Return of the Hog Man

of anything, he didn't let it show. It was Saturday, sometime in the summer of nineteen seventy three, around four in the morning, and Dad and I had packed the Dodge Tradesman one hundred with banana boxes of collectibles and antiques to take the Medford Organ to a flea market. We did flea markets quite frequently back then, as there was no such thing as the Internet, eBay or Etsy. The dark early morning was clear and cool, and the

interstate was deserted. My dad drove and it was my job to pour the burning hot liquid while jostling around in the van at fifty five miles an hour. And there we were drinking our black coffee straight up and enjoying the silence, when in the distance we spotted a large figure standing on the northbound side of the road. What is that, Dad, I asked, pointing ahead at the dimly illuminated, dark, hulking figure ahead of us. But Dad leaned forward and against the steering wheel and he hit

the foot pedal to turn the headlights on to bright. Yes, kids, that used to be a thing. Bright's on the floor, not the signal stem. What we saw on that dark, lonely stretch of mountainous interstate changed me and my father forever. We watched in amazement and in stupid awe is this nine foot tall creature with a black head to toe fur still over the damn guard rail on two legs, right in front of us, And it turned its massive

torso and it looked at us. Let me say that, until you actually see one, it is difficult to explain the feeling that it gives you. It's like everything you ever thought you knew was a lie. All told, the event was only about ten or fifteen seconds of life changing revelation, But that was long enough. Dad, What was that? I asked? He hesitated, and he chose his words carefully. I don't know, but I can tell you it wasn't a bear. Well turn around and go back, Let's get

another look at that thing. I said, no way, Dad blurted out. For the first time in my life, I heard fear in his voice. Well, we kept on driving to our destination and talking about what we saw, and eventually coming to the conclusion that it must have been a bigfoot. It was that or the biggest man we'd ever seen, and a hairy sue early in the morning, alongside a deserted mountain highway with legs long enough that he could easily step over a guardrail. When you see one,

your gut just knows. All of you folks out there who have seen one know exactly what I'm talking about. You just know it doesn't take much evidence to change your perspective of the world. What my dad and I saw that early morning in nineteen seventy three turned us into knowers. We continue to fish and camp until my

father passed away in two thousand and one. We weren't afraid to go out in the woods, but we often talked about that day that we saw Bigfoot, and even today, I still get goosebumps when I remember the way that thing looked at us. Thank you for listening to my story. I enjoyed writing it. Oh, that's the best line of the whole story. She enjoyed writing it. I think that is awesome. That's a great it's a and that's exactly

how I've said it a thousand times. This is exactly how I want to see a bigfoot, even if it just stops me, if I have to stop in the middle of the road to look at it, and then I will be a knower. I won't be a skeptic or a believer, or I'll be a knower as so many people say, which you know, that's that's one of the big platitudes that people use in the bigfoot community. Oh I ain't no believer. I'm a knower. In other words, i've seen one. I sink it. I've seen one. I

get it. I totally get it. It's a if you see something like that standing in the road in front of you. She remembers the way it turned, the way it looked at her and her dad. It's probably like a video real that just replays in her head over and over and over. I thought this was a great story. Thank you to the writer. It was wonderful. Thanks, hey, hey, thanks for clicking on the video. My name's Cam butner. This is the Dixie Cryptid or what if It's True? Podcast?

If you like good stories, just good stories that just take you away to another world. You found your people, you found your place, and I'm glad you're here. If you haven't listened to my latest, not this one, but the one before this, I'll end screen it on this. It's a podcast I put up called The hat Man the Author. It's a fictional story written by a woman named Rebecca Lee Wesson, and she is a really good writer, and I think the production of that podcast is pretty good.

I think you'd enjoy it. I'm going to end screen it. I want you to go back and listen to it if you're interested in that kind of thing. And that's all I wanted to say. We've got three more stories left to go in this podcast, and I hope you guys enjoy them all. Right here we go. After listening to your where you mentioned strange encounters in the United Kingdom, I thought I would share the story with you. It concerns my daughter, who was fifteen at the time, and

her stepfather, who was a police officer. This encounter took place in rural Northern Ireland in the autumn of twenty and seventeen, my daughter and her stepfather were returning home with a takeaway pizza when about a mile from home, they saw a strange creature on the road ahead of them. They said it was the size of a sheep, but with smooth black skin. It crossed the road and moved into the field on the other side, and then vanished

into the darkness. Neither of them recognized the creature, and since we all lived in the country, they were familiar with the local animals. My daughter was upset by the experienced and told her grandfather about it. Her grandfather was a keen spotter of wildlife and consulted books to reassure her. He told her it was an otter, even though the nearest river was four miles away and otters did not grow in the size of a sheep, Perhaps fearing ridicule.

