Bigfoot Society - Navy Veteran’s 9-Foot Encounter in Colorado & Catskills Activity

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

In this episode, we delve into the extraordinary experiences of David, a Navy veteran and lifelong outdoorsman whose encounters span from the high elevations of Colorado to a secluded property in the ...foothills of the Catskills in upstate New York. During a late-summer backpacking trip near the Maroon Bells and Snowmass Lake, David describes coming face to face with towering glowing eyes in the darkness, followed by a night filled with deliberate wood knocks, strange vocalizations, and massive footprints pressed deep into mountain soil.Years later, after purchasing a remote cabin surrounded by dense forest and protected land, the activity begins again. What starts as distant knocking and whoops gradually moves closer to the house, bringing unexplained odors, enormous tracks in deep snow with an impossible stride, violent pounding on a nearby structure, and a daylight sighting that leaves no room for doubt. As the months unfold, the experiences build in intensity, culminating in a moment that still echoes in David’s memory.David shares his story with clarity and composure, offering detailed observations shaped by a lifetime spent outdoors. His account paints a compelling picture of activity across two very different regions of the country, raising questions about movement, territory, and long-term presence. Join us as we explore David’s gripping journey and the unsettling patterns that followed him from the Rockies to the mountains of New York.🗣️ Share Your StoryHad a Bigfoot encounter or strange experience?Send it to bigfootsociety@gmail.com – your story might be featured on the show!🎥 Watch & Subscribe on YouTube🔴 Subscribe here → Bigfoot Society YouTube💬 Leave a comment & let us know your thoughts!📞 Leave a voicemail with your story → Speakpipe (Use multiple voicemails if needed)👥 Share this episode → Watch & Share🎧 More episodes → Podcast Playlist🌲 Recommended: New Jersey Bigfoot Encounters💥 Support the Show & Get Perks✅ Join the community on Supercast – Become a Member✅ Listen ad-free & early on YouTube – Join Here📱 Let’s ConnectInstagram: @bigfootsocietyTwitter: @bigfoot_societyTikTok: @bigfoot.society🧰 Tools & Partners I Use (Affiliate Links)These help support the show at no extra cost to you:Beam (Better Sleep): Try BeamWildgrain (Better Bread): Join HereSeed (Probiotics): Get SeedMedi-Share (Healthcare): Learn MoreLMNT (Electrolytes) Free Sample Pack with your first purchase! : Get LMNTOrganic and non-GMO groceries delivered for lesshttp://thrv.me/uarEhS🎙️ Podcasting Tools:Repurpose.io: Try ItDescript: Sign UpStreamyard: Start RecordingRiverside.fm: Try Riverside🎧 My Audio Interface: View on Amazon☕ Buy Me a Coffee – Support Here🛍️ Grab Some Merch – Shop on Etsy📬 Mailing Address:Bigfoot Society125 E 1st St. #233Earlham, IA 50072

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Starting point is 00:01:15 You're listening to Bigfoot Society and I'm Jeremiah Byron. In this show, we go beyond the campfire stories to bring you first-hand encounters from people who say they've seen something impossible from backwoods trails and remote mountain haulers to quiet farms and crowded highways. The stories come from everywhere, and each one leaves us with more questions than answers. These are the voices of the people who've lived it. So settle in because today you'll hear another account that just might change the way you see the woods forever. So stay with us.
Starting point is 00:01:47 All right, Bigfoot Society, you've got the privilege of talking to Dave today. Dave is an individual. His background is he's an outdoorsman and also a Navy veteran. Thank you for your service there, sir. and he is going to be sharing two different encounters. He's had one in the state of Colorado and then also an extended experience that happened in upstate New York. So welcome to the show today, Dave.
Starting point is 00:02:13 How are you doing today, sir? I'm doing well, thank you. Dave, it sounds like we have some really interesting ground to cover today. I believe the first encounter you'll be sharing is during a backpacking hiking, expedition is that right yeah that's right so i um let me back up for a second i i grew up in ohio in central ohio close to uh koshacton in licking county right basically right on the line of licking in kashokton counties so um i've always had an interest in bigfoot because it was
Starting point is 00:02:51 always talked about you know when i was a kid um i after coffee college, I moved to New York City, where I lived for about 20 years in Manhattan. And during that time, I got into hiking and backpacking because you live in the city and you're from the Midwest, you want to get out as much as possible. So I got into the habit, good habit of doing a lot of backpacking and camping. never in New York, always out west, specifically in Colorado. So before this happened, I'd been going out there a few times and continued to go out. I'd go packing in the summer for a couple of weeks, and then I would go skiing in the winter
Starting point is 00:03:44 and did that religiously until I got older. There was only one incident I had in Colorado that was in August of 2000. So my partner and I, this particular trip, we started in the Maroon Bell's wilderness. And you go up this pass over a mountain. We camped, we got off to a late start. So we camped right over the first mountain in the Maroon Bells. And woke up the next day, and nothing happened. Everything was fine.
Starting point is 00:04:17 woke up the next day and it was a heck of a hike through the Bell's wilderness. Our first time doing it and I just wasn't prepared at all. And the plan that day was to go to this lake at the end of the wilderness, that area called Crater Lake. And it was a really dry summer that summer. We got there. And we were running out of water. We got there and there was no lake.
Starting point is 00:04:52 It was, there were like puddles. It was like sludge. And we panicked because we were running out of water. We didn't see any. There was one stream at the beginning of the Bells wilderness, but nothing that we found, at least the trail that we had taken, no water at all. But I recall passing a trail going up the next pass to get to Snowmass Lake,
Starting point is 00:05:17 which is where we were headed. I recall there being a stream there. So we backtracked. It was getting late. We backtracked, went up this trail. So we didn't want to go all the way up the mountain because elevation is always a problem. You know, we were still kind of adapting to the altitude. And it was exhausting.
Starting point is 00:05:40 So, and anybody who's been on this trail knows exactly where I'm talking about. But you go through the Bell's Wilderness, and then you go up this trail to go over another mountain pass that will take you down into snowmass, to Snowmass Lake and the Snowmass Wilderness. So we hiked up now. And it had not rained for weeks, but just so happens we saw storm clouds coming in
Starting point is 00:06:07 because that's just how it works usually. And we, I want to say it wasn't that far up that pass. If memory serves, we probably hiked for 45 minutes or something up this pass. And the first place that we found to camp, because we were just looking for a place to camp that was near the water. And this creek had been so dry. It was just a small stream.
Starting point is 00:06:43 It was probably two feet across and pretty shallow, but it was still running water, so we knew that we could filter it and drink it. So the first place that we found was a ledge going up the pass to our left, and there had been a campfire there. So we knew the people had camped there before. So we pitched our tent, got water, ate a little bit. and I was so tired. It just started getting dark and I passed out. I fell asleep.
Starting point is 00:07:25 Now, I don't know. I was asleep for maybe when I fell asleep, it was light and when I woke up it was dark. But I had to go to the bathroom. Now, my partner was next to me and he was reading a book. He had his head lantern. on. When I, so I said I have to go to the bathroom, but I couldn't be near the tent. So I had to walk far away. So I got out of the tent. And as soon as I, so there was a small trail going off the main path to the tent. And as I looked up that little trail, I hadn't had my lantern on yet.
Starting point is 00:08:13 So this was back in 2000, so they didn't have, at least not that I was aware of, LED. It was all just battery operated. And I had like a double A battery operated headlamp. And but it wasn't on yet. There was just, and it was very, so it had actually rained before. So it was very wet and super quiet. And there was a little bit of light coming from my partners. headlamp in the tent because he was still reading.
