shine the light over there, and that's when we both realized that we were looking at something ten feet tall and it weighed a thousand pounds at least. Kenny was standing behind me and I was on my knees kneeling over this hog, and we were petrified. Neither one of us flinched, and within just a few seconds, the

creature turned around and disappeared into the night. We ran back to the truck and took the girls home, and we headed to NIE's house to get my truck. The next day, we met for breakfast and we discussed what had happened, and we decided we might be better off just keeping this to ourselves. After breakfast, we rolled back out to the property and we found that the hog was gone with my knife, and that was the last time Kenny and I talked about what we had seen. Here's an email from Virginia.

The man writes that I was born on the family farm in Virginia, and I worked there all my life. The events I'm about to tell you happened on this farm. Repairing fences is a typical job on our place that keep livestock on our property as well as keep our neighbors animals out of our fields. Two weeks prior to this event, I had worked for a week to restring an old fence that needed repair. And it's not the most difficult work,

but it's not the easiest. While working and a piece of equipment in the shed, one of my hands drove up and skidded to a stop and frantically ran over to me, saying he had knocked a deer down a few minutes ago. Well, that wasn't odd news, not so that he would be sweating and speaking so fast that I hardly understood half of what he was saying, I asked him to slow down and catch his breath so that I could follow, and he took a few minutes and appeared to lower his heart

rate and get control of his breathing. All right, there was a nice group of those that walked out of the trees in the south field where I've been hunting this year. The season's almost over and we need some meat, so I killed her, he said. He looked at his feet for several seconds, and I thought he was done, and then his breathing began coming in shallow heaves again. Come over here and sit down and relax, I said, pointing to an old log stool next to the barn door. I

catch your breath and let's start over. He sat down and took several deep breaths, and he continued, I didn't hit that dough right little above her heart. I think she jumped straight up in the air and ran back to the tree line, and when she tried to jump the fence, her rear legs caught on the top wire and she went down. I sat there until she was dead, and I climbed out of the shooting house. And when I turned away from the ladder to go get her. There was a huge

bear standing over her. Now, I don't know where it came from. I haven't seen a bear all year, but there it was, hunkered over her, and I yelled at it to run it off my deer, and it stood up on its rear legs and it looked right at me. But it wasn't a bear. It was a giant, hairy monster. I think. I took a step forward, and as soon as I moved, it bent down and threw that dough over its shoulder, and he walked up into the trees. I stood there for several minutes until I couldn't see it anymore.

That thing took the whole fence with it when it stepped over. I guess it got its leg hung up in the barbs, and it took a few posts with it and then started snapping staples out of the post. Well, he was way up in the woods when I saw the fence go slack. Now I think he either broke the wire or got himself untangled. There was a long silence that I broke. Well, how far was the deer from the shooting house, I asked, maybe forty yards? He said,

let's go look at the fence. I said, I'm not going back down there. He said, you can go, but not me. I drove on down there, and sure enough he was telling the truth about the fence. I don't know what dragged that fence up into those trees. I couldn't have done it without a tractor. No human or even a bear could have done that much damage. He said it was an animal. Well, it must have been a big one. A few months later, I was supposed

to meet one of my hands in a field to repair another fence. I got to the sight and I gathered my tools and material and I walked through a ravine to the area that we were to work. He should have been there waiting on me. I was ten minutes late. I waited another thirty minutes, and here he came running down the slope straight at me. What's your rush? I asked, why? Part next to your truck? He

said Now. I got out and I shut the door, and I looked over the bed of the truck about to get my tools out, and out walks this giant, hairy monster from the trees. He walked across that ditch right there and straight through the field and down into the swampy area on the low end of the field. I didn't know what that thing was, so I laid down on the grass behind my truck so he couldn't see me, and I watched him walk right down into that slough from under my truck.

