The Navajo Connection with Sasquatch

In the winters, I would make upward of one thousand dollars. That was great money for a kid my age, but it did take a lot of work. When my friends were playing U sports and watching cartoons and going to movies, I was building up for the grueling cold and heading out to run my line. It gets brutally cold in Montana, twenty to thirty degrees below zero without the wind chill.

But every morning, while the rest of the kids I knew were still fast asleep, I would start the coffee on the stove and pack my bag full of food, and I would insulate my entire body layer over layer until I looked like the Staypuff marshmallow Man, and that was before I even put the parka on. When I was all geared up, I tied my dad's Coleman lantern around my wrist with a length of rope in case it fell in the creek, and then I'd grab my gun.

The creek was only a few miles away. It was so cold, and the air sparkle with the frost, and the moon light bounced off the snow, providing relatively good lighting for old dark thirty in the morning. I used my knotted rope that I tied to the bridge, and I started the thirty foot climb down to the bottom of the draw through the knee deep snow. Down the steep slope, let go of the rope, fired up the lantern, and trudged my first trap two hundred feet downstream from

the bridge. The creek was frozen a good twelve inches stick except for where I set my muskrat traps. I ran my land traps in a zigzag pattern with no set spacing each trap about five hundred feet from the next. I finally made my way to my first trap, only to find it had been ripped out of the ground and torn to pieces. It was pure steel, and all of it bent and pulled apart like tinfoil. It had been set off to the side of the game trail

midway up the draw. It wasn't a large trap, but it was strong enough to hold a large bobcat or a coyote. For something to tear it apart was impressive and disturbing unless they used a sledge hammer. I was stumped about the whole thing, and I was angry. Those

traps were expensive, especially for a kid. I threw the trap in my bag and hoisted it over my shoulder, and I headed to the second trap, and I noticed immediately how the snow had been trampled around it and packed so hard it was impossible to tell what the tracks were. It wasn't normal. Not only that my trap was gone. All that was left was a hole in the frozen dirt scattered around where my two foot long rebar steak had been ripped from deep out of the ground.

I was more than pissed someone had been messing with my traps. I knew it wasn't an animal, It couldn't have been an animal, and now I was on a mission. I headed to my next trap, this time following the trail that had been plowed through the snow. Like the last two, it had been ripped out of the ground. I kept going my pace, picking up and dreading what I'd find at the fourth trap, one that i'd sit

in the ice. That's when my life changed forever. At the sight, I saw bigfoot prints with long strides freezing over in the ice and heading toward and leading away from my trap hole. The trap was trashed, and the hole it had been set in and was broken around the edges. Something didn't sit right with me. As I looked around, the ice was four inches thick. It would have taken brute force or something enormous to bust through it. I knew a black bear couldn't do that. They weren't

heavy enough to break through the ice that thick. I had seen cattle walk across thinner ice than this, and they weighed a lot more. We didn't have grizzly bear or moose in the area, and I started wrecking my brain trying to understand it. It was still an hour or so from dawn. Something had torn up my traps. My skin was crawling, and I knew something was very wrong. I turned off the lantern so my eyes could adjust to the darkness. I wrapped my scarf around me mouth

so that the steaming air wouldn't block my vision. I started to turn in a slow circle, trying to catch any movement, listening for sounds that didn't belong. After a few minutes, I heard it, the distinct sound of ice breaking and something dunking into the water. It was coming down the creek toward my next trap. I heard it again, ice cracking and water splashing, and over and over. Something was walking over the ice, breaking through with each step,

and it was getting louder. It was getting closer. That's when the smell hit me. Smell like rotten flesh and moldy onion and curdled milk and trap bait. The foulest thing I had ever smelled, and it was so intense I vomited, loud and unbridled. When I recovered, the crashing stopped, I looked down the creek and I saw a shadow, lit by the moonlight, moving from around a bit and in the creek and disappearing into the sand cherry bushes.

It was taller than anything around it. It had the outline of a human, but it couldn't be It was the biggest damn thing I'd ever seen, standing at least two feet over those six foot tall bushes. I knew it wasn't a bear, and unless Andre the Giant had been hanging around my town and stealing my traps, I knew that I was in trouble. I heard it huffing heavy and deep from its diaphragm as it glided around

the bushes and kept coming toward me. I was stunned by its movements, feline and graceful despite its impossible size. I dropped the lantern and dropped my gun into my hands. I couldn't make out what it was other than it had two legs and two arms and shaggy hair covering all over it. There was no way I would get up the steep side of the draw through all of that snow. I was a mile and a half from the bridge and my rope. I needed to do something, so I yelled at it, Hey stop right there, hey,

hey stop. To my surprise, it stopped. It didn't growl or below, it just stopped. It probably didn't know what to make of me. Here was a kid wrapped in eighteen layers of clothes standing in the middle of the creek making a fuss. I was a fearless kid raised by hardened men. It made perfect sense to me to stand my ground and make myself big and try to scare the thread away, just like I'd been taught. So that's what I did. Hey, go on and get get now.

