Bigfoots, Demons, and Some Other Things

from old. His name is Ronnie cuz Strickland. And I got to drive down to West Point, Mississippi, where the headquarters of massioak is sit in their studio, and they asked me all kinds of questions about my podcast and all that stuff. You all know how I am. I don't really like talking about myself. I had so many questions for them, but I had to bite my tongue because it's their show. They wanted me to talk about

the podcast, and so I did that. I'm going to put a link in the description for the Fistful of Dirt Halloween episode, which they uploaded yesterday it would have been October twenty ninth. It's called a Redneck Telling Monster Stories. It's a pretty good podcast. Not because I'm in it because these people really know how to put on a good podcast. There'll be a link that they're not on YouTube, they're out on the podcast networks, so they're on Apple, Spotify,

all the podcast apps that you use out there. Just do a search for a fist full of dirt. You might want to put mossy oak behind that. It'll be right up there at the top. The episode I'm in is called a Redneck Telling Monster Stories. It's their first Halloween episode. They're uploading another Halloween episode to tomorrow or Friday. I'm not sure. I think it's Thursday the thirtieth or the Thursday the thirty first, actually on Halloween, and it should be a good one. But you all looked them up.

Listen to their podcast. It's really good. One thing that happened when I walked into their studio first was I got to meet two really nice people. I got to meet Cuz Strickland. He's a legend, an absolute legend in hunting circles. Everybody knows who Cuz Strickland is. If you've ever watched a hunting show. If you don't remember his name, when you see his face, you'll remember it. And then I met his daughter, Lauren, and they're the producers of

a fist full of Dirt podcasts. But he handed me a book, which I didn't say this when I sat down with him, but I had actually read it a few years ago. A buddy of mine had it sitting on his desk. I said, let me borrow that book, and I read the book. It's called Ain't Nothing but the Truth about Spring Turkey Hunting. According to cuz Now, this book is not a strategy type tactics kind of book. It's his commentary on turkey hunting and in modern culture,

and it is full of unbelievably great stories. I don't know where to buy this book. I'm gonna check with them before I upload this podcast and see if it's on Amazon or wherever. But I called Lauren yesterday and I asked her if her dad wouldn't mind if I read a chapter out of this book, and she said, I think that'd be great. So that's what you're about to hear. So I wanted to announce that I'm on that podcast and I want you to stick around and listen to this story. It's one chapter out of Ain't

Nothing but the Truth about Spring Turkey Hunting. According to Cudz Strickland, the title of the chapter is Hexes and Haints or Haints and Hexes. I thought it was fitting for this channel. Its close to Halloween, it's about superstitions, and I think you will enjoy it, So hang on and listen to that. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Hanks and Hexes. Most people will not admit in public, or even out loud, that they are superstitious. Some consider it a sign of a weak mind or lack of education.

Well that's fine, but I say why I take chances. Baseball players as a group may be the most superstitious of all, but I think hunters would be a close second. I have always been deathly scared of snakes, but not too much else. I'm good to round most other things that can make folks uneasy, stuff like spiders and haunted houses and the dark and electricity. But you could still describe me as jumpy. Even though I'm not afraid of spiders, I don't pick them up and play with them, and

I might jump if one land in my lap. It's the same with superstitions. I don't go asking for trouble. I don't pick up spiders. I don't throw my hat on the bed or look at a new moon over my left shoulder. For me, it's all about the odds. If I feel my odds are better if I don't step on a crack in the sidewalk, then I will step over the cracks. Now call me uneducated or weak mind at all you want. Most people find my superstitions funny or at best interesting, But for me, it's just

part of my routine. I'm not trying to be different or make a statement of any kind. I'm just being careful. Back in the mid nineteen eighties, I was hunting outdoor writers out of my house in Natchez, Mississippi. My wife Pam and I, along with both of our girls, would bring in dozens of writers each year and hunt them around Natchez for primos and mascio in hopes of getting mentions or photos in hunting magazines. One of my favorite

writers to visit our home was Nick Sisley. Nick and I hit it off really fast, even though he was a highly intelligent professional writer and a Pennsylvania Yankee who had traveled the world and seen and done way more than I had. By being a simple, laid back redneck from South Mississippi. Nick liked real people who hunted in real places, under real conditions and did it really hard,

so we actually had lots in common. He didn't want some plush wine and cheese hunt where he didn't have to walk too far or wait too long, so hunting with me out of our house was right up his alley. On the first morning of next turkey hunt, we were running about ten minutes late leaving my house. I was heavy on the gas most of the way to our hunting ground and had made up for most of the ten minutes and felt good about being in our spot

to listen for gobbles on time. And then it happened A damn black cat ran across the road right in front of us. There are a few actions you can take in this situation. For instance, you can pull over and wait for another vehicle to cross the path first. You can spit on your finger and put an X on the windshield dead center. You can turn your hat around and raise your feet off the floorboard and the speed across. But the fastest thing to do is to

turn around and take another route. And since that was five in the morning, I knew the chances of another vehicle busting that path were slim. I could have turned my hat around and picked up my feet and ex the windshield, but I knew Nick would not do it, and it would not help if he refused, so I stopped and turned around. He was in shock that I would do that. I knew another gravel road that would not cost us much time, and it was my best option.

