In southwest Ohio. One evening in two thousand and sixteen, my buddy and I were fishing at a pond in Sycamore State Park. We were downhill from a reservable shelter where a wedding reception was being held, and we started making our way back up the hill. When we made it to the top, we looked over at the shelter under the light. Something caught our attention and it made a stop in our tracks. It was a nine foot tall dark creature standing next to one of the trash cans.
It stared at us for a couple of seconds, and then it turned around and walked into the brush line. We ran to the car and sped out of there, and we've never been back to that place. Hey, y'all, welcome to the podcast. My name is Cam Buckner and this is the Dixie Cryptid Podcast, also known as the what If It's True? Podcast on any podcast app that you have on your phone. By to it. Most of
December and the holiday season off. Hope you guys had a great Christmas in New Year, by the way, But I took that time off and just didn't do much of nothing, and I am recharged and ready to get back and get back at this podcast and everything else I do during the day. Let's say we've got nine stories in this podcast, because I owe it to you been gone for about three weeks. The last story might
be the most interesting story in this podcast. It's about thirty minutes long, and it is an email I got from a federal game warden. Read the story, thought it was interesting. He left his phone number, and I called him and asked him about this story. Normally I don't do that. I mean, it's like one out of a thousand that I'll call when people send their phone number. He give me a call if you want to talk or whatever. I don't. I don't have time for that.
But I call this guy because the story was so interesting and it kind of matched up with the missing person's phenomenon. So he and I talked. Actually we've talked a couple of times. He as a partner that he worked with for years. He's retired now, but he as a partner he's worked with for years and together they have some amazing stories. He's written one more and he's promised to send me a couple more, give me a series of about four or five. So as I do them.
I'll make the thumbnail. It'll be a missing person's kind of thumbnail, and you'll know that it's another one in the series. And I'm including it with a bunch of other stories. So you guys can all you people who fall asleep can listen to this over and over and snooze off while I read a story. Seems to be a popular activity when my podcast has gone going on. Anyway, thanks for joining me on this podcast. I'm ready to
get into it all right, here we go. My cousin's husband was sitting next to me at dinner one night. I knew he was an outdoorsman working on wildlife conservation projects, so I turned to him and asked him about the spotted owl project that he had been working on. His entire demeanor changed, his skin paled and his hand trembled as he reached for his glass. I saw them. You know they're huge, he said, the owls I asked. He shook his head and looked away. It was never about owls,
never about owls, he kept saying. Taking another drink, his hands still trembling, and he dropped his voice and leaned in and he whispered softly. It was about Sasquatching. It was always about that beast. He quit talking now after that. I was so taken aback by his response that I didn't ask him anything else. Already believed in Sasquatch as long as I could remember, and had so many questions for him, but I kept them to myself. The way he spoke about it to me, it pained him. His
body language was screaming trauma. I desperately wondered what happened to him out there on his soul called a spotted owl project, but I didn't dare to ask him. He passed away now, and I never once doubted that he was telling the truth. His demeanor that night was confirmation enough to me that we had been deceived and there's something in the woods they don't want us to know about. Oh man, that is such a cryptic little email. You know, there's not a lot of background, which I kind of
like those. I kind of like those stories where it just tells the story. I think it's more impact Sometimes the shorter stories are more impactful than the long drawn out I'm a I'm a he man, mountain man kind of stuff. But this was really good. So this guy's out on this spotted owl project, which I think is a is something that goes on in the Northwest. Well, I don't think we have spotted owls where I live. We do have some big old barn owls and other
kind of owls. I have them land up in my pine trees out in front in my front yard in the summertime, and I'll see one of them, a big one, swoop up and land on a branch, and I walk right up but underneath them, and look up at him and take pictures of them, and they just kind of look down at me. And when they're looking down at me, it's kind of they are an amazing bird. But when they look down at me, it's like, if you were a little smaller, I think I'd eat you. That's the
vibe I get from an owl. And I have two little dogs. I don't think they would eat my little dogs, but they might anyway. I love owls. But he's out there on his spottedt oul project and it's disguised as a sasquatch project, and she was afraid to ever ask him the question. Again. I kind of get that, you know, when you get that kind of response from somebody that doesn't talk much you just leave it alone and you take it for what it's worth. Anyway, this was a
great story. I really appreciate the writer sending it. It was so good. Thank you. I am an active duty soldier stationed at Fort Stuart, Georgia. Earlier this year. My unit was out on training for forty five days. In that time, we trained day and night, and we slept under the stars, sometimes in the woods and sometimes out in open fields. On one night, we had just finished training, five of us were huddled together watching the clouds drift
overhead as we talked about anything and everything. The planet Venus was prominent in the night sky and the Moon was sitting fairly low. We were able to make out both of them through the clouds. As we admired the view, large bright object appeared beneath the glow of Venus. None of us could figure out what it was. It had appeared out of nowhere and was sitting in front of the clouds and was shining brighter than Venus. It wasn't
an aircraft because it wasn't moving or blinking. We got lost in the conversation and again about one thing or another. When one of our group pointed out that the light had disappeared and then reappeared a full ninety degrees away. All eyes were back on this light, and again it wasn't moving. As we watched it, it started releasing a ring of white smoke. It was circular at first, and
then it expanded into a sideway's heart shape. It was big and loose at first, and then started to get smaller somehow, and it became more defined until poof the object and the shot out of sight. The strangest part was that all of the clouds in the sky disappeared in an instant, and all of the stars popped on this massive canvas of black, as if a switch had been flipped. The five of us looked at each other, relieved we had seen the same thing, knowing anyone else
would have called us crazy and locked us up. The next day, I couldn't stop thinking about it. At least three other soldiers from different areas of our training site saw it too. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen, and I've never been able to explain it. Oh what a cool story. Now that's a UFS That is a UFO story. I've never heard smoke coming out of the UFO making some kind of shape in the sky and then boom, it's gone and all the clouds
are gone. Now that is weird. I love all this UFO stuff, and it's actually become so the word popular. There's a lot of information out on these things now nobody still nobody knows what they are, but the so that the just the light sightings become less interesting. Do you know what I'm talking about? But these light sightings are exciting to me because I think I've seen something like, not this, but something lights in the sky. I've described