But it just kept coming. But it wasn't quick, not cautiously. It was just interested. When it maneuvered within charging range, I pointed my gun in the air above its head, and I pulled the trigger. I have done brighter things in my life, and pulling the trigger wasn't one of them. First, the shots sort of had the desired effect. The monster man let out a screen that really angry people make

when they're startled. I could handle that until the scream mixed with a murderous roar that vibrated through my bones. Some people say that when they had an encounter, they were frozen in time. Well that's not what happened to me. Everything I had been taught by the proud men in my family went right out the window. Baby with the bathwater. I knew at the moment that I had screwed up very bad. I dropped the rifle and took off as fast as my tightly packed legs could run. I flew

over that icy creek. Certain the devil and all this hell hounds were on my tail. My lungs were on fire and my legs were numb. But I could not stop, because if I did, I would have been the monster's breakfast. The sun was breaking the horizon. I could see glints of pink light glowing on the silver painted iron bridge ahead of me. Blood pounded in my ears, and my head felt like it was splitting, and the coppery taste of blood came with each breath, my lungs aching like

I'd torn something. Never ran so fast in my life. I was almost there. I was almost safe. I hit that rope and I flew up the draw and I scrambled over the edge and I collapsed on the road. There was nothing left in me. If the monster man thing was behind me, I was done. Every breath was agonizing. I was coughing and sobbing and throwing up, and I lay there and waited to be murdered. I was sure I wouldn't see my parents again. I was sure I'd be the next kid on the side of a milk carton.

But I don't know why of the sasquatch didn't tear me into pieces. It easily could have. Maybe it followed me for a bit long enough to laugh at the puny little human marshmallow chugging up the creek, slipping over the ice and arms and legs felling screaming bloody murder, with the stupid lantern bouncing all over the place behind me. If I were that sasquatch, I would have been in

tears laughing. I like to think that that's what happened, but in reality, it probably wasn't remotely interested in me after it realized the minuscule threat I posed. I never went back down that draw again. I never picked up my traps. I didn't go back from my rifle or my bag. I got in trouble for losing my rifle, but I didn't care. Dad told me that we were going back to get it, but I refused. He couldn't drag me down there if he wanted to. I would have fought him tooth and nail. And I never ran

a trap line again either. Instead of being the kid who woke up hours before daylight, bumbling up for the grilling cold and heading out to run my lines. I became the one who played you sports and watch cartoons in the morning, and I went to the movies, and I became a normal teenage boy, A normal teenage boy with a crippling fear of the dark. It's a shame, really, that a wholesome, hard working kid had his life turned

inside out like that. The Montana I grew up in has changed so much that I no longer recognize it. The fields I used to hunter now housing subdivisions. The creek I used to run my trap lines on now runs through ten miles of drain culverts. Evidence of my childhood was slowly paved over for the sake of progress, not unlike the fear I carried from that life changing morning,

a terrible memory paving over my innocence. Over forty years have passed since my encounter, Yet still I find myself half tensing when I drive past a familiar bend in the road from my youth, afraid of what I saw, afraid of what may be out there. Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night to close the curtains over and the windows that look out into the woods behind our house. I know there are monsters out there. Lurking in the shadows. They're watching us, and they're waiting. Hey.

Before we get into this next story, I wanted to tell you about a book i'm reading. I think it came out a year or two ago. It's called hal Mary. It's written by Andy Weir. It's a science fiction story. I think they made a movie about it that should be coming out this March or April or May, or maybe this summer. I'm not sure. You know, I don't often recommend books, but I've read the book, and my

son has listened to the audio books several times. He says he never listens to audio books more than once, but he said it is so good that he's listened to it like three times. Driving to work and back is a forty five minute drive to working back, So I want to recommend that to y'all. My son said, the audiobook is great. I haven't got the audiobook, but I read the print book. It is exceptional. It moves

really fast. If you're not a committed reader, and you know, like reading one thing after another kind of sort of like I do. I don't read that much. My wife does, but I don't. I probably read one book a month that is a book to get. You cannot put it down, even someone who doesn't read much. You will really enjoy this book. So get it on Kendall or order the paperback, or go to your local bookstore and pick it up. It's called Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I think you'll

really love it. Okay, let's go to another Bigfoot story. Years ago, in nineteen sixty four, my family went to visit a friend of my father's. He had two kids my age, and the three of us quickly set out into the woods to check out a treehouse that they'd built. We ran all over those woods, checking out the treehouse and playing chase, and before I knew it, we became lost. We couldn't find our tracks in and couldn't distinguish one identical tree from the next, and brush mirrored itself everywhere.

We had no idea where to go. We started walking slowly, packed tightly together, eyes alert, trying to stay calm as we worked our way out. Somewhere in the trees, we heard a grunt and then a long, slow exhale. We didn't make a sound, we couldn't move. Something was out there checking us out, but we couldn't see it. The sound of it felt completely out of place. It was deep and big and deliberate. We looked at each other, all of us hoping the other had an idea. What

the hell this was? It was just out of you. And then that rancid smell was all over us. We couldn't get away from it. We were even more confused than before. We were on the verge of gagging. And then the trees erupted into noise. Branches were swinging and leaves were rustling like a storm was passing through. Our backs were pressed together. One of the other kids had the courage to call out hello. The trees went still.