Starting point is 00:08:47 And as I looked up the trail, there was, there were two of the biggest eyes. So I have a lot of experience outdoors, and I've seen eye shine from mountain lions, from bobcats, from bears, deer, everything, right? These eyes, they looked like little headlights from a car, except they were, it was a green light and it was, there was no, I can't explain it, but if you, if you see a deer at night, the reflection, the refraction from light when it hits it,
Starting point is 00:09:28 it has different, like, it illuminates differently, like it's not a solid color, right? These things were solid green and they were huge. my first thought was we have a bear because there are black bears out there. But so I freaked out a little bit. Now, mind you, you know, later on, something that my partner pointed out was it was so quiet. It had rained and you could still hear the rain dripping off the trees. It had stopped raining by the time I got out. but it seems like very quiet.
Starting point is 00:10:11 You could, I could hear the rain dropping off the trees when I got out of the tent. But as I'm staring at this thing, I think it was fear. Everything just went super quiet. And I'm staring at this thing and I reached up and I turned on my headlamp. And when I did, the eyes really lit up. And so much so that you could see the sides of the thing illuminated like light. like headlights. It illuminated the size of its face.
Starting point is 00:10:42 Now, I saw skin. I saw a little bit of hair on the size, but I saw skin, you know, the cheekbones, basically, and the eyes. And it just stood there and stared at me. Now, I filed a report on BFRO. This was back in 2000, and I was very bad with distance back then.
Starting point is 00:11:06 And again, anybody who's been in Sarian probably knows where this ledge is, but it's only about 35 feet from where we were to where the tree was, to where the trail was that this thing was standing next to a tree. I'm going to fast forward a bit. We went back the next year, and I actually was able to gauge better on the distance. It was closer than I had originally thought. But I was stuck staring at this thing, and I couldn't move. It didn't move. It didn't blink. It didn't blink. It didn't blink. It didn't do anything. It just stood there. And then I noticed behind it another set of eyes that were smaller that was it was doing like a figure eight thing behind it. It was like bobbing back and forth behind this bigger one. And every once in a while it would get between its legs. Right. So you could see this thing like moving behind it. And I just about crap my pants because I had to go to the bathroom and they didn't know. Like what I was going to do.
Starting point is 00:12:09 But I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. It's like I was frozen staring at this thing. And again, it didn't move. And this went on for quite a while. At some point, I want to say not quite a minute, but close to a minute. It's always hard to gauge time when, you know, it stands still like that. But it was there a while because I started sputtering, trying to say my part.
Starting point is 00:12:37 partner's name to get him to come out. But I just couldn't. I was like, but, but, but, but, you know, like that. I just couldn't speak. And finally, he's, he talks. He's like, what's wrong? And I'm like, you have to come out here. You have to look at this thing.
Starting point is 00:12:57 So he, he went to open the tent. And when he did this thing blinked. So at this point, my eyes of the. adjusted enough that I could see more of it. But I could just see an outline. And it was big. It was really big, really tall. And it blinked. And it turned and it turned and walked down the trail. And the little one behind it, I'm assuming that's what it was. I don't know what else it could have been, like was right on its legs. And it looked at me. And it seemed to be moving with. it in its stride if that make I don't know if it was holding onto its legs or what but it was it
Starting point is 00:13:45 walked down the trail I freaked my partner didn't see it he said he said it was a bear or something I jumped back in the tent I decided not to go to the bathroom I was just going to hold it and I got back in the tent and I was in a panic because I was I knew whatever it was was big enough to harm us. That little tent was not going to protect me in any way or us in any way. So I got back in the tent and I'm shaking, trying to process what I had seen. And my partner said, you know, when you were sleeping and it was raining, I heard something coming down the trail. And it sounded like it was making deliberately, you know, heavy footsteps.
Starting point is 00:14:42 Like at first he thought it was campers coming down, but trust me, there's nobody up there. And this is towards the end of August, I believe. And there aren't many campers up there. You can get really cold at night and even snow that time of year in the Rockies, in the Colorado Rockies. So there just weren't that many people out. We didn't see anybody hiking in and only saw people when we got to snowmast. and there was only like one other couple there. It was that late in the season.
Starting point is 00:15:11 So I thought that was weird. Like, how could you hear something? Like, if you walk down a trail, you don't hear. But he said it was still light when you heard them coming down. And they stopped by that place where we had put our tent. It had stopped on the trail near our tent. He didn't think anything of it as to why I had not. no idea. But I have to assume that it was standing there and staring at us for quite a while.
Starting point is 00:15:45 But never smelled anything, never heard anything at that point. So I got in the tent. I was in a panic. He told me about the footsteps he heard. And then I'm trying to process that. Like, how could that be? and I didn't get much sleep that night. I was anything, anything at all that I heard, I would wake up. And at one point, that's when the knocking started. And there were, so where we were, so on this ledge, our tent was close to the to the edge where you could just walk down this little ravine and get to the water.
Starting point is 00:16:34 Every night they tip the lids, and there are so many I can't keep up with them. You know, hundreds of data brokers can be overwhelming like that. You need a tool that blocks them all. Drop helps you tell data brokers to keep their paws off your info in one request. It's free, fast, and for all Californians. Drop is brought to you by CalPrivacy. Working hard to make privacy easy.
Starting point is 00:16:56 Visit privacy.com.c.gov slash drop to learn more. And but there was a nature trail there that went down. So obviously something was using this, that walkway to get down past the ravine onto the other side where there were a bunch of woods, a bunch of trees. So this thing was on the side nearest our tent in the woods directly over to the side of the tent and just knocking. And it was it was two knocks and it would stop. And then it would knock again. And it would stop. And this went on all night.
Starting point is 00:17:35 This went on several times enough to keep me awake. Every time I would kind of doze off, it would wake me right up. And my partner, he passed out. He just was out. And at one point, this is another thing. It went quiet again. Like you could hear the rain. It had rained really hard.
Starting point is 00:18:02 Not the rest of the night after that. We had a torrential rain and then it stopped, but you could still hear the rain drops, you know, hitting the leaves and stuff. There was a little bit of wind, but not much. But you could hear rain hitting leaves all night. And for whatever reason, at one point, I couldn't hear anything.
Starting point is 00:18:22 Like, there's nothing. It was like you're in a vacuum almost. And something approached the tent, but I didn't hear it until it was right outside. the tent. It was like a, like that. And right, like feet away from my head, from our, our heads. And I just about lost it again. I couldn't, and I couldn't move. I think it was fear. I couldn't move. I had a, we had bear spray, and I had a big hunting knife that I always, I still have, and I always carry it with me. I just couldn't move. And I was trying to get my
Starting point is 00:19:05 my partner to wake up and he was out. So I slowly move my hand. So my sleeping bag, whenever you moved your hand or something, it made a little bit of noise, you know. I was trying to be quiet. Apparently I wasn't because when it heard me go for my knife, it turned and walked down that ravine onto the other side of the woods. A very quick, moves so fast.
Starting point is 00:19:30 Like it happened just like that. Like the thing was standing there. I didn't smell anything. but something was definitely there. And then it started beating on trees down the ravine on the other side. Immediately, like within a minute, it started beating on trees. And that woke my partner up. So as soon as the sun came up, you usually when we wake up in the morning,
Starting point is 00:19:59 you know, you want to dry your tent, you know, you want to lay everything out and get it dry. and stuff. There was none of that. We packed everything up wet and got out of there. Didn't really say much to each other actually. It was just like we have to go. And walking up that, so we made it up super early, made it to snowmast in record time. I can tell you that. And going up the trail, there were footprints. And that, you know, clinched it for my partner. It's like, You know, like that really is amazing. And I got a picture of one of them. So there were two sets.
Starting point is 00:20:41 There was a big one and a little one. And the little one, I wear a 13 and putting my foot next to it. This was probably like maybe a 16 inch footprint, but it was really wide. And I'll actually find that picture and send it to you so you can show it. But the big one, you can actually see where my foot is. I actually stepped in it. Now, what I found interesting about these prints is that it had been so dry up until that rain. It still seemed like, and the ground was saturated, but it wasn't, like, if you walked on it,
Starting point is 00:21:22 you couldn't make an impression at all. But this thing made an impression and let me believe it was super heavy. I can't gauge the weight of it, but even the small one was heavy, heavier than I am. And at the time, I think I was 170. I'm closer to 190 now. But I just couldn't process what could make these prints. And so we made it up over the pass. Now, what I recall was as we got up to the top of that pass over to the right,
Starting point is 00:21:59 I don't know if it's the east, west, north, I don't know. But over to my right on this path, there was this almost like a flat area with a bunch of woods. And there were impressions coming, I don't know if they were footprints, but there were impressions coming from those woods onto the path. It led me to believe that whatever these things were, they were in that area. And so like they didn't come up over the path from snowmass. they'd come from this area at the top of the pass. I don't know why I thought that. I just had a feeling those were footprints that weren't quite defined enough for me to say they were footprints.