All right, show me where he was, I said. The guy was not afraid as the other one who wouldn't go back to the spot where he killed the deer. And we walked to the trucks and down to the edge of the mud where the wetlands started. You see that big limb laying there in the water, He said, yeah, what about it? I asked. He bumped his head on that limb when he walked under that tree,

and he acted like the limb pissed him off. And he reached up and yanked that limb off with one hand and through it where it's laying now. Man, that limb must weigh two hundred pounds. I said. It was a big limb that I would have had to cut up to even move it. You say he threw that thing, Damn right, he did. That's why I said it was a monster. Let's get out of here. I'm getting the creeps, he said, truthfully, I was getting the Wheelie's too,

so I agreed and we went back to work. My father once told me that he and some teenage friends were raccoon hunting on a cold moonlight night in the nineteen twenties. In those days, their equipment was made up of a miner's lamp, a twenty two single shot rifle, and a pack of raccoon dogs. The dogs had treed a raccoon, or so they thought, and it took them a while to get to the dogs. But when they got there and shine their light into the tree, there wasn't a coon.

The dogs weren't jumping up in the tree like normal. They kind of hung back and they just kept barking. My father lowered his light to ground level, and standing there behind the tree was a creature. He said, looked like a giant wolf on two legs. The creature lunged at the dogs and they took off back to the truck, with my father and his fringe right behind them. My father said he didn't know if that thing was chasing them,

but they sure ran like it was. They never hunted that area again, but then he saw it again two weeks later, on a cold night, running across the field, not too far from where the dogs had at corner. Over twenty years later, while driving Old Leesburg Pike or Routes seven and in northern Virginia, he and my mother were driving across the bridge over Goose Creek. In the middle of the bridge, he thought he could see a man standing there. When he was closer and the lights illuminated the man

better, he saw that it wasn't a man. It was a tall, lanky, apparently covered in hair creature. His mind went back to those nights in the nineteen twenties when he was a teenager. My father made the decision not to back out of that bridge and instead to speed past this thing. As the car approached, the creature leapt on to the railing to avoid being yet, and as they passed, it swiped at the car. I don't remember my mother ever talking about this night. Maybe she wanted to forget it.

In nineteen fifty nine, the year I was born, my father saw it again, crossing a field at night on our family farm. I don't know what this creature is. Maybe there are more than one, but my family and friends have seen it many times through the last years. Whatever it is, it must have a long lifespan, or we're seeing its offspring.

Over time, they appear to stay well hidden and away from humans, and I assume it is by chance or that the odds are good, that some humans will catch a rare sight of them while they move around at night. This email us from Jordan, and here's what Jordan writes. My name is Jordan. If you read this, I don't mind if you use my name. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't lie. I had always been a skeptic of bigfoot. I assumed if there were any such species that there

would be hard evidence. Having said that, I had two experiences that have forever changed my mind. They are not the most exciting, but up to this point it's what I have, and they happened in different areas of eastern Kentucky. In late December of two thousand and twelve, when I was twenty five years old. My friend Kevin and I were trying to trap a raccoon. I had just recently gotten into hunting, and for some reason I wanted

to eat one. His family owned a few acres hidden back in a holler, along with what was the only house on that side of the mountain. We placed a trap just over an extremely steep hill where an old, abandoned single wide trailer butted up to the mountain. At nightfall, we ventured out into the woods a few hundred yards to where we had left the trap the previous day. We're both considered very large men. I'm six foot five and way two fifty. Kevin is six foot eight and weighs three hundred. We

both played football, basketball, and round track in high school. We were both also carrying a pump action twelve gate shotgun. Needless to say, we thought we were on touchable. When we walked to our trap, we noticed that it was empty and the bait was gone. We decided to stick another honey bunny inside and come back the next day. As soon as we put the bait in the trap, we heard the loudest, most gut wrenching scream just over the ridge. Without so much as a look, we jumped inside

the old trailer and we slammed the door shut. Our backs were pressed against an old couch and shotguns were trained on the door, and we sat for fifteen minutes mumbling the same questions back and forth. What the heck was? That? Was that? What the heck? Eventually, Kevin said he thought it was a big foot, but I was having none of that. You're an idiot, I told him with a sidelong glance. We hadn't heard anything else, so I insisted that we were fine and that we should head back

to the truck. We made it out without incident. It would be eleven more months before I would come to believe in foot. During deer hunting season, I was hunting a large farm in Lewis County, Kentucky with my brother and a different friend. I had set up in a dry creek bottom because the pines were so thick, I couldn't see twenty feet away if I was on the bank. After five hours of sitting in that stand and not seeing anything, I decided to walk around. As I started up a hill,