There was no answer. We stared at each other again, baffled into silence and disoriented, and that stench was unrelenting. And then the noise erupted again. Trees were rustling as if something were shaking their bases. Limbs were nearly breaking off. We backed away slowly until the noise shifted, and then we backed the other direction, and it got closer, and

we backed up some more. That creature hurted us right back to the trail where we entered the woods, and not once were we able to lay eyes on this thing. We made it back to the house in one piece, more confused than we were, afraid something out there was helping us, and miraculously my parents believed. To me, I think the confusion on our faces must have said it all. Oh, that's a good story. That's a good Bigfoot story. Where you go in the woods, kids go in the woods,

they get lost. Apparently the Bigfoot doesn't want you in there, and he kind of herds you back, and he actually saved them from getting lost. Those kids could have been out there wandering around for days with search parties and all the things that go along with that. That was a great story. I know that this person who wrote this must have been terrified, but I really appreciate them sharing it with us because it's kind of a lighter side of Bigfoot. Sometimes they help you, sometimes they just

run you off. Great story. Thank you for to the writer. I grew up in Australia's island state of Tasmania, east of the capital city Hobart. I'm descended from Scottish free settlers and Irish and English convicts who were transported to what was then called Van Diamond's Island for petty crimes in the eighteen thirties. Tasmania still has remnants of many

convict built historical buildings and other structures. An old friend of mine from school had a holiday house on the Tasman Peninsula, about ten miles as the crow flies from the infamous penal station of Port Arthur. The station was operational from the eighteen thirties to the eighteen eighties. Convicts relegated to places like Port Arthur and the Tasman Peninsula were repeat offenders or had committed worse crimes. In the peninsula is hard to escape from due to the surrounding

shark and fested waters. My friend's holiday homes in the former convict hospital at Saltwater River, which wound down around eighteen eighty and then was sold off. In its heyday, it would have primarily served the convicts who worked the nearby infamous coal mines, but also harvested big timber from

the native forests or quarried sandstone by hand. Conditions for the convicts at places like the Tasman Peninsula were harsh and terrible accidents were not uncommon, so the convict hospital at Saltwater River probably saw a lot of action back in the day. In the early nineteen nineties, a year or two after we had all finished school, my friend held a party at her holiday house. A heap of us friends attended, each of us either at the university

or starting out in the workforce as young adults. We drove down for the weekend and camped out on the floors and beds of the old convict hospital. We had set a fire in the backyard in the ruins of what had once been a large wooded firebrick oven. The bricks made by the convicts and coveted by collectors even today, since they bare the single thumbprint from the convict who pressed the wet clay into the brick mold. At one point on that Saturday evening, I found myself alone out

in the backyard. I was enjoying the warmth of the fire with a cigarette, leaning on one of the high tables set in a fan shape in front of it. It was a cool night. The fire was big. I was just close enough to feel the warmth. There was probably three or four beers in and I was feeling fine as I stared at the bush TV, which is what we called a campfire in Australia. I watched the flames climb the inside of the old chimney walls and

the occasional shoot into the dark night. I noticed what looked like a person sitting at a table to my right. I turned my head, thinking it was one of my friends, but then the shape disappeared. As soon as I look back at the fire, the person came back. By keeping my head straight ahead, I realized I could use my peripheral vision and the figure would stay in place. After a while, I could make out the person's features, and soon it was clear she was an older lady, maybe

in her late fifties or early sixties. She had long, flowing, curly, sandy colored hair, and she was wearing a long, formal summer dress. She was leaning forward on her elbows and had her hands cupped under her chin supporting her head as she smiled at the fire. She looked really happy and content. Somehow I managed not to freak out, so I didn't feel threatened in any way. I was more fascinated than anything. But after several minutes of observation, I

realized we weren't alone. At my ten o'clock just to the left of the fire was another visitor. This time it was a taller man standing in the shadow of the chimney. I instinctively turned my head and he disappeared. I turned to the woman's table and she was gone too, And when I turned back to the fire, they both materialized in the same positions as before. The man looked angry, and he wasn't looking at the fire either. He appeared

to be glaring at the woman. She was still happily watching the fire, oblivious to him and his terrible stare. The man had dark set eyes and dark hair with big Neil Young style lamb chops. He wore a flannel at work shirt. After several more minutes, I decided to make my move. This guy was looking pretty cranky and his presence was starting to unsettle me. I got myself up and went back inside the shack, where everyone was

having a good time. I eventually found my friend in the hallway and I blurted out that I had just seen two ghosts. She didn't instantly dismiss me as I'd half expected, and asked me what had happened. I explained the two people I had seen in as much detail as I could remember. The more I described each of them, the more interested and then concerned she grew, and when I was finished, I asked if she'd ever seen a ghost there. She paused and she said no, and then

she told me who she thought they were. Nearly a decade earlier, a woman who lived in a nearby cottage decided to return to her home in England to visit family. Unfortunately, she passed away while she was there. My friend's description of her was exactly the woman I'd seen watching the fire and around I'm the same time of her passing, another neighbor had sadly committed suicide. He had lived in a small house one hundred yards away, which my family

