Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:1105 Humanoid Around 7.5 Feet Tall

Episode Date: November 10, 2024

Ken writes "I listen to your podcast and finally have the courage to talk about this. I'm not an outspoken person about this incident due to people thinking I'm crazy but I figure now is the time to come out about it. My Three other friends who this happened to are still scarred until this day and refuse to speak on it. So here's what happened at Cuyahoga Valley national park. I was camping with some friends. There was 4 of us going up there to camp / hike and enjoy the outdoors. This happened sometime in July or August of 2019 but I can't remember exactly what day it happened. Just as we set up camp we had the bright idea to go hiking. This was right about 7-8 pm at night when the park was closed but there was still daylight out. We started hiking near the Cuyahoga river on the towpath trail. We were hiking for a good half or so down this path and all of a sudden we had something throwing sticks that slowly progressed to rocks at us. At first we thought it was teens playing tricks on us but the longer it progressed we started to smell something pungent and our hair stood straight up. By this time the sun had gone completely dark and all we had was our phone lights to guide us. We all started running back to camp as quick as we could but whatever was tracking us was faster bigger and stronger. We eventually got winded then it all stopped. Dead silent the woods were extremely quiet and still and very eerie. Suddenly we heard the loudest growl we ever heard sort of like an angry wolf / bear. A friend of mine who had a firearm on him shined the weapon mounted light into the tree line where we were and we all caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a giant man / humanoid around 7.5 feet tall and as shown as the light shined on it it retreated backwards and never to be seen again. We then gathered our breathe and ran back to the camp as quick as we could and got into our tents. As we slept we heard multiple loud sounds outside our tent and sticks breaking. In the morning when we woke up our camp was destroyed and a pile of rocks was stacked up by the fire pit. We all agreed to never camp there again."

It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind and it either heard me or smelt me and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up and that shocked me. They don't make people that big. The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything moves like that in my life. They were screaming at each other in gibberish. It sounded like a language and they were chuntering away back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forward.

I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet that what I saw were bears. What are you reporting? Jesus Christ, you bet. Everybody. Care, see them. Hello. Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir?

That sort of a bitch is about six foot, nine. I don't know. Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. Uh-uh. This is Brian from Ohio. Oh, H. Ohio!

And you're listening to... The Saguatchwaguen't in the whole universe. Sasquatch podcast. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you. We'll be chatting with Ken. And Ken comes to us from Ohio.

And back in 2019, he was kind of doing a kind of a last to-rah with the boys out there camping. And they had an unexpected visitor. I'll kind of like Ken go into it. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance, check out Sasquatch Chronicles. come, you can become a member and get additional shows. And I'll be back tomorrow night for the members.

But tonight, let's actually jump into it. I want to welcome Ken to the show. Ken, thanks for coming on. Thank you, Wes, for having me. It's a pleasure. Now, you had this encounter back in 2019 in Ohio. If you would, Ken, just kind of start from the beginning. What are you doing and what happened?

So to kind of trace back to the time, so there's four of us, fresh out of college, undergraduate students, pretty much just graduated back in May of that 2019 year. We were all excited to just enjoy the summer before we had, you know, real jobs. So we all decided to plan a camping trip. for us the best location was Cuyahoga Valley National Park really that was about 30, 35 minutes from Cleveland where we were going to school so that made the most sense for us

so this happened right around I'd say July or August of that summer I can't exactly remember the exact date when it happened but it was right around that time so we went there and we sat our camp up everything was going great You know, the vibes were awesome.

We were just drinking beers, just being guys, you know, young guys. All of a sudden, one of the guys said, hey, you know, let's go on a hike. And I was like, you know, the park's closed. They said, we probably shouldn't be out there hiking. You never know what's going to happen. If a park ranger is going to catch us or, you know, whatever. There could be any animal in there. You don't know.

You know, there could be a predator. But, you know, as we started drinking more, you know, our bravery and our liquid courage came into fruition. So we were parked probably, I'd say, a mile and a half from this trail. And we all decided to start walking there. So we were camped probably, let me see, from the river, I'd say, two miles. from the path, maybe like another mile and a half. So the river was quite a bit away. So we started walking there.

And, you know, everything was good. It wasn't fully dark out yet. But, you know, the darkness of the night was starting to set in. It was, you know, right around dust time. So we were, you know, hiking. We were about 30 minutes in to this hike. And, you know, things started to get a little eerie. You know, we started, you know, hearing branches, here and things.

moving around. You know, when you got a little bit of alcohol in you, you might think, oh, it's just my mind playing with me. You know, you're not all there coherently. We keep walking down this trail and we start, you know, getting stuff thrown at us. You know, at first, it's not much. You know, we got a couple sticks here and there thrown behind us. You know, we're thinking maybe it's just, you know, an animal or something small. But, you know, we started taking a little bit more serious when things started getting worse. We started getting, you know, a little bit of rocks thrown at us. The rocks weren't huge, but they're, you know, stuff that came from the river, like small pebbles and stuff. They didn't hit any of us, but they hit behind us. So you could

tell there was something messing with us. So we all, you know, all of us are talking. We're like, somebody's playing a prank on us. We thought somebody's prank on us, maybe teens, because it was the summertime. So, you know, teenagers go out there, hang out and stuff. So you don't know who's out You know, it's after dark and you don't know what's going on. But, you know, as time went on, we went down the trail. We were starting to get a little nervous. So, all of a sudden, as we were walking, we started smelling something and it didn't smell good. It had this pungent smell to it, almost like rotten eggs, like kind of sewage.