I looked down and there embedded in the ground was a bare footprint. Being a large guy, I naturally have a large feet. So I put my hunting boot next to the print to compare them, and they were roughly the same size. They were the same length and winth roughly a fifteen to sixteen inches long and six to seven inches wide. I took a picture and was promptly ridiculed by my friends and brother. As soon as I got service, though, I sent the picture to Kevin and he responded, Holy crap,

that's awesome. So I've never seen a live bigfoot. That footprint made me a believer. Thanks for all you do. This email us from Farrell, and here's what he writes. Like many of your listeners, I've hunted and fished all of my life. I've traveled all over the country and hunted in many different terrains. I've hunted quail, rabbit, squirrels, codis, raccoons, and deer. While hunting, I've encountered bobcats, cougars, and even bar I say this because I want you to understand how familiar I am with

the woods and all the animals that live there. And what's more, I know they're sounds. My dad loves to hunt raccoons, my maternal grandfather, my brother, and a cousin, and I have often joined him over the years. One night in nineteen eighty three, we were all with him and close family friends on a piece of land just outside Paradise, Texas. Our general practice was to wait for the dogs to open on a trail and then

sit down and wait for them to tree. Once they did that, we'd find the dogs and praise them for a job well done, and then lead them away from the tree so that the raccoon could get away. Then we'd move to another spot and turn them loose on another trail to tree another raccoon. We enjoyed the time together and working the dogs. I especially loved hunting at night. All the other hunting I did was during the day. But nature is more exciting in the dark. There's a mystery to it that makes

it even more adventurous. Well, that night things got a little too adventurous. We were sitting on a creek bank listening when the dogs barks, turn from the sound they make when they're trailing a raccoon to the one they make when they've treed one. Instantly, in response to their treeing bark, something answered back with a scream so loud that it reverberated through our bodies. In all my life, I had never heard such a loud, strange scream.

Every one of us sat up straight, with their hair standing on the backs of our necks, with eyes wide. We looked around at each other, hoping someone would offer an explanation for this sound. What was that, my cousin stammered. Well, I've never heard anything like it, my dad said, and then he added, ever, the dogs had gone completely silent. Nothing in the woods was making a sound. Even the frogs and crickets near the creek had stopped making noise. We sat there for several minutes, too

stunned to say anything else, almost too afraid to breathe. We were all listening and unsure of what to expect next. When the dogs came running back to us, they were all whimpering and had their tails tuck between their legs and they wouldn't get from under our feet. The dogs were terrified. I'd never seen that before. It was enough to make four grown men and two teenage boys decide it was time to go home. Fear drove us out of the woods in double time, and by then we were as scared as the

dogs were. For years we wondered what could have made that sound, and then my dad and I watched the show on Bigfoot and we thought maybe. But in Texas many years later, I heard the same sound on the Internet when someone posted an audio clip of what they claimed was a Sia squatch. I had my dad and brother listened to it, and they both agreed it was the same sound that we heard that night. Over the years, I've heard rumors of sasquatch roaming around that area. I don't know. I can

only say that since that night, we never hunted that spot. Unless we're in large groups, we've never seen anything, nor have we heard that sound again. Thank goodn I'm sorry my story doesn't include a sighting, but hearing it was enough for me. Here's an email from Troy, and here's what Troy writes. You would be interested in what happened to me a year ago and twice more in twenty four hours just four weeks ago, near the Humbolt

