Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:102 Very close encounter with a Sasquatch

Episode Date: May 10, 2015

My guest tonight is "MT" from Washington State. He was a school teacher for many years and always worked for the state wildlife services before he was fired for coming forward with his encounter. He says, "I made the mistake of telling some of my co-workers about my encounter, I was fired afterwards without any reason and was blackballed from the industry..." MT goes on to explain what he saw... "When I had my close up sighting of the bigfoot that was over 11 feet tall up near Mt. Rainier National Park, just west of Ashford, Washington, you could see the muscles bulging beneath the short fur covering as the creature reached up to move the branch from in front of its face as it walked into the woods… also, that the creature was truly of gigantic stature. If you saw the movie Prometheus with the gigantic humanoid aliens, my Bigfoot was about the same build. It was nothing but muscle and hair. I tell people that it resembled a silver back gorilla crossed with an Olympic athlete (summer track events), crossed with a giant. It looked like a tall person crossing the road… and the arms were not down almost to the knees like a lot of people say… it had the perfect human proportions a tall athletic man… except for the huge hump of muscles across the shoulders behind the head, and that the ear seemed to be in the wrong location on the side of the head for a human and looked more like where it would be on a big silver back gorilla."   If you have had an encounter and would like to be on the show, send me an email at [e-mail].

Five, five, four, four, three, three, two, one. One. When I had come down this hill, I had seen this creature cross the road. They would have ripped my locked door from my truck, extracted me from my vehicle, and no one of the damn thing I could have done about it. This thing I got to notice in its eyes. His eyes was real, real evil, real sinister looking.

You know, the look it was given me. What are you're pushing? Hit somebody out. It's about six foot. Yes, I'm working right heading. Sasquatch Chronicle. A place where people share their accounts. Let's start the show.

Welcome to the show, everyone. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. I'm going to be down in the Dallas area towards the end of the month, beginning of next. I'm still lining out the dates. I'm working on a special project. See if we can't change the way television looks at this topic.

But if you're down. in those areas, you know, Oklahoma surrounding areas, shoot me an email. If you'd like to be on film and you've had an encounter, you'd like to be on film to talk about it, shoot me an email west at sasswatch chronicles.com along with your contact information. When I'm down there, I'll get in contact with you and see if we can't get you to be a part of the project. If you're down there, you haven't had an encounter and you want to go out, I'm sure I'll go out for a couple days out there with Bob and the boys down in East Texas and you're welcome to come out with us

and shoot me an email if you're interested in that I'd be happy to have you out there and go check out some areas go out with Tim Surmons come out with us hang out with us while we're down there again you've had an encounter and you don't mind being on film

shoot me an email west at sascoachronicles.com if you just want to come hang out for a couple nights come hang out with us Again, shoot me an email with your contact information. It's a special project that I'm working on, and I'm going to see if I can't shake up the television world with something a little bit more realistic on this topic. Kind of get rid of some of the nonsense that's on television now.

I just flew back in from San Diego to do this show, and it's interesting. I was talking to a local resident there, and he'd asked me if I'd known anything about Zubis. And I thought, what the heck is a Zubi? And so while I'm down there, I start looking up Zubis. And the term Zubi is related to Sasquatch. And as I'm starting to research the area, and it's interesting, I actually drove out to the area where this happened back in the 70s.

And it's a very interesting area. When you're, as you're driving along the highway, you look off to your left and off to your right. You'll see kind of rolling hills. you'll see large mountain tops, and it doesn't really seem like it's that dense of forest when you're out there. It seems kind of more like a high desert. But as I pulled off and drove through some of the areas, you start to realize really quick that not only is it very dense

with pine trees and underbrush, that the story of the Procterville monster is something that is very realistic and could have absolutely happened back in the 70s. The story starts back in the 70s in the Alpine area, and this is east of San Diego, and it's a police officer relating the story, talking about the gentleman that they had pulled over. Sergeant Doug Hoose of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department gave an interview in 1992. He said in the winter of 1971 they had pulled over Dr. Bador, who was a prominent psychologist, medical doctor in the area. So they pull over Dr. Bedore, and in the front seat of his car, he had a loaded 44 magnum revolver with a six-inch barrel.

The reason why the police officer remembered the specific gun is because at the time it was popular for Dirty Harry to carry the same gun. So the cops start talking to the doctor, and they ask him, why do you have this gun up front? What's it for? Sergeant Hoose, who was off to the passenger side, thought he heard the doctor say, because of the Zubis. Now, the police officer misheard what he said, but the term Zubi became coined among the police department to define these creatures, to explain these creatures.

And this doctor had convinced these two officers of what was going on on on his property. He said he'd seen several creatures. He described their height, he described their behavior, even invited them out to come and look at the property and see what was going on. on there for themselves. But it's kind of a long, involved story.

It's a very interesting story, and if you go to Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can read about it in the blog. It's a very, very interesting story. One of the things that caught my attention is one night the doctor said he was going to be late, heading home, he called his wife and basically asked her to feed the chickens. So when she goes out to feed the chickens, you know, she says, here, chicky, chicky, chicky, chicky as she's feeding the chickens, and then she'd gone back in for the night, had fed the chickens.

The doctor didn't return home until later that night. And when he returned home that night, he heard what he describes as a very deep, guttural voice saying, here, chicky, chicky, chicky, as he's getting out of the car. And it disturbed him enough. He had ended up calling the police. But if you get a chance, check it out.

It's a very, very interesting story. And there's a detective from L.A. that actually came to investigate, that cast a track. I had pulled a bunch of evidence from their property to show the doctor was actually telling the truth on what was going on. But it's a very interesting story. Again, it's under Proctaville Monster on Sasquilatronicles.com. Do you get a chance? Check it out.

My first guest tonight, Strange, I just got a text message from Mo. A lot of you might remember Mo from the Jurassic Park episodes. He's one of the gentleman down there in Texas who was nice enough to take us out. and his text message he's saying he ran into a Sasquatch at the Hunter's Camp let's give him a call it's my show I can do whatever I want right let's give him a call

let's find out what's going on and then we'll jump into the first guest let me some happy music here while I doubt him yeah what's going on man yeah yeah I just made it in man I'm sitting in the easy chair right now

I'm a man cave. What happened? Well, let me ask you this. Do you mind if I record this and put it on the show? Sure, go ahead. So what happened, man? You were up at the hunters camp, and what's going on? Well, first I was down in a different area.

I had a public speaking in Cleveland, Cleveland, Texas. And after the public speaking was over, I decided I got some daylight left. and I went to the one area where you had the blog phone actually. Yeah. And I went down there and I set up a reporter in pretty much that same area, being Bob were at. I didn't hear anything much, you know, a couple of things here, twigs and stuff, and, you know, could be deer.

And earlier Tim, Bob and Travis went down to the real dangerous area. I thought it was going to be me and Travis. We went down to the dangerous area down there. We set up a shitload. I'm sorry. We set up a mess load of trail cans, a whole bunch. So after that, I got a public speaking, and I change into my outdoors and clothes,

and I go to the area where you were at then from the air. I drive to 100%. You know, I pull in there. Of course, when I pull in there, I sit and listen and look around. and smoked a cigar, and then I just decided I'm going to go up in that open area there,

and I'm going to hang a recorder there. I also have some peanut barrel with me. It's a cube-style peanut barrel that should buy family dollar, and what I did was I took a water bottle and I cut a hole to top, and I, but like maybe, 15 of those little little cubes in there

put them up on so I'm going to hang in the tree. So as I'm walking to the area up the road there I noticed that there they're fresh I'd say probably that day somebody had a horse out there. You could see it was pretty fresh and alongside

it was big tracks alongside of it. So I'm walking up you know I just you know in cautioned I finally get up to the area I hang the reporter first. I go ahead and stamp my time on it and I say what time it is. And then

I go and I hang a peanut brittle in the water bottle, hang it in the tree. Pretty high. What I do is I hang it on the tree that I know if a coon goes up the tree or something goes up the tree, the tree will bend and it'll fall, you know, the coon will fall and the tree over sack. Hanging about

17 feet in the air. As I'm doing that, I'm done. I walk to the, back to the intersection. And I I try out a new call, and what it is, I call it a crazy cat call. It's like, you ever hear two cats, you know, by your window. Yeah, fight your. You know, how they get with that real high-pitched squeal. Right.