So, you know, me, I'm thinking, you know, maybe it's just something in the water. you know, we're around a swamp, so that could attribute to it. But, you know, my other buddy was walking, and he's like, something doesn't feel right. There feels like there's something in the woods here watching us, like a predator or something, you know. The woods just didn't feel right. You know how you feel that way. You just feel like something's off. So we all felt that same way.

So really, none of us had any flashlights on us except our phones. So we all decided to turn our phones on and use that light to guide us. So, you know, it just didn't feel right. We were walking, you know, there's no other light around, no ambient light whatsoever. You know, you're scared. You feel like you're on the set of Blair Witch or something back there. I mean, these woods, you feel creepy. You know, it just doesn't feel right.

And we all kind of scared ourselves. We psyched ourselves out. So we started running. And we were like, you know, what the hell is going on here? You know, we got to figure this out. We got to get out of here. And all of a sudden, you know, we hear, you know, stuff behind us. We feel like somebody's chasing us.

We hear stuff in the woods around us. And then we all, you know, we're running probably, I can't remember if it's like two minutes. We're all running for two minutes straight back to camp. You just get the hell out of these woods. And we all stopped to catch our breath. I'm like, guys, you know, catch your breath, get it together, and just give it a moment, relax. And it was probably not even 45 seconds later that we were all standing there and we heard this loud. It was almost like a, I couldn't even describe it.

It's almost like a combination of a bear, like an angry bear, or like a pack of wolf. growling at you. I mean, I can't even explain it, but it was just, once you hear it, you just don't forget it. So we heard that, and that didn't last maybe longer than five seconds. And after that, you know, we were just stone cold frozen. None of us could move. We couldn't think, well, you're just trying to process what happened. We're like, what in the heck just happened? So, you know, we're looking around. I'm looking at my other body next to me. And And I know he had a gun on him. And I'm like, hey, you know, get that out.

We don't know what's going on. So he ended up shining it. It was saying it was a barretta nine millimeter. He ended up shining it into the tree line. And we saw something we never wanted to see ever again. I don't know if you know what kind of human could compare to this. This thing had to be at least seven, seven and a half feet tall, like Andre the giant size.

I mean, I'm close to six foot, you know, 240 pounds. And I'm looking at this thing. And it's at least another foot and a half taller than I am, at least, you know, two of me wide. This thing had it been, you know, five, 550 pounds. Just outrageously big. And we're all just standing there, you know, we couldn't move. We were like stones. Like we're just shocked.

We don't know what to do. And as soon as that light hit that thing, you saw a little glare, you saw a little glare of the eyes, not quite like a deer, but you saw a little glare of the eyes, like a yellowish glare. And as soon as the light hit it, it moved right behind this giant oak tree.

It was standing by. And he was, you know, pointing the light around that area. And it seemed like it vanished. It just disappeared out of thin air. Whatever it was didn't want to be seen. But whatever it was, wanted to let us know we shouldn't have been there. Almost like it was watching out for the area, kind of like, you know, an oversteer, overwatch type thing. So after this, we're like, we got to get the hell out of here.

So we immediately ran back, you know, gathered our breath, ran it back fast as fast as we could, back to camp. you know, weren't just sheer tear at this point. My one buddy, I won't mention his name, but he peed in his pants. He was so scared. We got back to our tents, and I just remember, you know, getting back and just trying to unzip it as quick as I could. And I was fumbling with my hands. My hands were, you know, I couldn't even, couldn't even open the tent. So my other buddy had to open it for us.

But we had two tents set up at this camp, and they were parallel from each other, and we had this fire pit right in the middle. And the fire was still burning from earlier. So you could smell it, you know, and everything. Fire wasn't too big. So we're just, you know, we just got to get in our tents, you know, leave the fire be. So as we're, you know, running into our sleeping bag, like, just getting our sleeping bag, like, just forget this happen. thing's not going to mess with us anymore. We're young, dumb and stupid.

We're like, oh, this thing, you know, we're not in danger whatsoever, even though this thing, you know, just presented itself too well. So it could tear us all limb from limb. But, you know, as the night goes on, I'd say this is probably the occurrence happened around 10.30. And as the night progressed, I'd say from 12, maybe the 2.30 in the morning, you hear all types of things off and on. You hear, you know, hear our stuff outside. We had a couple pots and pans. We heard those, like something was, you know, coming up to it and knocking it over. We had a bunch of

eating utensils out on the table. Those were knocked over. We had the fire going. The fire was extinguished. I don't know how this happened. And like I said, there was all kinds of stuff overnight that we heard. I was just, you know, shaking in my bag. I didn't know what to do at that point. I just felt helpless. You know, you feel defenseless. You just like, you know, you're just stay in one place.

I was, you know, at that point, I was just like, whatever happens to me happens to me. If I die, I die. At least I die with my friends. So at that point, you know, we made it through the night somehow. And in the morning, we woke up. We were all nervous to open our tents, so that we didn't know what we were going to open it to. But we opened our tents, and to our surprise, our camp had been destroyed. You know, all our eating utensils were on the ground.

