Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:1220 The Fort Benning Incident

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Tex writes "I am currently serving in the United States Army as an Airborne Infantry soldier with the 82nd Brigade, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Growing up, I had several strange experiences in the woods moments that didn't make sense at the time but, looking back now, could very well be connected to Bigfoot or Sasquatch. My most significant encounter, however, occurred in January of 2025 during a field training exercise with my basic training company at Fort Benning, Georgia. What happened wasn't a single sighting, but encounters with what I believe were three separate beings possibly a small family group of Sasquatch inhabiting the forested outer edge of the base. I'd heard plenty of stories about unusual activity on Fort Benning and other military installations, but I never imagined something like this would happen to me especially not with a witness alongside me. During one night in our patrol base, we had contact with two large entities. We fired blank rounds, and things quickly escalated into complete chaos. The following day, while conducting a patrol as a two man team, my buddy Hal and I encountered something large, upright, and covered in shaggy dark reddish-brown hair. It was partially concealed behind a tree at our 10 o'clock position, approximately 50 meters away, watching us as we slowly backed toward our patrol base. We both knew exactly what we had seen. We agreed not to say anything to the rest of the squad at least until our Drill Sergeants called us in for a serious, in-depth conversation. Some of the things they said and implied made it feel as though they already knew what was out there and wanted the incident kept quiet. I would be more than willing to speak with you further about this experience, and it would be an honor to be on the show."

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

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 years. This is about six foot nine, I don't know. Is he a male, sir? Yes, I'm looking right in it.

Uh-oh. Hey, Squatchers, this is Ian from the sunny southern U.S. And you are listening to the best show in the world. That's Watch Chronicles. Welcome to the show. Tonight we'll be speaking with Tex. And about a year ago, he was training on Fort Benning out there in Georgia and had a run-in with this creature.

And again, this was during a military training. exercise and I'll kind of let text go into it. It's fascinating how the base reacted to their encounter. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance, check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome text to the show. Tex, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, Wes.

Yeah, and before we get into your encounter, you know, thank you so much for your service to our country. I really wish, one of my biggest regrets, I wish I could go back in time. I'd have been right there with you guys. But thank you so much for your service. Yes, sir. Well, I appreciate it.

It's a family airline for me. It runs in the family. I have military all throughout my family. So when I turned eight, I heard my call and I said, you know what? I got to go do this. And I'm glad to do it so that, you know, those that I love and that I hold truly don't have to. Absolutely. If you would, Tex, just kind of start from the beginning. You're out there in Fort Benning, Georgia. We're going back about a year ago. What were you doing and what happened? Yes, sir. I joined into Fort Benning in the autumn fall of 2024 during this time. It was kind of the winter season, and we were taking a field event.

I think we rocked about 16 miles or so, and we rocked out, down in the, we're on the outer parcel, outer edge of the base, so heavily wooded hills, you know, country, it's out away from civilization. So when we got in there and our, all our teams, we had, we had five different companies. and every company they wanted to set up in a different spot. That way, if we were to get blown out by the enemy, which would be the drill sergeants at the time, that way if one team gets blown out, they can't find our spot. So most of the other platoons,

they put their patrol bases or PBs in close proximity to the main area. We took about a mile ruck farther back off, back in the woods. it was a little bit farther for us if we had to go get child or if we had to go up to the ammo point or control point for any reason but it was well worth it and because two reasons one I don't think this would happen to us if we hadn't been that deep and too our our position was not known until almost the last day there so it was definitely very good to get back in there so taking into what happened it was roughly 12 o'clock. We hit our patrol base, which is the shape of a triangle. That way, on each point, we have our high casually producing weapons, which are our saw 249 shooting a 5, 5, 5, 6mm, and our 240s shooting at 7662. All the, all the ammo we had was blank. It was no live, but it's still, it's still substantial, um, still has a substantial kind of, uh, noise, if you would. Um, the 240, it's, it's loud. You, you can hear it, for,

quite a ways when it goes off. And so we had those at each of the corners. We had six squads in our patrol base. We had roughly six to eight troops in each squad. In our platoon, I think it added up to close to about 60 people. We are pulling security. When we do security, we don't do one person here. We take sleep schedules so that some people can sleep.