it before. I have no idea what it was. It was probably all explainable, and you know, it was probably just a natural thing, an aircraft or something like that. But I've seen lights in the sky and the way it makes you feel is like, oh man, that is so cool to see something different like that. It seems to be nothing like in movies, you know, do you guys like the UFO type movies. Like one of my favorite movies of all time is Close Encounters of the
Third Kind. That movie. I could watch it today and it still takes me back to that time when I was just in wonder an amazement at all the things that could be it's the the UFO type, alien type films that come out now. They're so I don't know, they're just I don't know if it's the writers or what it is. I just watched. We bought a subscription to Apple TV, and I got to tell you, I don't like anything by Apple. I don't like their phones,
I don't like their computers. Just logging in to your account, your Apple account is a major pain. It's not like anything else anyway. We subscribe to Apple TV to watch a specific series. It was probably a year ago, maybe more, and then I was going to cancel the subscription, but I've kept it all this time, hoping they put something
good back up. Well, along comes this series called Pluribus now Pluribus on Apple TV, A series created by a man named Vince Gilligan who was the I guess he was the creator of the was it the AMC or FX series Breaking Bad? Which I thought was awesome. It was a great series. It went on for years, so I thought, oh man, this is going to be good. And they really hyped it up to begin with. They really hyped up ploribis well. I watched the first episode
one night. It was kind of late. My wife and I watched it and we thought, oh, this is interesting. Then we watched the next episode and it was pretty much the same thing. And I got to the ninth final episode and the story never changed. It was like, there were things happening, obviously, but it was the same kind of thing over and over and over again. It was the I was so disappointed in that series. It was like, is this thing? Is anything ever gonna happen?
So I don't recommend Ploribus. That's just me. I liked stories that move. That was. Man, what a letdown for this for that series Pluribus. We did, however, watch a movie I think it was called The Astronaut. It was an alien spaceship kind of movie and it moves really fast and the ending was awesome. When it was over, I turned to my wife and I said, now that is a good movie. That was a good story. It was a cool surprise ending. It was kind of a heartwarming.
You think it's a horror type story, but at the end you're kind of relieved. Not that I like any kind of particular ending, but it was just a perfect appropriate ending that just made you go, oh wow, now that was cool. So I recommend that. I can't. We must have rented it on Prime or I can't remember where it's showing. But if you can find a film called The Astronaut, I think the thought Nail or the Marquee for it as a woman inside, she's got a
like a space helmet on. Anyway, The Astronaut, it's really good. Okay, enough you acting about UFO stuff. I just thought that was interesting and it made me think about the horrible series called Pluribus. If you liked plur of Us, make a comment in the comment section below what you thought about it. I thought it was horrible, horrible. Anyway, let me know what you like. What do you like in UFO type sci fi movies? Let me know this little story.
I don't remember when I got this. When you first hear it, when the first when the story first starts, you're not going to get it, but you'll get it at the end. It seems to be just a piece of fun writing, is what I would call it. It's a sidesquat story, but I got a kick out of it, so I thought you guys might like it. We'll do this one before we get into our missing person's serious Bigfoot story. I think it's a bigfoot story. You'll have
to decide anyway. Listen to this fun story. I had been sort of depressed for several days after talking crow adventure and almost getting eaten by a bear. I thought things couldn't get much worse, but they did. We learned that Aunt Myrtle and her snooty little daughters were returning for another visit. We figured that after the dragon's scared,
they would never return, but we were wrong. The thought of having to return to sleeping in the barn and listening to their silly giggling made my Dame even more depressing. The boys decided it was time for us to do something so they would never want to come back. After reading about a half animal and half human creature that roam the woods in Oregon, we devised a plan that was surely scared the snooty girl so bad that they
would never want to visit us again. The creature was called sasquatch, stood about eight feet tall and was covered in thick black hair. What seemed amazing was it walked upright like a human. If we could create a creature that resembled a sasquatch and scare the girls they would never come visit again. Using a picture from a magazine as a model, we made our sasquatch costume. We used burlap sacks covered with some black moss for the body, and an old cowskull made the perfect head. This costume
was really scary looking. Now we had to figure out how to use it for the best results. When that Myrtle and the girls arrived, we were all nice and polite, and we carried their bags to their room and brought some lemonade for refreshments. Grandma was so surprised at our good manners she gave us a big smile, and Grandpa was not fooled by our actions and cast a cynical look. Our way suggested the girls should get out and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine, and we would be happy
to show them the farm. Everyone thought this was a swell idea, so we invited the girls to go doberry picking. It was decided the following morning would be the ideal time to pick berries. We found the perfect spot for our sisquatch trick. It was sounded by thick bushes where we could hide waiting the berry picking girls. Jake escoreded the girls to the berry picking spot, while Reuben hid in the nearby bushes wearing the sasquatch costume. I was
Reuben's assistant in case he needed any help. On their way to the berry patch, Jake told the girls a story about a wild man that roam the river bottoms nearby, and he would occasionally be seen by folks. The girls got scared and wanted to return to the house, but Jake assured them that he would protect them if the wild man was to appear. When the girls started picking dewberries, they soon forgot about the wild man and started giggling
and talking their girl talk. Reuben waited a while before walking out of the bushes wearing the wild man costume. The girls didn't notice him at first, but after he made a loud grunting sound, they saw him and they screamed in terror. Now one might not think girls wearing skirts and petticoats could run fast, but these girls raced off through the woods like gus elves. One girl fell down in a mud hole and was covered from head
to toe and gooey slime. The other tore her dress on a thorn bush, lost a shoe, and even managed to step in some bull nettles after a good long life. We realized we might have gone too far with our wildman trick and probably had some tall explaining to do when we returned home. The story we finally decided on was that our old black Shad and Gorara goat had probably followed us to the berry patch, and this is what the girls had seen. I don't think anyone believed
our story, but we were not punished. That same afternoon, Aunt Myrtle and the girls left for home. Good riddance. Okay, that's probably just a fun story, but it's a good story. I hope you guys like that, and I appreciate the writer taking time to do this. I don't know this story could be true, but it's not necessarily a Bigfoot story. It's a bigfoot hoak story, and it's a good one at that. But anyway, thanks to the writer for sending it.