There were sticks thrown everywhere. The logs that had been in the fire were strewn apart. We had, you know, multiple things. One of our buddies had a backpack, and it had, you know, multiple things in it, all kinds of stuff, you know, like survival. year and all that. It was open, ripped open, and stuff was just, you know, thrown all over the camps site. Like, it opened it up and just threw it everywhere. So we're like, you know, what the heck? You know, this is, this is insane. We didn't know the process. And we're still in a shock, you know, from what happened the previous night. And like I said, previously, we had found

a pile of stones right next to the fire pit. These weren't just any stone. These weren't just any stones. These were like boulder-sized rocks. Like somebody would have had to pick these up. I mean, maybe one or two people even pick these rocks. These were heavy rocks and put these neatly and perfectly right next to the fire. There's probably five or six of them up, piled up. And there was two piles of them. And we were looking at this thing and we're just in a shock. Like, what could have done this? What could have piled this up? There's no way a bear could have done this. I know bears are pretty smart. You know, they go through stops.

They go through trash. But I don't think a bear had the mental capacity to figure this one out, you know, stack these up perfectly like this. So, you know, we're all talking to each other. We're like, you know, we're never going to come back here again. We just had bad luck, you know, whatever, whatever did this to us, didn't want us to be here. It just didn't feel like a welcome feeling.

So, you know, looking back on it in 2024, I'm like, you know, I can't believe that happened. Like, I can't believe I saw in flash and blood what I believe to be Bigfoot, Saw Squatch. I just can't fathom that this happened to me and four of my friends. And ever since then, you know, it affects you mentally. You know, I haven't wanted to talk to anybody about it. I think it's crazy. But this happened to me. and I think other people think I'm crazy.

But as I listen to this podcast, I've had the courage to come out and speak on it because I hear more and more about this same area. And I've heard a couple podcast episodes recently regarding the Cahoga Valley National Park. And it wasn't explicitly stated it was where this was, but I know in Ohio there's only one national park. It's this one.

So I'm like, I might as well, you know, come out and share my experience, you know, give the listener something they want to hear, you know, feed into this. stuff going on around this area. But, you know, ever since that time, you know, I've, you know, processed this differently. I've kind of just shut, shut this out. My three other friends, one of them lives up in Wisconsin, up near the Upper Peninsula, Michigan, that area there. He's studying anthropology right now. So he's actually, this is, this has taken such an interest in him that he's decided to take this on and study this. My other friend moved down to Dayton.

I don't hear from him anymore, really. You know, he's into some, you know, narcotics and stuff like that to kind of cope with things. But, and then our other friend refuses to even talk about this whatsoever. He just wants to think it was some, you know, anomaly. And at the time, you know, he was, you know, I don't know what he, you know, he thinks he was on some stuff. To this day, he says that he was, you know, smoking some marijuana. And he thinks that that's what he saw. That's what he wants to believe.

With the three other of us, we know what we saw, and we're wholeheartedly believers in this being. Yeah, I always love when critics bring up that argument. You know, you can smoke all the weed you want. You can drink all you want. You're not going to have delusions of seeing giants, wrong chemical. But, you know, I wanted to ask you about the rocks. You know, and I know that you don't. know and I don't know, but what's your opinion on why would it stack up all those rocks by the

fire? I honestly, I think that it put stones there to remind us what we saw in that this thing wanted us to know that, you know, it spared us. It didn't do anything to us, but it spared us. And it wanted to let us know that we shouldn't have been out in the park past 8 o'clock. And we should have listen to us. We should have all listened to ourselves and not done this and went out, explored like this when the park closed down. But I still think to this day that it put those stones up for a reason and it did that because it wanted us to know that it was there. It was watching us. It had the capacity to kill us, but it didn't. It chose not to. Which to me, in my mind, I see the Bigfoot

Sasquatch and whatever you want to call it. I see it as more of a spiritual being something supernatural. I think there's many species of it. If you want to ask me to be honest, I think there's several species of Sasquatch. I think there's good ones. I think there's bad ones.

But I think this one was one of the good ones. I think what it was doing to us on that trail was playing with us, kind of toying with us. You know, hey, you know, don't mess with me. but I want you to know I'm here and I want you to know what you're doing isn't right I got you kind of like a calling card

kind of like I was here you know I've heard this behavior before and I want to I'll share with you my opinion on what I think it was doing with those rocks and I'll come back to that in a moment but when it was kind of rummaging around through camp did it vocalize it all you know thinking back on it

I what I did hear I did hear some footsteps outside, but, you know, being in the woods, you know, it could be anything. It could be, you know, coyotes. I heard multiple things through the night. And at that point when I was sleeping in the tent, you know, I was out in and out of sleep. So I'm like, you know, is it just my mind messing with me? What's going on here? But I did hear some footsteps. I heard some rustling of our tent itself. You know, you know, And I did think I saw a shadow come by the tent at one point. I couldn't describe what the shadow was, but it was so fast. The shadow went by it very quickly. And I was, you know, I was like, oh, my Lord. Like, I didn't know if it was, you know, the trees messing with me out because we were in a wooded area. I didn't know if the trees going back because there was wind.

You know, granted, this is the summertime, you know, the weather's variable. Luckily, it didn't rain or anything, but there was wind at that time going around. So I, like I said, I heard some, a little bit of rustling outside the tent, but I didn't hear any growling outside the tent. I didn't hear any, you know, saw squash noises, it sounds like that. Thankfully, we only heard one. So, yeah, that's what I heard as I slapped. And when you guys got up in the morning and you're kind of examining the whole campsite and what actually happened, Did you notice that it had taken anything?

