Radio Rental - Rewind: Episode 03

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Welcome to Radio Rental: Rewind, where we go back in time to where it all started. Hang out with us as we play our favorite, scariest tapes from the archives... and also have some fun with the fans.Today's topic: << Forest Creatures <<Hosted by Producer Steven Perez and featuring the creator of Radio Rental, Payne Lindsey.Watch on YouTube @RadioRentalUSAAnd don’t worry… Radio Rental (our main store) will re-open this October.Want more Radio Rental?For early access and ad-free listening, subscribe to Tenderfoot+ at ⁠https://tenderfoot.tv/plus/⁠.Follow the show at @radiorentalVisit the website at ⁠radiorentalusa.com

Hey, what's up guys? I'm Steven and this is Radio Rental Rewind where we check out the greatest of the greatest hits the archives the scariest stories And today we're gonna be checking out some bigfoot Sasquatch stories I've never encountered Bigfoot or Sasquatch. I mean I've been to the Bigfoot museum here in Georgia, but you know, that's about it So this one is called night scope and it's back from episode 44. So let's check it out Okay, let's see how's that? Sounds good. Check, check. I had always been a hunter.

The hobby is pretty expensive. I was always looking for avenues to hunt on a budget. I specifically liked to hunt boar. Boar are an issue in the United States where they produce at a rate that, the Department of Fish and Wildlife can't keep up with. They eat up crops. They destroy the wildlife. New Mexico and Texas both allow the hunting of ore with night vision.

I had been going down the rabbit hole, researching the base entry scope that I could buy, that I could go and enjoy a night of hunting with night optics. I had found a scope for a good price. I wanted to dip my toes into that facet of hunting. I was initially supposed to go on that hunt with other people. You're supposed to go on them with other people. You'll have people that are all set to go that flake out at the last second.

There was a little of that happening. I didn't want to be one to. to back down from a hunt just because I didn't have other people there to hold my hand. The area that I go hunting, my friends and I enjoyed a lot of leeway with because of the public lands. A lot of lands in Texas are bought up and owned. So it was an area that we could enjoy that not a lot of people had access to. Loaded up my truck, drove out to the spot, managed to. to use a game trail to get to a spot that I had in mind.

I set myself up a perch that I could be in for a prolonged period of time. Got my gear set up. Started to find landmarks at different yardages, one at 25, 50, siding in the area in increments of 25 yards. The area was surprising. still. Not a lot of things were making noise. I've been out in that area before. Even at nighttime, there's still a lot of wildlife that's up and active. A lot of things are nocturnal.

There are a lot of things that wake up at night. I had my back propped up against a tree for comfort. After a couple hours of that position, I really wanted to do something. There was another area that wasn't exactly better or worse than the spot that I was currently in. Picked up my gear and moved.

It gave me something due at that moment. Maybe I'd see something. I thought maybe if I set up, maybe I'd get another angle. As I set up, I'm glassing the area, setting up new landmarks. I had noticed something moving. I could see it in the brush.

Assumed I was looking at a black bear. It was moving dominantly on their hind legs, but still using their front legs to get through foliage. I thought that it was interesting that that he was moving in the direction that I had just left. Straight towards my previous spot. He got to the spot that I was just at and the tree that I was just propped up against.

I noticed as he got upright, it wasn't a bear at all. It was a person. This person was transfixed. with the area that I had just left. He was running his hands up and down the tree, examining the bark. He was smelling the area that I was at.

He moved like an animal. He wasn't moving like a person. I could see his form and as I adjusted my optics to get a better look at him, I saw that he wasn't clothed. He didn't have anything to protect him from getting through the foliage that he was just crawling around through. He was naked, head to toe.

Once he had gotten done getting the information that he wanted out of that tree, he squatted down and put his palms between his feet and aimed his head straight up the way that you would imagine dog or a coyote howled. It's at that moment. I heard a voice call out from his direction. A voice that I would never imagine to come from that frame. I thought that I was looking at adult-age man, but the voice that came from that person was a distinctly female voice.

Help. I'm lost. Is anyone there? Please. Everything was rushing through my brain. I felt petrified and confused. in the strongest senses of the word. I allow a little bit of time. I try to think about what I should do next.

I'm trying to understand whether this person is lost. Before I can really get an action out of me, they call out again. Help. I'm hurt. I can't walk. Can somebody help me? That's when everything clicked into me.