We do a rotation so that equal amount of people are pulling security. and at this time on our line, we were, my line was, so let me tell you where we were stationed. There was a draw, kind of a draw on these two hills, and at the bottom of the draw was a creek. It wasn't super deep. It was kind of muggy and stuff, but we were on this hillside, and my line was facing parallel with the creek going along the mount side. And so we had, we had every other man on security at that point. And so my buddy to my right, he was, he was out, buddy in my left, he was sleeping.

But the guy on the opposite side, or right after him, he was awake. In this situation, actually, what had happened was my buddy Hal was the first one to have seen this, this movement at first. So we were sitting there I woke up at roughly 12 o'clock That was the start of my fire guard shift Or security shift And I When we're sitting there

We you're trying to stay awake You're just You're looking out in the tree line You're looking for movement We're all thinking the same thing Like you know No one's going to come in We're way back here

You know this is this is dumb Why you know why am I here Why are we doing this? And so we have We use night vision we call them nods. It's night optical devices. They mount on our helmets.

And so they flip down, they flip up. And so I could see better without them. I was having trouble seeing with them because looking in them, yeah, it lights up a little bit. And there's a little bit of moonlight that night. It was also partially cloudy too. So the moonlight wasn't coming through bright, you know, as it would be. But you can still see probably for about 10 to 15 yards in the tree line. And so at first, I want to say it was probably around 1245.

We had, there were some kinds of movement out in our 12 o'clock and our 10 o'clock from where I was sitting. Where we're sitting at, we had to dig these up. We had to dig foxholes, which those people that don't know that, it's just a hole that we dig out. That way you can lay your body in it, but you can still lean up over the burn. That way, if you're getting shot at, you can get down in the hole, but still shoot. And so on the burn in front of me, it's just dirt that I dug up. And then it's a little open its leaves. And then it goes to the tree line about 10 yards away.

I had heard movement. It sounded like someone walking. But it wasn't like walking, like a person walking. Usually if you have a guy walking, they'll take two steps. They'll stop. Or they'll walk through, you know, I'm making noise. You know, I'm here. And so it was more of like slow one step kind of slow deliberate.

And I looked over in my buddy Hal and I'm like, hey, are you hearing this? And he's like, yeah, I'm hearing it. And then he's like, I'm like, do you see anything? He goes, no, I can't see anything. We were looking out. He had his at his nods down. I had my nods down up. We were looking out.

We couldn't see a thing. It was, I'll tell you, I'll tell you what it was pretty bright that night. Honestly, it was like the moonlight was coming down. partly cloudy, but you could still see, you know, you could see really good without the nods. And with the nods, maybe a little bit better. And so as we're sitting there, I started hearing like thuds in front of me. And I wasn't really sure of it. So I laid up out of my foxhole and there's these pebbles about, probably about the size of my thumb.

And they're laying in front of me on top of the dirt. And I'm thinking myself, I was like, did I dig these up? Like, I don't remember digging these up. And I look over at Hal to tell him about it. And another one lands right there again. And I watched it roll as it hit the first hip and then rolled up on the burn. And I'm looking out in the woods and I'm like, who's out here throwing rocks at us? And so I look over to Hal and I tell him, hey, man, someone's throwing rocks at me.

And he goes, dude, I have a freaking stick laying in my foxhole. And I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, I'm telling you, dude, a stick just hit the top of my berm and rolled in my foxhole. And I'm like, all right. I said, just pulling the security. Tell me if you see anything. And so we're sitting there. And then Hal says, hey, I got some contact.