So it's funny because our one buddy, he's a vegan, and he brought a vegan meal. And he had a pot of beans and lentils. And his beans and lentils was sitting by the fire. And he woke up and he's like, where's my, you know, I had my pot of beans here. I guess to him it was a nice pot that he brought. It was a pretty nice pot and set that he brought. And that pot set in the beans was nowhere to be found. That was right by where the rocks were, right by that fire pit.

And that was gone. And he was the same one that actually brought that backpack with, you know, the survival gear and all that stuff in it. All his stuff was thrown, you know, all around the campsite. But it did take that pot of beans. It took that. You know, Ken, in a lot of encounters, when people have these things on their property, you'll hear about them having like a gifting stump where they'll gift something to

Sasquatch and Sasquatch will leave something back. I think they're leaving a tribute, but I don't want to get caught up in this moment with the minutia of labels. But you'll often hear of them taking something, but also leaving you something. and it makes me wonder if it took the beans and left that stack of rocks as kind of an exchange or kind of like a deal back and forth, as opposed to kind of what you were thinking earlier as far as, you know, this thing wanted to let you know it was there. I almost wonder if it was like an exchange or something like that.

What are your thoughts? I didn't think of it that way. I actually, I think that's a good explanation for that. I mean, it very well could have in its mind thought that it was more of a trade. It was trading these rocks in nature for this pot of beans. That very well could be true. It made me wonder, you know, when you were talking about, you know, your campsite's already trashed, so it already sent you a message.

But the rock thing, you know, kind of threw me off. I was like, well, why would it take the time to kind of stack up rocks like that? But I've heard of them doing weird stuff like that before when they take something from a camp or even people's property, they'll leave weird stuff like that. You know, before you guys even saw the creature, you talked about hearing this growling. Was it growling only, was it one thing growling at you? Yes. So it was right at this location that he shined the light on it was the distance and a time. direction that the growl came from.

And it was one growl. And like I said, it probably lasted about five to eight seconds somewhere in that time frame. And you heard it. And when you hear it, you never forget it. It's just something that sticks with you. Like, it's indescribable to me. It's not like the Ohio how that was recorded.

It wasn't anything like that. It wasn't a howl. It was more like a, you know, a deep growl. It, like it was mad, but it wasn't like it wanted to kill us, but it was, it was like a growl, you know, like almost like a guard dog standing in the fence growling at you, you know, letting you know that you shouldn't be there and it sees you. That's probably the best way to describe this growl. It was, you know, deep, you know, it was something like a bear. Like, you could tell this thing was huge, whatever it was, you know, this barreled, deep growl is probably the best way I can describe it. You know, the other thing I was curious about, Camas, you were kind of recounting what happened to you.

You talked about your buddy having a gun, and he put his gun up. But you're also talking about a light. Was the light on the gun? It wasn't like a separate flashlight that he had? Yes. So he had that barretto on him, and he had that flashlight on him. And that was all he had, as far as I know. I had, like, a pocket knife on me.

This thing wouldn't have done anything. My other buddies didn't have anything on them, but he was the one that did have this gun on him. You know, he brought it with them just for protection to the woods. You know, he's one of those types of guys. He's kind of like a survivalist type guy. He always has something on him just for protection. But, you know, luckily he had that on him. And he was in such a shock.

He didn't think of trying to shoot at it or anything. He was just kind of been a shock just pointing the light out. at where this thing was. And I'd say the distance from where he was standing with the gun to the tree line was probably 30 or 40 feet. So when he shined that light on it, we got a pretty good, pretty good view of this thing. And like I said, it was bigger than, you know, any human, like, you know, the closest to saying compared to he's maybe like Andre the Giant, you know, just wide, huge, very tall. it was dark brown

it had some black to it as well that's what I remember about this thing dark brown and black and it used the oak tree as copper so you know a little bit of its body was actually hidden

because of this tree but for the most part you could probably see you know three quarters of its body and the tree was concealing the rest of it yeah I'm really curious

on what stands out to you when he hit it with the light before I asked you you that, you know, before you had this incident, it happened to you, what was kind of your take on the whole subject of Sasquatch? So I've always been a believer myself. I've always believed in the unknown. I believe in ghosts. I believe in the paranormal. So I went into this thinking, you know, there could be, you know, I was the one that suggested we don't go in the woods because there could be anything in these woods. So I was the one with more of a, you know, that sense

that these things do exist and some of these things aren't out to help you it can harm you my other buddy that had the firearm on him he reads up on you know big foot things he believes in cryptids and all that

so he's a believer the other two really didn't care whatsoever these guys you know they don't care about any of that they're just going to the woods you know going there to camp and have a good time their outdoors They like to hike and stuff like that. But I definitely think after this, it changed their perspective on their beliefs.

I certainly think they walked away from this experience with a whole other perspective and a set of beliefs than they had before. You know, Ken, I always say you can believe in Bigfoot all day long, but it's very different when you see it in person. 100%. I think it definitely changes your whole perspective in your reality as well. I know, you know, just from listening to a lot of the podcasts and, you know, watching a lot of encounters, a lot of similar things are similar things that happen to us.