It would have taken way too much time to explain to Nick all the options and possibilities we had to cancel out that cat's mojo, so I just do it in reverse and took off. I could tell he was pissed off a bit, because he didn't say a word to me until after his gun went off at five minutes after six, when he dispatched a big old gobbler.

After the quick hunt, we talked and smiled about the black Cat episode, which I'm sure he thought was theater for him, but later realized it was indeed for his benefit. No theater was involved, just scientific preemptive tactics to keep luck on our side. Now, I'm sure there's not much sites involved in superstitions, but there is a lot of history that backs up at least the fact that people

have been aware of them. For example, Friday the thirteenth has some very substantial meaning that dates back thousands of years. The Scandinavians believed the number thirteen was unlucky because of the twelve demic gods that were joined by the thirteenth, who was evil. It was also said that Crass was crucified on a Friday, and the number of people present at the Last Supper was thirteen, the thirteenth being Judas

the Trader. If you don't believe things like that, then a lucky penny or a four leaf clover may not mean much to you. But I'll admit I do, especially when biblical examples are thrown into the mix. Now, I'm pretty sure superstitions are like being afraid of snakes. If you look for them like I do, then you'll find them. Maybe it's all in the mind, but I think the mind is indeed a powerful thing and can affect outcomes

in many ways. I remember a few years back, while at Portland Landing near Camden, Alabama, we were scouting locations in September to hang tree stands for an upcoming mossy oakhunt. It was so hot you could hardly breathe, and we were covering lots of ground. I've heard the old saying that seeing an owl in the daylight was bad luck, but it never paid much attention to that one. The chances of seeing an owl in the middle of the

day down south anyway are very slim. But on this day, while scouting acorn trees for sign, I actually saw two owls in trees and both were looking at me. I remember thinking that it was strange, but the old bad luck thing did not enter my mind. On one of the last spots we checked, I was walking across a freshly plowed food plot to look at a shady oak tree on the other side. One of the two guys with me jumped back and grunted, so my first reaction

was to jump also, which I did. I looked back and saw a two foot long rattlesnake cooled up in a strike mode right where I had just stepped. The snake was covered in dirt, which explained why me, of all people, did not see him. The other fellow said, he struck your boot. By this time, I was getting flushed and feeling sick. Now I moved away and looked down, and sure enough, there was some type of liquid on the lower portion of the soul of my left boot.

The snake was small, so I guess the glancing strike just hit the harder rubber on my boot, but it was enough to send me indoors with an ice pack on my neck for a while to try to calm down. Did seeing two owls in the broad daylight have anything to do with that? Damn right? It did. If I had been thinking and realized the owls were a sign, I would have gone from being an active member of the scouting party to taking more of a supervisory role

and hung around the truck again. All this could be nothing more than chance or a combination of actions that result in where you end up at a certain time, but my list of examples of luck playing a part in an outcome are numerous. I was filming turkeys in South Dakota one spring and met this guy who some folks might call a jinx. I was not calling that because I don't want to say that word out loud, but this guy certainly had some of the qualifications worthy

of that handle. If I remember right, his name was Frank. I was not hunting with Frank, but I did visit with him at night and some during the midday while eating lunch. And my first introduction to Frank came on the first morning of the hunt, when I ran into him outside the old house where we were staying. He was trying to fish his keys out of the cab of his truck, and he locked them inside and had the old bent clothes hangar in the window and was

cussing like crazy. The next time I saw him was later that night, when he was asking if anyone had seen a shotgun. I assumed he found it later, but the thought came to me then that I better keep an eye on this guy. Before I go deeper into this encounter, let me state that all of this is true. That night, the people who owned the house cook supper, which turned out to be baked fish with some vegetables. Frank said he did not eat fish, and he rode into town and got a sandwich and chips from a

convenience store. The next morning, I was up early gathering camera gear, and I heard a strange noise outside. Old Frank was bent over by his truck and was sure as hell not trying to get his keys this time. He was sick as hell. He told me from a distance that he thought the deli style roasted beef had given him food poisoning. I felt bad for old Frank, but I kept my distance just in case what he

had was contagious. That evening, Frank was looking kind of puny, but was sitting up outside sharing some hunting tails with some of the other fellows around a small campfire. I listened for a while, and I heard some sad tales of close encounters and misses and getting lost and so on, and discovered he had never killed a long beard. Against my better judgment, I offered to go with him to see if I could up his odds of at least

an encounter or two with my tube call. I explained the whole camera deal and what I needed him to do, and he perked up big time. The next morning, I went to Frank's room just to make sure he was good to go, and what I saw made my knees buckle. His hat was on the bed, and there were two knives with the blades crossed on the night stand. He was putting his left boot on first, and there was a cracked mirror in plain view in his shaving kit,

and he was singing before breakfast. Just one of those things is enough to screw your hunt for the day. But he was a virtual buffet of bad mojo. I expected his head to spend around in puke pea soup at any minute. I started grabbing hats and knives and such and gave him a quick rundown on just what I could see and how it could affect his hunt, not to mention his day to day life. Well. Frank was shocked but listened while I made a few more adjustments in the room. Once I made him get his