This person didn't need help. This person could walk. And they were moving through the brush and the foliage better than I could. This person is trying to trick me. What this person is saying isn't true. This person is trying to get me to go to where they're at. I start to get all my gear together frantically. Really needed to get my backpack on,

and I needed to get my rifle back up. I needed to keep my eyes on this person that I know that I can't trust. I bring my rifle up and I get my eyes behind the optic. I see that this person is still in that position but their head is pointed in my direction. I got that distinct feeling

that we were making eye contact. I could see their cheekbones, I could see their jaw, I could see their teeth, all of the details that I would need to see a wide smile across a person's face like someone just got a punchline to a joke. At that point, I knew this person was looking for me. This person now had a good idea of where I was. They start to take these long strides towards me. That was all I needed.

I was freaking out. Whatever was going to happen next didn't feel like it was going to be good for me. I discharged my rifle and I sent around sailing over his head. A normal person would run away. Be frightened in some way, shape, or form, but he wasn't. He was still transfixed. on me.

The gunshot that just went off over his head hadn't deterred him. I have no issues with pointing my crosshairs directly on him. We stood there staring at each other for a long time. It felt like an eternity. I was prepared to let that trigger touch off if he continued to come into my direction. Almost like a jump scare out of a horror movie. Something had clicked in. in his head. He bolted to my left. I could not keep him in my scope. I was really struggling.

Brush and trees are getting in between he and I. I'm only getting flickers of the white of his heat signature through the tree line. I wanted to let him know, hey, I still see you. So I sent another round into the tree line after him, still very high. in his direction. I wanted to hear the branches crack. I wanted him to know that I know where you're going. I became very aware that the gear that I had on me was not set up to get in a fight with somebody.

I really wanted a fresh magazine inside of my gun because it only carries five rounds. I was fumbling around looking for a fresh one and as I dropped the one that was in the weapon, it hit the ground. I didn't even bother looking for it. He was only getting deeper and deeper into the trees opposite of the direction that I needed to go.

I didn't want him to regroup. I didn't want him to get his confidence back. I decided that this was a good opportunity for me to get out of there. I wanted to get to my truck and I wanted to leave. start to get all my gear together frantically. All of my movements aren't nearly as adept as they usually are. There's no dexterity to what I'm doing. I'm sure I left things behind, but I didn't care.

I just really needed to get my backpack on. I start running back to my truck as fast as I can, and I start to hear him. He starts to give off this awful scream, really just wailing into the night. He's not really saying anything. He's not calling out to me. It sounded like if you blended a laugh and a cry together.

The sound must have been playing tricks because I couldn't tell if it was coming from left, if it was coming from right. I could swear that it was coming in front of me 15 minutes to get to where I was at, but I made my way back to the truck in half that time. Seeing that truck was probably one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. I got the keys in the ignition, and I backed up and drove back the way that I came as fast as I could.

I remember feeling frightened that whole time, this awful feeling of anxiety. It wasn't until my truck got back onto the freeway, and I was. was speeding back towards my house that I got any sense of security. That fight or flight reflex, it's a hell of a drug. It was one of my go-to campfire stories for a very long time until my nephew had heard the story. And he started telling me about when to go's and rakes and things like that.

I think it frightened him that I had never heard of any of that and I think it frightened him that when I was telling him that story we were camping. The area that we were camped out that night was the same woods. He refused to stay at that campsite that night. His mom was real upset with me because she had to take him back home. He would not stay out in that. campsite that night. Yeah, yeah, I have. And it's a, it's a real, it's a real rabbit hole,

uh, looking at these different, uh, Wendigo's, skin walkers, rakes and things like that. And, um, they look real scary and, uh, they look like the things of nightmares. And, uh, I don't actually know what I would have done if I saw that out in the middle of the night. You know, that, I, you know those things that you see in those little videos and, uh, some of the examples that they show of those creatures, I would add no problem shooting at that. I wouldn't have given that thing a warning shot if I saw that. So we still don't know what the hell that was out in the woods. Was it a big foot?

Was it a windigo? Rake, Skinwalker, or just a crazy dude on bath salts. Who knows? But either way, it sounds like they both had a moment. Hmm. How nice. Dude, if that was a monster or whatever, I would have taken the shot. I don't know if I would have done the whole warning shot thing. But, and also, if you had a dead Bigfoot, you can get hell of rich off of that.