So I go out to the intersection, and I do this squeal, try it out, and it echoes like crazy. I turn my head to look back in the meadow area, and the matter of one second, I see this large, figure just well and it was big. It wasn't a deer, okay? I'm 90% certain that it was a spot twist and it was very big and very, very wide. I'd say maybe the maybe seven and a half people at most and it was wise. Now I did see a head. I saw an actual head on it.

It's something that looked like shoulders. like the shoulders in the head knelt together, sort of. But here's the strange thing. When you interviewed me last time, I told me about the signing I had with my kids. The one I saw was black. It was pitch black. You should see skin underneath it. Well, this one was, just took me about the class because I wasn't expecting this color.

And the best way I could describe it, I described it to Bob. I called him right after I saw it. And you ever seen a pine cone. so pine needles fall to the ground, you know, branch, and determine that color, that like, lightish brown color. You ever seen that? Yeah, kind of a light brown. Yeah.

Yeah, very, very light brown. Almost like, I don't know, like a golden retriever sort of color. That's what this color was. I was, I was, like, I didn't, I mean, I didn't do a second take. I was just, like, I just saw one that was really light, almost blondeish. and I just couldn't believe it. I was like, wow, this is crazy, man. So I try to turn my camcorder on.

It's on my tripod and I carried on my hip. And I was shaking so bad, Wes. It took me like, I couldn't get the record button on, man. I was shaking so bad. It took me like three seconds to get my head steady to report button on. So I got the record button on finally. And, of course, there's nothing. And I'm like, hey.

I sit there for like maybe two or three minutes, and I hear nothing. And I remember back to what Bob said to be lighter colored ones. And he told, this is what he told me. He said that they are very, very aggressive, very territorial, and they are mean as hell. When I thought about that, I said, you know, I shut the camphor off. And I just booked it out of there. I didn't hear anything, didn't see anything. But the walk was pretty, you know, it was a pretty swift walk.

And I wanted to get back to my vehicle. Once I got back to the vehicle, I called, that's when I called off. I mean, I'm going to tell you this. I think I saw one that was blondish in color or like a very, very, very light brown. And he said, oh, yeah, he said, they're up there. And he said, now you're by yourself. He says, I think the best thing to be, you know, smartest thing to do is just as we get out of it.

So I call Tim. And Tim says, oh, yeah. He says, yeah, you saw the one I saw. He said, it's like a light, very, very, very light color, almost golden sort of with a hint of, you know, brown in it. And he says, you saw the one that I saw. I'm like, wow, unbelievable. But that was pretty much it.

Tomorrow morning, I've got another public speaking at the same place in the morning, and I'm going to go pick up the reporters in both those areas, and hopefully I got something. It'll be about 12, 12, 12, 13 hours of audio, and hopefully I got some. But that's it, Wes. That's, I know what I thought. When it ran across the trail, was it on four legs or was it on two?

It was on two. It was upright. It was tall. And, I mean, I know people are going to say, well, you know what you could have saw, you could have saw a white tail jump and they jumped really high. And I know that. I mean, I hunted as a kid. I know that.

But I'm telling you, this was not a teenager. This thing was huge, man. it was wide and it was huge. I mean, I want to say it took up the whole path, but, you know, the path was about, the path was probably about maybe, maybe 10 feet wide at most. And I'm going to say that it was,

I mean, it had, I mean, looking at the head, it had or had at least four foot shoulders. That's crazy. You know, it's interesting. I never really thought color meant anything. And I remember Bob telling me the same thing. He said there was one area he didn't want to take me into. And he said, they're really aggressive in that area.

And I said, well, and he goes, yeah, they're kind of a lighter brown color. And you rarely ever hear them vocalized, but they're aggressive as hell in that area. And it's strange that they're kind of crossing over into that hunter's area. You know, and that's what I thought, man. I'm like, you know, I'm a drive home. A million of one thing's racing through my head. Is there another plan that's up there? because I know there was a big boy.

He's nicknamed the big boy. He's been there for years, and I understand he is a darker colored one. And there's a clad of them up there that are darker colored. And that's what I'm expecting to see. I wasn't expecting to see this light-colored one. I think maybe they're starting to cross paths, you know, crossing paths here and there. Could you have been in the big boys area? I don't know.

But all I know is when I turned and I saw that thing, I'm like, at his damn squash. Yeah. You know, I'm not going to sit here and say, and it is definitely most assuredly a squash, but I'm going to tell you what I saw. I saw something that had shoulders and a head, and it was very, very wide, and it crossed that path like 1,000, boom, and that was it. Well, you always wanted to see one cross the road, night. Now you got it

Exactly You know What's out what you wish for sometimes I got to tell you that You know After you see that You automatically start to shake Man I was just shaking

I mean I felt like a kid My first play in front of like You know 150 people when I did my first play I was nervous and shaking And I just, you know, I couldn't even, I couldn't even at the button to my, my camcorder. My shit was wrong with me here, man.

Yeah, that's the thing that cracks me up. You know, sometimes people say, well, why didn't you get a picture if it ran across a trail? It's like, well, you go sit there, you have a thing run across a trail, and then you see if you can work the camera, get it up and hit record. You know, even if you've been out situations, and I know you've been out situations before you ran into them, but even your hardened person that's seen them before still freaks out when they aren't expecting it, you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, Wes, my heart was just beating out of my chest, man.

I started to get a sweat and I just started shaking. And then I just started looking all around me because you also hear, you know, I mean, do you hear things like you see one? there's maybe a couple behind you. And that's another thing that started to race through my head. So I'm like, you know what? I'm getting the hell out of here. You know, I'm not going to be a statistic.

So I got out of there. And I didn't run. I just did a nice, you know, brisk walk back to the vehicle. Once I got back to my vehicle, I fell a little safe, you know, get back with some bottled water, smoked another cigar,

and then that's when I called Bob. and he said, it's a good idea that you get out of there and I always listen to Bob You know And here's the thing When we went down to this one area

This real dangerous area We really didn't hear anything Nothing I mean Maybe you heard like a little tiny whale Of sorts But we didn't hear anything So I considered it a pretty uneventful day

I wasn't expecting anything And then all of a sudden I get missed Yeah it's always one You least expect it Isn't it? It is It really is, man Well, thanks,

I appreciate you sharing the encounter I appreciate you sending me the text I was in the middle of an interview I saw your text and I thought, oh man I got to figure out, you know because then I get a text from you or Tim or Bob I like to drop what I'm doing

and give you guys a call so I really do appreciate you Touchin base, let me know what's going on out there I mean no problem man No problem whatsoever And you know what I just wish You were there

I really wish you were there less you would have just been like, whoa. Yeah, I was... Crazy, man. Well, I'll be down there the end of the month, so... And I'll tell you about that later. But yeah, man, thank you again.

Okay, brother. Thanks for being there and, you know, listening to me. I appreciate it. Thanks, Mo, and I'll be in touch. My first guest tonight, a gentleman will call M.T. He's from Washington State. He used to be a federal worker until he started talking about his encounter with some of his peers,

and he was fired for talking about his encounter. But before we actually get to that main encounter, when he saw the creature, I want to talk a little bit about some of the strange incidences that he's had while he's been out in the forest. But I want to welcome you to the show, MT. Well, hey, thanks for having me on, Wes. I really appreciate it.

I enjoy listening to you every night. That's what I do right before I go sleep. I appreciate that, man. You know, one of the things I wanted to get to before we actually jump into your encounter, when you talk a little bit about the Chief Alusca, and for people who don't know who Chief Aluska is, Mark and I are from the same area, and all the elementary schools would go out to Chief Aluskas.