Starting point is 00:22:39 But it made me want to get out of there. I'll tell you that. So we made it over the pass into Snowmass. We were there by like, I think, 11 a.m. if that, maybe earlier. But we had the whole day at Snowmass Lake. Super cold water, went swimming in the lake, had a great time. That night, the knocking started again. And there was knocking all over.
Starting point is 00:23:09 It wasn't just like, so you'd hear a knock, and this is right at Snowmass Lake. There's plenty of places to camp there. There was one other camping site. We wanted to keep away from them, but we were close enough that we could see them. But there was knocking beyond them. and then there was knocking on the other side. Like they were communicating. But these were, instead of two knocks, they were three knocks,
Starting point is 00:23:35 sometimes two, sometimes three. But they were always the same cadence. Like it wasn't just random. Like it wasn't, it always kept the same cadence, I thought was really interesting. Like it was, you know, knock, knock, or knock, knock, knock, knock. And then on the other side you'd hear,
Starting point is 00:23:55 knock, knock, knock, the same cadence. The slow knocks would be answered with slow knocks fast, fast. It was very strange. That kept me up all night. At this point, I was so exhausted. We did hear whoops. That was my first time hearing whoops. I didn't know if it was a cat.
Starting point is 00:24:14 I didn't know what it was. And this is before I knew anything about whooping. But we did hear a lot of that. But nothing came near the campsite. but just enough to get on our nerves and keep me on my toes and exhaust me. We were supposed to stay at snowmast for two days. We only stayed for one. We left.
Starting point is 00:24:44 And so this is part of the loop. So you go up another pass to this place called Geneva Lake. And we get to Geneva Lake, and I'm tired as any. I had slept in a couple of nights. And as soon as we pitched our tent, I passed out. And I didn't hear anything. But my partner, all night long, he was hearing Knox and Wolps again in Geneva Lake. And I had no reason to disbelieve him.
Starting point is 00:25:14 I was just so exhausted. I just slept through all that. So instead of spending an extra day at Geneva, so we just kept leave. Every time we heard it, I didn't want to stay. We would just leave. So next morning we packed up. We left and that's when we went all the way through this small town of Crystal that you go past, to go up Crystal Canyon to get back to Crystal Butte.
Starting point is 00:25:40 So that is the Colorado story. That's absolutely incredible stuff, Dave. My goodness. I have a few questions for you. Just to make sure that it's documented. because I don't think I heard it said. So the eyes on the larger one, how wide across would you estimate that those eyes were,
Starting point is 00:26:12 like the space between the two eyes? Not very. That's not what struck me. It wasn't the distance between the eyes. I mean, that didn't, I don't know if I can answer that because I'm not good. It seemed proportional to the head. Okay.
Starting point is 00:26:35 They weren't far apart. It's the size of them that got me because they were just so big and bright. And I, again, I've seen a lot of eye shine, especially after living up here in upstate New York. I've seen every kind of animal in ice shine and nothing's ever. So growing up in Ohio, I grew up in the country. in Ohio. So I'd seen it all, I thought, and I've seen eyes shine from everything, you know, from cats to bears, deer, everything. And I've never seen eyes like this. It was like I said, like two headlights, but they were green, really, really green.
Starting point is 00:27:17 Right. Another distance question. How far off the ground would you estimate that the two eyes were? I initially thought, so that first year, we didn't really hang, we left. We didn't stay to measure anything or we just got out of there. The following year, we went back, same trail, and we actually spent more time there, not on this pass, but we camped there again. And that's when I, that same tree was there that this thing was standing next to, and I was able to go up and measure it. It was probably about nine feet tall, nine feet off the ground.
Starting point is 00:28:05 The small one was, honestly, it looked really agile. It was anywhere from three to five feet. It was just moving so fast in this weird elliptical figure eight way and up and down and, you know, seemed very agile. I couldn't tell the size of that, but anywhere from three to five feet tall, that one was. But again, I don't know if it was. climbing behind this thing in the back, I just don't know. But it was fast. It was moving very fast. Thank you. Can you explain what the difference between something that is wood knocking versus something that is beating on trees? Like how does that sound different? No, I'm sorry. Whenever I say
Starting point is 00:28:53 beat on trees, I'm talking about knocking. Oh, okay, good, gotcha. Yeah, yeah, got you. Sorry. And I asked that because I've actually experienced waking up at 3 a.m. And something was beating on trees. And so I was curious if you had the same experience. But okay, so that's good to know. I don't know what there. It sounded to me like, so I have a, where I live now, I have a, a, a teepee out in the woods.
Starting point is 00:29:23 And I have these, you know how they, the teepees have lodge poles that hold the thing together, right? So I had some extra lodge poles and one of them broke. And this was years ago, but I banged them together. And when I did, that's exactly what it sounded like. Two heavy pieces of wood being hit together. It sounded exactly like these lodge poles that I beat together. Gotcha.
Starting point is 00:29:49 Yeah, no beating. When I say beat on trees, I'm talking about wood knocks. Gotcha, gotcha. I would say it might not leave this in. But the other weird thing I noticed in my situation was there was definitely no pattern when it was just like, wham, wam, wam, wam, wam, wam, when. Like there was no pattern to it. Wood Knox, definitely there's a pattern like you said in your encounter. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:16 Wow. So how long was it after that happened? How long did you wait to share your experience or did you share right away? I shared it immediately. I contacted BFRO as soon as I got, so I, well, not immediately. It was, we were in Crested Butte for for almost two weeks. Well, in Colorado, I'm sorry, for two weeks. We're in Crested Butte for a week. But driving, we drove from Denver to Cresta Butte, Gunnison, the Cresta Butte. Driving back, we stopped in Breckenridge. And, um, I, that's when I reached out to. And I think I filed the report. Well, I've written it out. I wrote it out when I was in Cresta Butute.
Starting point is 00:31:10 But I, you know, typed it and sent it to BFRO within a couple of weeks. Gotcha. I would say if anyone is listening, they have an encounter. Immediately write it down. Yeah. Immediately write down everything that happened if you can. because your memory will sometimes play tricks on you and just write it, write it down. Yeah, and when I went back, this is funny, how you can distort.
Starting point is 00:31:37 So I had gone back to read that report. I filed and I'd forgotten about a lot of it. I wish I could read it verbatim. But, you know, even then, it's always best to write it down when it happens because your mind can play tricks on you. Absolutely. Is it okay to link that report to this episode so people can read that? Yeah. Just note that in the report, I think I said I was like 70 feet away. It definitely was not 70 feet. It was much closer. And I was a bad. I just, I didn't measure anything when I was there because we just got the heck out of there. So that's sort of a mistake on my part. But it was closer. And anybody who's been there knows this led. for sure because it's the only one. There's actually there's a ledge towards the base and then there's another one up at the top. The following year when we went
Starting point is 00:32:36 back we actually stayed at the top and nothing didn't hear anything, nothing happened. But in the morning I heard something outside the tent but it was this the sun was out up and everything. I slowly unzipped the tent and there was a mountain goat, a big white goat, you know, like right there. within a couple feet just staring at me. And as soon as it saw me, it booked up the minute. It was cool to watch it. It actually climb the sheer mountain.