friends had purchased from his estate. The way she described him was exactly the man I saw. We decided not to tell anyone about this. Years later, my friend and I would occasionally talk about that night. Her family sold the hospital house twenty years ago, but they kept the small house next door, and she and her new family

still holiday there. That's it for now, cam Convict Heritage and Convict Hospital, a bit of a convict history and some contemporary ghost I've got another story to write and send you one day about a UFO I experienced in the Northern Territory desert in nineteen ninety six, and there were zero bears consumed when I saw it. Keep up the good work and all the best of you and your listeners, parom mate aka see you later in Australia, and he signs off. Tim. What a nice guy, What

a nice letter. What a great story about ghosts in Tasmania. Oh, that was very intriguing. I'm not sure what to make of these ghosts and these apparitions people see. I have my opinions on what they are, but I could be wrong. I could be terribly wrong, but I don't think I am, but I don't know for sure. You know, until you just know for sure, you have to say this is what I think they are. But I don't really know. So you got to say that. That would be the

same as Bigfoot. But many people don't do that. They're pretty sure about everything about Bigfoot, the ghosts, or something else, UFOs or something else. That's kind of why I like him anyway, Tim, thanks for the email. It's a very very well written story and I certainly do appreciate it. Thank you. In I ninety nine, job had moved me to Denver, Colorado, where my brother lived. I hadn't seen him in seven years, so when I surprised him one day at his door, we were both over the moon.

My brother suggested that we took a cruise up and down berth Of paths so we could talk and catch up. We were driving and laughing and having a good time and enjoying the incredible mountains. As we came around to Ben, I slowed down so I wouldn't slide over the edge. I slowed down enough to notice something in my rear view mirror. It was a big, black, furry thing. I pointed it out to my brother, who said it was

just a bear. I pulled over twenty yards from the animal, and I grabbed a bag of apples that we bought before the drive. I tossed one at it, and I accidentally hit it on the side of the head. It stopped what it was doing and it looked at the apple, and then my fight or flight kicked in. I watched it reach out and grab that apple with the biggest hand I'd ever seen. Heard my brother behind me whisper, that's not a bear, it's a bigfoot. My brother and

I are Navajo. We grew up hearing stories about bigfoot and we were told what to do and what not to do if we were confronted by one. Well, I stood my ground and I watched him stand up, and he studied me, and I swear my soul tried to leave my body. He was nine feet tall, his head was massive, but he had no neck. His thick eyes were alert, knowing and watching every move that I made. And his chest looked like two fifty gallon drums stuck together, and his skin was like hard leather. I turned to

my brother behind me. He started to shake his head, eyes pleading, knowing full well what I was about to do. I was gonna hand this thing the bag of apples. He's going to kill you, My brother his you're crazy. I told him to go sit in the car and wait for me if something did happen. I wanted him to be able to tell our family. Now. I know the decision was reckless, but I couldn't pass up the chance of a life altering interaction with a creature of this type of lore. I wanted to show up my respect,

even if it meant risking my life. I finally got the nerve to walk up to it, calmly and slowly, as confidently as I could. When I was only several feet away, I could smell him. It was so intense that my eyes watered and my skin began to itch. The smell must have been a defense mechanism, because he lifted his arms and it intensified who To show him, I meant no harm. I dropped on one knee and I set the bag of apples in front of me, and then I put my head down to show him

the back of my neck. I was staring at his big, hairy toes, and I felt his hand to grab my neck. I can still feel the oil from his palm. At that point, I was sure my brother would watch my head get popped off like a grape. And then suddenly he let me go, and he took the apples and he left. I stayed there, kneeling for longer than I can remember. I was shocked and scared, but mostly honored the sound of my brother backing up and stopping the car beside me broke my days. I got in a

changed man and we drove off. Thank you for reading this, and many blessings from my family to yours, and he signs off night Wolf. I love getting these stories from Native people. They seem to have a calmness. And I'm reluctant to say connection, but for lack of a better term, they seem to have some kind of connection with these animals or with these creatures, and it really huminates my mind,

if that makes sense. It makes me think at a higher level, speaking of having a connection with animals like the Navajos, I wish I had a connection with animals. You know, we have chickens around here. We've had probably two hundred chickens. They we get them as chicks, we raise them up, they die off, predators get them. We keep about twenty or thirty on hand all the time. We love the eggs, but mainly I just like having them around the yard. I like watching them, and they're

just they're easy to keep. And anyway, all that time, I've only had one hen, and that was our first batch of hens, and it was a big orpington, one of these big blonde or I think they call them buff orpingtons. When I would sit out my wife would sit out in the yard in a long chair, would jump up on our legs and just sit there, let us pet them and all that. Since then, two hundred chickens later, not a single chick, and we'll let me touch them. Now. They won't run off when I walk

up because they know I'm a source for food. Usually they follow me around. I love dogs. I have away with dogs. I know how to pet dogs and approach dogs. I think I do. I've never been torn up by a dog, even mean dogs. I just don't have. You know, you see all these videos on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram of these people who find a little fallen deer and they raise it up and it lives in the house with them. There's one I think it's a TikTok I've been following, where this deer lives in the house

with the dogs and the people. It sleeps on the dog beds with the dogs. It'll snuggle up with the dogs. I've always wanted to have an interaction with a creature like that, but I just never have. I never have. I have found fahons where dose will leave them in the grass in the summertime, and matter of fact, my grandson ran over one. I don't think it was hurt.