And I'm like, what do you see? What do you see? And we have to call it the three Ls, which is, or three D's, distance, direction, and description. And so he calls out, it's basically right at his. is 12 o'clock, just about maybe 10 yards, maybe 15 yards. And there's a big pine tree. Of course, in the woods, you know, you have small pine trees, big pine trees. Well, there's just one big pine tree, probably about a three to four foot diameter.

And on his angle, he's looking straight at it. But for me, I'm looking, I'm over to the right of it. So whatever's behind it or next to it, I can only see partial. You know, I can't really see what the angle is. He's looking dead on it. And he goes, dude, I'm looking at a boulder. And I said, a boulder. So there's no boulders out here around the edge of a hillside.

There's no rocks anywhere out here. He goes, dude, I'm telling you there is about an eight foot tall boulder sitting here right in front of me. I'm like, was it there earlier? He goes, no, there wasn't anything here. And I'm like, okay, just watch it. And then he calls out to it. So basically, we have a, when you're, they're in a patrol base.

If anybody in the patrol base wants to leave, go to the bathroom stuff, they'll tell somebody. But when they come back, we have something called a challenge code and a challenge password. And it's basically consists of one or two words that whoever's in the security line,

they shout out to the person coming in. And the person coming in will know it. They'll answer with that code. And we'll know, hey, that's our friendly bring them in. If not, if they don't answer with it, it'll be an enemy and that's when we take fire on them. And so he caught,

he threw out the challenge password and there was nothing. No movement, no words, nothing. And he threw it out again. And after the set, we don't have to do it two times, but usually we do it two times just to make sure after that second time, I put my gun on fire because I knew,

I knew we were about to light up. And there was no response. And then he started popping off rounds. I started popping off rounds. About that time, when you hear one or two M4 is going off, whoever's on the, on the corner of the triangle, the 240s or 249s, it's a belt, they're both belt fed. They're like machine guns.

And so they start firing off. They're just firing out in the direction. They're not firing in our direction. They're just firing out. So we're all, we're all shooting as in our line of fire where we're at. And at that point, everyone starts waking up. There's a bunch of shouting, a bunch of this. You know, everyone's shooting.

Everyone's contact, contact, 12 o'clock. And, you know, everyone's, you know, kind of distressing stuff. And how stop shooting? And he's not out of ammo. He shot, I think he shot up on semi-auto, but it was, you know, it was repeatedly. He shot maybe 10, 15 rounds at his mag, and he stopped shooting. And I'm like, How, pick your gun up. And he goes, it's running.

And I'm just, I'm shooting. I'm shooting. And then they're like, all, stop shooting ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire. So we all yell ceasefire. We do the motion for ceasefire. And it sounds like a locomotive barreling down this valley down into the ridge or down into the draw moving up towards the ridge. I mean, it was it was breaking branches.

It was thuds. And when it hit that water, we thought a tree had fallen over and landed in the creek of how big the splurring. flash sounded. It was, it was, it was, it was ridiculous how big this thing was. And, um, so at that point, we're still sitting there. I asked, how else asked me, did you see that? Do you see that? I'm like, no, man, I didn't see anything. I'm sitting on this tree and I can only see so much. And he goes, dude, it was like an eight foot tall boulder and it was just sitting there. And he said, when I started firing, it got up. Like, it, it didn't like stand up like with his knees. It just

turned and took off. And I'm like, I'm like, that's, that's not possible. I'm like, you're seeing stuff now. You're, you're, you're sleep deprived. He was, dude, I'm telling you, that boulder got up and took four steps and it was gone. And I said, I said, dude, I don't know what's going on here. And, uh, and so our PG, which is our platoon guy, he come over and he asked us, hey, you know, what happened all this? So we told him like, hey, we had some contact. We don't know what it was. It was a boulder. And my, my P.G is like, are you guys high right now? Like, like, what do you talking about there's no boulders out here and how i was telling them like dude i'm telling you it was a eight-foot-tall boulder and it turned and ran and and my pj goes oh you must have saw a big foot

and everyone starts laughing and stuff and yeah we i kind of giggled about it too and stuff um but it was it was just ironic because you know that's that's how it's got it's gonna in that situation um a lot of people would understand but uh for military guys we want to get through a situation whether it's like stressful or sad or something. We would joke about it. And then, you know, because laughter brings up the spirits and stuff. And so he said that and we all kind of started giggling stuff. And then our senior drill sergeant comes barreling down, down the draw.