Mendocino County headwaters of the Mattole River. I know I'm butchering those names up, but I'm trying. I'm trying. And I got this email a little over a year ago, so the dates that you're going to hear in this video just to add a year two them. Let's continue on with the email. I become absolutely convinced that some unknown animal exists here, and I began to search the internet for similar accounts. It then became clear to me that

these experiences must be documented and conveyed to others. In July of two and eighteen, I was staying in an isolated region that had limited access. I was on a primitive road twenty miles south of Whitehorn, California, behind three locked gates. This place is at the end of the world, on the northern border of a vast green belt spreading from Shelter Cove on the coast east to Highway one on one and south to Fort Bragg and then east to Percy,

as can be seen on the Google Earth. About three am I was awake. It was hot, dark, and completely silent that night in these mountains. Something above me, where I lay in my tent, approximately two to three hundred meters, began knocking on wood, best described as loud wax on a tree trunk by a big club or a branch. It started with one knock, which got my attention, with a brief hesitation, and then several more knocks, but randomly timed to summon succession others. After hesitations,

the knocking was loud. It was so loud that it echoed down the canyon, and the event lasted only a minute or two. My first thoughts were that there was no one on the mountain. Who could be out here in the middle of a primitive and protected area. These knocks were from something large, and no North American animal could have made them. I listened to while my mind tried to wrap around how the noise was made. The event left me puzzle. I told a few locals afterward and learned that there were other

hotspots for Sasquhite sightings between Piercy and north to Willow Creek. Four weeks ago, when waiting at the first locked gate in this same conservation area, I heard two distinct vocalizations what cannot be explained. As I waited in the dusk for about forty five minutes waiting to meet a party at the gate who were running late, I heard loud wail that I've never heard before in nature. The noise was at my two o'clock facing east up the heavily wooded area above

me two to three hundred meters up. I instantly knew where I had heard such an unfamiliar call. It was three years ago while watching a Bigfoot reality show where these squatch hunters were making a unique call while searching for Bigfoot. At that time, I remember thinking how ridiculous it seemed for people to be on television trekking at night making strange calls in the woods. There was a brief delay from the first call to the next, and then silence for a

minute, leaving me to wonder if this whole experience was even real. It was either an unknown animal or some kind of implausible prank. It was loud, echoing down the mountain, as though some huge creature could belt with the lungs of Luciano Pavarati, but this was louder. The chance of being a prankster waiting in silence with me for forty five minutes in that remote location to

prank me was very slim. And then another call at three to four hundred meters up to the north at my eight o'clock that was just as loud and unique as the first. This blew my mind because the first call might be attributed to an elk on steroids, but the response from what was clearly not an owl brought chills down my spine. I quickly moved closer to my vehicle and listened for another thirty minutes in the darkness. I will never forget this

second vocalization. This was obvious communication between two individuals. I had a fourth experience, but it happened the night before the duel vocalizations. On Friday evening, November the first, two thousand and nineteen. I had just moved into a cabin that my brother and I. It was located along a rugged canyon area of the Mattole River. It was dusk and quite dark already in the forest. I was outside looking at the stars, taking in the newness of

these rugged surroundings. Above me, a few hundred meters away to the east of the river, echoed a loud, foreboating scream. My jaw dropped in amazement. It was terrifying at the same time, and I conjured up visions of a banshee. The screaming continued full throttle for over five minutes. Mountain lions scream, but nothing like this. Someone had either set up a speaker and playing the bloodiest scream that Hollywood could produce, or this was an unbelievably

big animal. It was the night after Halloween, and I wondered if someone was on the mountain side pranking me as a newcomer to the neighborhood. I listened for a bit and then went inside and told my brother about it because it was so unnerving. Bigfoot did not even enter my mind. However, the next evening, about the same time, I heard the cause again near the gate that blocked our driveway. Why have I been so lucky to hear

or experience such a mystery? Three distinct vocalizations which cannot be explained. I began pouring over USGS maps and satellite imagery to ascertain what the link could be. Are there neighbors or access for individuals to get that close? Could one individual in such obvious stress on one night have triggered the coincidental travel of at least two or more unknown creatures the very next night, and what could be

the connection between these events located twenty miles apart. I've talked to some locals about hearing strange noises, but no one claims anything or they don't want to be ridiculed. I would like to know if there have been recent experiences by others in this area. I'm a sixty year old man with extensive wilderness experience in forests and in jungles. I have credibility in this area. I have trecked and lived in remote areas of Africa, Australia, Central America, South