boots on correctly and checked him for other land. Once I made him get his boots on correctly and I checked him for other land minds, we headed to the woods and I told Frank to relax and just think positive thoughts and we would have a good day of hunting. Lord knows he was do one. Around ten am, after some far off gobbles and a couple of sightings, we had a gobbler responding and closing in fast. I had Frank set up in front of me, gun ready and

still as a rock. The gobbler closed the distance, and just as he appeared a little to our left, my camera shut off. I knew it was a dead battery, but I had just put a fresh one in before we left camp. I thought about trying to reach into my vest to grab a backup, but I had tried this move the spring before on a hunt with my youngest daughter and had screwed up the whole deal. I told Frank to shoot, and he smacked the merry im

upside the head, and the celebration was on. I felt worse about missing his reaction with the camera than I did missing the kill shot. He was fired up. On the ride back to camp, Frank quizmy on all the superstitions I knew, and he took notes as though he was going to be tested the next day. Now, looking back, I think the mysterious dead battery was a result of me touching too many bad things in Frank's room. I moved the mirror, took the hat off the bed, and

uncrossed the knife blades. I am convinced some of his bad mojo got on me. And just so you'll know, whether you believe it or not, here are some things

to avoid in the future. The order is of my choosing, beginning with the worst hat on the bed, black cat crossing your path, crossed, now walking under a lighter anything yellow spilled salt, singing an owl in the daylight, and hearing a rooster crow at night, singing before breakfast, putting your left boot on before the right, sitting on a table, passing someone on a staircase, and last cleaning out a fireplace and leaving no embers. Okay, thanks for listening to that.

Now we're going to get on with our regularly scheduled regularly. Did I say that right? You know I live in Mississippi. We it's hard to say words that are longer than two syllables. I don't know why that is. I got. I got an email the other day from a lady. I'm gonna read that email to y'all. I want y'all to see how nasty people can be when you put yourself out there, like on the internet or in public view, how filthy and nasty people can be. Let me find

this email all right here. It is here, It is here, it is Okay. I got this email back on October twenty seventh, just a few days ago. I want you all to listen to this. Your idiocy and ignorance about being a brother in Christ are bad enough, as are your like of beer, motorcycles and pit bulldogs, all three or garbage, and you're continuing to I won't say the word if up. How words should be said in your

abuse of grammar are just as bad. Stop saying laying when you should be saying lying, and further for farther and there is there are theres at any time. I don't even know what that means. I am really beginning to wonder about your intelligence level. Any of people in Mississippi are smart, so don't be so don't so don't use being a Mississippian as an excuse to talk like a dumbass. And bipedal is pronounced by pedal, not by pedal. Ge damn it, get a brain, man, I'm sorry, excuse me.

I got this email, and I get these. I don't get these often, but I bet I've gotten two or three dozen of these through the years. Normally I just delete them because there's something wrong with this person. I don't what makes these people so angry, So I responded with, I'm sorry that you think so poorly of me. I'm just having fun. You certainly don't have to watch the videos.

I actually corrected some of her spelling in a first response, because she spelled a couple of words incorrectly, which you know, I thought would be a fine comeback. She responded with, something is nasty anyway. I don't know. I don't normally do this. I don't normally read these kind of emails, but I do get them, not very often, but I'll get a dozen a year. Let's let's say it that way. I'll get a dozen of those a year. But I

am just having fun. I know I don't have good command of the English language, and I have trouble pronouncing some things because I'm just not used to pronouncing some things. And bipedal is by pedal. I don't give a crap what this lady says. Anybody you run into that says that word will generally, ninety nine percent of the time say by pedal. But if you like to say bipedal, you say by pedal, everybody will know what you mean. You know, she said, get a brain, man, I don't,

you don't. I don't know why these people are so angry. I'm just having fun. I love these stories, and I want you all to enjoy them. All right, I'm gonna quit talking about that. I want to thank you for listening to cuz Strickland's that chapter out of his book. I want you to look up a fist full of Dirt, and I want you to listen to their podcast. It is a relaxing, good podcast. Couzin and Lauren are such good storytellers, and I think you'd love it and all

the stories in this book that he wrote. I'm sure if you go back through their podcast for years, you'll hear these stories all over again, or you can buy the book. All right, enough of that, appreciate y'all clicking on the video. I've got five or six stories in this one. That's gonna be a long podcast, and I hope you all enjoy it. All Right, here we go. This could be a bigfoot creature. I'm not sure, but

this is a great story. The writer says, Hello, Cam, this story may interest you because I know how much you love dogs. I've never seen a dog behave in this manner before or since this incident. It happened in the autumn of nineteen seventy one in East Texas and the river bottom land of the Trinity River. My family owns a ranch that raises cattle, but we used dogs

to help us round up and pen the herds. We had at least three to six dogs specifically used for that purpose, and one or two dogs for security on the homestead, and throughout the years we've had the occasional hunting dog too, And as you can guess, our family well understands the behaviors and mannerisms of man's best friend. My father was good friends with a man named mister Jim, who has since passed away, and he was a gruff

wiry man who loved to raccoon hunt. He was getting older and he needed someone to accompany him on the hunts for safety reasons. This wasn't a blood sport, but a side income and a love of hunting. He sold the pelps to one and the meat to local families. On many occasions, my dad took me and my sister with them on the outings. It was our job to kill the raccoons with a shot to the head so as not to destroy the pelt. Once the dogs treed the raccoons, their eyes shine from the flashlight would give