We picked it up, it off to the woods. But the I think the dose will get them to get real low in the grass and they'll go to the woods and just leave them there, and then they'll come back and get them whenever the danger's gone. But I'm hoping that that mama found that deer. But I just can never develop that kind of relationship with an animal other than a dog. We've had cats before that they're kind of cool, but cats are independent. But anyway, so we throw out corn right in front of our house.

The deer will come in the yard every two or three days, late in the evening right now, you know, maybe an hour or two before dark, and we'll my wife and I all sit in the living room. We've got a big window that looks out front, and we'll just watch those deer and they're really close. They're, you know, twenty or thirty forty feet away in our front yard and they're just munching on corn. Well, the other day I felt like I had a connection with an animal.

Now I didn't touch it, it didn't come up to me or anything like that. But normally when those deer out there, like I'll be in my office sometimes my office is detached from my house. I'll look out and I'll see those deer and I'll stay in here just so I don't disturb them because I know my wife is watching them. More than likely, I'll wait till it gets a little darker and then I'll walk in. But generally every time I walk out, they run off. But this time there were four deer out there, two small

ones and two full adult does. And one of the yearlings was munching on my wife's azalea, and one of the does, the bigger deer, came over beside her and was, I don't know, just kind of standing there beside her, like maybe keeping watch over. Probably not. I don't know

the psychology of deer. But the other two when I walked outside, they ran off in the woods like they normally do, but this young deer would he just sat there and she was about forty feet from me, and I walked a little closer to it, to the edge of the driveway and stood behind my truck, and both of those deer just stood there and looked at me, and I thought maybe I had a connection with a

wild animal. And those deers just stood there, and I wasn't going to go any closer because I didn't want to run them off, and I eventually just turned around, walked in the back door, and went in the house. And when I got the house, they were gone, so they must have run off not long after I turned around and headed out. But that's my animal connection story.

One of those young deer. If the deer are in the front yard during the day, and again this is maybe twice a week that we see them out there, the dogs will see them and the dogs will go crazy. I let the dogs out and they run them off, just to let the dogs do what they do. And I think it's the one that was munching on that asaille. Yeah, Arnessalia is toxic to animals. I don't know. I could be wrong about that. I saw that and I thought, man, they must be hungry if they're munching on azalias. But

I could be totally wrong anyway. That one deer, and I think it's this one deer, this one small one. She will and I'm saying it's a she. I don't know for sure, but all three or four of them will run off in the woods, but that one will stop and watch my dogs. Now, my dogs won't run

right up to the deer. They're small dogs. They're just barking and carrying on, and it's almost like that little deer wants to maybe and I'm imagining this in my head, but it's almost like she wants to play with the dogs. I get that sense. Anyway, it's like that little deer. I have some kind of mild connection with it, and it's probably just in my head, but I love it. I love watching that little deer. That's my favorite deer in our area. And I hope she comes around some

more way. That's my deer connection story. I'm not a Navajo. I'm not a Native person. I'm a pure Scots Irish European of European descent. I have no native blood running in me at all. Never had my DNA test that I might, so I'm not comparing myself to a Navajo. But maybe I don't know. Maybe I had a connection with a deer. Anyway, boring story. Just thought i'd tell you all that. Thanks again to the writer. I appreciate

the Navajo man sending me that story. It was wonderful. Thanks. Okay, after this, I'm gonna put an archive story behind this. This story was written by my friend Randy. He lives in eastern Kentucky. I've seen him at the Bigfoot conferences before. He's one of these strong men, you know, the guys that rip phone books in half, and they've been big pieces of rebar and stuff. He's a very devout Christian and a hard worker. This guy's a hard worker. I

think he still works his farm like a madman. But I always loved these stories from him, and I thought i'd shared again. It was posted probably three or four years ago, and I hope you guys enjoy it. My name is Randy Ritchie. I'm fifty eight years old. I'm an ordained minister and had been ministering for twenty four years. I'm a logger, farmer, and I'm a strong man, you know the kind that tears phone books into flips cars by hand and ben's steel bars, etc. While preaching the

gospel along with it. I have lived on the same farm all my life, and what I'm about to tell you is the God's honest truth. I live in south central Kentucky, and all of these encounters except two were within three miles of each other. My first encounter was in nineteen seventy two when I was ten years old. My parents and I were coming home one night. We lived on a large farm, as I have all my life, we were driving down the little country gravel road that

goes through our farm. I was in the back seat and my parents were up front in our car. My mother called out to my dad, you didn't see that big black thing step across the road. She said. It cleared the road in two steps. My father turned around at our shop and drove back, but it was already gone. He told my mother that she was crazy. Some years later, she told me that my grandmother had told her for years that they had seen something. From time to time.