You know, the pungent smell, you know, the smell of rotten, you know, rotten eggs, sewage, you know, your hair stands up, you just frozen. A lot of these encounters I've listened to and I've, you know, watch videos of, there's a lot of those things that have commonalities compared to our experience. So, you know, this many people have these experiences and, you know, the experience is a horrible thing or, you know, it could be a positive thing to some people, when a horrible thing to other people. I mean, really, it's just, you know, it's your perception of your experience. Such as life, you know, it's, your perception is definitely your reality. And it applies with encounters with these things. I couldn't agree more. You know, when

he hit this thing with the light. I realize all this is happening very, very quickly, but when your buddy put the gun up with the light and it shined on this thing, what are some details that kind of stand out to you, even today? So there wasn't anything about this thing that was like a man to me. I mean, there's no man that's this wide in the waist. and there's no man to have that amount of hair on them. And the hands, you know, the one hand was resting on the tree. It looks like almost like, you know, something out of a movie. It was very cartoonish the way it looked.

Thinking back, you know, I was, you know, 30, 31 feet away. I'd say 30, 35 at the most. You know, looking back at this thing, you know, this was a pretty bright light. And when it flashed on it, it was, it was. It was scared of this light, and I think that's why it retracted. But, you know, details, I really think that I saw what was a saucequatch. This was no man. I think, you know, you really have to be a talented, practical effects person to make something like this come to life.

You know, the amount of hair that would be required, you know, the amount of gelatin that you'd have to put into a suit to recreate this, I truly do feel that, you know, what I saw was. was something that was unhuman and it was an inhumanoid that's for sure I did get sort of a glimpse at the face and like I said I saw the eyes they weren't like a deer but they were they had a little bit of a yellowish tint to them the mouth I couldn't really make the mouth out but I did see part of the nose the nose was you know protruded out and I did it kind of see it kind of made out that it was like a you know kind of like an old-looking face that's probably the I feel like if I would have had a closer look like maybe 10 feet away.

Not that I wanted to be that close to it, but I feel like it would have got a better picture of what the face looked like. But from that distance, you know, the only thing I saw was that a face, you know, it kind of looked like it was worn down like an old like type of primate looking face. It definitely didn't look human whatsoever. But it had, you know, had the eyes, had the nose, had the mouth, had those human features, but it had more of a primate, you know, rugged, worn look to it. It's the best way I could describe it from that distance. And I think I caught it in the beginning. I might have missed it, so forgive me. But from the point where you guys saw this creature to the distance to get back to camp,

what kind of distance was that? I think he said earlier it was a couple miles. So that was about a mile and a half from this trail. So we stood, our camp was in the Boston Mills area of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. And this trail, this towpath trail was probably about a mile and a half away. And this towpath trail actually leads off into the woods into a hiking trail. So that's actually where we saw this thing was on that hiking path. So that tow path is where it was messing with us.

It's wide open. That tow path is probably 30 feet wide. and that's right next to the Cuyahoe River, that towpath. So that's, you know, that's where it was throwing rocks at us and sticks were falling and stuff like that. That's where that happened. But the camp where we had our stuff thrown around, that was about a mile and a half away from this trail. You know, what's creepy, though, is unlike any other animal on the planet, when they encounter mankind, they flee.

It's like this thing followed you back to camp. right it's all us back and like I said it took I can't even remember how long it took for us to run back to the camp but it felt like it felt like an eternity

you know when you're in an experience like that you know high stress crisis situation you know hearts racing out of your chest you just want to survive and at that point we were just running as quick as we could back to camp and by the time we got back there we were just all winded I mean, you know, it was almost felt like we ran five miles.

I mean, it was that bad. We were just trying to catch our breath and calm ourselves down, but I don't think any of us relaxed whatsoever that night, that night in that tent. You know, after seeing this thing, which as you describe it, it's huge, and you guys get back to camp, why not leave at that point? We, at that point, it was, we just felt it was, in our best interest just to get back into the tent and try to forget about it. So at that moment, I truly don't know why we didn't just get in our car and go,

taking back on it. It was probably a dumb decision on our part to stay there after seeing that, that this thing, you know, is in the wood still. But, you know, at that moment, you know, we were young, you know, fresh out of school. We still, you know, we still had the beer and stuff in us, the liquor and things like that. We were all just probably not the best state of mind to get in our cars and drive either. So we decided to just stay there. Yeah, I think you guys made the right decision, especially if you've been drinking.

You know, packing up in the middle of the night, sometimes that sounds like a great plan on paper, but executing it is very different. It can be a little bit tougher than you might think. And, you know, especially if you guys had been drinking. Let me ask you, you know, it comes into your camp. It kind of tears everything up, throws everything around, takes your buddy's beans. Why do you think it didn't hurt anyone? I don't know.

That's a good question. And thinking back to the experience, I always ask myself that question. You know, why did it decide to leave us be? You know, because it very well could have grabbed our tent and tossed us. You know, this thing had that strength. you know, that outwardly strength, that superhuman strength, it probably could have taken the tent and threw us. But I don't know why it didn't harm us, you know,

and that's going back to that spiritual aspect, I wonder if they, you know, they have that sense of right and wrong if they just believe that, you know, based on, you know, what we were doing there, how we were acting and how we reacted to seeing it at first, you know, we didn't shoot. at it. We weren't harmful to it. We didn't chase it when it backed away. So thinking back in my mind,

I think back and I think that it was more of a good saucequatch. I think it didn't want to, it didn't want to harm us, but it just wanted to kind of mess with us and let us know, hey, you know, you shouldn't have been wandering back here, but I'm going to let you know that I'm here and I'm protecting this park. It was my sense. I felt like it was more of a protector of the national park than anything. Ken, did you guys ever go back or did you ever go back by yourself? So my one buddy that lives in Dayton has gone back. He went back a year or so ago with his girlfriend and they were just there to hike.