away their location in a tree. The kill was done with a twenty two rifle with open sights and my dad holding a flashlight behind us, illuminating the gun barrel in the eyes of the raccoon. At the same time, us girls were competitive and we would try to get the kill shot in one attempt. We were pretty good at it, being only eleven and nine years old at that time. That night, mister Jim had brought his best dog, Bonnie, instead of the usual two or three that he would

bring when we hunted. Bonnie had the traditional white, brown and black markings of a treeing walker hound, which is also known as a coon hound. We met mister Jim I'm at the entrance of the private property, and we drove into the pasture on a dirt road that hugged along a thick stand of timber on the left. A field spread out to the right about seventy yards wide

and met the border of thick timber. Again, this field was long and narrow, the road continuing for about a half a mile and ending at a barn and cattle pins. We stopped and parked the vehicles approximately twenty yards from the gate. We got our gear out and mister Jim released Bonnie. She shot off like a bullet across the pasture and disappeared into the woods. Occasionally we could hear

her sound off with some excited yelps. We waited quietly in the dark, following her movements and listening for her to stop and begin barking incessantly. This would be the signal that she had treed a raccoon, and then we would go find her. She was moving down the property toward the barn, all the while staying in the woods, and then everything got quiet. I remember waiting by our car, looking at the dark woods where Bonnie entered the timber, when a foreboding feeling came over me. And I had

never felt that before. I was always excited to go raccoon hunting and never afraid of anything in the woods. But as we stood there waiting in silence, I heard a voice in my head say, we don't belong here. I promptly dismissed it, thinking it was just a weird thing to be feeling and thinking. Some time passed and we still had not heard from Bonnie, and then suddenly,

in the darkness, we heard her running toward us. She burst out of the woods and ran straight to mister Jim's shaking and trying to get between the safety of his legs. She almost tripped him as she tried to cling onto him, looking up at him with these terrified eyes, without making a sound. I couldn't tell if she was warning him to hide or begging him to get out of there. We were all shocked, and we stood there staring at her until mister Jim abruptly called it a night.

We're done, he said, and with that we began to load everything back into the trucks without argument. We all knew something had traumatized that poor dog, but we didn't know what. Could this night get any more weirder? Well, it sure did. Mister Jim loaded Bonnie on the truck and tied her up and said he wanted to go to the barn to look at some equipment. My dad followed behind him in our car, and when we pulled up at the barn, he told us girls to stay

put and that they would be right back. When he got out of the car and walked a few steps, something came flying through the air and hit the car in ten and next to him. It was so big and loud that my dad ducked and covered his head. What was that? He shouted. We sat there frozen. We didn't see or hear anything. My father composed himself and said it must have been a bat. Well, it must have been the biggest bat in Texas because it almost

snapped the antenna off. Dad mister Jim walked onto the barn and looked at some equipment that was illuminated by the car headlights. As my sister and I waited quietly, still disturb by the antenna incident. In Bonnie's behavior, that foreboding feeling came over me, and once again I heard the words we do not belong here in my head. I was relieved when my dad got back in the car. I didn't want to be there A minute longer. I got the point though, because we did not belong there,

and she signs off. She put a name on this email. It's Raccoon Annie. I don't suspect she didn't say whether to use that name or not, So anyway, I thought it was such a cool name. I thought I'd just say it. But this is one of those stories where someone has a bit of a premonition or a feeling, or a sixth sense or a I guess that's all

the words I can think of to call it. But then it's proven true by a dog that is probably hunted for years and knows the woods and it's not scared of anything, comes running out of the woods and hides behind its owner. Usually you turn some raccoon dogs out, man, they want to run all night long. You have to you have to drag them out of the woods to keep them to stop, to make them stop hunting. And this dog just comes out of nowhere and then something is thrown at them at the barn. I don't know

what that was. This was a great story. It's one of those creepy, kind of subtle all the scary things or things that you can't see but you know are there. It was perfect, perfect story. Thank you Raccoon Annie for sending this. I loved it. This is really not an encounter story, I guess, but some strange experiences that I've had. We lived in Florida and we bought a mobile home and we put it on a rental piece of land. A little while after we moved in, I started feeling

really creeped out. At one end of the trailer, there were two bedrooms in a bathroom, and right outside the bathroom, the carpet was always wet to me, but there were no water leaks. And when I asked my husband if he felt it too, he said, now it doesn't feel wet to me. That certainly didn't make me feel any better. I knew what I felt, and I knew it wasn't just in my head. The carpet was wet, and something

strange was going on. But as it does, life goes on, and I learned to live a new normal of seeing the ghostly water leak and not letting it ruin my day. A few years later, we pulled up the carpet to put down wood flooring, and in that same spot, right where I felt the water, it was black and wet, and I pointed at it and I told my husband, see it's right there. But to my dismay, that man didn't see anything at all. It was the strangest thing.