Her stepfather admitted seeing it, but would give no more details. I believe my daughter if only because of how upset and worried she was after the experience. I did some research myself and discovered the old Gaelic legend of the dough Bart the king otter. I'm certain I mispronounced that, but it's dB h r hyphen Cchu, the dough bart the king Otter. It's described as a half otter and

half dog. There's a legend dating back to the seventeenth century where a woman was supposedly killed by one in County lytram at Glendale low Or so is recorded on a headstone Cornwall Cemetery. Strange creatures may indeed be out there, and perhaps some legends are true. Yeah, I have trouble pronouncing words. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, y'all, especially to the people in Europe who listen to this. I'm just I'm from Mississippi in the United States, and it's just hard

to say stuff. We don't even understand each other down here, So don't take offense to me not being able to say some of these words correctly. I'm trying to I'm looking at that county again, Lytrim l E, I t R I M. I think it's lytram leatrim Leatrim maybe and it's in Glendale Lowe. But it's recorded on her headstone. This woman was It was recorded on her headstone in the seventeenth century where a woman was killed by a doe Bartu, the king Otter in Ireland. Now that is

interesting as all it out. It's a very short story, but it's really cool. I'm looking up here where our editors gave it the category King Otter an Irish legend. Oh, if anyone in Ireland listens to this podcast, if you guys have any stories from your island, I want them. I really want those. I know the banshee is an Irish legend or mythical creature. I'm trying to think leprechauns. I'm trying to think of other things that I've heard

of from Ireland. Anyway, it's really interesting stuff. Thank you to the writer for sending this. This was really good. Okay. I did a story maybe two years ago. I think it was about that long from a listener. It was about a hogman. So I'm kind of setting the stage for what's going on here. So I'm just going to start reading his email and you'll and then you'll catch up. He writes, I submitted a story to you once about

my encounter with a hogman. When my uncle Jerome heard about it, he called me with his own story to tell. It seems he encountered the same creature. Here is his story. A long time ago, my father was making some upgrades to their house in the backwoods of Leesburg, Florida. It was getting late in the summer, and he had promised my mother that he'd be near the edge of the woods so she and the children wouldn't have to venture into the trees every time someone had to go to

the body, especially at night. Must have been close to the outhouse. Anyway, you need to get working on all that outhouse while the ground is soft and warm, she'd remind him in her sweet little church lady voice, maybe a little too often for my father's taste. Okay, he was working on the outhouse. I know I've screwed this story up. I'm sorry. I'm just going to keep her eating. Maybe I'll get it right from here on out. It made him pick up the paste, though, and soon he

had dug a deep black hole in the ground. He mitered a wooden box that covered the hole and provided us with a place to sit down when we did our toos and don'ts, as we call them. When the exterior walls were put up, my father was finished, and we all gathered around and looked at the glory of our very first pre toilet and then I spoke up that sure is an awful big hole for my little butt, I told my father. He chuckled and said he'd buy a toilet seat in the morning for the little butts,

but for now it was ready to go. After supper, we all peeled away from the dinner table. I don't know what I was busy doing, but I was distracted, and I missed our usual mother supervised evening potty break. She would walk us all out, and she would wait patiently to make sure that we were safe as we did our business, and when we were done, we'd all race back to the house as the sky turned purple. Oh well, I told myself, knowing I was big enough to hold it until the morning. Bedtime at our house

meant lights out. Since there were no TVs or lamps, that meant all lanterns were snuffed out. It got so dark in the house that the only light that we got was the whites of our eyes when we opened them. Sometime in the night. My eyes opened to a sharp twinge in my gut, and my stomach rumbled, sending me a message that it was time to pay for all that extra gravy. I sopped up with the biscuits. Another gurgle barked and gave me a good two minute warning,

forcing me to sit up in bed. I'm sorry, y'all. Thank goodness, the stars were out that night. They shone in through the kitchen window and helped light way as I kept my hands out to bump into the doorknob. I quietly went onto the porch so as not to wake anybody up, and then I grabbed the rope my father had tethered from the porch to the outhouse to help us find our way when it rained or got too foggy to see. So I scooted my hand across that rope at full speed until I nearly smashed into

the new outhouse. I hurried myself inside bottom first, and I sat on the big hole that was far too big for me, and I did my best to keep from falling into the abyss below. There wasn't yet a roof on the outhouse, so starlight shone in around me and provided me with a comfortable little environment to do my business. And just as I was getting settled, I hurt something. At first, it was just a small twig snap.