I remember it very vividly when I was, gosh, probably in third grade. And it's crazy when you and I were talking the other day, Mark, because I honestly didn't think about this. ceremonial dance that I saw when I was a kid. I remember it terrified me. But do you want to talk a little bit about that going out to Chief of Luskas and kind of what went on there? Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, as West said, we were from the same area of Vancouver, Washington, and we're right across the river from Portland, Oregon. You can see Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens in the distance. And every third grade class in Vancouver was learning about the Oregon Trail and the pioneers and Native Americans. And they ended the unit where he studied the Native Americans of the Pioneers. They took the bus full of the kids to a field trip, about 20 miles up the road, actually fairly close to where Weston Woody had their siding.

In Ariel, Washington, you know, you turn off the woodland exit, and you drive up to this little tiny community where there's a Cedar Longhouse, and Chief La Luska, I'm not sure if he was part of the Chehala tribe or what tribe he was with. But, you know, he would have the kids come in. there would be wooden benches to sit on. They would dim the lights or be a fire going in the middle, kind of like a bonfire. And you'd hear the Native American drum playing in Cipola Luska was in his traditional, you know, Indian gown. And he would have a microphone, and he would tell stories of the tribes and of his elders and the tribal legends.

And part of the cool part was, you know, they would bring out Native American dancers who would be wearing these large wooden carved masks. and you would see like the head of a raven, and he would talk about Brother Raven, and, you know, you'd see, you know, different masks. And there was a hairy one. I remember he talked about Bukwos, which was the wild man of the woods. But he also ended up talking about Sonaquah, which would be Bukwase, the woman, the wild woman of the woods. And one of the masks, I remember the male version actually had the whistling face with the first lips. but the female version, I remember the face opened up a couple times, and each time it opened the face got scarier,

and he talked about how this wild woman of the woods would carry a wicker basket on her back, and she would actually grab native children who were out past their bedtime and carrying them off up into the mountains to eat them. And at this point in the dance, this person in the masses dancer literally lunged over, reaching towards me, and I was maybe eight years old. You know, we're talking on third grade. Well, I thought this thing was going to pick me up and carry me off and over her shoulder and literally eat me. I was never so terrified in my entire life.

I actually backpedaled over three benches full of kids knocking the bench over trying to get away from his dancer. The weird part was it wasn't until I was in college that I realized that this was the Native American version of Sasquatch and Bigfoot. When I was in third grade, it was the same exact year that Roger Patterson and, And, oh, gosh, I forgot Mr. Gimlin's first name. But, you know, Bob Gimelan, and they were down there, and they caught the Patty film in California with the same fall that I went to Chief of Luskas. So I never really heard of Bigfoot, you know.

We didn't see it in the movie theater or anything like that. But you were there, and it was pretty terrifying. And I sometimes think that because it reached for me, that it kind of marked me to have some kind of encounters off and on throughout my life. Yeah, it's crazy. It was probably, and I've actually gone up there. I think Chief Lelouska passed away. Yeah, yeah, he did.

Yeah, his son now runs it. And I remember that too. I remember the wild woman in the woods, and she lunged at me too. And it scared the crap out of me, man, because it was terrifying. You know, he's telling all of these. And it's weird because it never hit me at the time what they were actually talking about. He was talking about this wild woman and wild man of the woods that would eat people and to stay out of the woods.

And it's just interesting that you brought that up. I wanted to jump in. Will you kind of give the audience? I was going to give one of my listeners a shout-out because he always asked for a bio of the people who've had encounters. And I don't have it right in front of me. But will you give the listeners kind of a quick biography of who you are? Yeah, I grew up in this state,

and I was really big into the future farmers of America when I was in high school, the FSA. I've always loved things that grow, you know, fish in the wildlife and all that. And so, you know, I went to college to become an agriculture teacher, you know, future farmer-advisor. And I taught school for 16 years. I taught FFA and farming and forestry management, natural resource conservation. I also ended up teaching biology and earth science to kids in junior high for about eight years. So I taught a total of 16 years.

After that, I ended up, you know, I got divorced. and my ex-wife managed to Eastern Washington, so I thought, well, I'm not going to teach you over there, but I got a job related to farming. So I ended up managing a conservation district over in Walla-Wala, and so that got me into doing fishing wildlife-type work. I worked as a grant writer, a watershed restoration coordinator for a watershed down in California. Then I got asked to come back to Vancouver area because there's 14 regional fish enhancement groups in Washington State, that raised money for steelheads and salmon habitat restoration. And so I was a project manager, walking off rivers, you know, for three counties in southwest

Washington. And I also ended up getting offered an executive director job for a while, you know, with one of these regional fish enhancement groups. It's kind of interesting. I've written grant proposals to raise, you know, almost $1.7 million for fish on wildlife restoration. And at a Christmas fundraiser, I was an executive director. I made the mistake of publicly saying out loud that I knew Bigfoot existed because I'd seen one from, you know, 8 to 10 feet away from me at Mount Ramirez.

And within two weeks, I lost my job. I was given no reason why I lost my job. They said they didn't need to go into it. And I went from making over $52,000 a year to zero overnight. And I was unemployed for five years. I applied for over 500 jobs. In the six-year period, I drove the interviews in Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and California, and I couldn't find a job in fishing a wild life, you know, to save my life.

And believe it or not, I now work parking cars for a living. And, you know, that's why I kind of keep my name private, I guess, because I still apply for fishing wildlife jobs. I love doing that. I'm good at it. So that's kind of my background. You know, I used to joke and say, well, you know, when I was a kid, we were a trailer trash, but we were actually two four to afford a trailer.

So I do have a brain. You know, when I had my encounter, I know exactly what I saw. You know, I worked out on the streams and the rivers and in the forest. And, you know, a lot of people argue with me about what I saw over the years and I don't talk to them anymore. That's kind of where I came from, you know, teaching fish of wildlife stuff and raise the money for that kind of stuff. And when did you start noticing there was weird things going on in the forest?

What's kind of the first couple incidences? You know, you and I kind of grew up in a different era. You know, we didn't lock our front doors at night. We'd go to church in our house. We didn't lock our doors when we were gone. And, you know, in the summertime, your mom would kick you out of the house. You know, we had five kids and tell you guys go outside and play, get some fresh air. My mom would always say get some fresh air and get the stink off of you.

And so we actually lived at the end of a paved road that was right next to a lettuce field. and it's really sad in Vancouver when you drive along Burton Road, there's all these houses and apartment complexes and parking lots. Entire Valley used to be lettuce filled from one end to the other, except for a small housing complex where I live. And so, you know, we'd go down to the end of the street, and we would actually, there was a big pasture with what we called the killer donkeys, because if you tried to sneak past the donkeys of the creek,

that actually chased you and try to bite you on the shoulders. And we get down to Burnt Bridge Creek, and we go crowd-adding and we go trying to catch trout. The biggest thing we ever caught was six inches, so we always let them go. And we go skinny-diffing, you know, no burrows around. And I was by myself one day, and I went across the creek, and I decided to see what was up on the hill because my brothers told me there was a forest up there.

And up at the top of the hill, under the power lines, and I guess a lot of people have seen stuff along power lines. There was a thin strip of a lettuce patch, lettuce patch that, you know, I don't know, it was maybe 100 feet across and then, you know, all the way down the road. And on the other side of lettuce, there was a forest that plot. Well, as I was walking along the summer road,

you know, my tennis shoes and my, you know, T-shirt and tank top, I noticed that they had been irrigating the lettuce and that they must have did it early in the day because the ground was dry again. But near the pipe where the irrigation pipe came out of the ground, and the pipe had been leaking and sporting water in one spot, so it made a mud slick. And if you ever been to this part of the state,

there's a lot of clay in the soil, so when the mud dries down, it's really, really a slick, slippery spot. And I walked up to it, and I saw this gigantic footprint. Well, I've never heard about Bigfoot. I was about 12 years old at the time. And I've never seen the Patterson Gimlin film, but I thought, wow, that's really cool.