It was really really entertaining. Thanks. Okay, I think Rebecca labeled this a Bigfoot story. I'm reading it cold. It's a short, little story, but it looks kind of good. One night in nineteen sixty nine, I got up to get a glass of water in the kitchen. I saw a huge auburn colored furry face looking at me through the glass, and I screamed. My family laughed at me, but I remember it clearly to this day. The round, soulful eyes and the large head and the beautiful colors
stand out in my mind. Since that night, I have experienced one strange thing after another. Animals of all kinds come right up to me, and strange lights follow me home, and objects in my house seem to move on their own. My relatives think I'm crazy, and if it weren't for my children, who have witnessed every event, I might think I was losing my mind too. I still live in the same area that I grew up in. At night, when the motion lights flicker on and off, I hear
slaps at my bedroom window and strange howls from the woods. Personally, I believe there are many things we humans don't understand. I trust that my Lord is King, and I fear nothing because he promised to protect me and mine. I don't know why I was chosen to witness these strange things, but I feel very blessed. Love your podcast. And she signs off, and I know it's a she because of her Uh, well, that could be a guy name. Anyway,
it's a great story. And that's exactly how I would feel if I saw Bigfoot or I saw, you know, one of these cryptids that didn't kill me or eat me. But I would feel so lucky. And I can see why people say it would change my life, change their lives, because you know, to see something you've never seen, something that you think could there's no way it could exist, would be life changing. And it would. And what I like about this story is, all of a sudden, I
the blue wild animals come up to her. I'm assuming she means deer, and probably some of the other smaller wildlife where she lives. But this was a great story. It's a short one, but it was really good. Man. There's a lot of gunpowder in these short stories, and I love them. So you guys keep sending them. I really appreciate it. Thank you to the writer. Okay, this is a show enough Bigfoot story. I was raised in
the small town of Eldriche, Alabama. One night in the summer of nineteen ninety, my family and I were watching TV with the windows open. Out of nowhere, my father jumped up and grabbed the remote and he shouted did y'all hear that? My mother and I shrugged, and he told us to wait and listen. We got up off the couch and walked out the front door, and we looked outside, right across from us as my grandfather's and
cousins trailer. As we looked toward their home, we saw an eight foot tall bigfoot standing at my cousin's window, staring at him as he slept. My dad got on the phone and called my grandfather and told him what was happening. And my grandfather grabbed U thirty thirty Winchester rifle and walked quick but quietly to my cousin's bedroom. When he opened the door, he caught the bigfoot reaching
in the window toward my little cousin. And when he realized what he was looking at and what this big brute was trying to do, we heard him yell out, I don't think so, you stinking s hope. He opened fire on it and shot it straight in the chest. The bigfoot roared and hit the side of my grandfather's trailer so hard that the force knocked it off its brick foundation. And there we were in our home right across from it, watching it all happen. My dad and
I were in protective mode at that point. We grabbed our rifles and joined our grandfather outside and unloaded into the beast. That thing roared and tore through the trees like a D nine bulldozer. My mother called the police while we checked on my cousin. He was unaware of anything happening. The gunshots in the same room barely woke him up. I swear that kid could sleep through a raging hurricane. Betty was drunk. Thirty minutes later, two deputies
showed up and we told them what had happened. After hearing everything, one of the deputies took us flashlight out and shined it in our eyes and asked us where the drugs were. I thought my grandfather and dad were about to whoop his ass till the other deputy stepped in. He told his partner to open his eyes and look at the condition of the trailer. There was no man who could cause that kind of damage to a mobile
home and knock it off its foundation. Then he pointed his flashlight a few feet away and lit up a massive track this beast had made. There were complete right and left prints in the dirt, and then another right print. Three steps. That's all it took for Bigfoot to reach the woods. We measured the tracks and they were seventeen inches long and six inches white. The deputy with common
sense said it looked like foot. He took the report and took pictures, and right before he left, he looked at us and said, I don't let nobody tell you that was a bear, and then he left. We love your show, and we've been listening for six years now. It's okay to use my name. I know what I saw. The writer's name is Elvis Man. What an action packed story. I can't believe your cousin didn't wake up. That was crazy. Hey, at least you had a deputy on your side and
nobody thought you were crazy. I love this story. It seems really familiar to me. It's almost like I've done it before. But I don't think. I'm thinking. Maybe sometimes I read these and I've just read them before, I hadn't really narrated them. I have so many to do that, and I do so many of these stories that it's hard. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with and when there are duplicates, so if they are, I'm sorry, But it does seem kind of familiar, but it's heck, it's worth
doing again. It's so good it's worth doing again. All Right, thanks for the story, Elvis. All right, here's a story about a ghost that I thought was fantastic. My experience starts out like any other great adventure, a summer trip to Silverwood Themed Park in North Idaho. I've been to Silverwood many times, and I reserved a beautiful cabin there for my birthday weekend, with a view of the lake and the woods. My sister and I left the west side of Washington State in the wee hours and we
made the five and a half hour road trip. We had a great day checking out the park, and we walked some easy trails and hung out near the lake, and we toured the on site historic military museum. At the museum, we were in the brig which displayed the history and daily life of this World War II naval training station, when I was overcome with a cold chill and a sudden urge to leave later that night in the cab, I went outside and walked a short distance
to the sheared bedroom. I was in a hurry and eager to get back to the warm bunk in the cabin. When I realized I was being watched, I stopped and looked toward the restroom, and I got the same cold chill as I had in the brig. Right in front of me, it was a full body apparition of a soldier wearing a dark button up uniform and a flat style hat, holding a rifle over his left shoulder. He was a bit out of focus and not totally solid.