She referred to it as the old Man. Several years went by, and I grew into a teenager and then a young man. But years before that there was more to tell. My second encounter, a mile and a half behind our farm, was in an abandoned old rock quarry from the nineteen forties. My friend Mark and I one day hiked down to the old quarry with daisy bebie guns in hand. The old quarry was grown up with trees and bushes, pretty much what we would called the

thicket here in south central Kentucky. The old quarry was one hundred and twenty five feet long, seventy to eighty feet wide, and sixty five feet deep. My friend and I were on the left side, about a third of the way down from the top, admiring the beauty of the wilderness, and then it happened. We heard the most god awfullest roar, which turned into a blood curdling yell that would stand the hair up on your head. And

Mark said, what was that? I don't know, I replied, And then whatever made that awful sound did so again. Let's get out of here, Mark exclaimed. I wanted to see what it was. Me, being a twelve year old boy, said we can shoot it in the eye with our bb guns. Well, how stupid was that? And then it yelled again and started throwing rocks from the bottom of the old quarry. It hit the side that we were on from some distance away with rocks the size of

soft balls or larger. It roared one more time, and my friend said to hell with this and took off in a flash down the side of the hill back to the holler. I took off right behind him, and we ran for three quarters of a mile before we just collapsed in a pasture field. But a large bull came down off the grassy hill right for us, so we pulled ourselves up and climbed a large tree, wondering if that would get us past the bull and the thing that ran us off from the old quarry. We

finally got down and got home. No one would believe us, except my mother because she'd seen something a few years prior. We went to school the next week and told our close friend about our encounter. He would be the man who would later be the best man in my wedding, and his name was Wendell. I said, I wanted to go back down to see if I could see what it was, but I wanted someone to stay with me. Wendell said if I'd let him go, he would take

his twenty gage shotgun and that he would not run. Well. Of course, I agreed. Wendell and I took a hike down the old quarry, and I decided that we would go in towards the top of the old quarry, this time about thirty feet above the opening. As we were hiking towards it, we were stopped in our tracks by the same roar that again turned into a blood curdling scream that you could feel hit you in the chest

like a brick. I turned back to see Wendall's reaction he with a shotgun, was now in a crowd's position, and he was trembling. I turned back towards the sound, and here it came again. I turned back to see Wendell tearing through the briers with a shotgun in hand, obviously not wanting anything to do with whatever was roaring. And so there I was alone with my rifle in my hand, and I took out right behind him. And when we got home, he said, what in the world

was that. All I could say was I don't know. So we told our neighbors. They were some of our running buddies, one Scotty, who was like a little older, and then there was me and one a little younger, Tracy. Scotty was bold and said, by God, I'll stay as long as I have a gun. So he was all in for us to take the hike back down, and my fourth encounter was about to begin. Two weeks after Wendell and I had gone in, with all three of us having guns in hand, we went back and I

took the lead. I took the same path that Wendell and I took. As we closed in on the top, I was standing less than two feet from where I was standing the previous the same roar, yell, scream all over again, and I turned to see Tracy and Scottie and they were already retreating fast. In less than six

weeks time, I had personally experienced something life changing. I didn't go back for years, but what I experienced in those weeks is why there is a Smith and Western forty four magnum pistol in my bedside nightstand to this day. Tyler and Justin's stories. Tyler said his brother Justin had an encounter. As he was taking the garbage to the end of the road on a dark night, something very large spooked him. He caught a glimpse across the road

of something very large standing between two ponds. As he got back in the vehicle to turn the headlights on, it stood up and ran. It left the fence in two steps, and it was in the road and then it left the fence on the other side. It startled him pretty good, so he retreated back to the house very quickly. In another encounter, Justin and another man were out scouting for deer because the season would open soon.

They were at the end of a hollow in a vast thicket when they came across a deer hanging from its hindquarters in the middle of nowhere. If that wasn't strange enough, its hindquarters were up to about twelve feet in a tree, putting the deer's neck at six feet above ground level, and that was too high for a coyote or most dogs to reach. The deer's neck had a large bite taken out of it. Justin and Tyler also described another encounter involving their cousin, James. So he

walked to his deer stand before daylight. This is the same holler that separated our two farms. The hollow runs by the springs from the old quarry. James had just climbed into his deer stand and heard the blood curdling roar, yell, scream. He was so terrified that he didn't move for about seven or eight hours. Tyler and Justin had heard it also.

Around that same time, my good friend and neighbor and god son, Cody, found a structure made of cedar trees that had been bent and broken to keep the wind and rain off of whatever had been using it. Cody had also had an encounter while frog gigging and just up from the lake one night in the holler that parallels the old quarry. Large rocks were thrown at them as they made their way up the holler. Cody's wife also had her encounter around the same time, as she

was driving one night. Her sightings were very close to where my mother had her sighting some forty years earlier. The location is less than two hundred feet apart. Caitlin recalls what she saw as very large and tall. It stepped over a fence in front of her and crossed the road. It turned to look at her in the headlights, It's eyes reflecting red as it stepped across the other fence. She never took that road home again. My fifth encounter, My next episode was a few years later, when I

was fourteen or fifteen. I was with a friend of mine, Donovan, who had lost his mother some years earlier and would come and stay with us for a couple of weeks at a time. He would later become our city's assistant chief of police. We were on the backside of the farm where there was a very steep hill in our woods. I was climbing the hill in my Yamaha dirt bike.