You know, there's this gigantic footprint that was about 18, 19 feet long or not feet inches you know and I thought how the world did somebody do that and I thought what first of all I thought why would they do that I started looking around because you know back then it was Portland trailblazers and even one of those guys I don't think their foot would have been quite this long so I just thought I was going to mimic this footprint in the mud and figure out how they did it so I took one sock and one shoe off and I put my foot down and my foot was just miniature compared to this gigantic track so I decided to put my heel down and I lifted up my toes, I split them all the way forward, split my heel and pressed my toes down even with

the toes next to the track. And I made this long, skinny, funny-looking track that had a heel mark at the back, and it also had a heel mark in the middle because I, you know, slid my foot forward. And I couldn't figure out how this person did it. And then all of a sudden I had this really weird feeling, and the hair on the back of my neck and the hair on my arms stood up, and I felt like something was watching me. And it felt dangerous. It felt dangerous. And I kind of sat up and I looked around and I didn't see anybody. So I got real nervous, though. So I shoved my sock into my pocket and my shorts because, you know, my foot was all muddy.

And I crammed my foot back into my tennis shoe and I started walking towards down this dirt road looking from side to side. And the dirt road ended in another road that went down the hill straight to the next street over that was paved. And there was a forested strip along the right side of the dirt road. with the lettuce field on the left. And the strip was, they had cleared the opposite side of this, this force of trip of trees. And you can see another pasture through the trees. You can see sunlight. And as I was walking down the hill, you know, going towards home, thinking like somebody was following me,

I heard a branch snap to my right, and I stopped and I looked over. And I swore I saw a giant shadow step behind the tree. And I thought, okay, this is weird. You know, back in those days, they didn't have a lot of TV channels, and they weren't talking about, you know, pedophiles and all that stuff for kids getting kidnapped. But I just had a feeling that somebody was watching me from behind the tree. So I clicked on the pace and went down the hill. And, you know, I heard this snap again.

And every time I look over, I swore I saw a shadow behind the tree. So I took off running for home, you know, and I finally got home. The weird thing is when I got home, I never told anybody about it. I was just, you know, 12 years old, you get your mind on something else. But then when I was in college, I used to go grousehung at the large mountain. And I always had a weird feeling when I was carrying my 12-gauge shotgun that whenever I'd walk down this one dirt road to get to my grouse hunting spot, I'd have to go over a huge canopy of maple trees.

So it was kind of dark and shadowy, even though the sun was out. And I always had a feeling someone's going to jump on me from up in the limbs. So I'd always watch up above me, you know, and I see squirrels and all that. And I went grouse hunting for years, and I was on the same. my motorcycle, I'd strap my 12-gauge shotgun to my side of my bike, believe it or not, with bungee cords. But one day when I got up there, something was different. And as I came around this curve and the dirt road, this old cat road,

all of a sudden I got hit with the most powerful stench you ever smelled. I mean, it was so strong and made me want to gag and throw up. And the only way to describe it, and I got to tell you, right before the stench at me, the hair on the arms and the neck sit up again. and I got hit with this just assaulted with this awful stench and it smelled kind of like a wet dog with a garbage

and it smelled like rotting flesh and if you've ever been on a farm my grandpa was a dairy farmer and I actually as a kid I found a dead bloated cow that was rotting away with maggots from the flies and that's a about what it smelled like and so I whipped my shotgun pointing up the hill towards the smell

and then all of a sudden I realized I thought oh my God what this is a boy black bear and I got a single shot shotgun with birdshot in it. If I pulled the trigger, I'm just going to piss something off. It'd be like getting peppered with rock salt or something. So I actually popped open the shotgun. The shell shot over my shoulder and I grabbed the deer slug out of my vest and slammed it in and shut the gun and I pointed it up hill. And I was shaking like a leaf because I thought I'm about to get mauled by a bear, you know, maybe I'm between a sow bear and herd cubs. And speaking of potential cubs, all of a sudden I heard

the branches moved below me. On the other side of the dirt road, there was a ravine, and I heard something down in the ravine, and it snapped a branch, and I thought, oh, crap, I am between a female bear and her cubs. And so I went and looked down in the ravine for a second, and then I'll send up on the side of the hill, all hell broke loose. And I turned around and lit my gun up hill just sometime to see a rotten log come rolling down the hill at me.

And the thing was probably 24 to 36 inches around. It was like a big old cedar log or Doug Furlog. And it came bouncing and rolling down the hill. I jumped about three feet to the side. It went flying over the dirt road and down crashing into the ravine. So normally, you know, naturally you'd turn and watch the log as it's going past and down the ravine. So I looked down the ravine. And when I did, all of a sudden, like I said, all hell broke loose up on the hill again.

And something, I don't know what it was, but it was big. It went bustling through the brush running, you know, across the side of that hill. hill and whatever was it was escaping for me. Well, you know, I'm sitting there with a single shotgun and I'm thinking I've got to get the hell out of here because I knew that bears can't roll logs of people and I knew that deer and elk don't do that kind of thing. And the only thing I thought of, and at that age I knew about Bigfoot and I thought, oh crap, this is not a good thing.

So I thought I got to walk back up this cat road to my bike. and the scary part was that the thing ran across the hill and it actually went right across the dirt road that I had to go back up to my bike. So the whole way out my heart's pounding, and I'm racing up this hill. It usually took about 20 minutes or 25 minutes to go walk down this hill to get to where I was. And it probably took me 10 minutes to get back to my motorcycle. I was moving that fast, you know, just hauling ass. And I was so nervous, I strapped that shotgun on the side of the bike with the bungee course, you know, making sure it was unloaded, of course. and I had a Honda Hawk 400.

It was the first motorcycle Honda made with mag wheels, and it actually was the first bike. They had their red line to 12,000 RPM, and I started that bike up, and I actually revved it, and I brought that street bike with the handle of water right up to my chin. You know, I kind of stunned gravel,

and I rode a wheelie for about 10 feet, brought it down, and, you know, I went home. The word thing is when I got home, I didn't tell anybody about it, And the next weekend, when I had time off from college, I decided to go back up there. And, you know, I normally don't tell this story because I think people would think I'm nuts. But I came back up and I had a bright orange-red motorcycle. And, you know, it's a pretty unique-looking bike.

It was really nice-looking pinstriping on the sides of the tank. And, you know, you could recognize me from a block or two-way like, oh, here comes smart because you'd see that red-orange tank. and I went back to go grouse hunting and I noticed a guy built on a log house off to the right side of the pasture and I love log homes and so I turned to look and when I turned back suddenly there was this rock came off from the left side of the road. It was a little bit bigger than a great fruit, you know, a really big size breakthrough. And I kind of did one or two little bounces and it stopped on the gravel road right in front of my front wheel. Well, I'm doing 40 miles an hour and, you know, when you're a bit of a bit of a little bounces and it stopped on the gravel road right in front of my front wheel. bike rider, I think you rode bikes, you're constantly looking about 40 to 50 yards in front of you to make sure you don't hit stuff and watch out for dogs. And I didn't have time to

react to this rock. And I was sure it came flying from the left side of the road, which is basically where they constructed the road. They cut into the side of the hill. And you can see the reddish brown, clay soil, or with grass and trees up on top of the cut bank. And my bike hit the front wheel and my bike hit that rock. And it started to vibrate. up the force of the bike. And the whole bike, I remember the handlebars and the throttle and the brakes were vibrating under my fingers. And the bike started to vibrate and it started the back wheel started to vibrate and turn around.

It was like I was hydroplaining on top of gravel. I thought, well, I'm going to have to lay this sucker down. And so I started to lay the bike down. And when I did, the footpague, the rubber footpake caught, and it catapulted the bike. And I flew about 70 feet through the air. I remember just having time to say, oh, dear God, please save me, because I thought when I came down, I was going to get my head ripped right off because I was upside down.