Some time later, after that floor was finished, that black spot bled through the wood floor. Each time I went or looked down the hallway, I could see it, and when I brought it up to my husband, he still didn't know what I was talking about. As frustrated as I was, I accepted that he didn't have whatever gift that I had suddenly developed, and I let it go, and again, as it does, life went on. Two years later, our daughter had a baby girl, and when I took her to the bedroom at the end of the hall,

the baby would cry right at that spot. If I took her into the bedroom next to the spot, she would fuss in there too. When our granddaughter was two years old, she told her mom to tell the little girl playing in her kitchen outside to even alone. My daughter looked outside, trying to figure out who she was talking about, but even though she saw no one, my granddaughter insisted that there was someone there. Two days later,

I was home alone, just me and my cat. We were in my bedroom with the door closed, when all of a sudden, we heard running coming toward the bedroom. A second later, something banged on the bedroom door. I know my cat heard it too, but he tendsed up and looked right at the door when it happened. I remember looking at him and saying, yeah, buddy, I heard it too. But unfortunately, we had experiences like that quite

a bit. Another strange thing that started to happen was that I began to have a prophetic dream, as in I would dream about something only for it to come true in real life. And not long after, it started to happen so frequently that if I had a dream. We would all count the hours or days until it came true. And after a while, all of this happening repeatedly. I dreamt that my son was in an accident with his truck, and the sheriff's officer was telling me that

he had died. Immediately the next day, I call my son and I told him about it. He knew all about my dreams coming true. And you better believe that that boy couldn't get rid of his truck fast enough. I have more experiences that I can share with you, but i'll stop for now. I don't know if the trailer we bought was haunted, but I sometimes wonder if something dreadful happened there and the spirit hasn't found a

way out to let go yet. Or maybe I developed a gift later in life and seeing this, spirits have found their way to me, hoping someone will notice them who can be sure. Thank you for reading our stories, mine and the rest of your listeners. I can relate to many of them, and with plenty of the bizarre experiences under my belt, and I believe the world is much stranger than many people realize. It's a curious thing to sense things no one else can and to know

we are surrounded by things that we cannot see. But even for those of us who have developed those involuntary gifts, as it does, life goes on. Oh that's cool. I mean that's scary. You know. I read these stories and sometimes I think, I mean, I like the story and I'm like, oh, that's a great story. But actually for this woman it was a traumatic story or traumatic set of events, especially dreaming that her son is going to die.

Obviously he didn't die, but he got rid of the truck because apparently they thought the truck was the way, was that specific vehicle was the vehicle he was going to have an accident in, and they got rid of the truck. I don't know what to think about a lot of these things. I'll tell you this. I've had a dreamer too in my life of a totally off the wall traumatic event that one and I woke up. I felt so horrible after dreaming. You know what happened,

And I swear to you those dreams came true. They didn't happen to me, and it was not any well, they did kind of happen to me, I guess, but it's not worth going into. But I've had two two of those dreams. And the first one I was in my thirties and I dreamed this terrible, heartbreaking thing and it eventually came true, probably if I remember right, within like a year it came true, and I connected it with the dream. How does that happen? I have no idea.

The other one was a little more subtle, it wasn't quite as traumatic, but it's not happened since I'm sixty two now, and they both I think they both happened in my thirties or forties, and I haven't had anything like that since, Thank goodness. I don't want to know. I don't want to know what's coming. I don't know

about y'all. But unless it's good, you know, unless I'm gonna, you know, land a really good, profitable job, or if I'm gonna one of my kids is going to be I don't know, you know, discover the cure for cancer or whatever it is. I don't really want to know if it's bad. It is a strange story. I've asked for these stories. This woman sent me the story and I read it. I've had it for a long time, and I'm glad I got to put it out now, so that was wonderful. Thank you, ma'am for sending it all. Right,

here's a Bigfoot story. My name is Renee, and you can use my name if you'd like. I grew up in the nineteen seventies in a very small place called Pelican, Louisiana, at a time when you didn't have to lock your windows or doors. My family and I lived way back in the country. It was so far back that if someone was coming to your house, you knew it because there was only one way in and one way out.

One day, my mom got a message to call her uncle. Heck, I never knew she had one because I'd never met him. The next day, we were told to pack our stuff because we were moving to Converse, Louisiana, about thirty miles from where we lived. We were moving in with Uncle Willy to take care of him. Uncle Willy was an older man who wore overalls and dip snuffed, and he smelled like an alcoholic. He would get drunk every night and sit outside and sing and peel on himself before

going to bed and passing out. Oh my gosh. My mom and dad, on the other hand, were respectable folks. They loved to go fishing almost every day. It wasn't until years later that I understood why there were nine of us kids to feed and my dad was disabled from his hands being frozen to the handlebars on a motorcycle in Germany during World War II. One day, my

mother wanted to find a creek and go fishing. Uncle Willy told her about a creek way back in the woods with a good road leading to it, because they had been drilling for oil down there. We loaded up our dark green station wagon, the green Machine as we called it. My older brothers drove our other vehicles, a

green van, and we took off. It was a beautiful day and the sun was shining and the weather was warm, and we drove ten to fifteen miles down dirt roads, and by the time we got there we were all dusted out. We made it down this sandy, dusty road and got out and started down to the woods to the creek Uncle Willy had told us about. There was a tree lying across the creek and it had a nice cool place for us younger ones to play away