I could not make out his facial features, and I saw through him as if through a thick cloud of smoke. I ran it full sprength the rest of the way back to the bathroom, where I realized I was totally alone. My cell had no signal. By this time, my sister was fast asleep, and I knew that this thing was still out there. After I got the nerve to exit the outer house, it was even darker outside. I looked
around and I didn't see anything. Thinking I was just being paranoid or that I was imagining this thing, I headed back to the cabin, feeling a little bit dumb. When I got to about the halfway mark, I heard a large crack and a thud, the same sound of branch makes as it snaps off a tree and hits the ground. Straight ahead of me, I saw a figure again. This time it was more defined, standing at the trailer head, just inside the darker shadow of the night. This time
I wasn't afraid of him. I couldn't explain it. I got the feeling that he was trying to protect me. He was telling me that I was safe and that he was there to watch over us. I wasn't as afraid as before, but I was still shaking. After all, I had just seen a ghost. I went back into the cabin and I stayed awake the entire night. When I woke my sister up the next morning, I had already packed the car and I was ready to leave.
The front desk ladies reaction when I checked out that morning still makes me wonder how often people leave this place early. I walked in looking more than a little frazzled, and I told her we wanted to check out early. The woman took one look at me and asked very hesitantly how our stay was, and I guess my facial expression was all the answers she needed. Days later, I noticed that a full refund for the stay had been issued to me. Thank you for giving me an out
that to share this encounter. I've been enjoying your podcast for a couple of years now, and I appreciate your content and your comforting voice. Well you're welcome. Thank you for listening. If it wasn't for you guys listening, I might be doing a little bit of this. But I it's all because you listen, that's the reason, and people enjoy it. But this was a great story. She you know,
these stories are so believable to me. Some of them are packed with a little bit of corny stuff, but man, every story I've read in this podcast tonight has been I don't know, everything rings true to me. I really appreciate these things. So thank you for sending the story as a great story. And I wonder how your life changed and your outlook on life change after seeing this apparition at that World War II naval facility. It's unbelievable, unbelievable,
a real ghost. Oh. I love these stories. Thank you again to the writer. Last fall, six of my girlfriends and I were on a self guided mule deer and elk hunt. We are all ice hockey players from Minnesota who have been friends since we were ten. Every year since we graduated high school, we get together for a hunting trip. Whether it's for Hoggs in Texas, Antelope on the Plains, black bear in Canada. We used long bows,
compound bows, or rifles. This year, we decided to do a second season rifle hunt in Colorado, so we packed our ATVs in side by sides on our trailers and took off into the mountains. We had reserved a site through an outfitter named Scott, who we had gotten to know over the past few years. We got to the camp site three hours from the nearest road, and we found that Scott had already set up a large outfitter's tent and installed a wood burning stove for us and
stacked a cord of firewood in there with us. That gave us extra time to do some scouting and find what was lurking around nearby that we could harvest. That night, we built a campfire and we sat around eating fried maloney sandwiches. Wait a minute, where are you from? Who else in this audience loves fried blowney sandwiches. I like it about three eighths of an inch stick, a big water slong on top of it, and some mustard on a Hamburger. Vun just had to throw that in back
to the story. They were drinking red wine and catching up on each other's lives. Now, I don't drink red wine with my blowney sandwiches, but that doesn't matter. Late at night, Brent grabbed her flashlight and her nine millimeter and slipped outside to water the plants behind the tent. The next morning, as we were getting ready to head out in the early dark hours, she told us that she heard something walking around just out of sight of her light behind the tent. We decided to buddy up
in pairs and set out on our hunt. Lacy and I hiked back along the ridge about two miles away, where we could look down into a long meadow. The entire time we were there, we felt that we were being watched. The hair on the back of our necks was standing on in. Occasionally hear twigs and sticks breaking nearby, strange coyote howls, and exaggerated unnatural owl hoots. We stayed within ten yards of each other all morning, taking turns
watching our six while the other watched the meadow. We didn't see anything that day that we wanted to waste a tag on, and When we started walking back to camp, we heard something pacing us off to the right, just out of sight. We both had our fingers on our safeties, ready to turn our weapons loose if needed. We were the last ones back at camp that night, and nobody had filled a tag except Carly and Britt, who also mentioned that they had felt like they were watched that night.
