Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:1123 Animal's walking like great apes

Episode Date: January 19, 2025

Gene writes "I was around 13 or 14. It was about the third weekend of November. I know this because I was deer hunting. We were on land belonging to Peabody coal company in Muhlenberg county. At that time was 62,000 acres of reclaimed coal land. It was around 4 pm. I was standing in a field looking north, my father had went down a holler to the west of me. I heard my father shoot three times. This was strange because he always shot once and a deer was down. I then moved to the mouth of the holler to see if any deer would be running my direction. I then started to hear people talking, I could not understand what was being said, but I could hear it. I thought well dad is talking to someone and has killed a deer. I proceeded to head down the holler to help him.The holler was open hard woods and you could see a long ways, except for right at the bottom where a intermediate stream was. I got about 50 yards from the brush when two animals busted out of it running straight at me. They were covered with long reddish brown hair about three inches long and were knuckle walking like a great ape. They were about four feet at the shoulder and their hips were lower than their shoulders and knees. Their faces were flat and I saw no ears.They were chattering to each other or something else and that was the voices I heard "talking". While at this time in my life I did believe in Bigfoot, since my father was a long haul truck driver and another truck driver had claimed a Bigfoot had run behind my dads truck near the Kentucky-Tennessee line, but for me Bigfoot was single creature that walked up right. Anyway, these two animals are running straight at the 13/14 year old me and I do not know what they are.I yank my 30:06 rifle up and fire. I do not think I even aimed, just shot towards them. When I did this there was a big noise behind me and I remember thinking " they have me surrounded" I spun around to defend myself and saw a squirrel running up a hickory tree right beside me. I spun back around to the threat I knew and they had already crossed the brush bottom and was halfway up the ridge on the other side and I shot at them once more as they run off. They very fast. Once I meet up with my father, he confirmed that he had also shot at these creatures, but was shook up enough to have missed three times. We tried to convince ourselves that these were some sort of wolf and lived under that delusion for many years, until I began studying primates on an academic level, did I let myself believe what I know to be true all along.One thing that scares me to this day is the thought of were they chattering to each other or to mom or dad that was near by that I never saw. I have hunted that area since I was 12 and I just turned 50 this year and I have never set foot in that holler 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 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 forwards.

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? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That's son of a bitch is about six. Bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know. Do you see a bouncer? Yes, I'm looking right in.

Uh-uh. This is Alicia from Kennesaw, Georgia, and you're listening to the best podcast on the planet, Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you. We'll be chatting with Gene and his son, Abby. And they come to us from Kentucky.

And over 41 years ago, Gene was out hunting with his father. when two of these creatures came out of the brush and charged them. But 25 years ago, Gene started the Kentucky Center of Bigfoot Research, trying to get more involved in finding these creatures, trying to understand them. And the area where Gene and a son have had encounters is basically the same area where Gene grew up and where that encounter took place while he was hunting. And I'll let Gene 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 to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Gene to the show. Gene, thanks for coming on. My pleasure, Wes. Yeah, and I know we also have your son, Abby. Abby, thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me. And I know we have a lot to get to, Gene. There's a lot of different encounters I want to chat with you that happened to both you and Abby, very recent encounters. But what I'd like to do is go back to this encounter when you were very young and you were hunting with your father. If you would, when did this happen? Kind of walk us into what you guys were doing and what happened? Well, it was basically 1984 or 85. I was 13 or 14 years old.

We were in West Kentucky, Mulemberg County. We were deer hunting. It was the third weekend of November. We were hunting on a reclaimed coal strip mine coal company, 62,000 acres called Peabody. And I was, in a field. It was about 4 o'clock in the evening.

My father had went to the southwest of me down a holler. I was standing there and I heard him shoot. And he shot three times, which I knew it was his gun. You know, I'd hunted with him

my whole life. I knew what the gun sounded like. But the weird part of it was when my dad pulled the trigger, it was usually once and the deer was down. But this was three shots in a row, and it wasn't the three-shot trouble signal that you send out. It was bang, bang, bang. And so I thought, okay, he's shooting at some deer.

And so I moved over to the edge of the field where I could see down in the hauler. It's a big wide open hauler. You could see forever down through it. The only place where there was any brush was right at the bottom of the holler where there was a wet season screen that occurred when it rained heavily. And so there was a bunch of brush there. And I walk over there and I'm looking. I stand there about, I don't know, maybe five, ten minutes looking to see if there was any deer coming and didn't see anything. But I started hearing voices.

And I thought, okay, my dad's down there talking to somebody. one of them has got a deer down. So I decided to go try to find him. I knew he was down this holler. And so I started walking down through it. And like I said, it was a big hardwoods hauler. You could see forever. And I got down maybe about 60, 70 yards from where the brush in the very bottom of it was.

And two animals busted out of the brush running right straight at me. and in my 13, 14-year-old mind, I didn't know what it was, but it needed to die. It wasn't supposed to be here, and it was coming straight at me. So I yanked up my gun. I don't even think I aimed. I just yanked it up and shot. And when I shot, there was a big noise behind me, and I spun around to see what it was, and it was a squirrel going up a hickory tree, so it was making lots of noise.

So I spun back around to defend myself from the danger where I knew it was coming. And those animals had already crossed back through the brush and were just about to the top of the holler on the other side. That's how quick they moved. And I shot one, maybe two more times at them, and I totally missed them then. But these animals were, they were on all fours. It wasn't the standard bigfoot bipedal. They were basically knuckle walking. Their rear haunches were lower than their shoulders,

kind of like a hyena or a great ape would do when they're down on all fours. They had reddish brown hair, three, maybe three and a half inches long. There was no snout that I could see visible. in the face. They were just the most strangest animal I'd ever laid eyes on. And they were super fast, like I said. So I didn't hit them with the shot, obviously.

And later, when I actually met up with my father and was able to talk to him, that's what he was shooting at as well. And he got a better look at them because they just wondered, to where he was hunting. When I saw them, they were running through the brush straight at me. But they were chattering to each other, and that was the talking that I was hearing. So I don't know if they were chattering to each other, or were they calling for mom and dad that was somewhere that I did not see them.

And this area, we had had lots of weird stuff. happened throughout the course of the 20 years that we've hunted down there. We've had what I now know are wood knocks and rock clanking and just strange howls. According to the BFRO website, there's been six or seven Class A encounters within three miles of where this happened. So my deductive reasoning is that these were juvenile saskwashes that I saw. When they come out of the brush, I mean, I would think that they were charging me as well. But kind of looking back, do you think that they were just kind of running away from your dad's gunfire and you were kind of in the way? Yeah, yeah.

They were definitely running from my father. I just happened to be in the path because I could not see. see them in the brush and I never heard a sound. That's another weird factor was there was no sound of them running through that thick brush up what would be a dry creek bed and then just all at once they bust out of the brush and they're coming right straight for me. And, you know, 50, 60, 70 yards, whatever it was, that seems like a long distance, but it's not a long distance when something is running right straight at you and you don't know what it is. It happens pretty quick and they cover some ground real fast.

I mean, as soon as they cleared the brush, I assessed the situation and was compelled to discharge my weapon at them. Yeah, 50 yards is really close, especially like you said, when something's coming right at you. You did a great job at kind of describing what you saw, but was there other details that kind of stick out to you from that day. Were you able to get a look at the face? Or did you and your father compare notes as far as what you guys saw that day? Yeah, there was no snout on the face.

I mean, for me, it happened so quick. I couldn't distinguish eyes, ears, anything like that. My dad said that they had wide-set eyes. He saw no visible ears on them. They were basically walking the same way that I seen them running when my father saw them. They were on all fours. There was no canine teeth. Neither one of us saw any visual teeth of any kind.

He saw him at about 100 yards. So he wasn't as close as I saw. but his siding was a lot slower until he fired the first shot. Because he was like me. He didn't know what it was, but it didn't need to be there. And we needed to figure out what it was. That may sound a little strange to some people, but that's the way it was then. Yeah, I understand that.

You know, you're like 13, 14 years old at this point. How much bigger than you were they? They were, my best estimation is that at the shoulder, with them being down on all fours in a quadruped motion, they were about three and a half to four feet tall at the shoulder. So I'm thinking when they stood up, because the back legs actually appeared to be shorter than the front legs. So I think that they were probably somewhere between five and a half and six foot tall. And looking back on it over the years and comparing it to some of the large breed dogs that I've seen, these things probably weighed 180 pounds, maybe more. My dad was convinced it was some sort of weird canine.

And so we kind of operated under that delusion because it maybe, made us feel safer, that that's what it was. But I always kind of had my suspicions in the back of my mind as if that was truly what it was. And just looking back on it and what I've learned through my academic pursuits and everything, I'm satisfied. These were primates that were knuckle walking. Yeah, and I know being 13, 14 years old, this had a really profound effect on you. So much so that you, well, I'll let you kind of tell the audience, if you would, kind of give us a background on yourself, Gene.

Yeah, basically this encounter kind of shaped my life. I wound up going and getting a degree in anthropology simply so I could study primates. And of course, being in Kentucky where we live, there is no primate jobs here, you know. So I actually specialized in archaeology, and that's what I do. But the whole driving force of it was I wanted to study and learn more about primates and the evolutionary process. Yeah, and I know from talking to you, Gene, you guys continued to hunt this area. You'd mentioned other things that had happened to you like Woodnox, and if you would, What were some of the weird things that happened in that area?

Yeah. Well, let me back up just a little bit. My first introduction into a big foot-like creature was probably when I was seven or eight years old. My father was a long-haul truck drivers, and he was taking a load south through Tennessee down on I-75. and there was a gentleman that was behind him got on the CB radio and started saying that a big foot run behind dad's truck. And he was telling the people on the northbound lanes to watch that thing that was coming across the interstate. Well, they got riding him so bad, he finally just turned off his CB radio. Well, him and my dad both happened to get off at the next.

exit at the foot of Jellicoe Hill, or Jellico Mountain, rather. And my dad got out and actually talked to him. And dad said he was shaken and he was kind of white as a ghost. And my father asked him, he said, are you sure it wasn't a bear that you saw because there is bears in that area? And he said, damn it, man, I grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. I know what a bear looks like. And a bear does not cross the interstate in three steps.

So that was my first knowledge of Bigfoot. And then my father had told me that the natives called his Sasquatch and so forth like that. When we first started hunting down at Peabody, I was 11 years old. And there was always, you'd just be going through the woods. And of course, you know, you're a hunter. So you're out there before sunrise. and you'd be walking through the woods with a flashlight and just all at once you would hear what sounded like a baseball bat on a tree

and he'd be like, well, what in the world done that? Must have been a limb falling or something. You know, and then other times you'd be sitting there and all at once you would hear what was plainly the sound of rocks being banged together. And we never could come up with any reason as to what was doing that. But as soon as the sun went down in that area, the air was just full of howls of various kinds.

There's a heavy coyote population down there. So there was always coyotes. As soon as one sung out, there was 100 going off. And just howls that didn't sound like coyotes would happen occasionally. and there would be times where you'd come back to camp and it would look like things that maybe been moved or just adjust it a little bit and just sometimes creepy feeling of being watched that that would happen a lot down there as well and the sighting and the weird stuff going on the weird vocalizations that you're hearing or weird sounds it didn't really

stop your guys as hunting in that area? No, no, we never stopped hunting down there. Life has gotten the way the last couple of years, and we haven't been able to get down there. But we hunted down there within the last three years. The area has shrunk in size. They sold some of it off to other coal companies. The biggest thing that happened to it was our local or our state department of fish and wildlife got involved in it.

And so they put a lot of rules and regulations on it, and it's not as good as it used to be. But yeah, I mean, we've been down there several times within just the last few years and heard howls and knocks and things like that. But yeah, that has occurred the entire time that we've been down there hunting because we always usually hunt the same area. And it's about a, well, the area that we hunt, where we camp at to where we hunt is actually about a mile hike. We used to be able to ride it by truck and then by four-wheeler and then the Department of Fish and Wildlife got involved. And now you can't do none of that.

So now we've kind of moved back away from that. But the same, where we camp is always the same place. And there's always been sounds like that happen. You know, I kind of want to go back to when you were hearing what you're, thought were, was a conversation between your dad and someone else or a hunter or something, the chatter that you were hearing, I mean, did it sound more like the Ron Moorhead, the Sierra sounds, kind of that samurai chatter? Or was it more like a conversation and you just couldn't hear exactly what was being said? Well, when I first heard it and I assumed it was people talking,

it did sound like just voices that were just on the edge of your hearing, but you couldn't make out what they were saying. When they busted out of the brush, and I guess they saw me, that was when the chattering started back up again. It did kind of sound like the Moorhead recordings, the Sierra sounds, but at the same time it didn't. it wasn't as plain and and I guess maybe you know I always tell people that that recording sounds like a bad translated Japanese movie and it was not that plain being right there on top of it it was more like somebody just making a lot of grunts and cackling kind of sounds if that makes sense. It's really hard to explain.

It was like that, but at the same time, it was not like that. Yeah, I understand what you mean. I want to ask you, Gene, I want to play some of this audio that you sent me. Before I do, you started this Kentucky Center of Bigfoot research like 25 years ago. What was kind of the purpose behind that? At that time, there was, you know, anything you heard about Bigfoot was, by crackpots, you know, people that seem to be on the extreme of everything. You see it on TV and most of it sounded unbelievable.

But by this time, I was not a believer, I was a knower. I reserved belief for religion. You know, I know Sasquatch is real based on my own experience and the empirical evidence that I have found while doing research. So I wanted to start something that was more scientific-based, somebody that had a degree in letters behind their name that could add some credibility to the subject. So I started a, and this is how long ago it's been,

it was a Yahoo group page, and it was called Bigfoot in Kentucky. and I had four or five people request membership, and I allowed them in. Some of them went on to become actual names in the Bigfoot community. I'll let them tell that story. I won't out them on none of that. But it was just they were a little bit more gung-ho about it at that particular moment than I was, because I was still looking for the right people. to form this group with.

Even though I liked these guys, it was not the scientific mind I was looking for at the time. And so I just kind of put the brakes on on that. And then that group just kind of fell apart. When I really found people that wanted to be involved in it was when I went to college and some of my fellow students both in the anthropology department and the biology department, they were excited, open-minded, and very interested in the subject.

And so that's when the Kentucky Center for Bigfoot Research actually come about. And, you know, I called it that because I wanted the name to have some credibility to itself, not, you know, Sasquatch hunters of Kentucky or something cheesy like that. You know, I wanted it to have some academic push behind just the name alone.

So when people heard it, they would recognize that we were serious about it. Or at least that's how I view the name. Yeah, I get it. You didn't want to call it like monster hunters or, you know, something like that. I'm going to play your two pieces of audio that you sent me. Before I do, kind of tell me the background on this audio. What were you doing

and how did you get it? Okay. The first recording, both those recordings that I sent to you happened right here in my yard. The first one, me and Avi, we were in the backyard and we had burnt some brush. We had had a tree fall and we had some brush. So we had had a fire going. for a couple hours in the backyard. Well, it had finally died down some, and so Abby went on into the house while I gathered up the stuff that was in the yard, and I was walking back toward the house

and just all at once, the recording that you have is only half of what was heard. Because it was so loud and shocked me so much, it took me a second to realize I was standing there holding my phone and could hit record on it. And so when I come to my senses, I hit record on it and captured that audio. And I visualize it kind of like a dome. When the Bigfoot first yelled, all the dogs in the neighborhood started chiming in after that. but it was almost like he was the ceiling of a dome,

and the dogs could not come close to the volume or the range that he had. And when I first got it, I sent it to Cliff Brackland, and he sent it to a guy that was doing a study on Bigfoot audio. and he run it through several oscilloscopes and analyzers and stuff. And they told me that when they first heard it, they wanted to write it off as a canine of some sort. But then he said at the very tail end, and he didn't tell me what it was,

but he said that there is a signature mark that you can see on an oscilloscope on a true Bigfoot howl that, was present in both of my audio captures. So they said that it was definitely a squash that we captured on it. Yeah, let me play both of these clips. I amplified them for the show. Let's take a listen. Interesting audio, you definitely hear something in the background in that first one.

And on the second one, you catch it at the very beginning, but the dog start barking. I've got another buddy of mine who, and I'll get into this in a little bit, but he kind of said that it was the same sound as the squashes he encountered about five miles from here. He said it sounded just like them. And Avi, let me ask you, I mean, I know that you guys are hearing this basically in your backyard. And there's been a few things that have happened to you with a boulder being thrown at you in Rocks, being thrown at you.

Did all that happen to you before you guys actually heard this vocalization or was all this kind of afterwards? I've had my own encounters too with dad and whatnot. You know, like we've had the rocks thrown at us like after this. Like, I mean, the big rock that we had thrown at us was before this. But when we went hunting one night for him, well, I don't know if I'd say hunting. But when we went just out one night and was just out doing that, we had little stones thrown at the truck and that was after all these howls that we had heard but the big rock

which i'm sure he'll get into that but the big rock we had thrown at us was way before any of the house we'd heard yeah it was at least two years two years something like that before that yeah i want to get into the uh rock throwing i was just kind of curious if you know before anything happened to you you're listening to this basically in your backyard uh jean tell me about your friend you were just talking about a moment ago. Yeah, a buddy of mine, his name's Mike, and I have no problem saying that because his encounter, they actually did a show on it called These Woods Are Haunted. And there is a, I call it the triangle. Where we had the rocks thrown at us is at one point. My house is at another point, an area called the Pinnacles.

is another point that makes a perfect triangle, and they're ever won exactly five miles. Each side of the triangle is five miles long. But he had started dating this girl or was trying to date this girl, and she wanted to go squatching. So he took them up to the top of the pinnacles, and they basically got escorted all the way down the mountain by multiples. of these creatures. It was a very scary encounter. He told me that the show led on like it was one, maybe two creatures, but he said when they hit the parking lot of this area,

because there's a big parking lot there, it's a very active hiking area. But when they hit the parking lot, that the one that was basically escorting them down the hill, it whooped, and then he said there was five more whoops all the way up to the top of the mountain. So it's a very active area as well. I hear you. Well, if you would, Gene, kind of tell me about this incident with your son Abby and with this rock being thrown at you guys. What had happened was Avi and his friends wanted to go out and go squatching.

And I had had a woman contact me and said that they had been run out of the woods by something throwing rocks and screaming at them. And she told me where this was, and I was like, okay, this is a very popular area. People go there, they fish, they go there to hike, they go there to park. You know, it's kind of remote, but there's always a lot of activity. And I thought there's no way there's anything like this going on out there. And I thought, but I've got a group of four 10 and 11 year old boys that want to go out and do this. This is a great opportunity to take them because I know they'll be safe. So it had been raining for about three days, very hard.

and on the night that we went, we went because the clouds had finally broke, the sky cleared up. It was a full moon. It was the first full moon of February. And we went out to this location, and it's at a lake. And there was a slew on one side. And so we pulled up in the truck and just parked,

I mean, we're parked on a paved road. Now, granted, it's a dead. end of road, but it's still paved. And we're sitting there, and I tell the boys, I say, guys do what you want. Make all the sounds that you want to make, have fun. Avi told me, he said, I'm going to do my two shorts and along. And so he does this woo, woo, woo, woo sound.

And it was at 10 seconds. and I'm looking across this slew and the water is up due to the rain and it's probably 300 foot across this sloop. And I'm standing there watching and all at once this rock that is just a little bit littler than a basketball comes arching through the air from the other side. side of the lake and it lands in the water within 20, 30 foot of where we're standing. Now, not only did I see it, but when a beaver smacks the water, it sounds like a smack. You can tell. It sounds just like if you walked up and smacked the swim and pool water. When this hit the water, it made that blab-blump sound and that rock went deep and

And water went up and rained down on the lake surface. And that doesn't happen with a beaver tail slap. So, you know, if I didn't see the rock, I still have reason to believe that we had had something thrown at us. And after that, which, of course, I get the boys in the truck. And they're like the clampets. They're hanging out the windows. watching what's going on. And I hear what sounds like something goes into the water.

You can almost hear just a little slight ripple effect, like a canoe just floating by. And I've got a lot. I mean, I didn't come overly prepared. We were just going out to let the boys have a good time. and so I've got my flashlight and I'm shining it around. I'm not seeing anything, but I start hearing this clacking sound, like kind of like that, just clicking almost in a way.

And I couldn't figure out what it was. So by this time, we've all got pretty unnerved. I only have a small pistol with me, nothing to try to defend myself against assassinations. squash with. And so we leave. The next day, I contacted Bobo off of finding Bigfoot. And I told him, I said, Bo here's what happened.

Have you ever experienced this? And he said, yeah, I've experienced that twice. He said, that was large male and he was angry. You were right to leave with the boys, but go back. and I said, okay, we'll go back. And we went back to this same spot probably at least once a month for the rest of that whole summer and fall.

Never had the first thing happen again there. So exactly one year later to the day because it was the full moon of February again. So it was the astrological same date. We had went to another location where we got some activity. We got some howls that we were pretty sure we heard through the parabolic mic. They were still very faint, but we think we heard them. And we went back to this same location because the guys, they're all seasoned squatchers at this point.

and we go back to this same location, and it was about an hour and a half drive back to it. So the first thing we all had to do was use the bathroom. So we all hop out and we're doing that. We haven't made a noise. We haven't set up none of the equipment that we never leave home without now. And it's the same four guys, same pickup truck parked in the exact same spot, and before we do anything, we get another rock thrown at us. It was almost like we kind of joke and we say he was just saying hi that he remembered us.

And that was just his way of saying, I see you and I know I remember you. Was it a big rock that was thrown at you guys? I'd say that it's probably about the size of a basketball too. And it had pretty much the same effect that the first rock had when it came down in the water. and made that sound, and it rained down and whatnot. I mean, it was very surprising because we, like he said, we hadn't made a noise or nothing. I was just standing there, and I just happened to just see it come flying over and just laying right in the middle. And I was like, whoa.

I didn't believe it at first because I was like same place, same everything. Yeah, I mean, a rock that size, it hits someone. It's going to kill someone. What was going through your mind, Abby? I mean, when this rock was throwing at you? I was surprised that it had happened. First off, I was pretty surprised if we'd even had anything because I had most of the time I go in to like every hunt,

I guess we would say, well, not expecting anything to happen because there's like half the guarantee that anything won't happen, which is then the fun part that when something happens, that's the fun part. So most of the time I go in not expecting anything to happen And when something happens, it's pretty surprising. And I'm like, whoa, this is, you know, something cool to talk about and something, you know, to give out there to people who are interested in this stuff. And I don't know. I couldn't say for my friends what they had to say.

But I would say that it's pretty crazy that like just this stuff happens and whatnot. I say it's pretty fun, though, to go out and go do it because it's pretty random of what would happen. It kind of freaked the other two out. Yeah. They were all ready to go again at that point, which we stood around for probably 30 minutes after the rock happened. And there was nothing that we saw again or heard again. By this time, we've invested in a thermal camera and we've got it out, not seeing anything. Everything's blue and cold.

Of course, it's February. I'd expect it to be blue and cold, but there was nothing else happened that evening. We've had a lot of various events happen in the same place. Because lots of times the guys will surprise me, the boys will, and they'll say like at 10 o'clock, Dad, we want to go squatch it. And so we wind up going to this place because it's only about six miles, five miles, like I said, from our house. and so we wind up out there at various weird times. And we've had multiple rocks, not including those two events, but we've had multiple rocks thrown at us.

The most recent one, we had what sounded like a handful of pebbles land all over my truck. And it wasn't parked under trees. It was in a clearing in the road So anything nothing fell from the sky is what I'm getting at Anything that landed in my truck was thrown in my truck And the boys they've now that they're older They've gotten a little bit more braver So they don't stand right beside me anymore

They had actually ventured down the road about 75 yards And I was the one standing by the truck but they heard the rocks fall on the truck. And they come back up there. None of them were still on the truck, so I don't know if it just hit the sides or what had happened, but there was no rocks that we seen laying on the hood or anywhere. Yeah, can I ask you, Gene?

Because you've been doing this for a long time, and I picked up on this probably, I don't know, five or ten years ago, where people would get rocks thrown at them, but they would never get hit. you always hear people going, oh, yeah, it landed right at my feet. And what's weird is no one ever gets hit with these rocks. The only time people get hit with these rocks is when they engage with them. I had a gentleman one time on the show.

It was in Florida, and they had just gotten off a boat. And he thought it was a guy up on the hill throwing rocks at them. And he got sick of it. None of the rocks were hitting him, but he was getting irritated by it. So he picked up a rock, and he hurled. it uphill and actually hit this thing. After that, he was getting beamed with rocks left and right. I think he ended up in the hospital, but this thing wasn't missing anymore. You know, when you hear about their aim, I mean, it seems kind of weird that it's like perfect. Like no one ever gets

hit with rocks until you engage with them. What's your take on that? Right. And the big rock that I seen coming through the air. I mean, for me, something that could have thrown it as far as it did a little bit more ump than it could have, you know, been a whole lot closer to us than what it was. And like I said, it landed 20, maybe 30 feet away. The night that all the rocks landed on the truck, I mean, it was almost like something had picked up a handful of pebbles out of the road and just threw. to the truck.

And I was standing right beside it. I was actually leaning up against the driver's side fender. And not one piece of debris hit me at all. So, you know, Great Apes do a lot of intimidation behavior. And throwing objects is one of them. Thrashing trees and breaking trees is a intimidation practice. banging on trees is an intimidation practice. Bluff charges are intimidation practices.

And Great Apes do all of these types of things when they just want you to leave them alone. Now, by the gentleman interacting with it and doing the intimidation practice back to it, then that spard a confrontation. And that's why he then become getting hit. So, yes, I feel like they have a pretty good aim. Yeah, I think for me it's a little more than just a really good aim. I get that primates will throw stuff at you. I've seen at the zoo where a primate will pick up its poop and throw it at you,

kind of sling it your way. And it's 50-50 whether it's going to hit you. And I can't really say that the Great Ape is aiming. He's kind of throwing in your general. direction. You know, even MLB pitchers, you know, guys who are paid, you know, they, this is what they do for a living. They throw things. They throw baseballs. And, you know, sometimes they'll hit a batter intentionally. But there's a lot of times where these guys hit batters and it's unintentional. And this is what these guys do for a living. And for Sasquatch, it feels like at times it's like,

man, whether it's day or night, you'll hear eyewitnesses go, like I said earlier, yeah, fell right at my feet. You know, this big rock came crashing down, fell right at my feet. And for me, it just feels like there's something weird going on there because that's, it happened so, so much to where eyewitnesses report that. It seems more than just great aim. Yeah, yeah, I fully agree. seems to me like there would be a whole lot more injuries and even deaths if they really wanted to.

I guess that's how I look at it. But I fully agree with you. I believe that they could drive nails with rocks if they really wanted to. And I know that you're kind of a science-minded guy, Gene. Over the years, what kind of evidence have you collected? Let's see, down in, I was working an archaeological project down in Wayne County below the Cumberland Dam. And it was a what we call a phase three project, which means that we're down in the pits with our trials, just like you see them doing in Egypt and shows and stuff. We were working in one spot for, I think it was three weeks we worked there.

And I found a 14-inch-long track, which I sent you pictures of it. And there was another thing. Did you see the picture of the three holes in the ground? Yeah, and I'll post those pictures. I did see the three holes. I thought there were knuckle prints at first, but they looked a little deep for that. When I stumbled across them tracks, big muddy field, what we had done was, we had the topsoil stripped off of this area with a bulldozer.

So there's nothing but mud. It's mud everywhere. And when I first saw the track, it was right up against a pile of the strippings. So here's this big mound of dirt, and it was right beside it. And I could tell where there was other ones, but they had no definition. It actually, I thought it was somebody that was wearing a pair of boots had walked through there. And what actually caught my attention was the three holes.

And so I'm kind of looking at that. And then all at once I noticed that the footprint I'm looking at, I'm like, holy cow, there's toes. And then I figure out that this is a barefoot footprint I'm looking at. And so I immediately go switch from archaeologist to Bigfoot researcher mode. and I've got my tape measure out and I'm trying to take the best photos I can. But I'm trying to figure out what in the world is these three holes.

And I finally, I've decided I've gathered all the evidence that I can because I don't have casting material or none of that type of stuff. Probably couldn't have cast it them as muddy as it was. But I go to get up and I put my hand down on the ground to raise up and I looked down at my fingers, and I'm raising up on three fingers. And I thought, hmm, and I took my hand and reached over and stuck them in those exact three holes.

So the only thing I can figure is, and this is just my hypothesis, is that the Bigfoot for some reason squatted down, and when he raised up, he made those three holes. because it was almost just like I reached up and put my hands in my fingers in a bowling ball and holes. I mean, the hole was a lot bigger than my fingers. But it was perfect alignment. I didn't have to adjust my fingers at all. They just straight up off the ground,

straight into those three holes. There was a couple of other things happened on that project. One of the things that happened, we would be working. And, you know, it's not really a super quiet process. as people are always talking. Somebody seems to always have their phone playing music. But several of us got to talking how we could, in moments of silence or sometimes just above the noise of the work in progress,

it sounded like people were talking in the woods. But we never could actually catch it to where we could actually hear. It just sounded like people were talking. and it sounded like there was movement in the woods sometimes. But we never saw nothing. And, you know, in full disclosure, there's plenty of deer. There's bear in the area. That was the first place I ever saw a bear in the wild was down there.

So there's plenty of wildlife activity. Now, one day I decided I would try a little gifting. And this kind of gets a little weird. I had one of the people that was on the project with us had some oranges that were going bad. And they were going to throw them away. And I was like, no, give them to me. And I had got a couple of apples from the hotel that morning. And so I took a stick in my knife and I put an orange, two apples in the center,

and an orange on the end of this stick. And I found a tree that was just behind where we eat lunch at. And there was a V in the tree where it forked about seven foot high. So I knew it was out of range of any deer or anything foraging off the ground. So I took that stick and I laid it in the forks of that tree. The first day we come back, it was still right there. Nothing had changed. The second day, we come back, something had took the stick down, had took the end orange off of the stick, removed both apples, and then put the orange back on the stick, and laid it back in the tree.

and I couldn't figure out if it was a squash, why would it do that? And then I realized that, you know, it theorizes squashes migrates quite a bit, and I'm sure they do. But there is also squashes that take up residence and stay in a given area. So if this was a Kentucky born and bred squash, for lack of a better term, it had never seen. seen oranges growing in the wild. So it didn't know what an orange was, but it knew what apples were. And that is the only thing that I can piece together in my mind as to why something would have removed the orange, took the apples, and put the orange back.

On top of the simple fact that it would have had to have hands and, you know, been tall enough to have reached seven foot up in a tree. So, which is not a great feat. I'm six foot tall and I can reach seven foot. up in the tree, no problem. Or it was smart enough to not want your rotten oranges. Well, there's that aspect of it, too. They were rotten.

So that is a possibility as well. But the fact that it removed the orange and put it back instead of just throwing it on the ground. I was intrigued by that. I looked around, you know, I've read a lot of cases of gifting where you give something, the squash gives something back. I could not find anything that had been given in return. There was one day I had to run out to town and we were working

and where we're working is about a half mile off the road. And since we had a co-ed group, we had a port-a-potty set. And of course, a port-a-potty truck couldn't go back in that muddy field, so we had to leave the porta potty at the edge of the road. And I had run to town, and I was coming back, and there was a little dip in the field just as you're coming out of the woods. And I had the window down. I was going pretty slow.

I went through the dip, and I heard somebody yell, hey. And, of course, I crammed the truck on. I thought it was one of the coworkers that was going to the bathroom or from the bathroom and was wanting to write. And so I stopped the truck and looked around and there was absolutely nobody there. But something yelled hay at me as I was driving through that little section. And on a linguistics note, hay is probably the easiest vocal word that can be produced. So just throwing that out there for what it's worth. Can I ask you, Gene, you know, these creatures are seen all over the world on different continents and different countries.

And, you know, it seems like all we ever really get is sound recordings. We get footprints. We get what Dr. Ben O'Noggle used to call trace evidence. Sometimes people get them on film, but it's far and few between. You know, you're getting rocks thrown at you, but you guys didn't even see the creature. why do you think it's so hard to catch up with them? I know the argument with the mountain gorilla, but the mountain gorilla was discovered 123 years ago,

and with Sasquatch, it's like, we just can't catch up with it, as opposed to the mountain gorilla. Right, but when they discovered that, they had to, scientists had to place their faith into locals to lead them to where the mountain gorillas were. They had spent all this money and all this time blundering through the jungle trying to find them.

And when they finally trusted the locals enough to lead them out, that was when they actually made the discovery. I think where you're going is why hasn't anybody proven this? Yeah, I'd love to hear your take. Well, I think more than anything, I mean, these animals, you know, with their anatomy, they've got large heads. So that means that they should have a large cranial capacity. So they should be big brain. Now that does not guarantee that they are super or overly intelligent.

But they've got to be smart enough to know when they're in danger. And they can recognize danger. And if they can recognize danger, then they can associate danger with human beings. Because in all honesty, we're the only thing that could be dangerous to them simply because we have fire power. And if they can associate that way, then they can avoid us. Yeah, I think it's that and we're also pack animals. It's hard to beat pack animals. Yeah, exactly.

You know, kind of going back to the mountain gorilla there for a second, you know, with the mountain gorilla reports from the locals, at no point did you get anything paranormal. They were just describing these weird beasts up there that ended up being the mountain gorilla. But at no point did you read a report where someone was saying, oh, and by the way, their eyes were glowing. Oh, we saw these creatures up there in the mountains. And oh, by the way, we also saw these weird lights. flying around. And so what do you do with Sasquatch when you get these reports from credible people,

you know, hunters that are like the eyes were lighting up like Christmas trees. It was not eyeshine. Or you get a guy like Les Stroud who is less off the air is very black and white. He's a real scientific guy, believe it or not. And when he was telling me about this incident where he saw these two creatures, he experienced what people call mindspeak during the same time he's having this encounter. And again, Les is very black and white. He's a pretty scientific guy. What do you do with some of the weird stuff that people will tell you that happened during their encounters? Well, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. And honestly, a lot of the paranormal stuff has really just come into play within the last five or six years as being something

that is commonly reported with that. The only experience were anything like that has even remotely happened, and I'm not saying it was mind-speak. It could have just been me being a little creeped out. we had went to a new place one night, and it was just me, Abby, and one of his friends, a boy by the name of Brady, and we were kind of in a recreation area, and we were just kind of checking it out. And we decided just to pull off and listen, maybe make a noise or two, and see if there was anything going on. and so we we did that and the longer we stood there the more creeped out i got and i've been

hunting since i was seven years old eight years old i've never been creeped out in the woods even when i had my encounter and felt compelled to discharge my weapon to protect myself i was not freaked out but the longer we stood there the creepier fished and just come over me. And finally something in the back of my mind said, you need to leave. And I'm not saying that was mind speak. I'm not, you know, pushing for anything like that. It was just a voice in the back of my head said, you need to leave.

And so we abided by it. We got in the truck and we left. Yeah, I would disagree with Eugene on it. being where only the paranormal stuff has been reported for the last five or six years. If you go ask most Native American tribes, probably eight out of ten of them will tell you weird paranormal woo stuff when it comes to Sasquatch. They'll talk about it walking in between two worlds. What does that mean? Or you'll also hear them call it the Big Brother of the Woods. When they call it the Big Brother of the Woods, that's a term of familiarity like a spirit, you know, something that you're familiar with.

And so there is a long history of weird paranormal stuff that does get reported. I think researchers over time have whitewashed it because they want it to be an ape. That's my opinion, of course. Have you guys ever heard of the miners up at Mount St. Helens, that whole story? Yeah, ape canyon. Yeah, the ape Canyon account that happened back in the early 20s. What's your take on that whole thing? Well, the story that I've heard for that was that the miners drew first blood.

I heard that one of them actually shot one of these creatures and it fell over a cliff. And then that was the afternoon that led up to the attack on the cabin. is that the story you've heard? Yeah, that is a story. You started about 80% of the way through, though, as I did. If you get a chance, go look online and find Fred Beck's diary or a journal that he recounted the whole thing of what happened to them. And I think even Cliff Brockman might have one in his museum there in Oregon. But when you read what Fred Beck wrote in the beginning, there was some bizarre weird things going on there.

The spirit showing up, telling them where the mind was at. There was a lot of weird things that went on there that Fred Beck could have left out because it's bizarre. By the time you get to the point of the cabin being attacked, it sounds relatively normal compared to everything else they had been through. I'm telling you, if you get a chance, go find Fred Beck's journal. I believe it's online anyway, and you can read it for yourself. But, you know, most researchers skip over that really weird part and just get to the point of, oh, these apes attacked this cabin. There was way more that went on there.

And again, I'm not trying to sell you guys on Bigfoot being paranormal. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, you know, in some of these situations, you kind of have to go listen to the whole story. Well, you know, I had a real strange experience down at Peabody hunting once again. I was standing in a clump of trees and I was overlooking probably a 40-acre field. And there was some woods coming up out of a holler to my right. And I was looking to the east, I believe it was. and this

this buck charges out of the woods and he's probably 150 yards away from me maybe not quite that far but he's got his tail tucked and he's running

wide open and I hear something else coming through the woods and I can actually hear what sounds like it breathing and I'm like, what in the world would be making this deer run? Because it was a pretty good size deer. And I remember thinking, okay, well, the only thing that can make a deer like this run is a bigger deer.

And so instead of immediately shooting the buck that run out, I'm waiting on the other one. And like I said, Wes, this happened, you know, 150 yards out. And this deer, when it charged out, it started running right towards. me. So I'm sitting here waiting for the other buck to come out and this is where the weird thing happens. All at once, I realized that the deer that I have been watching run toward me is already past me. And there has been nothing else come out of the woods. and it was almost like this deer went from 40 yards in front of me to 20 yards behind me instantaneously at the snap of a finger.

You know, it's in point A one second, the very next second it's in point B. Because I did not visually see that deer run past me. But all at once, it was in front of me and then it was behind me. It was almost like my brain shut down for a second or two. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's strange, Gene. That's really strange. I've told this story before, but one time Woody and I were out hunting,

and we never talk when we're hunting. It's always like hand gestures, and we're relatively silent when we're going through the woods. and one time we were out there and probably, I don't know, 100 yards away, something like that, I can even tell you the distance. And this was during the day. We heard what sounded like a Clydesdell horse charging us. And we both stopped for a second. We looked that way and there's nothing there.

There's absolutely nothing there. But you can hear it coming. And we're standing in the path of this thing coming, or at least I felt like I did, because I couldn't see it. And Woody and I both kind of backed up. We were facing each other. He backed up. I backed up.

And whatever it was, it ran between us. There was nothing there. But it sounded like a freaking Clydesdale horse coming like it's going to run us over. I mean, it was bizarre. It was, you know, and I don't even know what to say about it because, again, there was nothing there. There is weird stuff with Sasquatch, you know, like. I had a listener one time, send me an email, and they were talking about, talking trash about Cliff Brockman, you know, from Bigfoot and Beyond.

And they're barking up the wrong tree. But he's, and he's kind of goofing on Cliff. He's like, oh, yeah, Cliff says if their eyes glow that they would be blind, isn't that the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? And I'm like, no, Cliff's 100% right. If your eyes were to glow, you would be blind. He's not wrong. He's 100% right.

And so when you get those reports of like more than I shine, but their eyes are actually glowing, it just, it's like I don't know what to do with that. You know, I ask everyone on the show, Gene, what do you think Sasquatch is? What's your take? Okay. Well, I mean, for me, they're a relic homin of some kind. Be it be homo habilis, hidalbergensis, you know, I've heard. theories of it being both of those. I personally feel like it's a

descendant of gigantopithecus gari. That's the camp I fall into. Total flesh and blood animal as far as I'm concerned until I'm proven different on that. But that's, I knew you were going to ask that, so I

kind of put a little thought into it. But 100% primate relicomondens is the camp I fall into. Gene, what is a gigantic apithecus gari?

I've heard of the other one. Is it kind of a branch off of the other giganapithecus? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, see, there's two giganopithecus. There is a giganticopithe blacky and a gigantopithecus

gara. And this a bigfoot like creature could come from either one of them, but the gari, if I'm

remembering correctly from school, was more recent in evolutionary time than Blackie was. Yeah, you taught me something, Gene. I'm going to have to look up that giganticus Garai. I obviously knew of Blackie. And I think with Blackie, it's jawbone and with the teeth, they theorize, or I think it's more than a theory,

because they can kind of tell what you ate after, just by looking at teeth, that the Blackie mainly, ate bamboo. It would be a bamboo eater or two as well west. That's, you know, everybody talks about it having the conal shaped head. That's a sageal crest.

And the reason that a primate would have a sagenal crest is because he would have a larger mandible, the bottom jawbone. And that's how they are able to eat their wood and vegetational diet. But to operate that big jawbone,

they got to have a lot more muscle than what we would have. What a human is is what they call glacial and what an ape primate relic homin would have would be a robust. And that saginal crest provides more room for the muscle attachment to the top of the head. Everybody says the Sasquatch doesn't have a neck.

It obviously has a neck, but the trapezoids and the neck muscles are developed so much from carrying around that big jaw that they, that's what gives them that Christmas tree look across the back when you see a profile of them from behind. That's why it looks like it's a dress flowing down from the top. of their head. The muscles are attached to the satchional crest that gives them more strength to chew their woody diet gives them more crushing power to eat anything that they want to.

Yeah, that's interesting, Gene. I've never heard anyone explain it like that before. That actually makes a lot of sense. Avi, what's your take, brother? What do you think Sasquatch is? I honestly would have to say, I pretty much agree with my dad on all fronts. that they're like descendants or a branch off of like gigantic, gigapithecus gari and whatnot, however he said it. But that's what I believe. I'm in the same boat as him. So that's my take on it.

Yeah, well, I appreciate your answer. And I'm going to have to look that up, Gene, that giganapithecus gari. Like I said, I thought there was just blacky. And yeah, I'm going to look into that. I really appreciate you guys. coming on, sharing your evidence, sharing what happened to you and your son, and what happened to you when you were young, Gene. I really enjoyed chatting with you guys. Thank you so much for coming on. It's our pleasure, Wes. Thanks again, guys. 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. Until next time, everyone. She's got a smile and it seems to me reminds me

a childhood memories where everything was as fresh as a bright blue sky. And now and then when I see her face, she takes me away to that space. special place if I stare too long I probably break down the cry

child and mine the skies is if they I'd hate to sincere a child at high eye for the thunder to quietly pass me by