from the water. I remember watching my dad and two of my brothers crossed the fallen tree across the creek when my dad suddenly put his hand in the air and made everyone stop. Hold up, boys, you boys, don't move, I heard him say. I remember the look on my mother's face as a foul smell crept into the area. What's that smell? She said, something's dead over here. Let's

find it and bury it. And all of a sudden, my dad told my brothers to turn around and get over the tree and get back on the other side of the creek again, and he told the rest of us to get in the car. Then I saw a look on his face that I will never forget. My dad may not have been a big man, but he wasn't scared of anything. But right then that was the first time I had ever seen him scared. We did what he told us to do when we got back in the car, and I remember what my dad told

my brothers when they got in the van. Don't stop until you get out of here. I don't care what you have to do. Go fast, he said, and then quickly got into the green machine with the rest of us. Buckle up, he said, And he never said that. Buckle up, roll up the windows, and lock the doors. You can believe that we did what Dad told us to do, and then he looked at my mom and said, Katie,

floor it and do not stop. The whole time this was happening, we could hear a growl and something yelling from the creek, and when we got home, my dad was shaken up. We were all sitting in the living room wondering what it was that made him so scared. He didn't tell us everything right then, but he did tell us to look up every animal with five toes. Years later, my dad finally told us what he saw.

When he and my brothers went across that tree to the other side of the water, he saw huge barefoot tracks and handprints, and while he and my brothers were looking at them, he had a funny feeling that something wasn't right. And when he looked up there, it was the meanest, ugliest creature he had ever seen. It had hair all over its body and big eyes and yellow teeth, and it looked mad. And he said it was watching us kids playing on the creek bank like we were

going to be at next meal. That's when Dad made us get out of there. He said he didn't believe in bigfoot until that day. If you have a guessed already. That was the last time we went to the creek bank again. And it was the last time my parents took advice from Uncle Willy on where to go fishing. Oh man, that is terrifying. That is a scary story. And why would you take advice from uncle Willy? Anyway, When he sits out on the porch and drink, gets drunk and sings and peas on himself, that was a

funny part of the story. But that was man. Can you imagine being a child. You don't see what your dad has seen, but he's telling us. He's getting everybody together. Get him in the car, get him down the road, get him out of the woods. You knew these folks had to know something was good. And it's great. The dad told him the story later on in life. This is really, really a good story. Thank you Renee for sending this. Okay, here's a story. Let me move the

mic a little closer here. This is a story that's really different than a lot of the stories I do, but it is so good. I hope you all enjoy this. I sure enjoyed reading this. The man writes, I am writing to you because I believe people need to know there is much more to this life than the eye meets. My story is proof of that. In nineteen ninety five, I was living in Rhode Island with my lovely wife

and our three year old son. My wife told me about a new non denominational church called Word of Life that was opening around the corner from us, and we decided to check it out. One afternoon. We took a walk over and we entered the nicely renovated lobby just as a woman came out of the church office. She and I looked at each other and we stopped. We had in our tracks. It was a friend of mine from art school named Annabelle, whom I had lost touch with.

It turned out that she and her husband were starting the church, and her husband, Lance was the pastor. Well, Lance and I became fast friends. In addition to the Sunday service, Lance encouraged Tuesday night Bible studies and he offered a Thursday night service as well. Word of Life became our church home for several years. I grew in my faith and I started leading a Bible study group at a friend's house on Tuesday nights. A couple of

families and singles attended the Bible study. People brought their children, who were all around the ages of three to five, except for one. Matt was ten or eleven. He was quiet and somewhat withdrawn. He's a good kid, just trying to make sense of life. One night, instead of leading the Bible study, I decided to sit and talk with him. Maybe because I was an only child raised by a single mother who often dragged me to boring events, I guess I felt a connection with him. He lit up

when I asked him about his hobbies. He loved video games and electronics. He liked taking things apart and tinkering with stuff like broken radios. Later, when I shared the conversation with his mom, she told me that he played around with stuff but had never fixed a darn thing. I told her that she might want to encourage him. My mom let me draw as a kid, and it was a hobby that turned into a successful career. On the night of the encounter, I entered the church sanctuary

for a Thursday night service. Lance was big on media even back then in nineteen ninety five, and he recorded every service with two video cameras. One was close to the platform on a tripod with a cameraman recording him in the message, and the other camera was on a tripod alcove at the back of the church to get a long shot. Lo and behold, Little Matt from the Bible Study was manning the rear camera, which made me smile. I guess his mother must have taken the advice and

encouraged him. That night, one hundred people gathered near the front to be close to the platform so they could hear better. As we entered the church, my wife took our son and sat with everyone filing in, while I went to sit with Matt in the alcove. When the church band wrapped up, Lance took the podium and Little Matt sat to the left of the camera, beaming happily, ready to pop in another cassette when needed. I sat to the right of the camera and decided to stay there.

As Lance started his message that night, he was preaching on demons in spiritual warfare and Smith Wigglesworth, the great evangelist who was known for his great faith, courage, and deliverance of people from demonic possession. As Lance spoke about Wiggleworth's encounters with the supernatural and the demonic powers, Matt and I were alone at the back of the church, with the exception of an usher seated in front of us across the aisle. Now, I'm not a person who

frightens easily. I once had a huge Doberman charge me and run circles around me, jaws snapping, slinging, spit and barking and snarling until the owner took a sweet time to call them off. And while that was alarming, I could see it coming, and I could prepare myself. I can tell you there was no way to prepare for the bizarre encounter that was about to happen there. Matt and I were sitting quietly as Lance spoke, when a sudden and terrifying sound erupted behind us in the alcove.