And I always tell people God had a wicked sense of humor. I got pitched into a 12-foot blackberry bush right in the middle. Saved my life. It took two guys, 20 minutes to find me and cut me out of the brush. Oh, Jesus. I fractured three ribs. The motorcycle was still going. You know, it tumbled in and overhand,

and then it ripped off the mirrors, ripped off the footpigs, ripped off the turn signals, bent the sissy. I had a short, a two-tier touring seat with Diamond Tuck leather seed with a little cissy bar on the back, you know, on what's called the bitch seat part. And that got bent forward, and the handlebars were bent at a 45-degree angle. And the guy building to log home, he saw my bike tumbling in the over-end, and he flagged down a jeep so they could look for me. and the weird part was I couldn't feel nothing I was yelling for help I had a full face shield down so I was reflecting back in my ears

and finally the guys found me and I remember seeing two faces looking over me as I'm looking up a blue sky and cloud and they flipped up the face mask and they said are you okay and well the word thing was I couldn't feel anything from the hips down I had no feeling in my legs and I said yeah I'm okay standing up and you know I damaged my spinal cord I didn't realize it but um they sit me up and all of a sudden the feeling came back. Believe it or not, I rode that mangled bike about 20 miles back home to a

girlfriend's house and she ended up taking me to the hospital. But, you know, I tell people, you know, I walk with a limb because of Bigfoot. I don't tell a story very often, but then I heard one of your episodes. You were talking about a guy riding an ATV, you know, four-wheeler and a big rock came past his head. So I thought maybe it wasn't crazy after all. You know, I remember going back and seeing that rock and it was dry on the top and it looked like it been pulled out of like brownish red clay soil and so I was pretty sure it came at me from the left side and I was kind of wondering down the road if maybe whatever had rolled the log of me recognized the color of my gas tank and decided to get a little bit of revenge for you know hunting in their area and so you

know so I've had these encounters my first year teaching I taught in Oklahoma, Washington, and I taught logging kids, you know, kids of loggers and Native Americans as Jayalas tribes up there. And my boys in my class, you know, teaching forestry and agriculture, they decided they wanted to have a fishing tournament that year, you know, and we were keeping track of who was catching salmon and steelhead and how big they were and how much they weighed. And I was on the Chehalas River, you know, about a mile from my house. I lived out near Capitol Forest, and it was getting dark, and, you know, it was against

a lot of fish after dark. you know, back in those days, so I'm starting to reel in my reel. And I'm packing up all my gear, closing on my tackle box, and all of a sudden something across this field from the road, from the old river ramp, you know, the old boat ramp, something busted loose and just went running down the opposite end of this pasture. And I thought, Jesus, I said, oh, I must have scared a big old bull elk because there's a lot of elk around there, and they're pretty big.

And, you know, I've heard that sound before, you know, something taken off, busing through the brush. And so I thought, well, I'm I scared to know. And then as I got my tackle clothes, and I started to walk around the back of my car, all of some, this thing came running back in the dark, and it sounded pretty heavy, and it actually sounded like it was on two legs.

That was kind of confusing to me. And so I kind of backed around the front of my car where the headlights were on, because it was pitch blackout, and I thought that was weird. I'd never seen the elk come running back. So I started to walk towards the trunk of my car again, and all of a sudden here comes this heavy stomping noise comes flying back towards my car,

ran past to the opposite end of the field, and then I'm thinking, okay, I scared an horse, you know, some kind of domestic life is like a horse or a cow or a big bull or something. And it did it about four or five times, and finally when I was at the far end of this pasture, I just threw all the crap in the door of my car and I drove home. And the next day at school, the kids were saying, hey, did you catch any fish?

Because they're all righting their fish up on the chalkboard, you know, who caught what. And I go, no, but I had the weirdest experience. And I told them about the heavy stomping, you know, down there along the Shihilis River and there was boat ramp. But I didn't tell them where I was fishing, because, you know, you didn't want to share your fishing holes with the other guys in case you caught a big fish. So all of a sudden, that's one kid in the class, he was a Native American part of the Seahilis tribe, and the kid was a golden glove boxer.

He was not afraid of anybody. He looked at me and he said, you were fishing down by the same. the boat ramp, aren't you? And I says, yeah. I go, how'd you know? Was that you last night? And he says, no. He says, we don't fish there this time of year, Mr. Taylor, and he looked at the ground.

He looked at the floor and he wouldn't make eye contact. And I said, well, why not? He goes, that's his spot. And he looked at the floor again. He wouldn't make eye contact. He was acting real nervous and weird for this kid. Because he had a really strong personality. I've never seen him act like this.

And I said, him who? I said, it's not private property. I said, he says, yeah, he says, it belongs to somebody, and he wouldn't tell me who, and his girlfriend finally punched him in the arm. She said, tell him so he doesn't get hurt. So I said, John, what's going on? He looked at me and he said, Bigfoot, and I said, what? And now there's, you know, a lot of farming boys and logging boys in that community.

So they started making fun of John. Whoops, I gave his name, sorry. And I won't tell you his last name, but they were pitching him crap because he was talking about Bigfoot. They thought that was crazy well. He was from the Shahelis tribe, and he said, no, he said, because these things come and migrate through the reservation this time of year. And he says, we don't go outside after dark.

And we don't go fishing there because that's his spot. And we respect them. And he says, he finally looks me in the eyes. He says, whatever you do, if you ever see one at night. And he says, don't look it in the eyes. Mr. T. He says, don't look at in the eyes or they'll steal your soul. And so those were my kind of encounters that I had.

I never saw anything, you know, all three times. the footprint, the log roll, the heavy stomping, all three times the air on my neck and my arms sit up. The weird part is, you know, I bought a book years ago called the Bigfoot Casebook, and they had all these cases of Bigfoot listed in the United States, and some of them were a few pages long, and some were just one-senten blurbs that they recorded it. And I noticed that Oakville, Washington, actually had a couple of sightings like decades before. There was a gal named Callie Lund, I think, like in 1932 or 15,

who was walking home from a high school dance on the snow, and one of these big hairy ape-like creatures beckoned to her with his arms out. It was trying to get her to come to it. And she ran off screaming, and then her mom told her a story of when she first got married. Her husband was a potato farmer, and he drove their crop of potatoes to Aberdeen, Washington. And in the early 1900s, and when he was gone, this big ape-like creature was actually walking down on the porch around their house. house. And so Oakville actually has a history of sightings that's right near the Capitol Forest. Years later, I'd stop by to go fishing because there's great sea run cut throat fishing there on the

shahelis and the little prids. And one of my old landlords told me, when I told him about my Bigfoot experience, he laughed. He said, oh, he's in like old such and such. And he told me that one of his buddies has found a footprint right along the edge of the river bank. And I said, really, where was that and he said down by the old boat ramp he said and so you know that kind of for me that justified what i what i had heard was probably a fast watch you know i didn't see it but you know the kids were telling me to be careful well yeah and up until this point you really haven't seen anything but you've you've had these strange encounters you've you've heard strange things you've had things thrown at you.

But there was a time where you did see something. Do you want to talk about that? I was married and had my first baby and my ex-wife now was pregnant with our second kid. And, you know, her mom and her grandfather owned 10 acres about two miles west of the Mount Rainier National Park on the West Gate. Up in a little community called Ashford. And, you know, a lot of people don't realize that Washington States had more recorded Bigfoot sightings than any other place in the plan. And I just happened to live in Pierce County, Washington, where if you go to the BFRO site, they say that Pierce County has more sightings than anywhere in the state.