Britt insisted on standing guard, certain that something was out there watching us. The next day, Lacey shot a ten point mule deer. When we got back to the camp to get our quad to drag it out, we saw Britt and Carly getting their ATV ready to drag back an olk that was unfortunate enough to cross of Brit that morning. Once we had gutted Lacey's butt and corded it out and loaded up our quad, we headed back
before the others got back. We had time to hang the meat in nearby trees fifteen feet off the ground to keep it out of each of the bears. It was almost dark when Carly and Brit rolled in, but they did not have an elk, which explained Britt's foul mood. She was almost certifiably insane. She was ranting about killing the thing that stole her bull elk, and insisting that she would find some way to track him down. She was so upset that the rest of us were afraid
of her and for her. After we had eaten the backstraps from Lacey's deer and Brent had finished two bottles of wine, we got her tucked into her sleeping bag and took turns watching her over night. The next morning, Lacy and I went along with Carly and Brett to help find the missing bowl elk. We got to where the elk had fallen, but there was nothing to indicate that anyone or anything had been there and carried it off.
We scoured the area in all directions for three hundred yards, finding not so much as a single drop of blood. Brett accepted that the elk must have been alive, just unconscious, and the wound must have clotted up. It must have run off and died while she and Carly went to
fetch the ATV, which she felt horrible about. That evening, the two Jessicas and Chelsea came back in with another mule deer, and after getting it hung up, we broke out a bottle of bourbon to go with the fresh inner tenderloins and sang and carried on into the night. The next morning, we discovered there was an entire rear quarter missing that we had hung the night before. We decided one of us should stay at the camp to guard the rest of our meat while the others went hunting.
Jessica Ti drew the short straw and the rest of us headed out. Luck was shining down on us because Britt shot a beautiful bull elk that came in on a string when she blew her bugle. Lacy and Chelsea and I headed back to get the quads when we heard a shot coming from the direction of the camp. We picked up our pace, shouting as we got nearer to jess so that she wouldn't shoot us. And when we got there, one of the other rear quarters was
swinging from a rope. Jess was standing with her weapon pointed. She began rattling about a massive bear like thing that reached up for the meat, about to grab it, when she shot and scared it off. Later, we started five large campfires around the meat to ward off any predators that may want to take advantage of an easy meal. Brett offered to take over watch again, that night and
the rest of us went to bed. At four am, she started waking us up, saying she had seen something moving in the shadows around the lit area of the meat. We slid out of our sleeping bags, grabbed our rifles, and looked through the tent opening. The campfire still provided enough light that we could see the shadows from the other side of the tent. A few minutes later, an awful smell overwhelmed the camp. I wish I could have bottled that smell and sprayed it on some other hockey
teams equipment years ago. We were motionless, gazing out the slit of the tent flap, waiting for that bear to pop out. We did not have a bear tag, but this troublemaker was going down. All of a sudden, something moved along the side of our tent. We could see the top of the tent being pressed down, as if something were testing the consistency of the material. It slowly moved toward the open in front. When we could see the shadow of this creature standing on two legs and
heading toward the fires in the meat. This was no bear. It was human like, standing taller than the top of the tent. Which must have been over seven feet tall, leaving its shoulders at least that high. The thickness of this monster was wider than a hockey goal. Two shots rang out. Britton Lacey both fired through the tent towards the creature. The swiftness of this thing's escape was unimaginable. It took off across the open area directly in front
of the tent, where three more shots rang out. Seconds later, we were all out of the tent looking for blood, and we found some, but not in the quantities that one might expect. Just a few minutes later, roarers sounded all around our camp. We grabbed our gear, cut down our meat, and loaded up the eight ten, strapping the heads and meat down so they wouldn't fall off, and leaving one of the rear quarters from the elk hanging in the tree, hoping that the creature would be happy
with the offering and leave us alone. More roars and screams broke the darkness, and trees and limbs and rocks started to rain down on the tent, smashing into the ground. We decided to make tracks and get our butts back to Minnesota. That was less than twenty minutes before the sun started to come up, and we were hauling ass down the trail, with Chelsea and Jess watching our six and occasionally firing off a couple of rounds to discourage
any pursuit if they saw something suspicious. During all this time, we could hear something crashing through the woods on both sides of us. As the sun rose and the visibility improved, we were able to open the throttle and increase our speed, and we began to outpace whatever was pursuing us to ours later and back in our trucks. We loaded and made our way home in one piece, with the story
that would brand us crazier than loons. I would like you to envision the people's faces when we stopped to fill up or grab something to eat, and those three heads were strapped to our side by sides. The remark of the day was, you girls must be proud of your men for taking such a nice animals. We let Britt set them straight. We did call Scott and ask him why he would put us in a location where
a family of Bigfoot was living. When he went back with several of his guides, they found the camp was destroyed with the cast iron campso smashed into the ground, leaving nothing more than scrap metal. Parts of the tent were hanging in the trees thirty feet off the ground, and coolers were smashed, and the rear quarter was still hanging in the tree. We've got decided to close that area for the near future and move his clients to
other locations for a third rifle season. On our next time, we would do something a bit less dangerous, like gator hunting or hog hunting with spears. With all our love, and she signs off the seven she devils. I tell you what that is, seven she devils. Those girls are tougher nails. I mean they're going out by themselves and hunting elk and hogs and gaiters, and I guess they just love the outdoors and love to have fun. I thought this was a great story. It's a terrifying story.