Starting point is 00:33:05 It was amazing to me how agile those things are. But so, yeah, there's like two ledges that you can camp on if you go up this pass to get to Snowmass Lake from the Maroon Bell's wilderness. That's really cool. And I mean, then there is a potential food source there as well if you've got mountain goats and probably other things as well as since it's called. Colorado, but yeah. Dave, those are those are the questions I have for your first encounter. Would you would you be able to proceed with sharing what happened in upstate New York? Sure. This is a bit longer. It went over the course of a year in some odd months. We did, I didn't have the sense to my partner, the same guy that went to me to Colorado.
Starting point is 00:33:57 he's an MD, he's a doctor, so he keeps really good, you know, records of everything. He had the sense to keep a journal of all this from the time when we realized what was going on up until the time when it stopped and how it stopped. So it's good that he did that because there's no way I would remember all this stuff. So I'm going through it, it's like 20 pages long. I just want to highlight some of the stuff because a lot of it is just sort of boring, I guess. But so how I ended up here, it started back. So after this happened, I got in touch with a Sasquatch group and did some volunteer work, you know, some research work. for a while.
Starting point is 00:34:59 And one of the guys in this group had told me about, I'm sure you've seen it. You know that the baby, big foot is swinging in the tree? You ever seen that? Yes. Yes, I know which one you're talking about. Yeah, I think it was on YouTube for a while or something.
Starting point is 00:35:15 You can find it. Or I could find it. But he had reached out to me and said, this happened in the New Pulse area of New York. Now, I, having lived in Manhattan, never ever went upstate. Never gave it any thought. So, you know, driving in New York City was enough to throw me into a panic. But, you know, he asked if I could go up to New York or to New Paltz in this area.
Starting point is 00:35:46 It wasn't in New Pulse. It was right outside in New Pulse. Asked if I would go up and investigate. So I did. got a friend's car, braved the streets in New York City and made it over the George Washington Bridge and up the Palisades and, you know, made it there about an hour, hour 20, I think it was, not far from the city. But after investigating that area, I just fell in love with it. I had no idea this was up here. And I don't know what year that was, but it was like a year later or two years later when we ended up looking upstate for a home. Because, you know, if you're a Manhattanite, you tend to not want to be in Manhattan on weekends, especially in the summer.
Starting point is 00:36:42 So you either go to the Hamptons or, you know, somewhere on Long Island or the Hudson or something. But people just tend to not be in the city. So we had a lot of friends who had homes everywhere. So we started looking up here. And I don't want to give an exact location, but it's in about two hours, two and a half hours from New Paltz. In the mountains, in the Catskills, the foothills of the Catskills anyway. Our house is at about 1,200 feet elevation on a mountain. Well, I call it a mountain, but it's a, they actually mined this area for when they were building New York City for stone and lumber.
Starting point is 00:37:29 So we actually have huge quarries on our property of where they mine bluestone for New York City, which is pretty cool. So ended up finding this place, moved here. closed on the house in November of 2004 and moved in that weekend and loved it. It's on 30 acres. There's no neighbors. There are neighbors down the road. It's on a dirt road, but there's really no neighbors here. there's a hunting preserve next door to the cabin we have that's a 750 acre preserve
Starting point is 00:38:18 and then there's you know another 35, 4,000 acres of just state land. So I have a drone now and I'll fly it around. It's pretty cool. There's nothing here. Down the mountain, about a mile and a half down is a river. where I do a lot of fly fishing now. That's sort of the layout. So the house is on a incline, about 20 degree incline.
Starting point is 00:38:53 So the front of the house, you can tell us a two-story cabin, but in the back, it's actually three floors. So the back, half of the back of the house is underground. and it's about a 32 to 35 foot distance from the top of the roof to the ground in the back of the house. In the front, there's only like an eight foot. So it's pretty steep going down. It's a 2,500 square foot house. And there's a driveway. So when you pull in, there's a long drive and it goes around the back of the house to a garage in the back.
Starting point is 00:39:33 in the back. And the driveway in the back, the driveway in the back is, so the, it's so hard to explain how this is situated, but the house is on an incline. So if you're in the back of the house and you go out to the screened-in porch and you look down, you see a lot of woods. So it's almost like you're in a canopy. So you're in the trees up here, but then when you look down, you know, you just see woods. But you can see for a good, well, right now it's winter. So you can see for a good, you know, 200 yards down. And then it goes down. So there's an incline, then it goes flat for a while, and then there's another incline. It just goes all the way down the mountain like that. So if you go down, into these woods, you can get lost very easily.
Starting point is 00:40:39 But you just keep going downhill. You'll hit the river. You'll be fine. But so the first, it didn't think anything of Bigfoot up here. Nothing. I mean, we just bought a house. It was beautiful. We were so happy to have it.
Starting point is 00:40:58 It was a lot of work. But it was one of the first weekends. So what we would do, this was weekend home at first. So we would come in on a Friday, Friday night. We would leave early Monday morning. And it takes about two and a half hours to get back to the city from here. So we would leave at about 3.30, 4 in the morning just to make it, you'd have to go over Bear Mountain and to the Palisades and then over the GWB of the Georgia Washington Bridge. And you'd want to be at the George Washington Bridge before 6 a.m.
Starting point is 00:41:32 because that's when the traffic really starts. So we just got to figure that out fast. So maybe it was a third or fourth weekend. It was cold. That fall was super cold. This was probably mid-December of 2004. And I'm the one who packed up the car. So we had a Nissan Exterra at the time.
Starting point is 00:41:54 So I popped the hatch in the back and I was loading it up probably quarter to four in the morning. And there was a stench out there. Like it smelled like it was smell like it was right there. It smelled like a rotting deer. That's what I thought. It was a deer car. There was a deer that maybe had died in her front yard or something. And at the time, now I've opened up a lot of this.
Starting point is 00:42:17 But when they built the house, they ran out of money. So they didn't do any landscaping or anything. It was just a big log cabin on the side of a mountain with no landscaping. It was just raw. So over the years, I've cleaned it all up and stuff. But back then, you had from the front of the house, you had the driveway that went straight across the front of the house. And then you had woods probably 10 feet from there. So you had a bunch of pine trees and oak trees and stuff right there.
Starting point is 00:42:51 You could literally, I mean, it was just literally the house was set in the middle of the woods. And I was looking out, I couldn't see anything. It was dark. But I was looking out, trying to figure out what the smell was coming from. It was so bad that if you smell a bad smell, you instinctively just stop breathing or breathe through your mouth. It was that bad. It was pungent. So when I went out and I was packing and I had the luggage and stuff, I didn't smell anything.
Starting point is 00:43:19 I popped the hatch and as I'm loading it, that's when the smell hit. And it was sudden and it was harsh. And it just reeked. It smelled like deer and sewage, rotting car. carcass and sewage. And it was horrendous. So I stopped breathing. I closed the hatch of the truck and I went back in the house. I came in and I'm like, Greg, there's a dead deer in our front yard. It was so cold then. There's no way. He's like, you know, Dave, there's no way because it's too cold. You can't, nothing's going to be rotting in this, with it, in this
Starting point is 00:43:55 temperature. So I'm like, we'll come out here. So we'll be. both went out and the smell was gone. Nothing. I didn't think anything of it. That was it. Went back to the city. Following weekend, we came back to the cabin. So we were both smokers at that time. And, I mean, heavy smokers. Not anymore, thankfully. But we both smoke cigarettes constantly. And we would always go into the back porch that looked down into the woods and we'd smoke, you know, drink beers, smoke, talk, whatever. So we spent a lot of time out there in the back. And every time we'd go back at night, we would hear things. And we would hear tree knocking and whooping.
Starting point is 00:44:56 And that was probably, we were only there a month at that point. It was, you know, mid to late December and cold. And I remembered Colorado. And that's when I put it together. I'm like, oh, God, they're here. You know, like, now, I didn't believe that baby Bigfoot story. I mean, I went to investigate just because, and, you know, obviously, In that area, I think they are around there.
Starting point is 00:45:30 But I just didn't give it much thought. I just didn't think about it. But when they started whooping and knocking here, I was like, oh, no. They're here too. So we got, so back then, this went on for about a month. And there were no footprints. We didn't smell anything. other than the whooping and knocking, which was pretty far.