Within a second, an invisible beast let out two furious and hateful roars. The first was like it was gathering itself to launch, and the second was like it was on full on attack mode. I will never forget the spirit of the thing and the terrible sensation it projected. It was pure hatred, rage, evil, and savagery all in one. The sound was so loud and so real and so powerful that Mitt and I dove out of our seats and onto the floor to escape whatever it was that

was coming at us. I was sure it was going to kill us, and as I hit the floor, I threw my arm up to fend it off, knowing its teeth and claws were coming and I was about to be mauled. I even remember thinking, say goodbye to your arm. When nothing tore into me. I hisstantly looked up, fully expecting to see some monstrous beast, but there was nothing there, and I lay there staring up at the blank wall, my arm in the air, my heart racing and my

mind reeling. I looked over to see little Matt mirroring my position, staring at the back wall with his arm up in the error protectively too. Did you hear that? I whispered. He looked at me like it was the dumbest question he had ever heard. Yes, he gasped, His eyes were bulging. We sat up cautiously and looked around for some sign of this invisible, hateful beast when I noticed the usher scowling at us with the what the hell are you two doing? Look on his face. Apparently

no one else heard it but me and Matt. As Lance continued the service, uninterrupted. We got back to our seats and awkwardly tried to compose ourselves. It wasn't only alarming because of the sound and the sensation it gave off, but also because it didn't make any sense where it came from. It would have had to come through the wall or manifest in a few inches of space right behind us. I saw the construction of that area, and there weren't any hidden doors or windows or vents or

openings or something to sneak in. It was just the back of the alcove. I was impressed when later on Little Matt had the presence of mind to replace the tape when it ran out and the service ended, and I rushed to tell Lance what had happened. My wife and Annabelle listened as I tried to explain, and I could see they were all totally taken off guard and didn't know what to say. So I told Lance the camera was right there and it was running, and I'm

sure it recorded the noise. He said, Unfortunately, the audio was off on that camera, but if it was loud enough, the mic on the camera up front may have picked it up. Sure enough, A couple of days later, Lance called me into his office. He had found the spot on the video where you could clearly hear the faint but distinct double roar in the background. He was amazed, and I was relief someone else heard it too, so

I didn't feel like a raving lunatic. This experience was so intense that afterward whatever doubt I had in my mind about the existence of God and the angelic realm was totally dispelled. I'm convinced it was some sort of demonic manifestation, perhaps somehow provoked by Lance's message that night. It is by far the most bizarre thing that has ever happened to me, And as I said, I will never forget it. Thanks Cam and keep up the good work.

And he signs off. That's like the second story of some people seeing and hearing things and other people not. I just picked these stories at random. I don't pick them because they have a specific theme unless I'm trying to do one with a specific theme. I just picked these at random and put them out there. And there's two stories in a row of people dealing with what they think could be some kind of paranormal or demonic thing. I'll tell you something about this writer, though I'm a

read you note that he wrote. He says, and I appreciate him writing this. It says you are such an inspiration to me that I started my own little podcast. It's called The Brave Traveler Podcast. It's basically me reading a book I wrote years ago entitled Majesty, about two kids who go off in search of the White Horse of Revelation. Check it out when you get the chance. The Brave Traveler Podcast, Majesty Marathon. I'm going to find that and put a link in the description below so

you guys can go check his podcast out. I assume it's on YouTube. Yeah, it's on YouTube, and you guys can listen to it. I got this story a long time ago. Here's the thing with these stories. There was a point in time, back in twenty to twenty twenty two, a two year period where I was getting ten or fifteen stories, oh more than that, twenty or thirty stories from viewers a week. Now I'm not getting I might get three or four a week. It's really gone down

in volume. I still have all these stories in my inbox to pull up and read to you, and that's what I'm doing. But so his YouTube channel might be a couple of years old, so he might be interested to hear from you in the comments section and telling him that you heard his story on the Dixon on the Dixie Crypti Channel and that's why you came over. Otherwise you wouldn't have known about it. Anyway. This was

a great story. I appreciate the writer sending it. Man, it's really kind of weird, kind of a weird story that happened in a church. I'm gonna have to think about this one. This is really interesting. Okay, thanks to the writer. Let's go to another one. I've been listening to your stories for a long time, and I've heard you say many times about being a skeptic of the existence of these entities. I'm actually glad this is the case. I was a skeptical person myself for a long time,

and I always enjoyed listening to the stories. And that was that until one night six years ago. I had purchased three acres of land outside of Atlanta in a rural community. It was surrounded by thousands of acres of farms and forested areas. There were natural creeks and other waterways nearby, and it was full of deer and coyotes and bobcats and rabbits. I'd been pretty busy clearing the land and cutting down trees and burning the brush and left over debris. This was kind of a nightly routine.