And so, you know, I lived in a taught sixth grade in Eat and go, Washington, or was getting ready to start to teach him here. My ex-wife liked me to go up to her grandfather's wooded lot. He had 10 acres and cut firewood for him because he was probably 80 years old, and he had a wood stove and heated his home with wood. So I spent the whole summer, got in about six cords of firewoods, but then sacked. And we decided to go up there for the 4th of July. You know, being a teacher, I had the summer off, and I picked my wife and my daughter up there, and we actually had a barbecue, and then there was this restaurant in a touristy area

that actually had a fireworks display every year, so we drove to that. And we went out home for dessert to the place, and, you know, I had to teach, or we were going to go home the next night, and that's been the night, and it's 26 miles. from Ashford to Edenville, Washington, and it's a long two-lane forested highway, and it's really dark at night. Back in those years, there was only like two or three street lamps in 26 miles. And as we're driving home, I saw the street lamps that were maybe 150 yards away, and I knew that they were at the entrance of the Mount Rainier National headquarters, which actually

even in the park. It's a couple miles outside the park. and I saw somebody crossing the road and they kind of looked like a pedestrian crossing sign you know the big yellow diamonds with the black stick person with the round head and I thought geez that guy's got a big head because it looked big and around

just like the stick person on the sign and so I asked my ex-wife I said is that a guy or a girl crossing the road well she was reading a quilting magazine with a flashlight ignoring me and we actually weren't getting along that well in our marriage at that point so she tended to ignore me

and we kept getting closer I kept saying, is that a man or a woman? And, you know, I should have realized that 150 yards, I shouldn't have been able to see somebody that far away, look that big. And I recall the person actually crossing a two-lane highway in about five steps. And then they stepped off onto the grass, and well, then I didn't really see them anymore. They kind of blended in with the trees at that distance. And as we got closer, I probably got about, I don't know, 30, 40 yards away, if that.

and I saw this gigantic person standing on the side of the road on the grass right next to the trees. Well, I didn't realize they were gigantic until, you know, and it was a silhouette. You couldn't tell it's a man or woman. And the week before, we'd actually almost hit a woman who stepped out of the trees out in the dark, and she was drunk. She got kicked out of the truck by her boyfriend, and then we had to drive her home. So I thought, oh, it's that gal again. I saw a silhouetted person, and they reached up a hand, perfect with shaped hand,

four fingers in the thumb, and it was the size of like a pizza pan from Papa Murphy's, a large pizza. And right then and there, my brain perked up, and I remember saying, why is that dude wearing a fur coat in July? And then all of a sudden, when they lifted the hand up, they pushed this conifer brow in front of its face, like a hemlock bell, the light from behind it bounced off the arm, and it lit up the left side of the head. And I saw an ear, and it looked human, but it was dark,

and it was in the wrong spot on the side of the head for a human, because the head was big and bulky looking. And all of a sudden I realized that the ear was totally surrounded by hair. It looked exactly like a lowland silverback gorilla, like a big male gorilla, the way their ears are with the fuzzy hair grown all the way around them. And my brain said, that ain't human, and I just land on my brakes at, you know, 55, 60 miles an hour,

just walked them up in my car. And I don't remember if I did a three-year-old. 60 or not, I remember losing size of a darn thing. But, you know, I remember seeing this thing when it reached up. You could see the bicep move under the hair. It bulged. The shoulder on this thing was as big as my butt cheek. The bicep was as big as my upper thigh on my leg. And as we slid past it, you know, when it came back in the sight, I realized I was only about 8 to 12 feet away from the thing. I actually had to look up to see the butt cheeks when I was sitting in my car. I had a little Dodge Colts and a little four-banger.

And as we slid past, I realized it had really well-developed butt cheeks. It had a really broad back. The shoulders were a minimum of four feet across. And the most bizarre thing that I saw was this huge, rounded hump of muscle on top of the shoulders. And it was so big, this dome-shaped muscle that you could not see the head from behind it. And I remember we slid past it. I couldn't see it anymore in the car bag. the car stalled, and we're sitting there out in the dark highway, and we fled past where the lights were, so we're in the dark again,

and our lights are kind of, you know, pointing out towards the trees, because I actually cranked my car sideways to the left at 60 miles an hour, so you put my headlights on it, and I'm shaking like a leaf, and I'm saying, oh, my God, oh, my God. And I remember realizing that Jesus Christ had a middle name that night that started with the letter F. I mean, it just kind of flew out of my mouth. Yeah. And then I'm feeling bad because I grew up in church. I don't talk that way. I kept saying, oh, my God, oh, my God, Jesus.

Fred, do you know what I just saw? My ex-wife had just hysterical screaming. Start the car. You know, and I was so exhilarated, pumped full of excitement and adrenaline that I saw one of these things that I didn't even think to be scared. My ex-wife, because she was scared enough for both of us, you know. And the word thing was, if she wouldn't have been with me,

I probably would have backed up the car and trying to run. around, get the headlights on it. And in fact, I was thinking about it. And she kept, she looked at me, she said, start the car overall. And I'll say, what, you'll walk home and I reach your closet up in their door. She'd been always saying, do this, or all divorce you kind of crap. But I got tired of hearing it. And, you know, I feel bad nowadays that, you know, I scared the crap out of her like that.

But I finally, we took off when we went back home. And I said, I'm going back the next day because I knew right where it was, because there's only three sets of headlights or street lamps and 26 miles. So the next day her sister-in-law, her sister came with us, my 16-year-old sister-in-law. She came with us. We drove all the way back there. And I found the spot where it pushed the tree branch out of his face. And I got out of the car, and I jumped, and I jumped, and I tried to touch this tree branch.

And no matter how hard I jumped, that was pretty athletic. I coached four sports back then. I could always come about an inch or two from a basketball hoop from the rim from touching it. I could hit the net. but I couldn't ever touch the hoop of the basketball. So I thought, man, this thing's got to be 10 feet tall. So I got in my trunk, and I always carry a fishing rod back there, and I had my regular trout fishing rod, and I had a 12-foot fishing rod for sturgeon and salmon.

So I got out the 12-footer, and I put it together, and I got out my tape measure, and we looked at where I put it on the ground right next to the tree, the bell, and I held it up, and we saw where it was touching the fishing pool, and we laid it back down, and we measured it, And I tell people it was 10 at the chin, and by that I mean 10 feet at the jawline. And the head on this thing was over 10 inches tall or 12 inches tall. It was enormous. So, you know, 10 plus 1, that's 11 feet.

And I'm thinking, okay, that can't be right. You know, I'm crazy. Nothing is 11 feet tall. It looks like a gigantic person. And, you know, I slashed them back to the night before. And the thing, it was not black, it was not white. It was under one of those big vapor lights. I think it was like a light brownish color, kind of like a grizzly bear, you know, because if it would have been black or white, I wouldn't have been able to tell.

And, you know, I just remember the thing, it was so muscular and so perfect. You know, and everybody always talks about how they see the ones of their arms are like down to their knees. It wasn't like that. If you've ever seen the movie Prometheus with the gigantic aliens or you've seen movies with Olympic gods and them, you know, it was like that. It was a gigantic, perfectly shaped human, except for the hump of muscles on the back of the neck, and the head was wrong. And it looked like an Olympic athlete cross with a giant,

cross with a big silverback gorilla, except for it didn't have a big beer belly. The belly was flat. And it had a big broad chest. I remember a huge barrel chest on the thing. And so, you know, we put the fishing ride away, because I thought, okay, this thing's 11 feet tall. I'm thinking, it's got to be heavy.

and, you know, I used to be an agriculture teacher, and I used to show cows in the show ring at the safe air and stuff. You know, so I've actually been picked up off the ground by Big Black Angus Bull when I was holding on to a harness and lifted off the ground and walked across an arena before trying to stop this damn bull, you know. And so I'm pretty good at judging weight on animals, and this thing weighed 1,000 pounds to 1,100 pounds minimum if it was an ounce. I mean, it was nothing but muscle.

and so we put away the fishing rod we decided to go look for footprints because it's got to be pretty heavy well I got under the trees and it was you know the forested meridian on the size of the highway that they leave so it looks nice in Washington State and the trees were so close together

that they were like second growth trees they weren't totally mature and the semi was blocked out so there was a layer of dead yellow needles on the ground into the trees so you know being July the ground's rock hard there's no impressions But the thing drug its heel.

Every time it took a step, it would drag its heel, and it would scuff the needles out of the way, all the way down to bare dirt. And there was a line of scuff marks. They were five inches across, and they were about five feet apart, and I would try to jump to the next one, and I couldn't even get that far. You know, it was just way too far to try to stretch your legs and to jump.