Like a lot of us here in Kentucky do Donovan was standing at the top of the hill watching me climb over it, and as I pulled up to start my third ascent of the day, Donovan came running down the steep hill. As he got to me, I saw that his eyes were wide open and he was as white as a ghost. We jumped on the back of the motorcycle and he says to me, go, go go oh. I said, what is it? He said, please just go? So I tore out and when we got within sight

of the house, I slowed down and stopped. He said what are you doing and encouraged me to keep going and I said, no, what is it? He said, I saw it? You saw what I said? He said it had to be what we had heard a few years earlier, so we had my attention and I said, well, what did it look like? He said it was big and black and it cleared the border fence in just one step.

Fast forward a few years when we were nineteen years old, myself and my friends Mark and Robin went back with a solid agreement between all three of us that no one would run. We all had high powered rifles in hand. This was the first time that Mark had returned to the old quarry. We took the hike down and braved our way all the way to the inside of the old quarry and poised ourselves for a standoff that we might encounter. We stood our ground for four hours from

two to six pm. When we retreated at dark, we had seen or heard nothing, and was the legend gone. It would cross my mind from time to time, but I saw and heard nothing for about thirty years until I was in my late forties. My neighbor, Tyler, who had lived on the next farm over, had at one point given me the honor of performing his wedding ceremony. He was over helping me unload the firewood one day when he mentioned doing some deer hunting with his family.

I casually said to him, well, don't go down by the old Rock quarry without a gun. And he looked at me with a funny look on his face and said, Randy, why would you say that? While look back and said, why would you ask like that? He said, I didn't think anybody else knew. This encounter is from one of my neighbors and Christian's Strength team members. This young man is almost as big as a bigfoot He's six feet seven inches tall, weighs three hundred and eighty pounds, and

wears a size sixteen shoe. Paul was walking to his favorite fishing hole one day when he heard a large stick break off to his right. He glanced over to see what he had made the noise and couldn't believe what he was seeing. He was looking at a dark figure that was crouched down, and he recalled its facial features, including heavy eyebrows and dark eyes, and it was huge. Paul kept walking, but sped up his pace to get

out of the area fast. Coming back from his fishing hole, he stumbled upon a very large footprint in the wet ground. It was filled with water from the night before, but he said it was huge. It made his size sixteen look small. Paul wasted no time on his route to get back home. When I was forty nine, I was coming home one night from the gym about ten thirty. As my boxer dog, Turbo and I walked up towards the house. In the distance, I heard a distinctive, very

familiar sound. I got turbos still and leaned up against my home and again heard the roar, yell scream that I'd heard so many years ago into my childhood. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I said to myself, it's back. I told two of my neighbors and my wife Carolyn what I heard. We all dismissed it. But the next year I turned fifty and I was diagnosed with a leaking aortic heart valve that could only be taken care of by God or a heart surgeon. So I was in my backyard, in

my hammock. We live in a remote place, just a few farmhouses around. It was on Tuesday night, around eleven pm. Carolyn was already in bed. I was pouring my heart out in prayer, trying to reach the throne room of Heaven. I'm praying herd out loud, and as I'm wailing through the trees, I hear something repeatedly using something to strike a tree. I cried to remove it from my thoughts and my hearing, and I kept praying. The louder and harder I prayed, the louder and faster the wood knocking got.

When I would stop, it would stop. So I said to myself, who in the world would be down in my holler next to my house? At this time of night and on a Tuesday in the middle of July. So I started putting it all together. The yelling, the rock throwing, and now the wood knocking. It can only be one thing, a si squatch of Bigfoot or whatever you call it. I still don't know what I and my friends and my neighbors have experienced, but there's something out there now. I personally have never seen it, but

I know what I heard. It's big and it's real. I don't think it means us any harm, but I would not want to corner it or provoke it. Clay Story is in Halfway, Kentucky, which is in Allen County. Clay is also one of the original team members of my Christian Strongman Team. Clay is a big man. He's six foot five and he weighs two hundred and sixty pounds. He's no sissy or coward. Clay's an avid deer hunter

travels all over the United States hunting big game. I would call him a professional big game hunter, and he has all the trophies to prove it. He's been hunting on one of the largest farms in Allen County. His first encounter was a vocal while he was in his deer stand overlooking a large bluff. The roar yell scream was very loud and robust. Clay says the roar was so loud that he said whatever made that sound was really large. He was startled by the intense sound, and

he said to himself, what in the world is that? Clay, being the sportsman he is, went back the next year to hunt for the big trophy buck. While in his stand with a bow and an arrow in hand, he heard animals scurrying out of the large woods below the bluff he's hunting, and then the same thing he witnessed the year before, the roar, yell scream happened again. The deer came running out first, they were followed by livestock,