I'm sure they were scared, but they had enough sense to protect themselves. A couple of them got pissed off at these things, and I don't know. I think if they had their choice, they may have stayed and fought them out. Who knows, but this was a great story. You girls are You're more man than me and my book. How about that? Thanks for the story, she devils? Okay. Here is the letter from the Federal Game Warden the story. The events in this story apparently happened back in the
early nineteen eighties. He doesn't give a timeline here, and he doesn't give a specific location. I think he's trying to be cryptic with us with this information because I don't know. Maybe it's a big secret. But let's see. Here's the story. It's really good. The day after Christmas, two college students launched their john boat into an ox bow of the Mississippi River. Ice crack when the trailer entered the water, but it was only a thin sheet and it would be clear when the sun warmed the
water's surface. They had hunted since the season opened and had mostly good days, many days killing their limit of millards. The Halliday break meant they only had another week to get after the migrating birds, and then it was back to school, two hundred miles from the flyway. The next season, being a year away, seemed like an eternity. They were planning to hunt every day until they had to return to campus. It was probably an exciting morning. The migration
was in full swing. Birds were in the area and holding due to the food available. All indications were that their twenty five horsepower mercury started without problems. It was only in its second year of use. It was new and well maintained, and an outboard they had bought new together for a john boat they had picked up and fixed up from the want eds of the commercial appeal. The hunters were experienced with sometimes wild waters and weather
of the Lower Mississippi base and during winter. From interviews later with family and friends, the two hunters practiced good safety. They didn't take chances. Life jackets were worn in the boat until they had stopped tip waiters would put on only before they entered the water that didn't travel over the water. In those everyone knew the stories of hunters who had drowned after being dragged under with full waiters.
The boat was always apparently left secured whenever they left the boat, and it was within walking distance in case they needed to get out fast. They did everything they knew to stay alive in an environment that, with any mishap, would kill you in minutes. Yet the young enthusiastic duck hunters left the ramp in the dark of that morning
and they have never been heard from since. From nineteen seventy five until nineteen ninety five, I worked for the US Department of the Interior the US Fish and Wildlife Services as a federal game warden. My assignment through the winter was to patrol a specific wildlife refuge in the Delta. At this time, I reported to the refuge manager. He was my superior. I later became a refuge manager and then as zone manager, but that is another story. I
was from the area. I had grown up hunting and fishing on this refuge, and I knew many of the residents, so the role I played during the years that I was assigned there came natural to me. I was in my second year there, and I like to think that I escorted the trash out the door and made an
impact for conservation. It was never a dull day. There were stints where we were assigned to varying task forces with the DEA, the ATF, and even the FBI to deal with organized crime operations running drugs and weapons through the lowland areas that might include the refuge where I was assigned. It was dangerous work and we were not paid enough for the level of risk. We took while dealing with those crimes, but it was one of the
exciting eras of the time that I served. When I heard the radio chatter of the two college boys who had not returned that night. I was heading out of the refuge on a rutted logging road that I frequently used because it gave me access to launch my boat into several areas. I stopped the truck when my four wheel drive crawled up on some solid ground, and I killed the engine and listened to the radio from the county Sheriff's department. It had been dark for an hour.
A deputy had been dispatched to a boat ramp several miles north and was to meet the father of one of the boys and investigate the situation. I got the whole story of the boys being due home by two or three that afternoon, and it was now dark and they hadn't shown up. Their car was still at the ramp with the trailer attached. They had left that morning, and they should have been back. Damn right, they should have been back. I knew this story like I had
written it a thousand times. I had not had the experience of finding drowned duck hunters, with this being my only second year on the job, but I knew the stories from growing up in the area. But over my career, however, I would be involved in several SAARs search and rescue missions. It's not a exciting or fulfilling part of my job. It is an urgent and stressful part of my job. When we get these calls, a mood of hopelessness overtakes the searchers because it is rare that we find anyone
alive after a night in the freezing flooded timber. The ramp where they had launched was north of my refuge. The hunters had not told anyone where they planned to hunt that day. According to relatives, they never shared that information. Often the boys would move once or twice each day, so no one could verify where the boys would plan to hunt, if there even was a plan. But my guess was that they had traveled south in this direction, if not directly into the refuge. It would have been
easy to get in with the high water. The refuge was covered up with ducks and the area was busy with boat traffic. I had checked eight hunting parties before shooting time was over that day. I had a hunch, so I drove one hundred yards to the gravel parking area and turned my rig around and went back into the flooded area that I had patrolled that day. On the way, I radioed the sheriff's dispatcher that I was in the area and would begin a search of the refuge.
The years of experience, I guess I knew they were out there somewhere, dead or alive, and if they were alive, the sooner someone got to them, the better their chances penning they had not drowned. I radioed the refuge manager and told him what I was up to, and gave him the general area that I would search, which was vague because I would be constantly moving. If for some reason I didn't show up or radio in that I had stopped searching, they would know where to start looking
for me. After reaching the furthest point south where I could not go further with my truck, I backed the boat into the shallow ditch and began slowly working my way south into bigger water through the flooded timber, hoping to find the boys shivering in the cold, their motor not functioning properly. Maybe it was nine fifteen pm, the temperature had dropped a freezing and a light, misty rain began to fall. I idled slowly for hours until I had just enough gas to get back to my truck.
I heard over the radio that a search had started with a dozen boats, State Game and Fish law enforcement, and a couple of civilians friends of the family. The Coastguard would join the next morning with a helicopter that was being flown in from Memphis for the search the next morning. If the boys had not been found, The saar was random. The first night, boats were going where they thought the boys might have hunted that day. The
next day would be different. More boats would be involved in the search areas would be a sign, and if those boys were in a reasonable travel distance for a john boat from the boat ramp, someone would find them. More than likely the helicopter crew would spot the boat with two cold men waving at them. I hoped that would be the case. I worked my way back to the truck through a different part of the refuge, an area much thicker would brush than where most hunters went.