Starting point is 00:46:01 So it's a mile and a half from our house down to the river. So down in these woods, though, there's a bunch of ravines. There's a couple caves. There is a logging road from when they used to log in Millup here that goes down. Now, this logging road is overgrown, but it's still visible. I've gone down this road a couple of times, and there's areas down there that you just can't get into. It's a bunch of briars and really thick, you know, forest and everything. So I can't tell the distance, and the acoustics up here are strange.
Starting point is 00:46:37 I can't tell the, I couldn't tell the distance, but it was pretty far. And this went on for a while. We actually started recording it. Greg started recording all this stuff over the last. the months. But so at one point, so this was in the winter, there's, like I said, there's that hunting preserve next door. There's actually a little cabin on this preserve next door. And there's an old man that used to live there. He's since passed away. There's an old man that used to live there. And he and his son came over one afternoon, knocked on my door. And he's like, ah, you got the house.
Starting point is 00:47:26 I really wanted to buy this house to expand our property, good on you and all this stuff. And we were talking. He's like, are you a hunter? And I'm like, no, I like to fish. You know, I'll hunt if I have to. I used to when I was younger. And he goes, well, if you do hunt, and this is what stood out to me was very weird. He goes, if you do hunt, you know, be careful if you think you're shooting it bear, make sure you know what you're shooting at.
Starting point is 00:47:54 And I'm like, what are you talking about? And I didn't say anything about Bigfoot to him. It was in the back of my mind. As soon as he said this, I knew what he was talking about. What I wanted? I'm like, I'm like, what are you talking about? And he said, well, there's this bear up here. And I saw it a couple weeks ago standing up against a tree and just staring at me.
Starting point is 00:48:15 And I knew not to shoot at that one. And I'm like, what? And so, you know, I was trying to get something out of him. And his son didn't say a word, just sitting there and smiling. and, you know, looking around, looking at the house. He goes, yeah, just be careful. Just be careful. And I'm like, okay.
Starting point is 00:48:35 You know, I'm not a bear hunter, but I'll heed your advice or something like that. So that was that. You know, they left. They saw who bought this house and they were, you know, nice pleasure to meet you and all that. And they left and that was it. So throughout, so from like November through, through probably mid-January, it was just a bunch of knocking and more knocking than whooping.
Starting point is 00:49:16 We only heard whoops occasionally, but we heard them. And it sounded exactly like the same whoops that we heard in Colorado, exactly the same. The Knox sounded exactly the same. If I didn't know any better, I think that these things followed us from Colorado, right? But so in January, this is probably the second week of January
Starting point is 00:49:50 because we had friends up for the first time from New York City. Three friends came up. And I had a ping pong table. So like I said, the acoustics are weird up here. You can hear everything. And we had a ping pong table at the time that was in the garage. There was nothing else in the garage except for a ping pong table. So all the guys would go down there and we play ping pong.
Starting point is 00:50:12 We were drinking that night. I went to bed, I want to say around 11ish or so. I've never been able to stay up late. But they stayed up and they were playing ping pong. You could hear the ping pong. So, and because we always, the way this cabin's design, like, has a wood-burning fireplace on the main floor that has a blower on it. And when you have that going, it'll heat the whole house and get super hot upstairs, though, because it's an open floor plan, you know, so the heat would come straight up into the bedroom upstairs where I slept. And I would always have the windows cracked to, you know, get that heat out.
Starting point is 00:50:52 So no matter how cold it was, it was always warm in that room, and I would always have the windows cracked. And as they were playing ping pong, I was sort of falling asleep to the sound of the ping pong table. When really, again, because of the acoustics, it's hard to say how close it was, but it was so close that I could feel it vibrating my head. this thing started knocking outside, probably within a couple hundred feet of the house, if not closer. Like, I'm convinced that it could hear the ping pong table and had responded to that or something. But I shot up out of my bed. As soon as I shot it.
Starting point is 00:51:40 Now, so I was listening to it. It knocked a few times. It was super close. I panicked and I sat straight up. And when I did, the knocking stopped. But it was dark in my room. Maybe it saw me. I don't know how because it was pitch black where I was, but it must have seen me because
Starting point is 00:51:57 as soon as I got up, it stopped. I ran downstairs and grabbed another beer. I'm like, I'm not going to bed now. Didn't say anything to the guys. Just let it go. So there was that. So that was a Friday night. Saturday night,
Starting point is 00:52:21 normal night, they played ping pong for a while. We all went to bed. I fell asleep and I had the windows closed. I didn't hear anything. But my friend Ed, who was downstairs, so his bedroom was directly below mine,
Starting point is 00:52:39 but he had his windows cracked. And he said that he heard something knocking and screaming outside the next morning. This is Sunday morning. We wake up. He's like, there was something knocking and screaming outside, and it kept me up all night. And I look at Greg, and we kind of smile, and I met, can you explain it? And he exactly the same kind of knocks, like two knocks.
Starting point is 00:53:01 And then this screaming. And I didn't know, he said, it sounded like a woman screaming. He thought it was our neighbors, but we don't have neighbors, right? He goes, do you have a neighbor next door who's some woman, just really weird? I didn't hear anything, but I thought that that was noteworthy because he did. And I was a little jealous because I had never heard of a scream before. But I didn't know what it was. It could have been a cat.
Starting point is 00:53:28 You know, we do have bobcats and mountain lions up here. I mean, if you ask the park rangers around here, if there are mountain lions, they'll say no, but we've seen them. So I just had to think maybe it was a mountain lion, right? I didn't know what else it could have been. And the thought of a of a Sasquatch up here screaming just never, I couldn't process that one. So I just let it go. So the weekend of, so that was the weekend before. So there was a movie that came out called The Village by M. Knight, Shiam L.N or whatever his name is.
Starting point is 00:54:15 And I was really big in the movies at that time. And as soon as the movie released on DVD, I'd buy a copy. So that movie released on January 11th of 2005. So this would have been on the 15th on a Saturday. So I bought, I don't know if I bought it in the city or if I bought it up here. But we did have the movie here on Saturday the 15th. And it was just Greg and I, we watched. the village and we had gone downstairs for a smoke.
Starting point is 00:54:53 We paused the movie, went downstairs onto this porch in the back. And when I walked out back, I was the first one out there. I just had a sense that I was being watched. And when Greg came out, and there was a big snowstorm. Um, big one. Um, several feet of snow fell, um, in a matter of hours that, the only other time that happened was just a few weeks ago. We, you know, the snow appears weird.
Starting point is 00:55:25 Sometimes you get a lot and sometimes you get none. Um, this was our first big winter here and it was a massive snowstorm. Um, but even though the snow was falling, um, heavy, uh, you just, it didn't sit right with me. Like something was going on. Something was around. Um, um, um, um, um, I had said to Greg, do you feel that? Do you sense that? And he's like, yeah, I do. And just as, so the front of the house, so there's a, there's a walk around deck all the way in front of the house. So you can walk all the way around the front of the house to the back porch or you can get to the back porch through the through the house, right? So we're looking over to the side of the house on the deck. something was drawing me there.
Starting point is 00:56:18 As soon as I looked, we heard this pop. And now, it was loud. It was a board in the house. I thought maybe that it was so cold that one of the boards had snapped or, you know, I didn't understand how wood settled and all that kind of stuff. I thought it was just a settling sound. But it was loud enough that we put our cigarettes out and went back inside. it scared us.