and then birds flew out. At this time, Big Clay decided it was time to get his happy hind end down and out of the tree stand. He hurried very quickly to his truck and retreated. And Clay said, he didn't see it, but it had to be very big to make chest shaking sounds like that that he heard. Clay said, Wow, what else could it be other than a bigfoot? One day, David was out on the farm doing his farm work, and he heard a sound that was not familiar with anything he had heard before, and

he had been on this farm forty plus years. Whatever it was, David said, it was very loud and had to be coming from something really big. Sess said to his dad, what in the world is that? He said, I don't know, but we're going to the house. Seth lives on a farm in Halifax, Kentucky, which is in Allen County. His farm has been in his family for three generation. The farm backs up to an even larger farm,

which is three hundred acres of wilderness. While deer hunting one evening, Seth was sitting on the ground leaning against the log when he heard something take a step to his right. Seth looked over and raised his deer rifle up and looked through the scope. He saw something that was around seven feet tall. It had long arms, and it was all brown in color. While looking through his rifle scope, Seth whistled and it looked right dead at him for a few seconds, and then it just kept

walking away from him. Seth said he was proud he kept walking because he didn't think his deer rifle would have taken it down. Seth and Cooper were out one night coyote hunting, trying to call up some coyotes. Now, after a while the calling, they laid down. Seth heard something coming through the woods and it was crashing through the woods and breaking down small trees and limbs. As it was coming closer and closer, they were beginning to

wonder what it was. It was definitely not coyotes. It started getting closer and then it was right on top of them. Cooper said, shoot it, Seth. While laying down, Seth spun over and pulled the trigger of his twelve gay shotgun right at the sound, which was less than twenty feet away. The minute Seth shot, Cooper flicked the big light on and there was nothing there. They both said, where did it go? It was just right there. It

was a very intense moment for both of them. This story comes from my neighbor that lives about a mile down the road from me, but as the crow flies less than a mile from my farm. He's lived on the farm all of his life. This is his encounter. When I was young, me and my brother and a friend that was staying the night got bored and went to the pond, as we did many times. We would gather rocks and try to sneak up on the frogs

that line the banks of the pond. As anybody that grew up with a pond knows, the frogs would all jump in as soon as they knew a predator was near. The goal was to sneak up on the frogs and see if we could hit one before they all jumped in. After I'd thrown my stones, I heard something in the woods. I turned to see a hairy beast running on two legs through the forest, tearing saplings away side to side

to make its way through. The breath was taken from me, and it's like everything else stood still when it was gone. I yelled that I had seen something running through the woods. No one saw it, no one believed me. I just remember dark hair. I had nightmares of werewolves for years after that. I had not been exposed to bigfoot at that time. I was, however, exposed to the monster movies of werewolves. To my young eyes and mine, that's what it was. Let me just break in and say, that

could have been a dog man. If you're thinking werewolf subconsciously, maybe that's what you saw Derek. I don't know. I'm sorry to interrupt Randy's stories here. Let's go to the last story, and it is called Matt Pettigo's experience. I'm the editor and publisher of our local newspaper in Randy's hometown in Kentucky. Randy is a good friend. He's a fine man and as truthful a person as you will ever know. I'm originally from northern California, and I still

have relatives in California and Oregon. In the summer of two thousand and nine, I was visiting my now late grandfather in Bend, Oregon, when I took a ride up into the nearby Cascade Mountains. At an elevation of fifty four hundred feet above sea level, between two peaks high enough to host snow year round lies Scenic Sparks Lake. It is a lake of snow melt between the peaks

and it fluctuates in size. Looking for that perfect postcard landscape shot with my camera, I ventured far out onto the dry lake bed until it began to get marshy. I leapt over a small stream of clear, cold snow water draining into the main body of the lake, and I landed on a small island and into something unexpected. I weighed two hundred and sixty pounds, and I estimate, landing from a jump, that I hit the packed sandy volcanic soil with the impact of over three hundred pounds.

My hiking boots sank in about an inch into the dense soil, paling in comparison to the footprint I was now seen for scale. I laid my six inch wide Panama Jack sunglasses beside it, and I snapped this photo. The print was two inches deep, at one point fourteen inches long, and more than six inches wide. Based on the soil condition and my jump, you can see my print on the left side of the tuft of grass. Whatever made this print had to weigh over five hundred pounds.

What's more, whatever made the print had dug its front toes into the soil as it walked, ripping frontal soil upward and scrunching the other soil towards the center of the print as it pulled its foot upward. Thus, whatever made the print seems to have had a hinged foot, a trait often seen in gray apes. At the upper left of the print is the impression of a very large big toe. It doesn't show well in the photo, but it had dermal ridges, the mark of natural skin.

I saw nothing else and I heard nothing strange, but there it was a good reason for me to head back to the car. I never knew what to make of the bigfoot mystery. Is it fact or fiction? I can say with certainty that something large, heavy, and barefoot

made this track in the wiles of central Oregon. Randy and his family, friends and neighbors, and thousands of other people around the world and through the ages are seeing, hearing, and experiencing something that science can't always explain, And as Randy said in his conclusion, something is out there. Okay, just two stories in that podcast. I thought they were both fantastic, and I really appreciate the writers and thank you for listening. I really appreciate you, and we will

see you guys on the next podcast. Thanks