And so my sister and I were following these scuff marks through the deep needle down to the earth. And then we got in the parts of the forest where the tree branches started slapping me in the face because it getting really thick and dense. And there was a couple of spots. I had to crawl in my belly commando style to follow these stuff marks

because the trees were down, the limbs were down to my knees. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, this thing plowed right through this at midnight. And I was thinking the whole night long, I was thinking, okay, maybe it was a guy in a monkey suit or something like that. But when I got there and I was seeing how tall it was,

and I couldn't even touch the branch and it just plowed through really dense layers of tree limbs. I think, oh, my God, this thing had to be real. And we followed these scuff marks for over 100 yards under the trees. The trees finally cleared out. There was a big flat mud spot or earthen spot where they had taken the earth river and they'd flattened it out. And then they actually rolled it with a big steam rollers that flattened it out. And that's where they stored the gravel and that's where they stored the soil.

snow plows for the winter. And so I lost track of the scuff marks. I thought, crap, we lost it. So then I thought, I wonder if I lay on my belly if I can still see these things. And so I got down on the dirt and I laid down and I looked up my head sideways. And the end if I couldn't see the scutth bars again, they were still there about five inches across and about five feet apart. So I told my sister-in-law, I went across to the other side of the dirt.

And I said, I'm going to tell you right where the tracks are. So that way we can tick up the trail. And she went across, and she was probably a good 30 yards away from me. And I said, okay, I said, move to the left, move to the left, move to the left, no, one step back to the right, he said, right there, that's where the trail is. I said, do you see anything beyond the dirt? And she started screaming, oh, my God, you've got to come see this. So I stood up, and I ran across, and here were these deep heel impressions in the grass.

Something walked over the hill on two legs, and there were heel marks that were about five inches, across nice and around and they were so heavy they pushed down through the grass into the dirt and it went down a straight line at the bottom of the hill there was this really dark sand of timber and it was broad daylight and sunny out but it was so dark down there it almost looked like night and i looked at my sister-in-law she looked at me and we both said that ain't i said i we ain't going down there and i said no way i said even if i had a rifle there's there's no way i would go down there. So, you know, all these years later, it's like 29 years later, and I kicked myself because I found out just beyond those trees was a creek, and every spring it overflowed and

left a nice layer of silty mud on both sides just past that was a sandbar and then the Squally River. If I would have followed the tracks, I would actually probably found full footprints to cast. I should have cast the heels, but back then, you know, 30 years ago almost, nobody was talking about dermal ridges. I thought, well, people are going to think I'm stupid if I I cast heel prints. I mean, that would be dumb. Plus, I was kind of unnerved. You know, when you realize how big this thing is,

we didn't want to hang around anymore. We both got really, we weren't feeling too great. So we got back in the car and we left, you know. And so that's kind of my encounter, you know. I mean, the thing was standing under big vapor light on the highway. I got an awesome view of it. I never saw the face. That's what's always killed me for three decades.

is I want to know what the face looks like on these things. Never saw the feet because it was standing in six inches of the grass at the time. But, you know, I saw the body, and it was like a gigantic hair-covered giant man. I mean, it looked like a big athlete. And it didn't appear to have ape-like proportions except for, you know, the broad shoulders and the muscle hump on the back of the neck and the way the ear looked with the hair surrounded. I've had people tell them I'm crazy over the years. You know, I said, I don't care.

I said, I may never convince you they exist. So I said, there is no freaking way on this planet that you will ever convince that they don't exist because I said I was less than 10 feet away from it. It's interesting that you're able to go back and actually get, you know, see the tracks and somewhat get the evidence that yes, in fact, you weren't dreaming. Something did come across the highway and something was standing there. what did your your ex-wife say about the encounter? You know what? She wouldn't talk about it. And it's been my, she was pregnant with my youngest daughter.

She's 28 in December. So it's been 27 years, and my ex-wife has never, ever talked about it. She won't talk to my daughters about it when they bring it up. She just looks at them, shakes her head and ignores them. You know, the weird thing was the year before, her own daughter, brother had property up there. He was coming home from working in Puyallup. He worked for the school district down there, and he'd drive 45 miles every night.

He actually almost hit one down by Eaton, though, with his pickup. And he was so unnerved when he got up there. He pulled into his grandfather's house. He doesn't drink, but he drank three beers. He was shaking like a leaf. He went back with his mom the next day, and they went to look for tracks, and there was about 20 people standing in the field, and they were all walking around looking through the grass.

And nobody wanted to ask the other people what they were looking for, but they all had seen the same thing in this town. In fact, Pierce County, you know, Ram, Washington, near Puellup, my ex-mother-law, they owned 10 acres down in Bram, which is a tiny little place with nothing but trees at the time. They had a property with a bunch of alder trees, saplings growing on it, and she told me this story about how they had a travel trailer, you know, a big camper style trailer, and they were cutting trees on the property and clearing pasture land,

so they wanted to put a triple-wide manufactured home in. And, you know, they've been out cutting trees and stack them and burning the slash pile, and the son was going down, and she had made dinner, and she was standing in the travel trailer, washing dishes while her father, you know, my ex-wife's grandfather, he was smoking a cigar, drinking a beer, and playing solitaire at the table, the kitchen table. and she heard a thump on both two thumps on the side of the trailer she looked up and she said she saw a gigantic face look like a gigantic ape the eyes were you know not quite the size of ping pong or tennis balls but they're pretty wide apart like 12 inches apart and she said she just about passed out she fell down she collapsed hit her chin on the way down on the counter to the sink

She's laying on the floor hyperventilating, and she's reaching over tugging on her dad's pant leg if he's smoking a cigar and breaking a beer and playing card. He wouldn't look at her. He wouldn't look at the window, but he kept repeating the phrase, I don't see no goddamn monkey outside. I don't see no damn monkey out there. They finally heard it walk away. They figured that it put a hand on each side of the window.

The truck was looking in the sink at her. I mean, she saw it from like 12 inches away. And they finally heard the heavy breathing in the footsteps sleeve, and they looked out across from the front door and way across the property where the slash pile of trees was still burning and was burning down into hot cold.

They saw the silhouette of this thing right next to the fire and it was silhouetted by the sunset and they said it was swaying back and forth with its shoulders side by side mesmerized by the fire and they locked up the trailer and went to bed for the night

and so you know there's some a lot of stuff goes on in Washington of state. Yeah, a lot. A lot actually goes on in Washington State. And people generally are pretty open, a little bit more open than other places in the United States. The thing that drives me nuts is the people say there's no way they can exist.

I mean, I know other teachers who will tell you in the same sentence, there's no freaking way that's squads exist. But then I'll tell you about the Bigfoot, or the flying thoughts they'll hover over their house in the same breath, you know. So it irritates me into no end to see these. professors, there are certain college professors that say, well, there's no way they exist. You know, for some reason, man feels the need

to see large, hairy creatures, you know, around the planet. And it kind of pisses me off to tell you the truth. It's really insulting to my intelligence, you know. I went to college, I got two degrees. I'm not stupid. And, you know, why would you make it up? You know, what do you possibly have the game

by telling people you saw Bigfoot? If anything, it could ruin. your life and you know I know that first hand I've been trying to get back on official law life work for eight years now it's like I it's like I totally ruined my professional reputation now and that's a shame I mean and I've heard it before from police officers that come out or they break status quo and say hey look I saw this and it wasn't a man it wasn't it wasn't a bear it wasn't you know it was something else and here's what I saw and they're ridiculed for it and they're you know they a lot of people lose their careers over coming out

and talking about it but and i'm really sorry that it happened to you and you know i wish that the thing that blows me away is is the people you refer to as the flute players you know the habitulators and i'm going out and i'm leaving this or they're leaving me gifts and or they're psychic communicating with you it's like i feel like these guys are delusional and i mean who knows maybe the guys who think they're being you know communicated with they're getting hit with with an anthrasound or something, and it's making them go loony or something like that. But if they saw what I saw and they saw what you saw from as close as we were, I mean, this thing was so gigantic.