Starting point is 00:56:46 I didn't want to investigate it. Even though it was just feet away, I didn't want to investigate it. We went back in the house, went upstairs. Strangely enough, we didn't really talk about it. At the end of the movie, we went back downstairs. And it stopped snowing for the most part at that point. We go back out, and I turned on the light. We have a big light that shines in the back of the house
Starting point is 00:57:11 and illuminates the whole backyard. And I turned on the porch lights as well, just to feel a little safer. And I didn't notice that Greg did. He's like, what's that? And I looked out, and there were footprints in the snow coming from under the house down into the woods on the west side of the house. and I immediately thought somebody had been walking around the house, right? And I put on my boots, wasn't prepared for how deep the snow was, I'll tell you that,
Starting point is 00:57:52 put on my boots, ran outside to go investigate, Greg followed me, and the footprints were, it was directly, so where we had heard that pop is where this thing had been. I'm assuming because of the heavy snow, it maybe was just resting under the house or hiding under the house or something. But it had left a trail from under the house all the way into the woods, which is a pretty far distance, probably 50 to 70 yards. but what I didn't, what didn't register with me at the time was the gate, right? So Greg's like, holy crap, look at the gate on that thing. So when we're walking through the snow, you know, you have drag, right? Like you have to really pick your feet up to walk in the snow without leaving a drag in the snow.
Starting point is 00:58:57 Let's say the snow was probably two and a half, two feet deep. This thing, there was no drag, and it was about a five-foot gate between each step, and it was a straight line all the way. Like, if you look at our prints next to the print, this thing left, you know, it looked like you're rolling a barrel down when we're walking through it, but this thing had no drag. Like, it had to be big and have a huge step. to make it into the woods without any kind of, like, what do you call it?
Starting point is 00:59:35 Like in the snow trail between the steps, they were just perfect prints. Now, you couldn't see the prints because it was in snow, but they were big. And I ran down to the woods to look and it went down the mountain. That's when I knew it couldn't have been a person. Because, first of all, who's in the house going to be out here in the middle of nowhere? hiding under our house and then run into the woods. If anything, it would go out into the street, not down into the woods. So I turned around to talk to Greg, my partner, and he was gone.
Starting point is 01:00:11 He ran back into the house. So I ran back in. I'm like, thanks, you know, Benedict for that. But he's like, I don't know what that is, but, you know, it's big and let's not mess with it. So not that I was going to follow it or anything because it was very dark and cold and snowy. But that really kind of just sealed the deal for me. Like I knew that we had Sasquatch up here. So I'm going to fast forward because there was a lot that happened, mostly just sounds,
Starting point is 01:00:49 audio, wood knocking and woping, pretty consistent. Every weekend we'd come up here, we'd hear at least knocks. Sometimes you'd hear both. And sometimes it would just be a few times on a Friday night or Saturday night. Sometimes it would be Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night. But it was pretty consistent. I don't think there was a weekend when we didn't hear something. So I'm going to fast forward to May of 2005.
Starting point is 01:01:20 I'd come up here alone for a weekend. Friday night, Saturday night, we're uneventful. I heard Knox on a Saturday night, but they were far away. And at that point, you know, you get so used to it. You just don't really give it any thought. You're out. But mind you, I was still smoking a lot. I didn't quit smoking until, I think it was 2015.
Starting point is 01:01:45 So I was always smoking a cigarette outside. And then you would always hear stuff. But it'd get pretty used to it. But it was a Sunday. in May, in early May. I was here alone. Sunday morning, it was early in the morning. I got up and I made coffee.
Starting point is 01:02:04 I'm an early riser. I usually get up quite early. And the sun was just coming up. I was in the back drinking a coffee and having a cigarette. Now I get, I'm out of a really good memory when it comes to like, so one of my things that really bother me about when you're looking down, um, um, you're looking down. into the woods from the back of the house. When they built the house, they just bulldozed all of the trees and debris
Starting point is 01:02:35 into the back, like right at the tree line. So it's a huge pile of garbage and trees and rocks and everything. So I'd spent a lot of time kind of removing all that. And I went down into the woods and I cut down all the dead trees that were standing because I just wanted a beautiful view of the woods. So I was very aware of what was out there in the back, within view of the back of the house. And as I'm staring down there, there's these two big pine trees, white pines, probably, you know, 70 yards down the mountain. And I'm looking at these two pine trees that I've seen, you know, hundreds of times before.
Starting point is 01:03:23 and there was another tree, I thought was a tree, a big stump, a big tall stump is what it looked like to me, in between these two trees. And that stump had never been there before. So I'm looking at it because the first thing I thought was, how did I miss that one? Like, you know, to cut it down. And as I'm staring at it, it had a leg. It walked. It took one step behind. So there's a tree to the right, this thing in the middle, and then a tree to the left, almost equally spaced, right?
Starting point is 01:04:02 This thing took one step and went behind the tree to the left. And I could see its form, I could see it standing there, but it wasn't moving. And I didn't blink. I was just staring at it. Like, what in that? And then I'm like, oh, it was a big foot. I saw this thing. It didn't swing its arms at all.
Starting point is 01:04:23 It just took a step almost like it didn't want to be seen. It saw me for sure. So I can't tell you how long I was staring at it. At least two cigarettes long, I'll tell you, because I lit another cigarette. I'm just staring at this thing. Like, it's just not moving. So I'm making noise. I'm yelling.
Starting point is 01:04:45 I'm like, hey, this thing didn't move. Didn't move an inch. But it was still there. So I went to open the back door to go down the steps to the ground level and go down and investigate. I opened the door and then I don't know what stopped me from going down, but I just couldn't. I'm like, I'm alone. I don't know what this thing is. And I just was processing and I'm like, I'm not going to do it.
Starting point is 01:05:19 So I went back in the house, got a glass of water, and I decided I was going to go back to the city. I looked out back and it was gone at that point. But that, for sure, I knew what it was. There is no doubt in my mind. It was, even though I only saw the legs, it was pitch black. It was black as pitch. And very tall. probably about eight feet tall.
Starting point is 01:05:53 I went down the following weekend and measured, and it looked to be about eight feet tall. And just scared the heck out of me. I'm like, they're really close to the house, and I didn't like this thing was broad, thick, and sneaky. So that was that. I told Greg about it when I got home. I actually called him on the way back.
Starting point is 01:06:23 And I was very, I was terrified. I left. I didn't stay. I was supposed to be here all day. I didn't. I was going to stay till Monday morning and I didn't. I left Sunday, I left that morning, Sunday morning, drove back to the city. Like, I'd rather be in Manhattan and here alone, I'll tell you that.
Starting point is 01:06:40 And Claude Greggen told him, and we talked about it and he called me down. And, you know, it is what it is. We're not going to sell the place. It's fine. They've not done anything to us yet. And that was that. So that was in May. In, and so, again, every weekend we'd come up here, we'd hear knocks or whoops or something.
Starting point is 01:07:08 And mind you, I don't know if I said this earlier, but it wasn't just one wolf. There'd be a whoop and then there'd be a whoop somewhere else. Or there'd be a knock and then there'd be a knock someone else. It's like they were communicating with each other. but only ever two sets a knocks, not like multiple. I've read and heard people saying they're all over the place knocking. No, it seems to be like two of them. Communicating, I don't know, but I just assumed.
Starting point is 01:07:37 So this one offers a couple more months. Then in August of 2005, I had gone to, with a... Sam's Club. There's a Sam's Club in Middletown, New York that I went to. And I used to go there and buy bulk everything because living in the city, you know, it's expensive to buy stuff in the city. So you just buy toilet paper and bulk stuff at Sam's Club. And it was less expensive.
Starting point is 01:08:08 So, but when I was in there buying stuff, I saw these, they're called grapples. They're apples that taste like grapes. It sounds gross, but they're really good. I've not seen them since, by the way, but I bought way too many of them. So they had a woman there that was cutting them up and you could taste them. I'm like, holy cow, these are great.
Starting point is 01:08:28 So I bought way too many. And we were eating them all weekend. We left him here. The following week when we came back, they were squishy. They were overripe. And so I didn't think anything of this. I just threw them all over into the woods side of the house.
Starting point is 01:08:53 All of them. I don't know, maybe a dozen of them or so. That was on a Friday night. We'd just gotten up here. They were on the counter. They were squishy and I just pitched them, right? So we ate and we were getting ready to go upstairs to watch it move. and the doors were open. It was kind of warm. And so the property, so I said that we have 30 acres.