And we yelled out the challenge password. And he didn't know it either. But he told us, he's like, hey, hey, hey, you know, shut the hell up. It's me. It's me. And he's like, I'll start smoking all you. You start shooting at me. and we didn't want to get smoked.

So, all right, let's not shoot. No, we're good. PG said, don't shoot, don't shoot. So he comes in and asks us, our PG goes and tells him, you know, talking about what happened. Hal told him what happened. I told him, you know, hey, you know,

I saw, I didn't really see anything, but I heard it. And how was the only one that really, you know, had the situation, you know, he was actually able to see it. And he was, he was shook up. He was like, when we were all laughing, he did not think it was funny.

was sitting there, he was, he didn't know what to think. He just, he was sitting there staring at the dirt pretty much. I'm just not, not like if he saw a ghost, but like, I think he was just contemplating his life decisions at that point. It was, it was kind of like, he just, he didn't know, he didn't know what it happened. I think he was in the state of shock. And, um, and so I, I jumped out of my hole because we're all up, we're moving around, you know, our position's been sold. We know, they know where we are now. So I jump out of my hole. I go to him. I tap him and he kind of jumps and jolts at me. I'm like, dude, like, calm down, calm down.

Just breathe. It's me, you know, drink some water. Just calm down, calm down. I took his end and four away from them because even though it's blank, I don't want him firing off around and then all, it's all getting smoke and stuff. So took his weapon off him. And that's when I pulled his mag out. Because I thought he ran out of ammo.

That's why it stopped shooting. And I look in there and there's still rounds in it. And I'm like, I'm like, dude, like, you have rounds in here. And he goes, dude, I had to stop shooting this thing. I mean, he goes, it's not real bullets, but it's still like, I had to stop shooting. Like, I couldn't shoot. My body would not let me shoot anymore. My buddy, Hal, he's a Texas boy.

He's a good old strong boy. I mean, he come up hunting, you know, he's out there. He ain't afraid of just about, you know, damn near nothing. And I could tell this really, like really shook him up. And he was not about it. And so we ended up, everyone. was up for the next two hours pulling, pulling security. And then we went back into rotation and stuff.

I ended up going to sleep. I wasn't on any more security detail that night or that morning. And then I don't know when I went to bed, I looked over at, I looked over at Hal, and he had wrapped himself in his blanket, but he was still sitting up. And I'm like,

how, just lay down and go to sleep, dude. And he's like, I'm not closing my eyes. There's something out there. I'm not doing that. and I'm like, all right, dude, you snooze, you lose. And I kind of joked with him, I went to sleep. And then we woke up, we went up to town and all that, you know, day went on, we did training and stuff.

That day, he kind of got better, you know, it was daylight. He felt good. You could tell when we were on movements, we, so when we move, we move in different formations. We have the wedge where it's kind of like a triangle. And then we have a file where it's just a line of us. We're all spaced out. And then we have staggered, where it's two lines on either side.

of the road if we're on a road, but it'll be every, like, it'll be offset. So we're not, so that way of, you know, someone gets shot or there's an explosion from a grenade or a 320, not everyone is injured.

It's more so, just that guy, whoever's there. That way the other guys can have more, more space to run or take cover. And so we were moving in a file because we were moving through the woods. There wasn't a long trail.

And we're moving down this game trail. And how, how's about two guys behind me, because, you know, we're on the line. As we walk up, when we walk up to a patrol base, and we set our position, where we set our position, that's where we're at to lay down. So that's where our foxhole is going to be at.