I would grab a cold beer and chair and throw a bit of diesel fuel on the pile and light it up, and I would sit there and just enjoy the end of the day with a nice fire and think about what I would do the next day. It went on like this for a while until the night I heard something on the other side of my fire. I couldn't see anything, so I grabbed a flashlight, lit up the area, and I caught some ice on the other side of another brush pile I had not burned yet.

I threw a rock at the pile in the hopes of scaring off whatever it was, But to my surprise, whatever it was just stayed there. This spoke to me a little, and I figured it was better to call it an early night. This happened a few more times, to the conclusion of no surprise or excitement. It just left me with questions about what it was and why it wouldn't go away, even after I tossed rocks at it. I had a lot to do on the land still, and not too much time to spend thinking about that,

so I just let it go. At the end of the summer, I needed to get my garage and closed in preparation for the coming winter, and I was working late hanging plywood and making all kinds of racket hammering and nailing it all down. I was up on the ladder doing my thing, just banging away at these nails, when all of a sudden, I heard a tree hit the ground behind me with a crash. I stopped for a second, and I knew it had not been raining or windy, and that this was a strange and random

thing to happen. But I went back to work on those nails, pounding them down flush, and I continued working for another half an hour, and then bam and a crash and another tree came down in the same area. Now that got my attention. As my skin filled up with goosebumps, I got off that ladder and wrapped it up for the night. I knew something strange was going on, but I had no idea what it could be. I had always thrown out a coffee can or so of

apple scent in corn to bring in the deer. They would usually move in just before dark, and I enjoyed watching them. Their visits became predictable to the point of several times a week. Early one morning, I took a visit to the Port of John when it was still dark out. I headed down the driveway and just as I got close to the door, I heard a short and deep growl. Well this caught me so off guard that it shook my entire stomach area and brought me

to a standstill in midstep. The hair went up on my neck and a cold chill ran down my spine. I just stood there, frozen in place, thinking what the f was this? When nothing attacked me, I continued onto the toilet, I did my business, and made a beeline back inside afterward. Two days later, early Saturday morning, I couldn't sleep, so I stepped outside to have a cigarette, and while I was sitting there, I heard some noises

coming from the far side of my garage. So I grabbed a flashlight and lit up the area, and I saw some deer backed up to my fence line. They were acting nervous and excited. Their heads were moving left to right, and their ears were moving this way and that. So I moved the light around and caught some eyeshine on the far side of them, and I decided to get a better look at what it could be. I moved around to the front of the garage and started

panning the light around. The deer were still there, acting the same, and I couldn't figure out why they didn't just run off. As I moved the light, I noticed more eyes shine next to a large pine tree. This time it was just a single lie, but as I started at it, that thing moved its head until both

eyes stared right at me in the light. The worst sinking feeling I ever felt filled my stomach, and I realized that not only had I gotten in the way of these things hunting the deer, but now its attention was on me. I made a straight shot back inside, and I locked the door, and I grabbed my handgun, and I made sure my shotgun was close too. I don't know if I slept the rest of the night or not, and the next morning, still nervous as I could be, I went out looking around for footprints or

whatever I could find. I did find a track, but strangely only one. A short time later, I moved to Atlanta. I was a wreck for a long time after that experience. I guess that would be the PTSD that they talk about. Well, now time has passed and I've come to terms with it. If it wanted me, there wasn't much I could have done to stop it. So when you have an encounter, your view of the world changes and you begin to

question everything you thought you knew. Your head is always on a pivot looking around, and you never relax again. My hope to those listening is that you don't ever have an encounter of your own. No matter how interesting some of these encounter stories may seem, it will unwind your view of reality and life won't ever be the same in the worst possible way. Well, that is true, you know. I think PTSD is at certain levels with certain you know, with different people. I would say this

would bother me a little bit. We live out in the country and it's really dark. I could have had some you know, these street lights put up on a couple of polls around. I think it's like seven dollars a month to rent those from the utility company. But I kind of like it dark out here. I wear a head lamp everywhere I go when I'm out at night to lock the birds up, or I don't know, go find a dog or whatever, and I never see anything, never hear anything. It's always quiet, the stars are pretty.

But I guess if these things are in your neighborhood or in your area, you could be in for some trouble. But I'll say this, I read a lot of these bigfoot type stories, and it's very rare that anyone gets attacked or even hurt. I mean, we have had stories where they the video I put up last week, the bigfoot was break trying to break in two people's houses. I mean, that would be terrifying, slapping on the pushing

trees over on the house. But they never actually I guess if bigfoot are as smart and as strong and as stealthy as people make them out to be, which I don't doubt, why wouldn't they just come in and grab people out of the house and drag them out in the woods and kill them and eat them or whatever they do with people. I don't know. It's pretty rare that people get injured by these mythical creatures. Matter of fact, I don't remember. I think I remember one

where a guy was killed. He was writing a story about his grandfather, but he didn't see it happen. He's just assuming it was a bigfoot. I don't know. The guy could have fell out of a tree stand, but I'm not doubting the story. I'm just saying there's always other explanations. But this story kind of creeped me out, kind of made kind of gave me goosebumps. It was kind of creepy. That's why I like these stories are scary.

Thank you to the writer for sending it. It was awesome. Okay, thank you all for following along all the way to the end of the podcast. I really appreciate that, and we will see you on the next one. Thank you.