Starting point is 01:09:30 Originally it was 15 acres. There's a lot next door that's 15 acres that we ended up buying because I didn't want anyone building on it. So but on that lot next door is a hunter. shed. There, you'd walk into the, it's just a little shed, you know, you walk in, it was well built, but you'd walk in, and then there'd be a window in the back that you could open up and you could, I guess, shoot in. I don't know. But I'm not a hunter, so I didn't, you know, really use it for anything other than just
Starting point is 01:10:02 storing stuff in it. But I don't know the amount of time that went by, maybe half hour, 45 minutes after I threw those apples in the side yard. there was something on that shed for sure beating the heck out of it, beating it. So how there was always a cadence and rhythm to the knocking in the past. There wasn't here. It was just going crazy, knocking and beating on this shed. And I think there were two of them because it was so much beating.
Starting point is 01:10:42 Craig freaked out. like what the hell is that? And I'm looking out there. I got a flashlight and looked out there, but it's just so far you couldn't see anything. But as soon as I got the flashlight out, it stopped beating. As soon as I turned the flashlight off, it was beating again. And this went on for a while. And I, Greg said something.
Starting point is 01:11:07 Greg's like you shouldn't have thrown those apples out there. I'm thinking that maybe they liked those apples. and wanted more? I don't know. But just beating the heck out of that shed. And we were terrified. No whooping or anything, but just beating. And it was loud and was so loud at some points where you could feel it.
Starting point is 01:11:29 And I thought they were going to break the shed. So I'm yelling and screaming. And they just kept beating on the shed. So I don't know what to do. I have a feeling they're going to come to the house. And so Greg hit the alarm on the car and set the alarm off. And when the alarm went off, they stopped beating. And that was it.
Starting point is 01:11:53 The next day we went out and looked at the shed. Now, in the bed, so you had in the front of the shed was a door where you could walk in. The back was this window, like I said. Underneath the window, they had cinder blocks. Whoever had built this thing there, the previous owners of the lot, had put cinder. blocks almost like steps going up to the back, right? I don't know why because I don't know, but there were cinder blocks. They're still there actually. And the center blocks, I'd seen this before, the cinder blocks were flushed up against the shed. When I went out to investigate,
Starting point is 01:12:30 the shed looked like it had been pushed about four feet away from the cinder blocks, which there's no, this shed was so heavy. There's no, this shed was so heavy. There's no, way we could have moved it would take a crew of of people to move this shed granted it was flat on the ground it didn't have a foundation or anything but it was pushed or I don't know it was moved from where it had been just a week prior so I can't say for sure what it was but I just have a feeling that this thing, these things like the apples that we pitched out there. So maybe they were asking for more. I don't know. But that was the end of that summer. And the fall was pretty uneventful. There were some things that happened. Nothing really no, just a bunch of knocking and
Starting point is 01:13:32 and whipping and all that kind of stuff. So in December of 2005, so this has been going on now for a year. In December of 2005, it was cold outside, windows were cracked. It was about 3.30 in the morning. Greg was in the shower. I was in bed. Windows were cracked, like I said. I heard a gunshot, and it sounded like a 30-out six, like a powerful rifle. And it was loud.
Starting point is 01:14:08 I knew it was coming from the preserve. from the guy, the old man, next door. And I always knew when the old man was there because he had a generator that he would run, especially in the winter. So you always heard that generator going. And the generator was going, and I heard a gunshot. And then I heard this god-awful scream.
Starting point is 01:14:29 It sounded like, but it had, it sounded like a woman screaming, but as loud and it had a different tone to it. like it was the vocalization was really weird like really high and then low and then almost like there were two of them but it wasn't two of them it was just one I can't explain it but it was a this dual tone scream thing that I'll never forget and it ran from the east side of the house to the west side of the house in record time so by the time I heard that gunshot and this scream I was at my window and it was already halfway. The screen was directly behind my house. Like I was staring right into the
Starting point is 01:15:15 darkness at this thing screaming and it went all the way to the other side. It happened so fast. And I'm yon and Greg like to listen and he had just turned off the shower and popped the window in the bathroom to hear like fading off into the back. It moves so fast. I mean, Jeremiah, it moved faster than any. I don't know how, you know, I don't know what. Now, my instinct was, my gut reaction was he shot someone. I wanted to jump in my truck and go over there and talk to him, but it was 3.30 in the morning and I didn't want him to, you know, shoot at me or anything. He was kind of crazy, this guy.
Starting point is 01:16:02 And that was it, right? Um, that was it. Um, the following week, I went next door and his son was there. He, the old man wasn't there. His son was there. And I said, what happened last week? What happened on Monday? And he's like, I don't want to talk about it. I said, can you, can you, can you, I mean, what did he shoot? He shot something. He goes, no, don't worry about it. There's nothing to talk about. And so I just didn't, you know, they, they weren't the friendliest guys. Um, and I, um, and I, didn't ask anymore after that. I never saw him again. He died a couple years later, but I never saw him. He lived off the land, you know. But it kind of doesn't, didn't jive with me because if he shot at this thing, when he told me not to shoot, remember he, the same guy that said of the bear, don't shoot at the bear, like, why did he shoot this thing? I mean, was it trying to get into his house or it was a little cabin that he had. It's still there. I don't know what they do with it anymore.
Starting point is 01:17:09 But it just seemed really weird to me, but after that, nothing. Never. It was it. No more sounds, no more, no more footprints, no more, no more woping. Nothing was gone. And ever since then, there's been nothing. So this was a little while ago, you know, this was back in 2005, the end of 2005. It was a while ago, and I'm surprised, but there have been some reports up here.
Starting point is 01:17:38 So I was on the zoning board, planning board in this area for over a decade. And every town board meeting every month, the constable would get up and give a report of everything, like speeding tickets. There were a couple of times over the course of 10 years when people would report a strange animal in their yard. There is a woman that lived not far from here. matter of fact, I can walk there in probably 15 minutes, next to a lake. And she was convinced that, so she always kept her front door open and had a screen door, right? In the summer, I don't remember the exact time of year, maybe it was August again, but she walked out of her kitchen to her front where the, I guess the foyer,
Starting point is 01:18:36 where the front door was, and she saw what she described as a tall, hairy man standing at her door. She screamed, called the constable. And now this was years after my experience in the scream that I heard. She screamed, called the constable. The constable had to make a report on it. I asked, his name's, he's gone now. I asked what that report was about. He's like, you know, we get these sometimes, these crazy reports.
Starting point is 01:19:04 You know, these old women, they, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. just kind of wrote it off as some crazy old lady thing. And that kind of stuck with me too because I believe her. You know? So that's my story. Oh, my goodness. Do you mean, logically, it sounds to me like that old guy probably killed the Bigfoot. Or they got scared off.
Starting point is 01:19:35 I think he shot it. I think he shot it. and hit it and it was it ran off screaming because it was hit that's what i think yeah wow um because that gunshot was loud um you know um it definitely was a high caliber gun um a rifle and um yeah i think he i think he hit it i do you're like yep i had the visual yeah and then it's like it i was like oh it's really on yeah i mean it was just that one video visual of all the things the footprints I mean there's other yeah hours to go through the journal but this is just some highlights that I that I wrote down there you know we have footprints all over
Starting point is 01:20:20 you know a huge massive pile of of um of um of um of um of um um of um um of um of um in in the woods in our back it was the biggest pile of poop I've ever seen in my life and I've seen bear poop before this thing was massive. And I'm not going to keep it or anything. But a lot of strange stuff. But it was that one sighting that sealed the deal for me. And the banging and the moving of the shed and the wolves and the knocks that we heard it all just kind of came together slowly over time.
Starting point is 01:20:59 You know, different times when we would smell stuff that I didn't. I mean, just random, you'd smell something. rotting and it was always in winter like you know there are a ton of animals up here and there's a lot of things that die up here and you can smell them all the time um but you know uh had friends up here that have shot deer and they've dressed them down in the woods in the backyard and you can smell that um but nothing like what you when you smell it you knew what it was and that happened several times but the the most distinct was the first time that I smelled it out front like it had to be close. It was so strong.