He didn't go anywhere near the path because it's still hard for him. You go anywhere near the campsite whatsoever. But they did go to another part of the park and hike. But he's been back to that park just to hike. and enjoy it recreationally. The other two have not, and I personally have not been there, but I plan on making a trip back at some point soon

to go walk around that area where it happened. I think I've come to the point where I've come to terms with what happened, and I just want to go back and kind of walk through, at least the toe path in the hiking area. I want to go past where that happened as well. but you know I have no reason to go back to the campsite I'm not planning a camping trip or anything back there but I do want to go back and walk around the area it is a beautiful park there's a lot to appreciate about it yeah I think sometimes it's good to go back it's good for the soul to go back even though you really don't

want to and it'll probably be uncomfortable going back I do I do think it's important you know earlier you talked about Sasquatch you know more on the spiritual side I ask everyone on the show what do you think Sasquatch is what's your take Ken so I in this is through watching you know multiple videos podcasts I truly think that softwatch is a supernatural being and this is my honest thoughts on it I think that you know there's there's many of them I think they some of them work in conjunction with each other I do think that other cryptids are aware of them as well I wouldn't say the cryptic community all gets along, but I do think that some of them work in conjunction with each other,

and they know they're there. They all know where each other are. I think that, you know, those areas where they all, you know, people see them and stuff, I think there could be multiple of them at the same time in that area, but you just don't see them. I think they hide very well, conceal themselves. But I definitely think they do traveling groups.

I definitely think that. and the supernatural aspect of it, you know, for it to just kind of vanish like that, I'm not saying it vanished in the thin air, but, you know, as big as this thing was, I think if it ran, or, you know, it would make some type of noise where you can hear, you know,

you can hear sticks, you can hear leaves, you can hear it running, and we didn't hear that when it vanished. It just kind of, kind of step back, took a step back behind the tree, and it was gone. It was very dark, too, at that point. But like I said, that aspect of

Sausquatch makes me believe that it's a supernatural being. So that's my take on Sausquatch. So when you say like it's supernatural, what do you mean like a ghost or like a demon? I guess when you use a phrase like or the term supernatural, what do you mean? So I've kind of fed into the idea of the portals, but these things use portals to travel as well.

Now I might be completely wrong. Some people might think are extremely crazy in the Sauce Watch community, but I do think these things can travel between portals to get to locations very quickly. I've heard stories of, you know, people watching these things take, you know, one big step or, you know, one or two steps in traveling over a great amount of space. So I think, you know, something like this has that capacity to do that. there's some supernatural aspect behind it. If it can jump, if it can run, and it can cover a manavarian, you know, so little time, I certainly think there's a supernatural degree behind that.

Yeah, I understand the way you feel. I often think there's more going on here than just a normal animal we haven't caught up with. You know, after this encounter, Ken, how did this kind of affect you? Have you been out camping or anything since? So I'm kind of scarred since that time. Believe it or not, I haven't camped one time since then, not one single time. I have not camped there. Having camped there, haven't camped anywhere in the U.S.

I don't really go out after 8 o'clock anymore outside. So if I need to take the trash out, I'll do it 5.30, 6 o'clock at night. Once it gets dark, obviously if I have to go somewhere, I have to go somewhere at night. I have to have no choice. But I don't go out of my way to go walk around the woods at nighttime anymore. Since then, no. I'm an avid believer that it could be anywhere near me at any time.

It's not limited to one area. I certainly think these things travel all around. Ohio being part of the Appalachian Trail, really, that area, we're not far from the Appalachian Trail. And I think these things travel through that area quite frequently, and I think they kind of year off. And I think that's what happened with this one. It kind of ended up in that area, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

And I think you guys handled it better than I would have because I would have probably done something stupid like started firing at this thing. It's probably for the best you didn't. But, you know, after the scary night, you know, you see this thing and that comes into your camp and destroys your camp. After kind of going through all of this, if you had the chance, would you want to see another one?

I'll be honest with you. I don't know. I can't answer that truthfully. After what I saw, I don't know if I want to see it again. I certainly want to see a really good video that somebody captures this thing

because in the moment, you know, we all had our phone lights on, but, you know, we did not think for one second that we were going to take a video of this thing, just didn't register in our minds of doing. And I think, honestly, that kind of attributes to the lack of video evidence that we have of these things. You know, people being sheer terror, sheer shock, they don't even think of doing it at the moment.

You know, everybody says, oh, why didn't anybody capture this on video? Why hasn't anybody shot one yet? You know, if they really exist, why hasn't anybody, you know, physically captured and got, you know, really good video evidence to this thing. And I think these things have a way of putting this fear of God into people that you don't want to get it on video because, you know, whatever you're looking at, you know, obviously doesn't want to be videotaped. You know, and I think to this day, as soon as you shine that light on it, it did not want to be seen. So like I said, it was maybe one or two seconds that we actually saw visualization of this thing in front of us. and that it vanished.

Yeah, I can tell you, in most encounters, 99.9% of the time, the eyewitness is more worried about self-preservation than, hey, let me document this moment in time in my life about seeing this weird creature. People don't think about pulling their phones out. I want to ask you about the light. You know, when you guys shine the light on this thing, you had mentioned it backed off and kind of went back behind the tree. What do you think it was about the light that got this thing to back off?