So, I don't know. It might be win-win. So let's take a break. Let's take a breath, calm down a bit, and we'll be back. All right, we're back, guys. And now we're going to listen to some voicemails. My favorite part. I want to respond to your crazy shit.

It's becoming our favorite part of the show. Yeah, because I just don't know what to explain. and some people are like, oh, I'm gonna call in and be like this. And then you have genuinely nice people, people who are playing characters, and people who just kind of freaked me out a little bit. I think you like it, though. I do like it. I keep coming back for this part. You got me hooked.

Let's go. Come, give me something good. Okay, so while we were at my grandma's house, in the hallway, we're in the attitude, we would notice they would be laughing, a child's voice, multiple children's voice, After a while we got tired of it and we went to go check what was in the attic. Turns out there was toys in the attic. Toys in the attic didn't belong to my mom and her siblings.

After they closed the closet, we stopped hearing the laughs. We stopped hearing children's voices, children's laugh. So yeah, that's nice scary story. I would never want to hear a child's laugh from an addict. Totally good on that. Hi, this is Carisha. and have a spooky story to tell you guys. Wait, that's it.

That's it. Or that's the story. That is the story. Yeah, it's a short story. Hey. Hey. I just called your number from Instagram. That's it.

Love the show. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Awesome. Two. What did they say? What did they say?

You want it to fit. Germaphobe. Germaphobe? I heard it. Was it just like a soundboard robot, germaphobe? It's like the crosswalk voice, wait. When you hit it to cross, we're gonna. Germaphobe.

Wait. Thanks, Payne. Appreciate you hanging out, as always. And we're gonna check out another scary story. This one's actually Ohio Bigfoot lore, but let's see. It's back from episode 33. And this one's called Grassman. So let's check it out.

And we're recording. Awesome. Cool. So ready? Any questions before we start? I don't think so. Cool. So typically the way we like to start with these things is kind of set the scene for us. Where were you in life? What was going on? What kind of, what are the things that kind of help set up what's going on and kind of what leads to what happens? Okay. This took place in 2010.

I grew up on the Ohio River in West Virginia. I had a lot of friends right across the river in Ohio. We pretty much spent almost the entire summer hanging out, especially since I was getting ready to go to college. We'd been talking about it for a long time about how we wanted to go camping in the woods. One day we were all hanging out, one of us just suggested, hey, we should spend the night in the woods tonight. I had one friend, Zane, that lived next to a pond, next to a very large patch of woods. We decided we were going to go camping right along the edge of the woods. There was me, Zane, and two other friends.

So we packed up all the stuff, hot dogs, stuff for s'mores, some walking sticks. We set up our little fire ring where we were going to build a fire. and then decided to go for a hike. We come back and then build the fire. We're all sitting in our foldable lawn chairs, had our backs to the pond, and we were facing the woods, probably about 20 feet to the pond, and then maybe 30 feet to the woods in front of us.

Most of the night was quiet. We stayed up really late. Sometime between 2 and 3 a.m., I could hear twigs snapping. While I was trying to process that, a stick had come out of the woods and landed close to where we were all sitting. Grabbed our walking sticks. We all just go quiet, maybe 10 to 20 minutes go by.

While we were standing, the second one comes flying out of the woods, and this one actually hits our fire. Spinning like someone. had through it. I saw it coming out of the woods, so I knew it didn't just fall from a tree. Cenders and stuff flying up, so we all jumped back. A couple more minutes of nervous laughter kind of occurs to us that Zane's brother was probably messing with us. It would have been a lot of effort for him to get up in the woods without us seeing him, but it would not have been unusual for him. It wasn't something that was outside the realm of

possibility at all. Still standing around the fire, staying around the chairs, waiting for like what his next move is going to be. And nothing happens. We sit back down and I'm thinking maybe he heard us or onto him, so maybe he just gave up. And we heard some more noises, footsteps in the woods. We ignored it. We're not going to entertain it. He's pranking us. We're just going to ignore it. Another stick comes flying out of the woods. This time, it came from behind a very large tree. This one landed in the fire as well. Zane's brother was a quarterback.