And so when we pulled up, you know, we cover our holes back in and we all moved out. Instead, we don't meet up at once point and then just take off. We pick up, grab our gear, we all take one step back. We kick some leaves and stuff over our holes. and then as a line, we move out. As same as we came in, we just move out. And so we moved out.

And so he was about two guys behind me. And I looked behind me and asked the guy. I was like, hey, man, hey, check on how. You know, is he all right? And he goes, dude, he's not talking nobody. He hasn't said a word all morning. And so I talked to him and look, dude, hey, we got training today. You got to clear your head because, you know, there's guys here.

We had a guy. We called him Charlie. and he was he wasn't he wasn't a bad guy he just he wasn't really he wasn't all there in the head he wasn't mentally strong and I was like you remember what happened Charlie and he's like yeah I remember what happened Charlie and all right don't be like Charlie today is going to be a good day last night's over we're going to get this done we're going to train and then we're going to go home I said when we get home you're going to love how good that hot shower feels you're going to have some good food we're going to be hanging out you're going to love it and he's all right you know

and he kind of shook it off anyway so Um, our, my second, second part of that is, uh, it was probably about a day, I think it was about two days later. Me, it was me and Hal again. We were on patrol. We were doing a, uh, a nighttime patrol, but it was a, it was a security patrol. It was a two-man security patrol. And so we had, we moved out from our, uh, our main patrol base, which we actually had to move patrol base because after we, we fired all the shots, we fired out that, that spot was

burnout. So we have to end up moving. Um, and so. we ended up moving. We moved probably about, I think it was, I think we moved closer back towards camp, just farther up on like the ridge line of where we were. And we did the same thing. We were on the other side of a draw, but a little bit higher up on elevation.

That way if something happened, we could get more elevation on where we are. Me and How had to take security. We took patrol. And how our patrol worked at the time is we could want to do it one and two ways. We could do cloverleaf where we kind of do a sort of. circle, we come back in, and then again, and then just make a big cloverleaf. But, you know, I was like, hey, man, I want to clear my head, you know, let's just, let's get some space, get some air.

So we just kind of did a big circle, kind of around our perimeter. Wes, I've been, I've been in the woods almost all my life. I know about hunting. I know about tracking. You put me on a trail or you drop me in the middle of the woods in the middle of the nowhere, and I'll find my way of the civilization one way or another. And there was a time when we were walking in the woods, and I'm like, I do not know we are and how how the good old country boy he's a good old Texas boy but he's not you know he's

not really inclined when it comes to navigation wise in the woods and not just that it's night time you know he you can tell he's jittery he's he's nervous and i have keep having time like yeah keep having to grab him kind of shake him out of like hey man you know i'm here we're walking we're fine we're good and um he's just he's on edge and and i i can see why and after after he had that encountered that that shock um i would not blame them at all and um and so we uh we were walking out and i can't remember how far from base uh from the patrol base we were but we were we were off a good you know we were off at least at least a couple meters um maybe a little bit more and um we were we were walking off and so we're headed down this game trail and we're at the top of this ridge

I said, hey, let's take this valley. Let's go down the mountain into this draw, and then we'll walk the creek back up. We'll go up to where the patrol base is, and then we're done. We'll call it there. He was, all right, so we got off the ridge line and started walking down. And as soon as we dropped down, probably about, I don't know, 10 yards off the ridge line, the air turned colder and everything was dead quiet. I kind of noticed at first.

I noticed when the sound of my boots hit in the leaves were a lot louder. And I put my hand back to tell him to stop. He stopped and he's like, what do you see? I'm like, be quiet. I'm like, you hear that? And he goes, no, I said, exactly. There was not a word. There was not a bird.

Usually at that, you know, at that hour you'll have birds, you know, a couple birds or an owl flying around. You'll hear the, you'll hear the bugs and such. and the water was just down to the bottom. And there was no wind. There was nothing. And it was just dead quiet. And I looked at him. I said, dude, this is eerie.