Starting point is 01:21:37 And I just, the stench was horrible. So you can tell the difference between a rotting carcass and then whatever sent these things give off because it's, it's, it's, it's, it's putrid. Absolutely. I mean, the area you're talking about too, like the cat skills, just on my sighting map alone, like the stuff, the stuff I have in there is, is really wild stuff. Yeah. Even across the Hudson, too, over into Red Hook, there's stuff over there. It's a perfect area because, yeah, it's, you really have like corridor going out from the Poconos and then up through that Hudson area and then up into Western Mass, northwest Connecticut.
Starting point is 01:22:18 It's just, it's the whole thing. Yeah. It's pretty much the Appalachians. Oh, there's another. This is hearsay, but I think it's pretty cool because I'll never forget this. I was down in Pennsylvania. getting my tires changed. This was probably 20, maybe 2015, 2016 around there.
Starting point is 01:22:42 And I was there early and I was the only one there. I was sitting in the lobby of this tire place and a local tire place, not like a Mavis or anything, just a local tire place. And I knew the owner really well. So I used to go in there and for all my car needs. And I was sitting there and this old man came in. And he looked really bad.
Starting point is 01:23:10 He looked really pale. And I was just sitting there staring at my phone. I noticed him come in. He looked like death-warmed over. So I thought maybe he was ill or something. But the guy who ran the shop said, hey, I don't remember his name, Bob or whatever. What's going on? And he's like, you're not going to believe me.
Starting point is 01:23:33 You're not going to believe me. He's like, I think I'm going to get sick. And I was listening. I wasn't, you know, just listening to him. And he goes, he's like, well, tell me what's going on. He said, me and I guess his wife were having breakfast. And I'm assuming the way he described it is they have a breakfast nook or something that overlooks their front yard. and they were having breakfast in this little nook,
Starting point is 01:24:02 and they looked out, and they saw a big foot standing there, directly in their frame or just staring at them. And, of course, as soon as he said that, I popped up and went over. And as soon as I came over, the guy wanted nothing to, you wouldn't talk about anymore. So I waited until this guy left, and that's when I started asking questions. of the owner, of the shop owner about what, you know, so he told me, you know, everything the guy had said, basically everything I heard.
Starting point is 01:24:40 But he goes, yeah, we get those reports up here all the time. Like, it's just matter of fact. And, you know, so this place is, it's beautiful. And there's definitely plenty. I mean, if just walk down the mountain that I live on, and there's places that you can't get into. There's some ravines with some caves. I've been in one of them before. They're kind of dangerous, but there's places to get lost down there. There's places where things can hide just a mile and a half from my house down to the river. You know, it's crazy. I have a drone
Starting point is 01:25:18 that I take out and fly down. It's very dense. You can see some crazy rock formations and places these things could hide just in this general area, you know? So, yeah, it thinks really interesting. Such a, it's an incredible account when you, when you take a bird's eye view of the entire story, it is awesome. Do you ever wish that stuff would start happening again? I do sometimes. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:25:48 I do a lot of, I don't go out to Colorado much anymore. I'm older and have some back problems, but I do go up, you know, to Lake Placet a lot, like George area. Never had any experiences up there, but it sure is beautiful. But I've read a lot of reports up in those areas, especially around Lake George. I wanted to go to Whitehall and check that out, but, you know, I've got all this around here. I don't, you know, it's kind of all looks the same after a while. You can't.
Starting point is 01:26:24 But I would definitely, if there were some researchers in this area, that wanted to go to Whitehall. I'd love to go with them. Yeah, and they have that great festival that happens, I believe, in September every year. That's a fun one. I've heard it's on the list to check out someday. Yeah, so this area also is big with UFOs. Mm-hmm.
Starting point is 01:26:47 Oh, yeah. And I don't know how I feel about that, but it's just as I get such interesting because there's a lot of people to believe in they think they've seen UFOs up here. I don't know if there's a correlation, but I have read a lot about that. Yeah, I'd say, I mean, if you look at, you know, places like Southwest Pennsylvania, there's definitely a correlation between Bigfoot and UFO sightings, especially, I want to say, 70s, 80s, like Stan Gordon wrote a lot about that. Yep. Yeah, and you probably have heard that name before, but my goodness, what a,
Starting point is 01:27:28 What a wild, wild account. I mean, thank you for coming on, David, and for sharing what you've experienced over that year and a half there. It's just, it's really cool. I mean, I probably would make a solid book, to be honest. But I would read it at least. But thank you so much. I'll put this up, I'll try to make this journal more readable. and send it to you.
Starting point is 01:27:59 So you'll see everything. Oh, cool. Everything. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on, sir.
Starting point is 01:28:08 I do appreciate it, David. It has been a pleasure. You too, Jeremiah. Thank you. Have you ever heard all the accounts of Bigfoot activity around Oak Ridge, Oregon? And you think to yourself, man, I would love to get out in those woods and experience it for myself. Well, guess what? This year, you can.
Starting point is 01:28:28 If this is interesting to you, stay tuned because it's pretty cool. Sasquatch Summerfest is coming up July 10th through the 11th, 2026. It's going to be even better than the previous year's reason number one. I'll be one of the speakers. It's going to be wild. I'll probably, I'll say this. There may be stuff you haven't heard anywhere else because let's just say sometimes it's, Well, you just got to be there.
Starting point is 01:29:00 We'll leave it that. More about looking for Bigfoot in the Oak Ridge Woods. Now check this out. You may know Jason Kenzie from his documentary series searching for Sasquatch. Well, this year, you can not only go to the festival, but you can also sign up for a trek deep in the wild forest outside of Oak Ridge with Jason Kenzie to the Bigfoot spot. to look for Bigfoot. There's only eight spots
Starting point is 01:29:32 to sign up for this. And yes, this will also be filmed for the next chapter in his documentary series, which is searching for Sasquatch. This is a once-in-lifetime deal. It's just, trust me, it's going to be a wild, wild experience.
Starting point is 01:29:48 To get a ticket, head on over to Sasquatch Summerfest.com and listeners can use the code BSP, like Bigfoot Society, podcast in order to get a two-day pass for the price of a one-day pass. So thanks to Priscilla for giving me that code so that you guys can get a little help with the cost there.
Starting point is 01:30:16 Appreciate that, Priscilla. I hope to see you at the booth in Oak Ridge this year. We can talk about your encounter. I was able to talk to so many people last year and the year before. It is an incredible time. You're not going to want to miss it. And I'll see you there. Before we wrap this episode, I want to say something directly to a very specific group of listeners.
Starting point is 01:30:40 If you're in the military, any branch, or forces, and if you've seen something that no one can explain, or if you're a national park ranger or forestry worker who's been told to stay quiet, if you're a pilot who's seen something strange down on the ground, or if you're with the FBI, a federal agency, or working in town, and you stumbled upon something you're not allowed to talk about. And if you're a firefighter, paramedic, or search and rescue responder who's heard screams or found tracks that didn't make sense, if you're in the logging industry on a remote oil field or trucker with government contracts, and you've had something happen that you've never told a soul,
Starting point is 01:31:21 and if you're a biologist, a wildlife specialist, or a field researcher under contract, who has found evidence you're not allowed to report, if you're a pastor, a missionary, or someone on a spiritual retreat, and you saw something that shook your faith, or if you work in the shadows, CIA, NSA, or anything with clearance, and you've seen what the public hasn't, then I want to talk to you. Even if it's anonymous,
Starting point is 01:31:49 you can reach me at Bigfoot Society at gmail.com. The world needs to hear what you've been forced to carry alone, and you're not alone. You've got the story. We've got the mic. See you in the woods. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bigfoot Society podcast.
Starting point is 01:32:09 Every encounter we share reminds us that the world is bigger and stranger than we think and that the truth is often hiding just beyond the tree line. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the channel on YouTube,
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