I didn't pay any mine until I heard another twig snap, this time much closer to the outhouse, and I sat there trying be as quiet as possible. But then a terrible smell began to grow, and it wasn't for me. It was coming from outside. I heard another tweak snap, and then the distinct sound of heavy feet shuffling forward. They were snapping and crushing the branches and leaves underfoot. I did my best to stay frozen. I wanted to cover my mouth, but I needed both hands to keep

me from falling into the toilet box. I tried to quiet my breathing, but the quieter my breathing, the louder my heartbeat climbed into my ears, and I sat there in my awkward predicament. Silence slowly crept over me like a thick blanket, and my heartbeat faded into the background. This was no ordinary silence. I could just about feel it being pulled over me. First the grasshoppers and crickets clammed up, and then the hootiles and nightbirds shut down,

and finally the odes clammed up. I could tell there was someone around me. It was the same feeling I got right before one of my siblings was about to cover my eyes and yell boot. I hoped it was just one of my sisters trying to be funny, following me out the back door and unbeknownst to me, setting me up for a big scare. But I figured i'd let her know the jig was up. Who's out there, I said, softly, but not too loud for fear of

attracting a Cody or some other night critter. I assumed i'd hear one of my sisters began to giggle and to let the air out of his creepy bubble that had inflated around our outhouse. But there was no giggle, just complete blanketing silence. I started to panic, and I finished up and started to pull my pants up, and as I leaned toward the door, thinking it might still have been one of my sisters. But I couldn't have been more wrong. And as I picked out the door,

I heard a short, uteral grunt from above me. All the starlight shining into the outhouse was smothered by a shadow, showering the little space and darkness. My eyes widened like two full moons, and I looked up to my horror, there was an enormous figure looking down at me. The planks my father used for the walls of the outhouse were sticking nearly eight feet off the ground, yet this

thing was staring down at me over the edge. It took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at, and when I saw it clearly, I was horrified. This creature had the head of a hog. And then it spoke to me, not with words, but right into my head in a booming, deep voice. What are you doing out here, brave little fella? The voice asked. My eyes must have been about to pop out of my head, and I felt my eyelids stretch as I stared motionless

at this beast towering over me. And if I hadn't just done my business, I would have surely sold myself. The hog had retreated back over the wall, but it wasn't gone, and I felt its pounding feet making their way toward the door of the outhouse, each step telling me that this thing was huge. The door started to creep open, and what looked at me from outside was a be so tall and wide that there was no chance I would be able to dash around her under it.

It clogged up the entire opening, and in the starlight I could see its whole hideous figure. Its giant body matched its giant head. It looked like a pig standing upright, with swollen limbs and torso, and at the end of its swollen ankles were human light feet with no shoes on. There was no other way to describe it. It was a hog man. I remember thinking to myself, I'm a dead duck. I'm going to be carried out in the

woods like all the bad little boys are. I thought of my poor mother searching and calling for me in the woods, knowing she would never be able to find me, and tears burned their way into the corners of my eyes. And the hogman did something remarkable. It opened the door all the way and stepped to the side. I'm not here to carry you off, little boy, he said, right into my head. But there are some things in these woods that will. I stared at him, motionless, forgetting how

to use my voice and my legs. Now get The hogman snarled. He stopped his swollen foot on the ground, and I felt the earth shake around me, and I tore out of that outhouse, pulling my breeches up with both hands. As I went, stepping and hopping my way to the safety of the house. As soon as I hit the porch, all the sounds of the night flicked back on at once, and I hurried in, and I closed the door behind me, thinking my hasty entrance would wake everybody up, and thinking I'd have to explain why