This isn't right. And he goes, we need to get out of here. I'm like, all right, just calm down. And said, we're almost there. Let's go down here. And then we'll take a laugh. We'll head back up the creek. And sure enough.

So we're walking. And I stopped. He stopped. And something else did one step and stopped. And we both snapped our heads to the right. And it was right at our 3 o'clock. And I said, dude, there's something over there. And he goes, yeah, I've been hearing it, but I didn't want to say anything.

I'm like, why didn't you say something? He goes, dude, I'm just, I don't want to say anything about it. I didn't want to think you're, you know, you think I'm hallucinating. And I'm like, all right. And about that time, we heard a tree snap at our 6 o'clock. So totally behind us, probably about 10 yards back, about where that ridge line was. So it was up on the ridge line. So whatever it was, there was something on the ridge line behind us,

and there was something on our 3 o'clock, probably about 10 yards off, and 10, 15 yard right in the tree line. But at the time, we couldn't use white lights. We couldn't use flashlights. We had red lights that we could use. That way, it's very low visibility, not only for us, but more so for the enemy. It's a lot harder for your eyes to adjust to them. And so I'm trying to my red light out, but I can only see, like, maybe a foot in front.

me and it's just woods right here. I'm like, okay, I can't see anything. I said, I just follow me and I'll watch my hands. I'll throw up a hand signal, you know, for halt and then for freeze. And so, um, so we're moving. I took three, four steps. And I can hear it off to my right side. It's about, I mean, it's, it's substantially large. Um, whatever it was at that point, I was not sure, but I was like, all right, you know, and this entire time I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, what's going quiet, air change? I'm like, this, this sounds like a bad story, you know, I've listened to your show for, for, for ever since it started coming out, I've always been super intrigued with Bigfoot with Sasquatch. Um, I've always watched the,

you know, history channels on and all. And I'm like, you know, I've heard about this stuff before. I, I, I, you know, this doesn't seem like coincidence. And we're headed down, well, we get down to halfway down this draw, and I stop, and he starts coughing. And I'm like, do you smell that? And he goes, dude, there's something dead around us. I'm like, yeah. And then we kind of start, we do a little circle, so we try to see if it's like a dead dead, dead or whatever.

And there's nothing, not a trace or nothing. And he goes, dude, it's really, really strong. Like, it's stronger than when we were up there, you know, coming down. And I'm like, well, here's the thing, though, if it was a dead animal and it it's down in this draw, the wind's going to move down this draw and up over this mountain. So we would have smelled it on the ridge, but we're not smelling it until we're getting just down here. And he goes, yeah, I don't know, dude.

And I'm like, all right. So I'm like, do you still hearing that? He goes, whatever it is, it's paralleling us. And there's something behind us. He goes, dude, we need to get out of here. And I said, all right, let's get out of here. Well, we got down. We kept going down.

As we were getting down, the smell was getting stronger. And whatever was behind us and to our right was closing. in close. I mean, it was getting real close. We couldn't see anything. You looked behind you. That night it was a lot darker. It was really, really cloudy. There was almost no moon. It was almost pitch black.

And whatever it was, it sounded like I could have reached out and touched it with how close these steps sounded. But we turned around and there's nothing there. There's just a trail. And so, well, all right, let's keep moving. I told how I said, hey, you get in front of me.

That way I can keep an eye on you so you don't run off for doing anything stupid. And How it gets in front of me. And I said, don't take big strides. And I said, whatever you do, do not run. And I'm like, you know about how prey's are, how prey and predator are. And you run, whatever that predator is, it thinks you're prey running. And it has a natural instinct that takes over and it's going to chase you and then maul you.

And then you're, you're screwed. I said, whatever you do, do not run. And I said, not just that. But if you leave me here, I'm going to kill you when I get back to base. And he goes, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm not doing that. And not just that, but when we move out, we, in basic, you have to do a battle buddy system. So wherever you go, you have to have at least one person with you. And this is a precautionated thing.