I honestly, thinking back on it, Wes, that light is pretty blinding. That light that he had on that gun, it's probably at least 1,000 lumens LED. And, you know, when you get that shine in your eyes, I know just me, if I had that shine in my eyes, it would hurt pretty bad. So thinking back on this to this day, I think when that light hit it, it was like a beam hitting its eyes. And I think personally it may have painted a little bit in the ice. It wasn't pleasant for it. I think that's why it backed off. But, you know, when we ran away, I think it kept a certain distance from us as well.

It kind of followed us from behind and tailed us back to our location. It knew where we were. I certainly think it has a great sense of smell as well. It had our scent, I'm sure. And it knew where we were and tracked us right back. You know, as I'm thinking about what happened to you guys at night, I almost wonder if it wasn't so much the light, but it was the gun.

The flashlight was on the gun, and he pointed the gun at this thing. It makes me wonder if that's why it came in and kind of wrecked your guys' camp. Yeah, I'm wondering, honestly, because, you know, 9mm, you know, certainly, you know, can do some damage. But, you know, there's something that,

big. I don't even think a 44 magnum or something of that caliber could take it out. You certainly mean a whole lot more than a nine millimeter to do anything with a squash, in my opinion. And hearing stories from Skinwalker Ranch, you know, that guy shot whatever it was out there with a 357 magnum multiple times and still walked up and went off. Not saying that's the same type of situation, but, you know, just making a parable between guns. I don't think a gun could do anything with this thing is my personal opinion. Yeah, I agree with you. A 9mm is not going to take this thing down, but it doesn't know that it's a 9 millimeter.

I had this old crazy Native American that I was buddies with. He since passed away and got rest of soul. And he had told me one time, you don't even have to point a gun at them, pick up anything and point it at them, and they'll back off. And that's why I was trying to figure out why would it come in and like, wreck your guys as camp, take the beans and peace out.

I kind of think maybe it was, it had recognized that gun. There's a lot of eyewitness accounts to where these things seem to recognize a weapon. And I almost wonder if that's why it backed off and then came back to kind of give your camp of what for

for pointing a weapon at it. And you really don't know the type of vision these things have. You know, if they very well could have, you know, superior vision. We have no clue what kind of vision these things have. It could have instantly, like you said, Wes, recognize that that was a weapon, recognize the flashlight on the weapon, and recognized the way he was pointing the gun at it in an intimidating demeanor. Say, hey, back off, you know, we're armed.

He very well could have done this in a kind of a retribution style coming back and saying, hey, I'm the boss. you know, I run stuff here. That's kind of my take on what he did. He or she, I don't know what type of gender it was, but to me, if I could best describe this, this was definitely a male. Yeah, it kind of sounds like it. And, you know, I really appreciate you sharing this encounter because it really helps

me because you'll hear accounts to where, like the rocks. They'll take something from you, but generally they'll leave something. and I know when you guys came out of the tent in the morning, you guys saw those rocks and we're probably thinking, you know, what in the world, but you didn't put two and two together with the beans. And I'm not saying that's why I stacked the rocks. I'm just giving you my opinion, of course.

I mean, I don't have one of my garage I'm studying, so I could be 100% wrong. But, you know, and then it coming in and kind of wrecking the camp, I don't think it was so much to lie. I think it was the gun that kind of pissed it off. off. But again, you know, I'm kind of Monday morning quarterbacking. I wasn't there. Just opinions, of course. But I really appreciate you coming on, Ken, and sharing with us what happened to you. I really enjoyed chatting with you, Ken.

Absolutely, Wes. It was an honor to be on. Like I said, I've been listening to your show for, you know, probably two years now. So I listen to it every morning on the way to work and I listen to it. I try to finish my episodes on the way back from work. So I consider myself a veteran listener in your show. And I really appreciate you having me on. It was an honor to share my story with everybody. And hopefully the listeners, you know, this piques their curiosity maybe about the national parks,

get some more people out and explore it. Certainly that's what I wanted to do with his experience. Thanks again, Ken. And that's it for tonight. Everyone, remember if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. You know, I came across this the other day in my feed and I really wanted to kind of share it with you guys. You know, in these

current times that we live in, there's so much that separates us as a people or we think that we have that perception that were separated by so much. But you find out in hard times that there's very little that separates most Americans. Bob Riley once said, hard times don't create heroes. It is during the hard times when the hero within us is revealed. What I'm about to share with you is the rest of the story on what happened on 9-11. You may not have heard ordinary people becoming heroes. It's moments in time like this that remind me why I love this country so much and why I love my fellow countrymen. Until next time, everyone. I thought I was watching a movie, Towering Inferno at first, and then I looked real close, and I noticed it was the World Trade Center. I was compelled because

I'm a type of person that can't stand by and watch other people suffer. And it took to To me, they were suffering, they wanted to get off the island. And there was no way for them to get off the island other than the water. And I had noticed when I was watching the television, I saw a lot of, you know, the ferries going up into the slips and taking people off. I said, fine, we could do the same thing. I could take people on my boat, get in there, take them where they have to go. And that's what we did.

On the morning of September 11th, when the towers came down, millions of people ran for safety. Hundreds of thousands of them ran south to the water's edge. That's when they realized that Manhattan is indeed an island and that they were trapped. They were feeling helpless. And that's the worst feeling in the world. What was a person on the ground was going to do? Buildings were down. There were people laying under the rubble of the building, firemen, civilians, My wife was there and I turned around. I said, I've got to go do something. Just like that.

And she looked at me. She says, what are you going to do, you maniac? I says, I'm going to take the amberjack up into the city and help. She says, but what if they're attacked again? I says, well, then that's something I have to live with. I says, I have to do what I have to do. I says, and nobody can stop me right now. Even if I save one person or I rescue one person, that's one person.