I didn't move as slow as I was going south, but I kept my light shining all around me. I wished I had seen them when the bow ran up on the bank next to my trailer, but again I knew they could have been anywhere. After letting my supervisor know that I was calling it a night and reporting to him the area that I had covered, I loaded my boat and I left. It was two thirty a m. At six am, later than normal, and I showered and dressed, and then called in to get an update. Several groups
had searched all night and came up empty. The searcher was growing and spreading out, and the more people were showing up to volunteer in search where they were needed. I called the sheriff in the county north of US and asked if I was needed. He didn't think so, but since I was going to be patrolling the refuge anyway, he wanted me to keep my eye out. Well, no kidding, I thought. I stopped at the gas station and filled my gas tanks I put in at the busiest ramp
on the refuge. There I checked a party of hunters who were getting a late start. After that, I headed south to my refuge, following the main channel. On each side of me as I travel were the lazy hunters who set up close to the channel. I could see their decoy spreads and the blinds they had thrown up and claimed with each stop. I pulled close and asked the hunters to look out for the missing boys. The water was high and a man could just about go
anywhere in the refuge with a boat. I broke from the channel and followed a ditch until it opened up into a natural lake, and I trimmed the motor and I laid the boat flat on the water and headed at full throttle to the other end, where there were openings in the timber that hunters liked to use. It took some work to get to these places, and that is why I thought the two men may have gone into the area to get away from the crowd. I knew where the shooting holes were, and I headed to
the closest one. A boat with a pullover blind sat back in a patch of buck brush. I approached the boat, and three heads poked above the blind. Hey, mister game warden, I heard a voice say, as you luck, Ben, I asked, we have a few in the boat here. You want to look at them now? Not today. There's some fellows that put in north of here, yesterday. That didn't show up last night at the rain. There's a big search going on. Have you seen anything or anyone back in here? Yeah,
we heard about that. They said, you think they could be this far away from where they put in maybe? I said, have you seen or heard anything? Uh? There was some shooting back in the woods yesterday. Two of the men pointed to a place deeper in the timber. They were tearing the ducks up. It sounded like we left right at dark. We never saw them come out. They could have come in another way, but who knows. But I don't know any other way to get in here. Well,
I doubt that helps you. Oh it helps, I said, keep your eyes open and give them a hand if you see them. There're two college kids. Sure will, they said, and I waved and motored off in my boat. I headed further into the trees. Unless they were hunting from the bank, this was the only way into the area. It was worth taking a look. Thirty minutes later I came to an opening surrounded by cypress trees. I had actually fished this lake when I was a kid during
the spring and summer. This was the most beautiful area on the refuge and any chance I got to go into the area I went. It was a peaceful place to me, and it brought memories to the surface of my father and I filling a cooler with fish. Soon decoys came into view on the far side, half the decoys in the open water and the other half up in the trees. I motored up to them and I killed my motor it went in there, I yelled out. I didn't see a boat or any sort of blind
just decoys and no hunters. The front that I had experienced last night had moved through. Now it was cold and clear. The wind was whipping and singing through the cypress and oak limbs. I moved through the decoys into the trees, looking for whoever it had set this spread up. The farther I went, the more I again to think. These hunters had left their spread out so they wouldn't have to spend time setting up when they came back in the next day. And this was against the rules.
Hunters were to leave the area they hunted just as they had found it at the end of the day. During that time, hunters were allowed a fixed number of decoys, and they were to be removed each day. I was about to circle around and head back out into open water when I saw the boat. I was one hundred and fifty yards past the decoys and fifty yards from dry land, and the boat appeared to be on the bank. Something was off about the scene. Though the boat was
bent in half, it was almost doubled over. I pulled up to the bank and walked to what was left of the boat, which still sat in a foot of water. I backed away and raised my radio to call my boss, but he didn't respond. I walked closer to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, and I raised the radio again and couldn't reached my refuge manager. I switched to the channel of the Sheriff's office and
I got their dispatcher. I read the boat registration numbers to the sheriff and he verified that this was the boat. He knew where I was, but it would take two maybe three hours to get someone out there, and could I stay with the boat. Well, of course I could stay with the boat, I told him. I walked back to my boat and sat on the bow. I wasn't tired, but in another way I was exhausted. Maybe I just needed to prepare my mind for what I would see when I walked back to the boat. It just didn't
seem real to me at that point. To be honest, I was expecting to find these boys drowned in the water somewhere. Federal game wardens are trained as well, if not more so, on law enforcement tactics, rules, and crime scene procedures. We get the same training that the ATF DEAFBI agents get. We know how to handle and conduct
ourselves on a crime scene. In my boat, I carried a rucksack with several items that I need to do my job, crime scene tools, a change of clothes, amos, etc. This was an age before digital cameras, and I kept a disposable Kodak camera in my bag. The camera had twenty four exposures and I burned up every one of them on the scene. I never got close enough to disturb anything around the boat, but I took pictures from every angle and I got images of giant tracks that
seemed to be everywhere. I placed the disposable camera back into my rucksack and I waited, somewhat aware of my surroundings in case there was an aggressive animal still in the area, maybe even protecting its kill, and somewhat still in a bit of shock at what I had found. I don't know why I assumed it was an animal, but those tracks led me to believe that something had attacked these boys. I sat on the front of the boat for a few more minutes, getting my bearings and
clearing my head. There wasn't much for me to do at this point, and I should have stayed put and waited for whoever was coming. But I can never sit still now. I'm glad that no one was around. It allowed me to take in the scene and try to imagine what had happened here. It was almost peaceful had I not been conscious that something had killed these men in the last few hours, and it could have still
been close. Still, I'm assuming it's an animal. I knew that from the tracks around the boat and the tracks that I can make out heading up the bank into the trees. I looked for drag marks, like something had dragged the two bodies through the mud, but there was nothing but a single set of deep, barefoot tracks. They were huge tracks. I knew what it was, but I would not allow my mind to accept it. There had to be an explanation other than what I was thinking.