That makes sure, you know, something that something doesn't happen to one of the other guys. And so if he would have showed up without me, he would have really been, you know, screwed over. We both would have got screwed over. And I'm like, hey, you know, just don't run. Don't leave me here. You know, don't take up. Whatever you do, don't run. I said if it's a bear, you know, whatever this is, if you take off running, one, it's going to catch you because we're going up the hill.

And two, you know, it's not going to turn out great for us. And he's all right, I won't run. I said, just stay close with me. And so we started moving up. And whatever was at our 3 o'clock and then whatever it was at behind us, when we turn left, that would put our 6 o'clock at our 9 o'clock and our 3 o'clock at our 6 o'clock. So it kind of moved, it kind of moved, you know, rotation when we took a left. And we started walking, and whatever it was now, was at our 9 o'clock, at our 6 o'clock, and out of the 3 o'clock. So we had three of something stalking us.

And I'm like, dude, this is not good. And I said, all right, here's what you're going to do. I'm going to stand right here. And I'm going to be day quiet, lights out, turn your light on. And I want you to take about 10 to 15 steps up there. up the trail, you know, not too, too far. Just keep your light on. And I'm going to sit here and listen and see if it follows.

And he goes, all right. And I said, all right, go ahead. So he walks off and I'm standing there, nothing. Not a movement. No, there's no sound. There's just nothing. And that stance now is, is about the same as when we got to the bottom of the draw, where it's still really, really strong.

It's more of a smell of, um, it's like wet dog. musky rot odor and kind of if you take roadkill and you just let it you let it bake out in the sun on the hot pavement all day and then you poke it with a stick and it bursts open it's just it it smelled actually absolutely putrid um but at that point I smelled pretty bad too so I you know I couldn't really I couldn't really blame um blame smelling on it so I uh we're moving up and or he Hal took off and he stopped up there and he gave me a whistle and it was just like a and right then and there before I whistled back whatever was behind me at my six let out a whistle and it was the exact whistle that he just did to me but it was not me

and so when that whistle went out I just I froze and I'm looking I'm looking towards how and whatever this whistle is came from directly behind me, I freeze my tracks. I don't want to turn around. I'm standing here and I'm just, just frozen in fear. I don't know whatever's behind me. I'm like, it's going to grab me. You know, I'm dead. This is it. It's going to come up behind me, snap my neck, and, you know, I'm going to never see my family again. And, and so, oh, man, it's just bringing back, bringing back memories is, it's hard. It's hard to relive. So when that whistle came along, I didn't know, I can't remember what I told how. I don't know if I told him to stay there where I'm coming up.

I think I was going to do a leapfog thing where he'd walk up and then he'd whistle at me. I'd move up and then I'd walk up. But he didn't understand what I was doing. So, you know, it wouldn't really work the way I wanted. So I slowly started walking kind of up to where he was. and whatever it was behind me started walking up too. It was just steady, just kind of thud, thud, thud, thud, and it was, I mean, it was, you could hear the leaves crunching, you could hear, it was, it was substantially large.

You could tell whatever it was, had some size. We had a, we had a senior drill sergeant, and he was, he was a super jacked, dude, he was big, he was bulky. I think he wears about a size 12 shoe, a boot, and, I mean, compared. to this thing, he walks like, he walks like on feathers. This thing is covering a lot of ground in one footstep. And I move up, I get to him and he goes, he goes, he was what? I said, dude, you hear that whistle, right?

I said, do that whistle at me. And I said, don't do it loud. Just do it right here. And so he goes, he was like, and I said, I didn't do that. And he goes, no, I, he goes, I did. And I said, I know that respond. That wasn't me. And he goes, what are you talking about?