I was breathing so hard. I peeked out the back window, expecting the Hogman to be looking right back at me. But he was gone. I don't know where he could have gone so quickly with his enormous body, but he was just gone. Forever, I hoped. I have never mentioned a peep of this to anyone. I didn't want to look into anyone's doubting eyes. And here I am, all these years later, a grandfather. Now I watched my grandson play wild and free in the woods behind my house

where a lifetime ago, I'm at the Hogman. My grandson is about the same age that I was when it happened, And now the onus is upon me to ruin the rose colored outlook. This kid still has about life because someone has to teach him that the Hogman is out there. Oh my gosh, what an o awesome story. I remember this Hogman story. I've actually put pieces of it in the in some of the little shorts that I do. And I've gotten my AI account my AI website to

do some strange pictures. I might try to do that for the thumbnail on this story, because I don't know. It seems like the first Hogman's story. Oh I got to scratch my back. I got a itch. Oh it's itching me. Y'all ever get a itch? Wonder if you got a tick buried in your back? That's what happens to me, a big, old, green, full tick. I'll pull my shirt up and let my wife look at my gross, hairy back, and I'll say, do I have a tick on my back? Yes, She'll go get a pair of

tweezers and pull them off. I don't know why I thought of that. I have no idea why I'm telling you that. But if anybody's ever had a big, green, swellen tick on them that's been on them two or three days, tell me about it in the comment section. That happens to me about twice a year. And I don't have any diseases lime disease or Rocky Mountain fever or anything. I guess I'm lucky. But anyway, back to

the story. It seems like the hogman was mean in the other story, like it was trying to get to this guy he was in a deer stand, and I think it pulled the deer stand down. I don't know, I have to look it up. But this was a good story. It was really well written. And man, I was sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading this. But I appreciate the man sending it the second story I've done for him. I think I've had this about a year. It was so good I wanted to get it up, So thanks to

the writer. This is a ghost story, really good, really a good ghost story, So hang on. Some people call me a ghost doctor. Others call people like me intermediaries or middlemen. Some have called me insane, and I can't argue with that. I suppose, after all, you'd have to be a little crazy to want to delve into my line of work. I helped ghosts find their way home with the help of folks on the other side. It's a rewarding profession, though, and I admit it can be

downright terrifying at times. Two decades ago, I was in Florence, Italy, visiting what used to be an herbal apoth apothecary apothecary Apo t h e c a r y apothecary run by monks who acted as early versions of physicians, and in the dim ornately wood panel waiting area were two ghosts. Both wore what in modern times we would consider old style clothing, yet neither was aware of the other. They both passed away in the waiting area, a hundreds of

years before and many years between each other. Now I should have known better, but I couldn't resist, and I said to them, the doctor will see you now. Well, this alone is proof of how bad my sense of humor is. Then I helped them cross over. The most number of ghosts I have encountered at one time was in a large hospital. Perhaps sixty five or so of them were clustered near the drive up entrance, waiting for

their rides back home. None of them knew they had died, and each waiting for their family, for their loved ones and the people dear to them in their life. If I had helped but one of them cross over, the rest would have seen the light it produced and swarmed to me. So instead I called in help from the

other side, which seemed to help get them crossed over. Mentally, I scanned the rest of the building for more and I found perhaps ten or twenty walking down the hallways or just stalled in an odd corner here or there, holding their rack with an IV drip on it. We helped them crossover one at a time, and we called it a day. Two months ago, a train running through

my small town hit and kill someone. That someone must have known what they were doing, because it is hard to get to the tracks and very obvious when a train is coming. I don't like dealing with suicide ghosts, but I find satisfaction in doing so. They are in a place that looks and feels like a hurricane at night. It's pure chaos and confusion and a reflection of what drove them to the end of their life. It is a good advertisement to seek help rather than assume that

ending one's life will end at all. In this instance, I reached out in meditation to see if there was a ghost remaining from the train fatality that we could support and their crossing over, and I could not find one, but I did myself. Caught in a main road about a block over, it was dark. There were no traffic lights flashing in the distance, and no street lights filled the deep woods and the trees were more dense. I realized then that I was seeing a view from the

perspective of the ghost. Next to me was the town cemetery, which your audience may find interesting, is usually absent of spirits. On my other side, in the darkness was a quiet and unanimated ghost. I knew what god drenching emotions awaited me if I channeled into this person's situation, so instead, I respectfully kept my distance and I called in help from the other side. The ghost was quickly swept away,

connected with the remains of its spirit. My viewport was then swept up into the next intersection, where there was another ghost caught in a geological energy. It was an older man, and he knew he was deceased, which was not always the case with ghosts. He refused any help in crossing over because he was waiting for his wife, who had passed away nearly twenty years ago. After her death, he spent the rest of his life mourning waiting to

be reunited with her. But when he died, he carried with him the pain he felt from her passing, and though she was already on the other side, there he was trapped in his heartache and waiting for her. Still, such was the devotion of his love. In fairly quick order, I asked for help from the other side, and his wife appeared, and after an indescribably beautiful and joyous reunion,