America places of potential danger, and I've never experienced fear. I was born and raised near Yellowstone Park and have had no bad experiences with grizzlies, mountain lions, or wolves. Traveling all these years with a firm understanding of ecosystems, I never could have believed in such mysteries that anything new would ever be discovered. What has happened to me recently has completely changed my mind. There is a mystery in these woods, and I have a few ideas on how

to find the answers to it. The writer's name is Steve. It's a Bigfoot encounter. Here's what he writes. I'm from a small town in Wayne County, was Virginia. It's located in the middle of nowhere, but for reference, east Lynn Lake is to the west and Kabwelingo State Forest is to the south. The landscape is made up of a series of heavily wooded hollers and ridges, with the occasional hilltop field and creek bottoms being the only flat

spots in the whole area. Most of the roads follow the creeks and ridges. The first time I ever heard of Bigfoot is being real happened when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. Two of my cousins, Jason and Junior, told me their story. They were following a slow poke old couple on Route thirty seven through East Lynn Lake State Park, near the Lynch Creek boat route. They said, the older couple suddenly slammed on their brakes to avoid

a giant sasquatch crossing the road in front of them. There was a wide spot just beyond the boat ramp and playground where the old couple pulled over and my cousins pulled in right behind them. The four watched as the massive beast ran down the steep hill towards the lake. It was winter, so with the lake at winter Pool, it was about twenty feet wide. Where the creature jumped across. It ran up the hill on the other side at an

unbelievable pace, disappearing into the brush about halfway up the opposite hill. I knew they were stoned when they were telling me the story, so I thought they were probably making it up to get a laugh. Now that I've seen and heard these things, I know they were telling the truth. About a year after hearing my cousin's tale, I had my first encounter. I was on the UKC Competition raccoon hunt. My dad and I both had dogs entered

in the hunt were cast out separately. I was too young to drive, so I had to ride with one of the fellows i'd been cast out to hunt against. It was a great hunt for my group, with me and my beloved Bluetick coonhound way in the lead. Old Blue was the best dog I'd ever hunted with, and I loved that dog as much as a fifteen year old hillbilly could love one. We had about thirty minutes of a lotted time left for the hunt, but had run out of normal hunting spots.

One of the hunters knew a spot close by, However, it required driving down a rough road to get there. It was about a half mile away and then straight up a rocky West Virginia mountain all the way to the top. I don't know why this sounded like a good idea, but we all agreed and off we went. We drove the two beat up trucks up the creek bed and then slowly began ascending up a steep, rocky, unkept road.

It was more like a four wheeler trail than a road. We reached the top and turned the dogs loose down the other side of the hill. After just a few minutes, everyone's dogs came back except mine, and I called for Blue over and over, but to no avail. The other hunters were ready to go, but still Blue had not showed up. I told them to go ahead without me and send my dad back up here to get me. They acted like they didn't want to leave me, but I insisted

now. I shared them I'd been hunting in the dark woods since i was a toddler, and that I would be okay. I wasn't afraid of the woods of the dark. After much debate, they all left. I stood there alone in the dark. I didn't turn on my light so that my eyes would adjust to the darkness. Not long after the tail lights disappeared into the darkness, I heard movement coming through the brush towards me. I quickly turned onto my light and shined it on my best friend running towards me.

I saw eyes shine behind him. Blue rushed into my arms with an urgency that told me something was wrong. I snapped the lead onto his collar and then turned the light back on in the direction from which he had come. About fifty feet or so away from us stood a large man with wide set eyes that glowed when the light hit them. Except this was no man. He was way too big. His brownish red, three inch long hair moved in the breeze as my heart sank into my stomach. In a soft tone,

I said hello, but there was no reply. And then I said, I've got a gun, so don't come any closer. I was bluffing. I didn't have a gun, and Blue positioned himself between me and the enormous thing that was now moving towards us, its hand up to block the light from its eyes. Stop right there, I said, a little louder, shoot you if you come any closer. I started backing down the road, pulling my dog with me. I was never more frightened in my life.

I felt the warm stream of urine run down my leg as I continued to back away from the beast. I'm going to die right here, right now, I thought, and I knew I was helpless to prevent it. I started praying out loud, Lord God, please just let me out of here, and I'll never sin again. I was bargaining, I'll obey your commandments. Please, just don't let this thing kill me. The creature turned and I saw another one behind it. It was a smaller, darker one,

possibly black. I could almost make out breaths, so I assumed it was a female. They chattered between themselves while I kept slowly backing away, never taking my light off of them, and in a flash, one went right and the other went left, and I lost sight of both of them them. I shined a light around in every direction, but I couldn't see anything. I couldn't hear anything either. I turned off my light and tried to let my eyes adjust to the darkness, and after a few minutes I

started walking down the road towards the creek. I heard the movement on both sides. As I walked, I would stop and turn my light in the direction I heard the sound, but I couldn't see anything, and when I stopped to listen, the sound stopped. I turned the light back on the rocky road and kept walking towards the creek. I decided at that moment that there would be nothing I could do if they wanted to kill me, so

I just walked as normally as I could down the uneven road. Blue who normally walked in front of me, was behind me, then on my right, and then on my left for a few seconds, and then behind me again. He didn't growl, he acted as scared as I was. Somehow I managed to make to the creek, but I couldn't take it anymore. The tears poured from my eyes like a fawcet, and I cried out,

thank you God in a loud and confident voice. I wasn't out of the woods yet, but I felt like these creatures knew God, like they wouldn't touch me only because of God. And I splashed down the creek fearlessly, knowing they wouldn't touch me. I pulled Blue, who was still scared to death and walking with his tail between his legs, all the way to the main road. And then I stood there, soaking wet from the urine and the creek water, and I cried while I waited for my father to arrive.

Twenty minutes later, I saw that old Dodge pull up. I was never so happy to see my dad in my life. Normally I had to pick that stubborn Blue tick up to get him in the truck bed, but not that night. He leaped up on the tailgate and dove into his safe, warm dog box. And I walked around the truck and I opened the door, but before I got in, I took one last look towards the creek. They were standing there watching me in the glow of the tail light, and I waved to them, and I jumped in the cab. My

father took one look at me and asked, what happened to you? I must have had little accident, I said, with a smile. He handed me an old jacket and told me to sit on it, adding that he didn't want that pie smell all over his truck. I'm crying right now as i'm writing this. It's so hard to tell anyone, and that's why I'm telling everyone. Until now, I've never told a soul, not my dad

that night, nor my best friend, or even my wife. I remember what I thought of my cousin's story, and I didn't want others to think the same about me. I've kept it bottled up for all these years, and now at least it's out. I didn't make good on my promise to God, either, but I'm sure he forgives me. That was the only hardcore visual I've ever had of these creatures or people. I know they're people. They have a soul just like we do. They know God just like

I do, No, probably better than I do. I think they have a relationship with God that we can't even comprehend. A few years later, when I was nineteen, my mom and dad told me a story about a big, skinny bear they saw on a cemetery road near Cavlingo State Forest. Mom said it didn't look like a bear, She said, it looked like a bigfoot. Dad quickly interrupted and said it was a bear, a skinny bear that crawled low to the ground on its belly, trying to hide.

I didn't act like I thought it was a sasquatch, but I knew it was. Later Mom told me she thought it looked more like a bigfoot than a bear. I had one more encounter when I was twenty seven years old. I was camping with an old girlfriend and her kids at East Lynn Lake. It was a weekend after school had started back in the fall, so there weren't any other campers. We picked the last campsite at the end of the campground. Her kids fell asleep in the pop up camper around eleven pm.

My girlfriend and I were sitting at the fire when acorns and small pine cones started landing in the fire, and then they started hitting us. I got a flashlight and scanned the area looking for pranksters, but I didn't see a thing. No one was around anywhere. The hills on the side of us were steep, really steep, and we were at the last campsite. The acorns and pine combes were coming from those hills. We got scared and we went inside, but then they started hitting the camper. I heard chatter

coming from up the hill behind us. It all sounded so familiar. The memory of that night raccoon hunting came flooding back to me. I knew who it was then, and I told my girlfriend it was raccoon's and she believed me. I started praying and it stopped, like turning off the switch. It was pretty cool, but scary,