That's one person less that will suffer and die. They were trying to evacuate Manhattan because nobody knew what was going on. You know, you didn't know something else was going to happen. It was just, you know, a madness on one side and wanting to help people on the other side. They were just streaming out of the buildings. And the first mode of transportation they saw was a ferry boat.

That's when they knew, this is how I'm getting out of here. They didn't even care where the boat was going. There wasn't panic in New York in the beginning, just volume. There wasn't until the first building fell that there was panic. You heard the building go down, but we're in the slip, so we can't see it. That's when we started letting going, and all of a sudden, it got off, you couldn't see anything. People were actually jumping into the river and swimming out of Manhattan.

Boats were very nearly running them over. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, please, wait. These people wanted out of Manhattan no matter any way they could. Somebody wants you to go over there. Every mode of transportation out of Manhattan was shut down. All the subways were shut. Tunnels were all closed. They closed the bridges.

They closed everything immediately. Boats, usually an afterthought in most New Yorkers' minds, were for the first time in over a century the only way in or out of Lower Manhattan. The process that actually had already started, There were some boats that were grabbing people that people were lighted up at the walls. It's just human nature. You see people in distress on the seawall in Manhattan

begging you to pick them up. You have to, you have to pick them up. They didn't know what was going on. They seen the building getting hit with these two planes. As far as they were concerned, you know, we've been bombed. I was wondering if they were going to come on the boat, if they were had people with bombs, or if they were going to come on,

we're a big orange target in the middle of that harbor. My job is to keep the boat safe, my passenger safe, my cruise Everybody was in shock, running around. They didn't want to lead a family. They had loved ones running around sitting. There was one guy ran from the apron and jumped onto the boat. He grabbed onto the metal, climbed up right next to the palace.

So I'm going out there to say something. He slides down to the next deck. So the deck cans get him and go, what, you know, what are you doing? He goes, I'm jumping from my life. So, you know, you couldn't argue with him there. There was a small boat that was at the lower tip of Manhattan. I thought the boat was going to flip over because so many people were trying to get on. And as I look behind, they were just 10 deep.

That's kind of what gave us the idea. We decided that this has to get better organized, and we better do it. And that's what we did. So we decided to make the call on the radio. All available boats, this is the United States Coast Guard Board. The pilot wanted to help with the evacuation of Lower Manhattan report to Governor's Island. The call came on the radio.

They were coming. I was uncertain of who was going to respond to. About 15, 20 minutes later, there were just boats all across the horizon. Literally, a hundred targets converging on the lower part of Manhattan. When we came out of that dust clap, tugboats, I've never seen so many tugboats all at once.

There was just like a fleet of tugboats handed to Manhattan. If it floated and it could get there, it got there. All different size, shapes, and form. I mean, and they were zooming across this border. Ferries, private boats, party boats. I walked on the water for 28 years. I've never seen that many boats come together one time that fast. One radio called and it just came together just that fast.

Hundreds of boats converged on the city, leaving the sun-bathed harbor behind them, dead ahead. That was something I won't forget. It was just low, dark, accurate black smoke. It was like there was a big, big chimney in Manhattan. When we pulled into Pure 11, the dust was unbelievable.

And then out of nowhere, they just kept on seeing people coming. They looked like zombies coming through the fog, and you knew that those were human beings. Don't leave us. Please don't leave us here. Take us. At that point, the Coast Guard said, not how many people are you allowed? How many people can you fit?

The boats started hanging, literally would take a bed sheet off a bunk and then a can of spray paint and paint their destination on. Some of these people never been in the water, never been on the boat before. House wipes, workers that do windows, we had executives. And the thing that was the best, everyone helped everyone. I saw four businessmen lifting up a business man, lifting up a business man, lifting up a lot of them. and lifting up an old woman with a seeing-eye dog, the German Shepherd, and they lifted her up like a surfboard and passed her over the handrails.

When we would carry a load of people over, and there was somebody standing there that's seen her husband or wife, you know. That made us feel even better, you know. Well, at least we got two back together, you know. Keep on going, you know. The guy that works at the ferry, he's a welder. His son was on my boat.

He actually came up. He thanked me. We went back and forth all day long, carrying boat loads as many as our boat would hold. And there's a lot of people. A lot of people. You couldn't have planned nothing to happen that fast, that quick.

No training. This was just people doing what they had to do that day. You forget all about what you're supposed to do, what to teach your school, and you say, you know what, morally, this is the right way to go, and deep down, this is what I'm gonna do. average people. They stepped up and when they needed to. They showed me, you know, when the American people need to come together and pull together, they will do it. I do feel a way

honored that I was a part of it. It was the greatest thing I ever did with my life. The greatest day that I've ever seen in all my boating, I mean, my life on the water. The great boat lift of 9-11 became the largest sea evacuation in history. Larger than the evacuation of Dunkirk in World War II, where 339,000 British and French soldiers were rescued over the course of nine days. On 9-11, nearly 500,000 civilians were rescued from Manhattan by boat. It took less than nine hours. I believe somebody has a little hero in them. You got to look in. And it's in there. It'll come out. It need to be. I have one theory in life. I never wanted to be. I never wanted to

say the word I should have. If I do it and I fail, I tried. If I do it and I succeed, better for me. And I tell my children the same thing. Never go through life saying you should have. If you want to do something, you do it.