It probably would have been easy for him to hit the fire with a stick. We figure he's just going to keep messing with us. And so Zane and I have these flashlights. We're kind of whispering to ourselves, like, let's go catch him. We'll turn it around on him. We'll try and scare him or catch him. We start to walk towards this tree,

and this tree's probably 30 feet from where we were sitting. Zane's plan is, you go around one side of the tree, and I'll go around the other. We'll trap him. I go left and Zane goes right. I was focusing on the tree, looking at Zane, waiting for the cue to turn the flashlight on and jump out. As we're approaching the tree, I saw movement towards the bottom of the tree.

I figured that Zane's brother had seen Zane coming from that side of the tree, and so was shimmying around towards me without knowing that I was there. I turned the light on. I angled the beam down towards the bottom of the trunk. Sticking out from behind the tree was... a leg. There's a very large red leg. Dark red color. Kind of like a burnt orange. It was muscular. Like patchy fur all the way down. I could see muscle definition and I could see the tendon and the back of the knee. So it wasn't just obscured, just covered in fur. But there was fur. It was hairy.

patches of long, stringy fur, all up and down it. I think I was trying to rationalize in my head. What I was looking at, I'm looking at this leg, then it turns and steps behind the tree. And right as it does, Zane yells. Then I realized what I saw was not normal. Not Zane's brother. So then I yell. We turn and run back.

As we were running, I remember hearing the sound of something crashing through the woods, like running through the woods. It had to have been running the opposite direction because it was going through the woods. It sounded very large. But the guys are asking us, what happened, what happened, what's going on? I wasn't the only one that saw it.

I wasn't the only one that saw it. Like, Zane was over there with me. I can't believe that we just saw that leg. Zane looked at me and he was like, leg. I saw an arm. It was a large red arm. When it moved, it like spread its fingers.

And I could see that it was a hand that was gripped on the side of the tree. Its fingers were thick and red. He saw it push off the tree. And that's when he yelled. I'm freaked out, I'm dumbfounded. Even up to this point, it was hard for me to believe and process what I had seen. When he described it the same way that it was large,

and not just that, but that he saw the arm, the hand, grip and push off the tree at the same time that I saw the leg turn and go behind the tree, we actually did see something. I wasn't just seeing things because I was scared, or I wasn't just seeing things because it was dark. It was a very adrenaline-fueled, scary five minutes because we now don't know what it was. And it's out there.

For us to get back to the house, we have to go past where we just saw this thing. We did not want to go past where we saw that thing to get back to the house. We stayed up for most of the rest of the night. We eventually went into the tent and just talked about what it could. could have been, what we thought it was. And as soon as the sun was up, we ran back to the house.

We didn't pack any of the stuff up. We left everything out there. Once we were inside, like, the safety of his bedroom, we all crashed. And we all fell asleep. In Southeast Ohio, they talk about the Grass Man, Ohio's version of Bigfoot. Growing up, right on the Ohio River, and with my friends living in Southeast Ohio, like the Grass Man was something we had heard a lot about. We were very skeptical, and so I think we were kind of hesitant to say, oh yeah, it was a Bigfoot.

We didn't see its face. We got an idea of how big it was. If it's not Bigfoot, I don't know that the alternative is any better. It might be scarier. If it was a person out there messing with us, they would have had to go into great lengths to do that. If it wasn't a person, I genuinely have no idea what it could have been. something happened that we couldn't really explain. We didn't go in the woods anymore after that.

We had friends that were like, we know, we should go, we should go. Me and Zane were like, no. Like, if you want to go camp over there, that's fine. I'm not going. I don't tell this story to a ton of people because, and when I do, I always say, like, you're not going to believe me. Like, you're not going to believe. It sounds ridiculous.

You're not going to believe me. And I just tell people exactly what I saw, exactly what I experienced. And, but it is, it's interesting without me saying anything, the amount of people that do at the end of the story go so you think you saw Bigfoot, like they come to that conclusion just based on what I told them that we saw and what we experienced with the stick throwing and stuff like that. So, you know, if I had to say something, yeah, I think, I remember us talking about the grassman, about the Ohio grass man. And it certainly seems like Bigfoot. It definitely wasn't a person. in. Anything you think we got it? Yeah. Anything you think we're missing? No, no.

I think we got a good bit there. Yeah, it actually kind of sounds like they ran into the real Ohio grass man. Turns out he's been around since 1869. He's an old man. So if anyone's bored, head up there and go check him out. Say what's up. So let's take a break while you think about it. All right, guys, it's been fun.

Appreciate you hanging out with me. Join me next week. and we'll explore more scary, creepy, weird stories. And this has been Radio Rental Rewind. Later.