they both vanished. A wonderful imagery came into my mind of the two of them sitting side by side on the porch of an old farmhouse, and they were holding hands and enjoying the ambience in view of a lovely late spring day. Cups of lemonade sat beside them. The air was sweet, and there was a perfect light breeze. It was their personal sense of heaven. But my work that night wasn't over. I could see another ghost down

the road a few blocks. I supposed it to be a ghost because it looked like a human crouching down. Yet the figure was just a flat black void. Its dark shape had a thin outline of bright yellow light, so I supposed it had a little energy left. It was stuck at the edge of the parking lot, caught on some geological energies. My view carried me closer to it and when it sensed me it attacked. I was surprised,

to say the least. It was the ghost of a large cat, and all I could see were the claws and the fans going from my face and neck, and the spots covering its body. It was jaguar spots. They say every second with a jaguar is sixty stitches, which at the moment was easy to believe. So I called from help from the other side, but they seemed reluctant

to assist because this was not a human ghost. I tried to make the point that the ghost was the recording of the life of a sentient animal and might therefore have some interest to spirit, which is where all ghosts end up. With my argument, they took the ghost of the jaguar away, and in hindsight I suspect the

jaguar having a ghost at all was a mistake. Formerly, their natural range was about where the California Oregon border lies, but a jaguar without a map to consult could have wandered off over one hundred years ago without competition and become disoriented. I'm not going to say it was good to meet it, but I did learn something I have come to find that ghosts are fragments of a person's spirit that feel they still have something to do. Ghosts tend to see things as they were when they were

alive and are often reluctant to leave. But getting even the toughest of ghosts crossover is doable with the right head, a good heart, and help from the other side. I have helped hundreds of ghosts cross over through the years, though lately I deal with fewer of them. There is often a heart wrenching or brutal story behind their death, and knowing too many details can make it difficult to stay objective, which is critical in my line of work.

Some of the ghosts' history comes across as physical and emotional pain, and even though I know it's not mine, there is a limit to how much I'm able and willing to take. So I try to show love and compassion to the ghosts for what they have been through. Is doing so eliminates the conditions we were dealing with. I also try to love everyone living, though I have

to admit I'm not at all good at that. One thing I've learned from the many encounters I've had is that your actions in life every good and bad deed you've ever done, every time you apologize or decided not to, every time you helped or looked the other way, all seemed to carry over in one way or another to the other side. There is a good lesson in that, try to be a good person. It may get you further in the afterlife. Warm regards, and she signs off on the email. I don't y'all may have heard me

say this before, but I don't believe in ghosts. I've never seen one. I know people like this writer claim they engage them all the time, and that's fine, and that may be the truth. I've just never seen anything like this, nothing at all. And some people might say, well, you're not open to it, You're you're not clairvoyant. Is that the word clairvoyant? Anyway, I'm not a medium. I'm just stupid. And I believe in one God, one savior. That's my belief system. And I believe we're either here

or there. We're either here or there, We're nowhere in between. However, this channel is and there are a lot of people in the audience who believe the same way I do. But there are a lot of people in the audience who don't and I don't have any problem with this woman's email at all. Heck, I just read it to you because it's an interesting story. I mean to me.

I mean, if you just distance yourself from your belief system and open your mind to what other people experience, not accept that is the truth, but just open your mind and be willing to hear other people's experiences, they become great stories. And that's all this channel is about. So I read them all. There's been a couple that I haven't read because they were just too These are people who had really really hard childhood things going on,

and it did not belong on this channel. But it had to do with ghosts, but it had to do with some terrible abuse as children, and I just could not put it on here just because it just wasn't decent. It wasn't a decent story. It's a story they need to tell a professional so that they can get help with what they're doing. But just these generic ghost stories. Heck, I learned something here. People who believe in ghosts now they believe in animal ghosts, Like animals are on the

same level with humans in their mind. That's cool. I don't have any problem with that. This was a really good story and that's why it's in this podcast. So thank you very much to the writer the Ghost Doctor. It was really a good story and I appreciate it. Thank you, ma'am. Thanks again for joining me on this podcast. On your screen right now is a link that you can click to the hat Man podcast called The hat Man. Take a listen to that one. It's about thirty minutes long.

It's a really really good story, fictional story by a really good author. I want you to check it out, all right, Thank you guys for listening, and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks.