SC EP:1218 Three Strange Days
00:00 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 forward.
00:54 I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet that what I saw were bears. What happened 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 bale, sir? Yes, I'm looking right in.
01:28 Uh-uh. This is Alicia from Kennesaw, Georgia, and you're listening to the best podcast on the planet, Sasquatch Chronicles. Happy New Year, and welcome to the show. Tonight we'll be speaking with Preston. In 2017, Preston and his friend went out on a three-day fishing trip into the Anorondacks, and it turned into a very strange and unforgettable three days. I'll let Preston go into it.
02:29 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 Preston to the show. Preston, thanks for coming on. No problem. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you being here. And I know back in 2017, you and your friend had a very scary and strange three days out there in the Anirondex.
03:06 I want to ask you, prior to this happening to you, what was kind of your take on Sasquatch? Well, I mean, it was always interesting, I suppose, you know, watching Monster Quest and things like that after school. Besides that, I didn't really give it any thought. I've always been in the woods since literally I was in diapers. You know, I have a picture of me with my grandfather and my first cousin holding the brook trout. I was in diapers and an alf hat. So those are some of my first memories. I've just, I know everything that's in the Adirondacks.
03:39 I've been familiar with it my whole life. I just never thought something like this could be there. It just, you know, it's kind of mind-boggling. I just, I don't understand how something that large could be in an area. I mean, the Adirondack Park is a giant park, but it's not, it's not as isolated as everybody thinks. There's very isolated pockets around the park, and it is heavily forested. A lot of people think, you know, the Adirondacks was clear cut, and it's just not what it was, but a lot of that old growth has grown back, you know, second cut, but it's still old growth.
04:19 These are very thick forests. It's very unforgiving terrain. the bugs are incredibly vicious it's a special spot it's a special place it's old you know it just feels old it feels like it has just a memory to the land it's just home you know I love it
04:38 I don't live in the Adirondacks anymore but I'm very very close to the park so I'm there as much as I possibly can be I hear you well if you would would you start from the very beginning kind of take me back to 2017, what were you doing and what happened? Okay, so my fishing partner, we love brook trout fishing.
05:03 That was kind of our whole thing. We have our Kevlar carbon fiber, Kevlar hybrid canoes. And there's just backpacking canoes. You know, you put them on your back and you hike as far into the woods as you can. The farther away from the road you get, the better the fishing is. and the DEC stocks a fair amount of ponds. I don't know what the current brook trout pond population is. I think it's over 300 now, but anyway, we were just doing our ritual, you know.
05:37 I used to work all winter, and I'd take off spring to fall, just to fish, just to fish for brook trout. And my buddy did the same thing. So we get our stuff. We get it to, you have to cross a large body of water, eight miles or so to get to the trailhead. You get to the trailhead. Get all your stuff unpacked. Get it on your shoulders. Start hiking it.
06:02 The first, the first leg of the hike is about 1.2 miles till you hit a lake. And you can either, you can either paddle this lake or you can hike around the lake. We chose to paddle it. You know, it's just, it's easier. it's a lot less taxing. And you can throw the rod out the back and fish on your way across the lake. So when you get to the other end of that, that lake, trail picks back up. Then it's another mile or so to another lake.
06:34 And then the trail turns north. And this is where the trail turns into a bushwhack. Now, when we used to go there, it was a bushwhack trail. You know, it was very, very rarely used. We've only seen a few people there ever. One was just a through hiker, an older gentleman, and the other was a group of younger guys that were basically following us. We walked past those lakes, and they just decided, well, those guys must know where they're going. So about seven hours later, they ended up on that lake that we were intending to be at.
07:12 We hit the bushwax section of the trail, and it's always pretty muddy, and it's uphill, most of the way. It's not a crazy uphill lake, but it's high country on both sides. And on the right side, if you're facing north, the right side has the outlet of the lake. So there's always like a little creek running
07:31 that feeds back into some of the other lakes. On the way up, there's mud pits, there's all kinds of little obstacles. The Adirondacks is known for its slippery mud and roots. And, you know, it's just a little bit of a battle
07:47 getting back there. It's nothing crazy. Maybe I'm making it sound worse than it is. It's not terrible. It's not great. And it can be taxing, but it's rewarding. So, especially when you get to the pond, you get to the pond. There's a nice campsite.
08:05 Now, the campsite, the original campsite is on the south end of the pond. For some reason, just the way of the mountains around the pond are configured, swirls the wind in a way that pushes all the old peat and everything just just formed like a tiny little island at that end of the pond. So it's just all, it's just peat.
08:27 So everything is like a drum. Like it's spongy, but it's hard. And it's just root laden with pine roots. And you can feel anything. You can feel pine cone drop. Feels like someone threw a baseball at the ground under your feet. But we get our stuff settled in. get our tents put up.
08:48 You know, usually we we would just want to get out and fish immediately, so we'd never stack wood or do any of that cut wood right off the bat. We'd get right out there and we'd get fishing. So we get out there, we're trawling. We know exactly where to go. We've picked this lake apart.
09:06 We've been here many times. Go right to the hot spots. Immediately start pounding fish. It's just one after the other. Nice. 20-inch brookies, you know, in between 14s, 15s, really healthy fish. And as I said to you in the email, we're all catching a release. So we release everything unless something's mortally wounded.
09:32 That day, that night, the first night we got there, nothing, we didn't mortally wound anything. So we went back into camp. We have these, you know, those mountain house MREs. We got those not cooking. but we can boil in the water and let them sit in the bag and getting them all ready to go go off into the woods get a little bit of a get a little bit of firewood going and then you know sit down eat our eat our food and uh i always do a a big loud big foot call and smack a tree just one time get a log smack a tree i've always done it it was always a joke i never did it for
10:15 any other reason than to actually screw with other campers, you know, in less past, uh, less backwoods areas, you know, some places like Sarnac Lake or on fish ponds or any of that, Paul Smith, there's people that, they swear to God, Bigfoot's there, but you were there in probably 2010 to 2014, it was probably just me screaming in the woods and smacking trees. Well, we just did it as a joke, you know, just a couple of guys out in the woods just acting like fools. So I did one of those.
10:48 You know, we get a little chuckle out of it. It's kind of, it's just time to go to bed, so we hit the sack. I'd say somewhere probably around one or two maybe, big tree comes down, just a large tree. And it wasn't very far from camp and just out of nowhere, you know, boom, comes down, shakes the shit out of the ground. We pop up out of our tents. I yelled at Casey. I said, Casey, you hear that?
11:21 Yeah, dude, what was that? What was that? I think it was a tree bub. He's like, holy shit, what are we going to do? I said, I don't know. It wasn't windy. There was nothing going on. It was a calm night.
11:33 You know, there was no reason for that tree to fall. Not that I could articulate. I thought maybe, maybe a beaver. They're nocturnal. It was close to the edge of the pond. Logically, that would make sense, but it was an awfully large tree. And it seemed to be a healthy tree when I went and looked at it. I didn't see any beaver chewings on it or anything like that.
12:00 So I don't really know how to explain that. So we'd just go back to bed. It's no big deal. And I snore pretty loudly. So our tents are quite far apart. And I'm moron. on that kind of that peat mound where you can feel everything and anything. But morning comes and we're both awakened by what sounds like something smacking a tree.
12:28 And it's just rhythmically doing it. It's just every three seconds, boom, boom, boom. And it does it for 45, 50 minutes straight. I mean, it's from when it's dark out, until sunrise. As soon as the sun rose or it was, you know, just regular sunrise, it would stop. We'd sit there and we were looking at each other. Like, what the hell is that?
12:57 What could it be? And then, you know, we sat and we talked about it. What the hell could it be? What could it be? What could it be? I don't know. Woodpeckers, maybe it's a woodpecker. But I've, I just, it didn't sound like that hollow,
13:12 log, woodpecker, and it was just, it was consistent. It made no sense. It was just consistent every time. And it was, it was, I don't know, it was deliberate. You could just tell by how it was happening. It was just deliberate. It was forced. It wanted, it wanted you to know that it was being done.
13:32 I don't know the reasoning behind it, but it wanted you to know that, I don't know, I don't know how to explain it. the noise that you guys were hearing was it like someone hitting a tree with a bat? Yeah, in a way. You know, it sounded more like maybe not like a slugger or something, but like an aluminum bat kind of. It sounded like fiber on fiber.
14:00 Don't get me wrong. It sounded like wood on wood, but it sounded like, it sounded like the smaller log was the hollow log and it was hitting a solid tree. I don't know why I think that. It's just what pops into my mind when I hear it. If I revisit it in my mind, that's what it sounded like to me,
14:17 which doesn't make much sense because something of that, that strength or that stature of swinging something like that, you'd think a hollow log would snap against a tree. But this just kept on echoing out, you know. And it was for, it was 45, 50 minutes, at least, every morning. for three mornings, four mornings. So it was strange. But the sun came up.
14:46 It was time to do other things. So we got back on the pond, ate the granola bars or whatever we had. Got back out there was another good day of fishing. No big deal. My buddy actually caught a nice 18-inch male brookie, and it was mortally wounded. So we brought it back to camp, ended up cutting it up, cooking it up. And it was good. It was delicious fish, but we decided to go back out after that.
15:16 And on the way out, we go all the way to the other end of the pond. Now, this pond is, well, it's not a pond. It's a lake. This lake is about two miles long, and it's about a mile wide. So from paddling to the campsite all the way to the other end of the pond is, it takes a while. And it takes a while to get back. And for whatever reason, the best fish is at that side. at that other end of the pond.
15:40 So we stay there right until dark, like right till twilight, and then you paddle back essentially in the dark. And when you get halfway down the pond, on the left side of the pond, if you're looking north, there's like a little peninsula that comes out. And on that little rock-laden peninsula, there's a couple of big old-growth pines, and one leans out maybe a 45.
16:04 Not maybe not quite a 45, but it's a big tree. It's probably got a five to six-foot diameter. and it's it's definitely old growth and when I'm paddling back my buddy is more in the center of the pond and uh his canoe was a little smaller a little lighter so he was probably a good 20 30 feet ahead of me but to the left and as I'm paddling drifting by this thing you know it's dark in the woods but there's something darker in the woods I look over at it I do you know I just catch a glimpse of it. I can't really make heads or tails of it. It's just it's kind of moving.
16:48 It looks like it's kind of looks like it's swaying or it's trying to get a better vantage point to see where we are or what we're doing. But it's also so dark that I just I truly can't tell, but it is darker than the
17:04 woods, the surrounding area. It's darker. I mean, there's no way it wasn't something. But I didn't think much of it. Like I said, I thought maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. Maybe I thought it was a bear. I don't know.
17:22 And I know it's dark now, but was it like a figure looking around a tree? Yeah, yeah, in a way. But I mean, you can see what looked to be shoulders in a head, although it was blurry. But it was definitive movement, like, in a way that, you know, go outside on a half moonlit night and have an intruder on your property trying to hide behind a tree. You're not going to be able to see exactly what it is, but you're going to, you know, you can see the intent of the motion of the movement, you know, that just the way it was moving was enough to convince me that something was there. It wasn't just a trick of the eye or trick of the light. Something was there. I believe something was there.
18:16 But I convinced myself that it was just a trick of my mind, you know, because of where you are or where we were. And you don't want to put yourself in that headspace right before bedtime, especially when there's, I mean, it is a, it's not heavily populated with bear in there, but there are bear in there. You know, we've seen bear in that area. And there aren't a lot of people there. I mean, that that lake itself, not including through hikers, probably only sees maybe 20 people a year fishing, maybe.
18:52 We've never, besides the ones that followed us in, I've never seen anybody fishing there. I know of a few people that do fish there, but they don't stay for the durations we used to stay or anything like that. So, I don't know, you know, we knew it wasn't a person at any rate. I knew it wasn't a person. Casey had no idea. I didn't tell him about it. So I just, you know, that held that one close to my chest. So we get back, we do our thing.
19:18 You're ready for bed. And there was a giant thumping. Like I said, where we slept, you slept on this big giant peat mound that's been pushed up for thousands of years. I don't know, since the last glaciation. It's been pushing in there. So what you're sleeping on is just a giant maddening. of peat and then root balls from pine trees and spruces and things of that nature. So it's like a drum.
19:43 You're like sleeping on a drum. And I just felt something and it just kept getting closer and closer and closer. And since I saw that thing, I immediately thought, bear. So I yell to my buddy, get my headlamp on. I'm like, get up, bud. Get up. Something's out here. Something's out here.
20:05 He unzips his tent. He sticks his head out. he's got his headlamp on. I got my headlamp on. And right beside my little bivy tent, there's just a giant snowshoe hair. And it's the biggest snowshoe hair I've ever seen. It's a it's a big hair. It's just huge. And at first, I was like, are we so far back? This thing has no concept of human predation or, or that we could potentially predate on this thing.
20:36 But it didn't seem like that. I got out when I started walking around and it started following me. And then it sat right next to my foot. Then I walked to the fire and it walked right to the fire with me. Casey got up and this thing sat like between him and I for no real rhyme or reason. I even made a joke to Casey. I was like, you want to have rabbit for dinner tomorrow night? I could conch this thing out.
21:00 And I'm not that kind of guy. It's just a bad joke. You know, I've never killed anything in my life. I don't intentionally kill anything besides, you know, the odd fish. I don't kill stuff. So anyway, that was a bad joke. And I think this thing just felt safe with us. You know, I've, every one of my stories that I've had that's been odd or kind of paranormal in a way happens around the water.
21:29 It always happens around the water. And I fly fish. I'm an avid fly fisherman. I've had numerous times. I've had fons just run up to me while I'm fishing and just kind of sit next to me. I got videos. I got a video I can send you of a fawn just next to me. Doesn't care.
21:44 It's just sitting there. I'm telling it to go with his mother. Won't go. It's just sitting there watching me fly fish. It doesn't care. I just think this thing felt safe. Like it was getting away from something. I don't know.
21:55 It just made me think why would that, why would that animal put itself in the position to potentially be killed, and consumed by something that could easily do it. And it just, it doesn't make sense to me. So we go to bed, leave the rabbit out there. Another tree came down that night. And it was very close to the place where the tree came down the first night we were there. So at this point, you know, the trees coming down.
22:26 That's kind of like old hat kind of thing. Whatever, whatever. Wake up. Same exact thing. Beating on the tree. boom boom boom same exact thing 45 50 minutes same exact rhythm same exact cadence it's just boom boom boom you know it's just getting old at this point we don't know what it is it doesn't seem to be harming us in any way shape or form so go on about our day get back on the pond go to the
22:56 other end at the other end facing north on the left side facing north is a giant don't dome-shaped mountain. I mean, that whole end of the pond itself is kind of like a high ground starts halfway through the lake on both sides, and it's kind of like a horseshoe. But on the left side, more towards the middle, but that end is a giant dome-shaped mountain. And I think it's around 3,200 feet, maybe a little less than that. But it's shaped like a giant dome. And on the back side of that mountain, there's a cliff. that overlooks the entirety of the wilderness area and other ponds over that way. And you can get cell phones reception there.
23:44 So my buddy wanted to get up there, make contact with his girlfriend. Just let her know how everything was going and to get a bit of a weather update because the next day we were leaving. So he starts hiking up there. And the first three or four hundred feet of the climb is you're all you're on your hands and knees. You're literally climbing on your hands and knees and clutch into roots just to stay glued to the side of this thing because it's so steep. And then it tapers off and then you can gradually walk. And then when you start getting into the dome portion of it, it's it's decent walking up on top of there.
24:23 But the initial descent is, is kind of terrible. So he's up there doing what he's doing. doing. I'm parallel, directly parallel across the lake to where he is. And, uh, you know, I said if I see a little, little tree shake and just think it's Casey coming down. I yelled to him, yelled his nickname, which I'm not going to say on here. And, uh, something just went, just went ballistic, just went crazy. I've never heard screaming like this in my entire life. It, it was, it was so loud in piercing and it was it's uh it's hard to explain
25:07 that it had like two different vocal ranges like how ear piercing it was sounded like a woman who was just getting heinous acts committed on it. It was it was wild. I mean it was so loud and piercing but then there was like an undertone of a something thick. It was
25:30 it was like a resonative thickness to the sound of that screen that and like I said the that whole area was surrounded by mountains is like a natural amphitheater and it felt like it was directed right at me you know what I mean felt like it was hitting you're right in the chest or you just feel it or hit I don't know how to explain it but it felt like it was hitting you and uh I I didn't know what to think and as this thing's screaming it's it's wrong running it's running on the hill parallel on the hill to where we have to climb up on our hands and feet this thing is just cranking out it's it's going i don't even know how to judge it it's just cruising it's absolutely cruising and there's there would be no way i don't know a
26:19 human on the planet that could run that quickly that fast hitting trees i mean you're i'm not talking, you know, 12-inch diameter trees or anything like that, shaking that. But, you know, five, six-inch diameter trees that are, you know, still 15, 16 feet taller, just shaking, going crazy while this thing's running through it sideways on a hill that's over 45 degrees. It's it. It was insane to me. And I didn't know what to think. I thought Casey was getting killed. I thought he was dying. I thought he was actively dying. I didn't know if there was a predator. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know if he was going crazy. I had no idea what was going on. So I started paddling over there. I get over to the shoreline, which is steep. The shoreline
27:05 itself is steep. And I start screaming up the hill. And as, you know, I'm screaming up the hill for a good two, three minutes. Finally, I find a little spot to get my canoe in because these, these kevlar's and these carbon fibers, you got to find the perfect spot otherwise you can snap them. And it's not just for lack of not wanting to get out and get Casey immediately. It's just finding a spot to get up. So I finally find a spot to get up. I started getting out of my canoe. And as I'm getting out of my canoe, Casey starts coming down the hill or starts making
27:37 noise as he's yelling to him. He just comes down, he, you know, a nonchalant, like nothing happened. Nothing happened. Kizzi. And I'm like, dude, you can't be doing that. You know, I'm using some specific words. I said, you can't be doing that kind of stuff. And he's like, what do you mean?
27:53 I said, you can't scream like that, man. I thought you were dying. He had no idea what I was talking about. He had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. I said, you couldn't hear that? He's like, no, I was on the backside of the mountain. He's like, I heard something, but I just thought you caught a nice fish. I said, dude, if you were here to hear that, it would have been insane.
28:13 And I don't know how he feels about it. I know he knows that I was serious, that I heard it. He didn't get to witness that scream. but he he saw some other stuff so on the way back uh you know we going for that night and i'm pretty much done at this point mentally and physically so the next day it's time to go anyway so uh we start start going to bed or getting ready to go to bed or whatever loading the fire up i mean just loading the fire up i wanted a big fire that night had a big old bonfire and kind of just settled down into the tent and all night long, all night long from that end of the lake,
29:01 you could just, it just sounded like a group of people having a conversation that you just, you couldn't quite understand. It was there, you know, there was base to it. There was multiple, multiple people or things, I don't know, and you could hear something, but you just, it sounded like a language to me, but you just had an earshot, just enough so you couldn't hear it. And then every once in a while,
29:30 you just hear just a little scream, like a baby version of what I heard, just a quick, the one I heard lasted probably a good six to seven seconds. And I know people don't say that sounds like a long time, but if you hear a wild banshee scream for seven, second straight. I mean, it's a lot longer than you think it would. So these little screams were just coming in a little short, like a little bursts, like little second screams, like yips
30:02 almost. And that's, it's just odd. It was just an odd counter all together. I was ready to go. I was ready to leave. So five, five 30, five 45, that morning, we're getting our stuff together. We're ready to go. Six mile hike out. We got to get out of there. About halfway down the trail, the trail is is a high country on both sides of it like there's on the left side as you're exiting there's a little hill and on the left side of that there's a stream then it drops down and you get this little wet area a little wet hole and the wet hole is about 20 feet long maybe about 12 feet wide and then it goes back up another slight mountain side we'll say it starts going uphill pretty aggressively.
30:48 And right in the middle, well, the DEC likes to line those things with old deadfall. They'll cut the fallen trees and they'll plank them out and they'll put them in there so people can have something to step on as they step through the mud holes. Now, when we came in there, there wasn't even a shoe print in there. It wasn't a boot print, wasn't a single thing in that mud hole. The only boot prints that were in that mud hole when we got there were ours coming in. So when we were coming out, it's as something, it's as if something had walked off that hill, directly stepped in the middle of it, and then just walked right up the other hill. And I don't know what the span would be, but you're talking one hell of a span.
31:32 And it was, uh, it was just one singular footprint. And I've, I sent you the footprint. I don't know if you saw it, but. And I don't know how to judge, I would say my best recollect. was it was probably around it wasn't outside the realm of human possibility beside it i would say the the width of the foot but it was probably 12 to 13 inches if if if uh i'm right and remembering but the width seemed off to me and then i kind of sat there and i examined it and examined it i took a video of it and i got right into it i was taking the video of it trying to figure it out i'm looking
32:13 see if it's a double step bear print. But even if it were, which I just don't see how, there would be no way for that bear to only step there in that one spot and not have left any other prints beside it in any, any way, shape, or form. I just don't know how it would have accomplished that. So that was probably our best, that was probably my best piece of evidence when it came to what happened that weekend. trip. Yeah, I'm looking at the picture you sent me and I'll post it underneath this episode
32:49 on the website. You know, I just don't see anyone going out there and taking their shoes off and landing in mud with their foot, especially on the middle of nowhere. And it does look like one of their prints. It has a very human-like appearance, but kind of the dead giveaway is how wide it is. It's like a real boxy footprint. Yeah, I put it through some programs trying to like detail it and look at it and stuff. And it just, you know, you can see five distinct toes in my opinion. And another thing where the piece of wood that's right next to the foot itself, that kind of splintered piece of wood, that's throughout the entire mud pit from where the
33:32 DEC lays these things down. So if you're walking out there barefoot, you got bigger balls than I do. I'm not going to. of you doing that. Yeah, I hear you. What was your buddy's thoughts? I mean, what was kind of the conversation afterwards after you guys found this print? What did he think? Kind of the same as mine. You know, he, uh, we, we tried to logically explain these things away. And his old lady is from Montana and I believe she is of crow descent. I want to say crow. She's a crow native. She's a Crow native. So, you know, we talked about it because we had another experience in the same in the same wilderness area farther back that was strange that I got a picture of something.
34:21 I can't find the picture, but she called it the little people. And that's a place I'll never go again. I've never felt such dread in my entire life. It's just like as soon as we walk out of that swamp into that, because that's old virgin timber. Never been touched. It's like the Pacific Northwest. I mean, these trees are towering. There's nothing. there's no undergrowth. It's just all canopy. And as soon as you walk in there, you just feel like you're not allowed or you're not supposed to be there.
34:47 That's another story. But Casey consulted with her about it. And, you know, the same thing my buddies have told me. Some of my native buddies are, you know, they're just spirits. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. Let me ask you before you go into that, back when you were in the boat and the same kind of screamed at you and had that.
35:08 and had that banshee scream. You mentioned how fast it was moving. Were you basing that on the fact that you were seeing these trees be smacked as it went by? Or did you actually see it up on the hillside? I never got a proper look at anything. So the morning we left, when I said I got sick of it, the morning we left, it was still smacked in the trees. So I ran into the woods trying to find where this thing was coming from.
35:38 And it was on the left side of the creek, up on another little start of a hill. And you could see the tree it was hitting. It was a giant spruce tree. And it was because the tree itself, only that tree was moving. And then when I got there, it immediately stopped. I didn't see anything. I've never seen one. I've never seen one.
36:02 I hear you. Well, I wanted to ask you in your email you had mentioned seeing strange lights. was that during this trip? Yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah. So this area is fairly close to a military base as well. So, I mean, anybody who resides around the Adirondacks or hikes or you're going to hear jets. They're everywhere.
36:28 You're going to hear in sonic booms everywhere. They're annoying. You know, it's not very peaceful, but it's just part of the park. It's just going to happen. That was the night I saw. the black shadow thing. It was one, singular. It just came down.
36:44 It, like, descended over almost exactly the middle of the lake. And then it kind of, it just started to dim. You know, it looked like an old, like an old light bulb from the 50s, that kind of glow. Kind of orangeish. Kind of, I don't know, like a dull sun. But it started to dim, started to dim, and then it would just, disappear and as it would disappear two would come out of it they were smaller they were brighter they would do their things zigzag a little bit around the i mean we're talking right over
37:19 the tree tops at this point that's it's not very far away from me and i'm i'm absolutely petrified aliens i mean anybody who knows me that's my biggest fear i don't have any fears other than that that's my phobia i'm afraid like if i got caught by a gray alien i'd snap my own neck kind of thing I'm not with that stuff. So I'm looking at this stuff. And I actually have a recording of that somewhere. I just, you know,
37:44 it's on an older phone. I think it's on an old S5 or something. But probably five light, five of these little balls, the light come out of this one main light, and then just eventually kind of peter off, and then it's just gone. That was it.
37:58 And that's not the first time my buddy and I have seen that. We've seen it on a different pond over a more populated area. and that was very strange. But the strangest thing about that, the one that I just spoke about, was probably five to ten minutes after those lights, those jets were right over the pond, just going all over the pond, middle of the night.
38:24 And it was wildly annoying. So that doesn't really give you a good, warm and fuzzy feeling. When you're in the middle of nowhere, you see some lights, and all of a sudden you got F-60, teens or whatever they are flying over your head, you know? I didn't like it. How big was this light?
38:42 And he said it was kind of an orange color. Yeah, it was like the main light was like an orange color. I wouldn't say it was any larger than a beach ball. And then the ones coming off it were probably, I don't know, volleyball to softball size. It wasn't far away. It was just over the middle of the pond. I mean, it was just hovering there.
39:08 How many lights actually came off of the main light? About five. About five off the main one. But it's odd the way it can. So the main one came down. It started to kind of dim out. And one would come out one side. One would come out the other side.
39:26 And it would get dimmer. And as those two were fluttering and flicking away, two more would come out, the exact opposite side of where those ones came out. I mean, it's kind of what it looked like to me anyway. And then that main one itself just kind of looked like a dematerialized. And I don't know if that turned into the fifth one, because I believe it was five.
39:50 I would have to think it was five. And then they were all pretty much a uniform size and light. And that kind of looked like just an LED light floating around. And these lights that you were seeing, did they vanish before the planes actually showed up? Oh yeah, yeah, they were good and gone for about five, five to ten minutes. And you had mentioned that you and your buddy had actually seen the lights before. Was this similar to what you guys had seen before?
40:21 It was similar in the way that, so the first time it happened to us, as the crow flies, we were probably on a pond that was maybe 35, 45, 45, 45, 5 miles. away from this pond. That was odd. That was like a string of lights. Not like Starlinked string of lights. It was like one light and then it would grow into another light and then it would grow into another light.
40:48 And then it grew into like a hand shape, not like the shape of an actual hand, just like the light, the balls of light had tendrils off them and they'd, those tendrils would develop another ball on it and it just kind of reminded me of fingers and knuckles and it was strange. The light just kept growing, but it was staying stationary over the pond. The light was growing and undulating and it was, it was just weird. And it was, I think that was 2011, 2012 maybe. You know, I've seen the lights and I'm not sure what they are. But based on your email and based on your description, you're not seeing like a
41:31 flying saucer. It's a ball of light. What do you think that they are? I really, I truly don't know. I mean, there's so much going on on this planet. I just, I don't really know. It's paranormal of some sort, in my opinion. Maybe not. Maybe it's a technology.
41:51 I'm not sure, but it seems awfully paranormal. The way it seems to know, like, when you're watching. I mean, I guess that's no different to technology. No, I know exactly what you mean. It's almost like it's watching you as much as you're watching it. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And the ones that I've seen, they're about the size of a softball, maybe a little bit bigger.
42:19 But I've heard them as big as cars. I really don't know what the heck these lights are. Tell me about this little people incident. you mentioned earlier i'll say that was july of that same year and it's in the same general area so this this hike is 11.2 miles in one way it's one way in 11.2 and one way out 11.2 and we go to this lake to uh to fish and that this lake is 8.3 miles in and i heard from a dc officer's oh man there's four pounders everywhere back there you know it's four pound brook trout as far as the eye can see.
43:00 I said, yeah, right. I'll believe it when I see it. So Casey and I decided to go, and we, I think we bought a couple of the cheapest kayaks we'd ever got from Walmart, like Sun Dolphin kayaks. I think they were relatively, relatively light. I think they were 23 pounds or something like that. So we dragged these things all the way back in the woods and fished and fished and fished and fished and, man, I've never caught so many brook trout in my entire life, but there wasn't a single fish that was over 15 inches,
43:34 so it wasn't really worth it to us. But it's a nice area. It is a beautiful area. So we knew of this other pond that was beyond it, and it ends up being 11-something miles. And I remember reading some literature about when in the 50s, the D.C. was going through and stocking ponds by helicopter and plane, and some of these ponds themselves never actually died.
43:59 from acidification. So it really didn't, they didn't need to be stocked with anything. And some of those fish persisted, regardless of the inferior genetics that the state stocked over top of them. And I had it on good authority that there was still some big fish being caught
44:15 on this specific pond, or this lake, rather. And there was this dragonfly flying around. And my dad died when I was a very young man. And for some reason, the dragonfly was just, It reminded me and my dad, and I was like, Dad's at you? And it would land on, man.
44:33 I'd be like, hey, man, what should we do? Should we stay here? Or should we go to this other pond and catch giant brook trout? And the thing fluttered around and it, like, landed on the tip of my hat. And I said, good enough for me. So we pack up and we go. I'm thinking maybe the devil sent that dragonfly. That was the weirdest place I've ever stayed in my entire life.
44:56 I mean, uncomfortably, uncomfortably strange. I'll never ever go back there. We left our kayaks back there, which I don't litter. I don't litter. As a rule, I don't litter. But my buddy and I left two giant hunks of plastic kayak back there, and I don't know whatever it became of them. Hopefully the DEC got them out.
45:15 But as you leave this first pond, you come, it's a decent little walk. And there's a lot of fresh moves sign and stuff like that. So we've come across some fresh moves tracks. and then all of a sudden, you know, something explodes in the woods and you just see a big black thing running through the woods. It's just the back end of a moose. So that's what we assumed. And maybe to this day it is, maybe it wasn't. I have no idea.
45:41 But it was loud and it was moving trees and it was going through the woods fast. And you come up to a swamp, and this is a giant swamp. You look at the swamp and you're like, that's not that big. That's easy to get through. As soon as you start getting in there, it's like a patchwork of, puzzles, it's like a maze because you've got to walk on these logs that the DC have laid out. It's like a jigsaw puzzle that you got to walk on. And you don't really have any concept of the other side.
46:07 The other side was never, the logging companies were never able to get past this swamp. So this whole tract is all virgin timber. It's the largest track of virgin timber left in the Adirondacks. So you don't really have any concept of how big these trees are because they just look like normal sized trees. But you're so far away, you don't really know. As soon as you get close to these trees, I mean, these things are towering. You got gigantic hemlocks. You got giant white pines that are five foot, six foot in diameter.
46:39 You can't put your arms around them. There's absolutely no undergrowth. You can just walk wherever you want because everything is closed off from the canopy. There's no life there. As soon as we walked up on that bank, just got that feeling. You know, that weird right down the bank. back of your neck, hair prickly, just that feeling, that weird, weird feeling. We push through it, whatever, you know, we're here to fish.
47:06 So we get our stuff in there. Get on the pond. Worst fishing I've ever had in my entire life. There's clearly no trout left in that pond. So I'm kind of pissed off that I expended all this energy in time. I just make up camp. Now, there's a lean two back there. And in the 90s, we had what we call them.
47:26 microburst and it blew down a lot of these old growth trees. It's like a cascading cold air mast. They liken it to a tornado. It's just a wall of air that just blows trees down. So there's a bunch of these old trees that are still laid up and, you know, it's like an obstacle course, but a lot of them are cut. And they're table-sized trees, you know, there are just chunks of stump that are just the size of tables,
47:52 just laying around everywhere. And it's all moss covered and, you know, it's very, very Pacific Northwest like, I suppose, in a way. That's, if you walked into there, if someone just dropped you and told you was a Pacific Northwest, you'd believe it. So we get ready for, for bed. The light's just starting to wane. It's not even dark yet. I'm just tired from all the hiking.
48:15 As it gets darker, it just gets creepier and more quiet. Like the frogs that you heard before were gone. There was no birds. I mean, it was, it was a silence. like you've never heard silence before. It was the ear piercing silence. It was almost inferiorating. I don't know.
48:39 It just got on your nerves. You know, maybe the tinias in my ears. I don't know. Just the ringing. It was so quiet. You can just hear your own heartbeat in your ears. And it felt cold, and it wasn't cold. It was early July, I think.
48:55 It was either late June or early July. but it was not cold out and it wasn't we're not in like the high peaks here in the adirondacks it's not crazy we're crazy high elevation where we were but if it just felt cold just completely felt cold and then we're sitting around we have a little fire and we're we're talking and i hear some movement so i look over there i said Casey there's uh probably some coyotes over there He was like, you think so? So I don't know. Let's see.
49:26 So I let out a coyote just seeing if they'd answer back. Nothing answered back, but there was a hell of a lot of movement coming out of that swamp. And it was very clear that things were flanking us. And my buddy was getting visibly upset. He's like, don't do that, dude. Stop. Come on. Stop.
49:46 I said, just coyotes. What are they going to do? They're not going to do anything to you. And just to prove a point, I took my headland. put it on my head, walked off into the dark, turned my headlamp off and just kept on walking looking for things. When I turned that headlamp off, I got about five, six steps. And I just, I felt like I stepped into a pail of liquid nitrogen. I mean, I never got so cold. I've never been that cold in my life. It just got cold and frozen. I was just there.
50:18 And it was just like something was there. It was just, there was just, there was something there. And it didn't honest there you know that feeling i don't know if you ever had that feeling of dread like you ever had sleep paralysis where you're laying there and something's coming undulating and you can't do anything that that kind of fear i don't know you ever had that yeah i have yeah that is that kind of fear but you're awake and you're alive and your heart's beating and it's it wasn't i ended up running out of there obviously back to the back of my campsite and i just told casey going to sleep As soon as I wake up, I'm out of here. I don't care what I have.
50:57 What I'm leaving, what I'm doing, I'm out of here. He's like, okay, okay. And then all night long, these weird, like, lucid dreams of these little things. And there was no difference. I say it's a lucid dream, almost like you were sedated. And everything was just the way it was. But you were just sedated. And there's these little short, little white, grayish things.
51:22 just everywhere, just everywhere. But in the dream or the lucid dream or whatever it was, when I, when I'd look at them, they'd look right back at me deeply into my eyes and then they just kind of dematerialized. And it was just weird. It was just weird. And I just never felt more uncomfortable in my entire life. I mean, to that point, this is one place I'll never, ever go again. Couldn't pay me. Any amount of money wouldn't go. Don't care. There's nothing you could do to get me there. And as we were packing up, I just take out my phone. I'm just taking pictures, you know, it's still a beautiful area. It's absolutely a beautiful area. The trees are huge and it's kind of hard to capture on photo just how large these trees are. You don't often see
52:10 that around here. So I'm getting some pictures, blah, blah, blah, blah, and some pictures of the old cuts and all that and on the way out. And I thought I saw something. I didn't really know. I just flashed a picture. We're talking an old cell phone, just 2017. So it's not a super amazing cell phone camera sensor, but it did the trick. And fine, we get back. We get back down the trail.
52:42 We get back to the truck. And usually our first thing to do was stop into a gas station, just get some greasy gas station pizza because we've been living off those mountain house MREs and maybe the odd fish or two. You just, you know, you lose like seven pounds on one of those trips. You're just tired. You need that grease to get you going. So we're sitting there slamming this greasy piece of pizza and I'm just flicking
53:04 through my phone, fricking through the pictures. And all of a sudden, that's a little spot. I said, I handed my phone on my buddy. I said, what does that look like to you? He's like, I don't know, dude, but I don't like it. He ended up sending the, either I sent it to his girlfriend or he sent it to his girlfriend. I can't remember. But she said it was the little people.
53:24 And I don't know. I've never heard about the little people. Of course, I'm not from Montana. I don't know if that's more of a Western mythology that they ascribe to out there. But I don't know if the Mohawks do out here, the Hauden Ashoni or whatever. Yeah, almost every Native American tribe has kind of a lore about the little people. And I've actually had a few people on that. the show that have run into them.
53:52 It's odd, but I have heard eyewitness testimony of seeing these things out in the woods. And the dream that you had, you know, if you were thinking coyotes, you think you would have dreamed about coyotes, but dreaming about these little people is very strange. There was also one part that I can't remember what it was, but Casey and I in the dream had an identical storyline in the dream and interacted in the dream just like it was real life. And we both, he knew parts of it that I knew.
54:28 I knew parts of it that he knew. The only difference was, I felt like we were led to believe this was a dream, and that was just what happened. We knew each other's dream because we both lived in that same space. You know what I mean? It was just happening.
54:45 Yeah, that's really fascinating that you guys had the same dream. A little creepy, too. But, I mean, it's really fascinating that you guys knew each other's parts of the dream, which makes me think it probably wasn't a dream or it could have been. I know with a lot of the Native Americans, they'll describe these things as being very physical, but also being very spiritual. And the eyewitnesses I've talked to that I've seen them, they kind of describe what you describe of these little things like, dematerializing and just vanishing. It's very strange. But there is a lure with it. And if you ask most Native Americans, they'll tell you nothing good comes from these things and to stay away from them that they're very vicious. And the history of the little people with the Native Americans goes back as far as Sasquatch. And you had three very strange days on this trip. I know you didn't see Sasquatch, but I think if you take that out of the equation, it's like, well, what else could it be? What else could you guys have been experiencing? I ask everyone on the show, what do you think Sasquatch is? What's your take?
55:54 I don't know. I mean, through the years, you know, looking up some of the research, saying that the mitochondrial DNA is human and then the Y chromosome isn't, is, is, is not in Gen Bank or something like that. One would think it would have to be fairly closely related to us to be able to hybridize if it was a hybrid. I just, truthfully, I just think it's, it's been explained to me as a spirit.
56:22 And, you know, that's pretty much a broad term for everything we don't understand, I suppose. It has to be somewhat physical. It's making prints. It's eating food, smacking trees.
56:36 I think it's migratory, because after this very trip that, that I spoke about with what I would assume was Bigfoot. We were on the Northville Placid Trail at the very end hiking up into it. And that's, you know, an eight mile hike to the pond we were going in there. And we were hearing screens all night there too. And it was the same time of year. I almost think it's like a migratory thing.
56:59 Or maybe it's their breeding season. And they had a rondacks or hard, would be hard living in the wintertime. But, you know, if they had that baby and kids, carried it through winter, it would pop out on the right side if their gestation period was just a little bit shorter than our gestation period. You know, they'd be coming out in May or June. And that's perfect time. That would be the perfect time in the Adirondacks.
57:25 There's food everywhere. Or at least it's coming. But I don't know. I don't know. It seems physical and it seems to have characteristics of being paranormal as well. It seems to be a good mixture. And I don't like, I don't like what that means. I don't like the implication of that at all.
57:44 What do you make of the reaction of it just banging on that tree or just the overall behavior? What I kind of get from it is when you guys went over to that little island, I almost kind of think that's where they were at. And that's why you got the reaction you got. But what do you make of the behavior of what was going on there during this trip? I don't know. you know, I've heard some stories where it seems like it was a lot, a lot more, I don't know how to say it. It seems like it got under people's skin, skin a lot more than it got under my skin somehow.
58:25 I mean, it rattled me, it shook me up. But I think it was initially because I thought my buddy was getting hurt. So I think that's why I was initially not even scared, just more concerned. But then the aftermath of it is what, you know, made me sit and think, like, what and why would it? I mean, territory, yeah, territorial, for sure. That makes sense. It could have been a territorial display of some sort. I would have to assume it was a female.
58:54 So then I would assume maybe a smaller individual was around with mom and maybe, you know, we're taking over the mountain over there or something. I don't know. but I would like to think that that thing could easily toss my buddy right off that hillside, no problem. I mean, there's a 200-foot cliff not far
59:16 from where he was talking on the phone if you really wanted to run up and punt him in the back. I think it could have got it done. So it's, I don't know, maybe their whole, their whole persona is just a scare tactic. Maybe they just want to scare you for entertainment.
59:32 I don't know. Yeah, I think a lot of their behavior is meant to scare you. It's a lot of bravado, and that's my opinion, of course. But it was three very strange days, very memorable and creepy and terrifying. And I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share it. I appreciate you letting me tell you. Thanks again, Preston. 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. And if you get a chance, check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows.
01:00:14 Until next time, everyone.
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