It could have picked me up by the neck like a three-year-old child with one hand, and the hand was so massive. I have no doubt it could have broke my neck without even trying. And if the thing turned around, they could have reached under our car and flipped us over with one arm. I mean, it was so muscular. And, you know, I haven't gone camping in 30 years because it makes me nervous. I know what's out there. You know, I have two daughters, and I refuse to take them camping in state forestland or national parks

because, you know, I've heard all the Native American legends. All the Native American tribes on the West Coast, they say they're gigantic cannibal. They don't talk about them as to the friendly forest brothers, you know, our gentle giant. You know, I like listening to your show because it kind of discusses. is the dark side of Bigfoot. You hear David Palladis, which is 411 missing, and, you know, I don't feel comfortable even going looking for tracks anymore by myself.

You know, I just, I feel like I should be packing a pretty heavy pistol. And these guys who think they're going to capture one or they're going to kill one, especially the capture part, that's so unrealistic. If they saw what I saw, there's no freaking way you're going to haul one of those home. Even if you tranquilize it, you know, it'd probably take three or four or five guys, to even try to get it in the back of a pickup. And then when the thing woke up, I was going to break the way that it said, tear your truck apart,

tear your house apart or whatever. And, you know, and then the guys who want to shoot one, I got to tell you, you got one shot. You miss, and it knows that you shot it, and you're within 30, 40 yards, and you're dead meat. That's all there is to it.

You wouldn't survive. If the thing turned on you, I mean, look at chimpanzees. We all know that they tend to go for fingers and face, anything that sticks out, general fingers, thumbs, ears, nose, and little chimpanzees have been known to literally bite the face off of somebody. And look how much bigger these things are. These things dwarf gorillas, and we all know that gorillas can get up to six feet tall,

you know, and to think that you would survive that, if you're watching some monster or a mountain monster show, yeah. But they hill the league type guys, you know, lock and load. And it's so, it's so ridiculous and so crows. If they literally saw, if that moneymaker and the guys found finding Bigfoot and Renee, you know, the skeptic, she's out there all by herself, that is so stupid. I'm sorry. If she ever saw one of those things as close as we've seen them, whether you're looking through a flare or whatever, it probably passed out from fear if they were that close and not in a car, you know?

When they're that big, I mean, when these things are as big as what we've seen, it really is ridiculous. to think you're going to tranquilize one and bring it in. I realize that, you know, not everyone wants to shoot one, and I get it. I mean, I completely understand why someone, most people don't want to shoot something like that, but you're not going to trinkleize one of these things. It's just not going to happen. And you're right. Even if you do, what are you going to do?

It's going to take a crane to put it in the back of your truck and get it out of there. When you shot one, you know, then there's, well, you know, I thought about where would you shoot it? You know, obviously you're not going to try to shoot it in the back of the chest with all the heavy muscles. I mean, I've seen people shoot Bull El. and they'll run another two, three hundred yards, and their heart's been blown away, and they still run two, three hundred yards. You know, if you shot in the chest or something,

I don't think you'd drop it. If it was me, and depending on saving my life, I'd put one right through the eye or right through the ear, you know, go for a brain shot. But then you got the thing is, you know, the one that I saw, I don't know if it was in a clan. Maybe it was just a big rogue male. I know it was in perfect physical specimen, you know,

It was like at the top of a day game. It was like the prime subject, you know, the major perfect big foot. And so it could have had a clam of a harem of females like gorillas do. Or maybe it was a big male that was out looking for a mate. It's interesting. One of your descriptions that you brought up is when he said it almost looked like it had no head. And as you and I were talking yesterday, down south, I remember someone had mentioned, they called them no heads.

And I was like, hmm, that's weird. Why do you call them no heads? and they said, well, from behind, it looks like they don't have a head because the shoulders are so big and there's a muscle on the back and they kind of lean their head forward. So when you see them from behind, they call them no heads. And I was like, that's... That's the deal.

When I saw it getting ready to go into the trees, when I told you when I saw the ear that it was on the wrong spot on the head to be human, the head wasn't straight above the shoulders. It was leaning forward just like a gorilla, you know? And so, you know, and I think they're giganticophagus. You know, when the polarized cats grew down across Canada, you know, the ocean levels went down. And when they did, they exposed a land bridge between Siberia and, you know, Alaska, the Bering Land Bridge. And that's where the Native Americans came over to this country.

And that, I assume, is where the gigantic apes that they call gigantic hippos probably came over too. and you know there's god I watch this one show that's called giganto the real the real king con and there's a college professor from back east who talks he's a gigantic of the experts and he says well no I don't believe these things are big feet he says there's no way that these are gigantopithecus blah blah blah because they died out well every time i see that show i give the tv two fingers i flip it the bird because it just pithes me off that somebody academic isn't open enough to the idea that why couldn't these things still be alive

you know and I call them Naga I call them North American Great Apes you know I used to work for a warehouse or tree company in the summer as a teacher on summer assignment down at the St. Helen's plantation behind a fence with the security guard at one of their off

field offices there is a chainsaw carving of what they call a brush ape and it looks like Smokey the Bear it's got um it's got jeans on and suspenders and a forester's hat and I don't know if I got to shove on his hand but it looks like an ape

I said what the heck is that a big foot and he goes oh that's a brush shape and the guy goes laughing the guy is laughing and I said what's a brush shape he says oh that's slang for the choker-sutters you know the guys that they run around with the cables and they're running across the trees and under the trees and they're setting up the cable

so they can drag the trees up the hill with a crane he says we call those guys brush shapes I go yeah but what do you call them brushed apes? You know, why aren't they mountain goats or something like that? Right. And so, well, I kind of wonder if some of the timber companies flat out know they exist and they're just trying to keep it quiet so they don't lose their timber contracts, you know?

Oh, yeah, they do. A lot of them do. You know, I've talked to guys at Warehouser and they're told, their people are told not to come forward if they have an encounter or not to go public with it or they could lose their contract if they do. So they definitely know about it. I mean, those guys, they're out there all the time. And I've talked to some of them off the air that have come forward and said,

hey, look, here's what I saw. Here's what we call them. The company's pretty well aware of these things, and we're told not to talk about it. But what's interesting, though, is one of the guys at Warehouser did tell me they do document their sightings, but it's a private thing that the company is doing. They actually document their own within the company. the sightings, and I don't really know why they're doing that. I don't know if it's...

Believe it or not, they actually have a, they have a herd of wild horses up near tonight on warehouse or property that's not public knowledge. Well, I guess it is now. But they actually have a herd of wild Mustangs up there on forest land, and they don't want everybody harassed them. So, you know, the thing is, I wish the government and the Forest Service people would just come out and say, yeah, they exist. I really don't think it's going to destroy.

the tourist industry. If anything, more people are going to go out looking for the damn thing. But, you know, I think people that are out taking their families camp and have a right to know what potentially is out there. I mean, who wants to have your kid disappear, for God's sake, or somebody's family member get killed or something like that because they run into one of these things? Hey, MT, thanks so much for being on the show. I really do appreciate it.

Thanks for coming forward. And I'm sorry again to hear about, you know, you're losing your job for coming out talking about it. And, you know, a lot of people probably wouldn't come forward and talk about it ever again. So I really do appreciate that, you know, you coming forward and talking about it. Well, hey, thanks for having me on. And, you know, like I said, keep doing the good work. I listen to you every night.

That's how I relax to go to sleep at night. And you got probably the best podcast I've ever heard. And it's actually nice to hear somebody talking about the dark side of Bigfoot. And you keep doing what you're doing and look forward to meet me in person. Thanks, ma'am. This betting is sweeping across the country faster than the coronavirus and wagering week is your antidote. I'm Tom Barton, and I'm a veteran sports analyst and respected sports handicapper who will help build ESPN's brand. I've been recognized and awarded by Pro Football Weekly and Gaming Today magazine as the honest handicapper.

Let the other guys give you the same old boring sports talk with the same tired storylines. We'll give it to you straight here every Friday on Wagering Week. Don't gamble with other podcasts. Let SportsGuard Network's wagering week help your bottom line.