But to prove all this, I had to find the bodies, and I hoped, like hell I would find the boys alive. I carried a Rugrimny fourteen ranch rifle in the boat. I took it out of its cover. With the rifle in my side arm, I walked into the trees and felt confident that if whatever this was came at me, I would have enough firepower to stop it. There was an open lane through the trees twenty five feet up the bank that ran parallel with the tracks that led into the tall stand of trees and brush. My tracks
would not disturb the path of the alleged killer. I entered the tree slowly, looking for anything that moved or jumped. A few steps later, I made a three hundred and sixty degree survey of everything. I could no longer see the water. The trees opened into a clear stand and I could see one hundred yards in every direction. I made a course, changed and walked toward where I thought the tracks from the wrecked boat would intersect my path.
I heard a helicopter approaching, and I stopped and looked up, waiting for it to peer somewhere over me. I remember looking into the sun, and it's the last thing I remember about that day. A woman in a uniform handed a cup of coffee to me. She was talking to me, I think, telling me that I could find sugar and all that stuff from my coffee just around the corner. Things were not hazy or foggy. In my mind, I knew where I was, but I had no recollection of
how I got there. I kept my composure while wanting to ask how the hell did I get here? Where's the team that was on its way to the scene. Had I passed out? I looked down at my boots and they were clean or not as muddy as I had gotten them in the woods, and I had on my second pair of boots was clean. Apparently I had changed. None of this seemed right. I kept my mouth shut and acted normal, like I knew exactly where I was
and why I was there. The Sheriff's office was just down the hall, and I could see him sitting at his desk talking on the phone. I walked to the door and got there when he was ending his call. You have everything you need from me, I asked, I thought you left. He said, yeah, I don't need anything else from you. Dan sent over your report. It's the hell the thing, isn't it. I left the building and found my truck. My keys were in the pocket where I always dropped them at home. My report lay in
the middle of my desk. I checked the fax machine log and I had sent a fax that morning to my supervisor. I had been on the water that morning looking for missing duck hunters. I looked at my watch and it was the next day, December twenty eighth. I walked outside and my boat was where I kept it. And then I turned back to my truck in the driveway and opened the door, and my rucksack and my rifle were neatly laid on the passenger floorboard, exactly where
I kept them. It's like I had come home after finding the damaged boat and gone through my regular routine. My wet, muddy boots were under the car port, and dirty clothes were in the hamper. I even pulled the towel from the hamper and found that it was still damp for me drying off from a shower that morning. Everything in the house was like it was supposed to be, just as normal as ever. There was plenty of daylight left,
and the weather was good. I headed to the refuge, and soon I was on the water and at the place where I found the boat. The boat was not there, neither were the decoys I had seen that the boys had been hunting over on the bank. There were no tracks other than human boot tracks. Looked like I heard people had been walking up and down that pathway. Well. I followed those tracks and they ended where I think
my memory of the day before ended. From there, I followed my own tracks that ran parallel with the water, and then I turned back toward the water until I arrived at the bank again, water slapping the transom of my boat. I stared at it, tilting with each riple, trying to figure out what was going on. On my way back across the lake, I ran into a search team with the Coastguard. They talked about the search and that had been focused now on my refuge, which made sense.
We had found their boat here, there was no reason to search other areas, but no college boys or bodies of college boys had been found. Later that evening, at my desk, I read the report that I had signed. It was not what I had seen when I discovered that boat. There were no mention of animal tracks around the boat. My description of the boat was that the boys have hit something while moving fast to do that
much damage. A week later, of visit to the yard where the County Sheriff's Department kept impounded vehicles, and I looked at the boat the day I found it. It looked like a huge weight had been dropped into the middle of it, and it had folded in two, almost like a folded piece of cardboard. But the boat I saw, and I checked the numbers, it was the boat had been folded back. For lack of a better way to describe it, there was a lot of damage, but it
was flat and it still looked like a boat. Nevertheless, I had no doubt that this report was mine. I knew that from the way I write, and there was no doubt it was my signature. After a week, there was no reason to dedicate state and federal resources on a search that everyone knew would not turn up anything.
Two shotguns had been dragged from the bottom of the lake close to where the boat was found, but they were in such bad shape that it was determined the guns had not belonged to the missing boys and had been in the water for probably years. Maybe lost overboard
by careless hunters. It was into July when I finally stopped looking around the area for those boys while still doing my regular job, And when the days got longer, I would go back into that area and search the water some days and walked the dry island on other days. But I never found anything. By the time it had been full on summer heat for three months, anything remaining would be progressively harder to find. It was a month after the incident that I remembered I had a disposable Kodak.
While digging in my bag for something else, I had the images developed at a one hour photo shop. While waiting, the images were blurred or completely black. Of twenty four exposures, not a single one turned out. We are decades away from that strange holiday season. Those kids are still missing. If they died in my refuge, and what I mean is if they drowned or died of hypothermia, either I or someone would have found them. I think I lost almost twenty four hours of my memory. I still don't
know anything of my activities during that time. I must have driven myself home. It's obvious that I wrote the report that I showered that I changed clothes and even slept in my bed. I never changed my report or even told anyone about the twenty four hours that I cannot remember, other than one wildlife officer that was years later after a few beers. He is an officer I've known for thirty years and we work federal refuges in the same region. Now, these are lowland delta areas that
are forgotten by the quote missing persons experts. They like to report on the popular stories and popular areas of wilderness. The lost time event has never happened to me since those early days of my career. But between the two of us, we have stories to tell you that have flown under the radar of the people who investigate missing persons cases. Thank you for listening this far. I know this was a long podcast, but I thought every story
in this set was really good. I really hope you guys enjoyed it and you can look forward to more frequent stories, more frequent podcasts being uploaded weekly. Back on track, I appreciate you hanging with me. Let's see you guys on the next one. Thank you