I said, I'm not the one that responded to your. whistle. It was at my six o'clock. I said, whatever that thing is that's behind us is intelligent enough that it knows to do a respond whistle to your whistle. And he goes, that's, that's, that's, that's not right. He's like, you're scaring me now. I'm like, listen, I'm not going to freak you out right now because I already thought, you know, I thought, all right, there's, there's, there's some big foot out here. You know, this, this is, this is exactly, you know, I'm putting all the key pieces together in my head. I'm like, you know, I've heard about this. The smell, the, the ambush, you know, paralleling you just to push you out of an area, the whistle. And so he starts freaking out.

I'm like, look, dude, I'm not going to tell you. I said, wait until we get back to, you know, patrol base. And I'll let you know. So we're, I'm like, let's head out. We're moving up this draw. I said, just keep an eye, you know, all around you. So he's, we're looking around. And whatever it is, it's still moving. And it sounds like it's getting closer. But every time you stop and turn. Like, I'll stop and do a quick swivel and there's nothing there. I mean, it's absolutely nothing there. And so we ended up, we moved up. And I think we walked probably like, it felt that night, felt like we walked like three miles. But when we, when we, from the bottom of that draw, moving up it, it was probably about 0.5 miles. It headed up that draw. And I'm like,

dude, we must have passed the patrol base. They must have all their lights off or something. I'm like, I don't hear anybody. I don't see anything. And he goes, he goes, I'm like, I don't know where we are. He goes, no, man, I'm telling you, whatever that thing is that's on our left at our 9 o'clock must have been between us and, yeah, it was between the patrol base and us. And I said, so for us to go to a patrol base, we'd have to go through whatever that thing is. And I said, dude, I mean, that's our only option right now.

Let's just, let's circle around. And so we're halfway up this ravine. And the hills and Fort Benning, they're substantially large. The valleys, they go on for a little bit. And so we're walking up and, you know, I'm telling like, hey, let's go. Let's just turn around and let's head up halfway up this mountain to where we know we put the pro base. We'll take a 90 degree turn to the left and we'll walk in a straight line.

And if we do that, we know we're bound to hit the patrol base. and he's like, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do that. So we did that. We went up, took a 90-degree turn, and we started walking back straight down. So we basically just did like a giant, like a rectangle from where we started, almost to a rectangle. And so we're moving down and I'm not hearing any stomping. There's nothing behind me.

I'm not really hearing anything. and we're walking and then I hear and then I hear and no no and it's more of it is like a knocking sound and I reached my hand out and I yanked him

and I said don't effing move and I'm like he's like did you hear that? I'm like yes did you hear that? And he goes dude he's someone's playing games with us I'm like no they're not playing games with us and he goes well what is it? I said we need to get out of here

right now. And, and so I'm like, hey, we're going to, we're going to pick it up, but we're not going to run. I said, whatever you do, don't run. We are going to airborne shuffle, which airborne shuffle is, it's, it's, you know, it's common for, for those that are in the airborne, uh, in the airborne, uh, division. It's, uh, it's, it's a mix from a, like a speedwalk to a run. Uh, you're not doing a full run, but it's more like you're running, but you're dragging your feet. Um, it's just, it's a, it's a slower run because when you have all your gear on with you, uh, you're perishing stuff, you're, you're, you're carrying a lot of weight and you don't want to run with all that gear.

It's going to tire you out real soon. So if you do a shuffle, we call it the airborne shuffle or the airborne run. And so I'm like, hey, let's just airborne run out of here. Okay, we're going to keep going down.

We'll hit the PB eventually. We'll throw out the challenge code and we'll be back home. And he's all right. And I said, I'm following you. I said, I'm going to have my hand here on your tap system, which it's like a,

it's like a chest rig that we had that we were wearing, has our canteen on it, has mag pouches, has our compass, has our map on it. And on the back, it has a clip where you clip it on the back of your back. I said, I'm going to hold your strap right here. That way, we don't get separated. And we started running.

We kind of shuffle. We were shuffling, but it was hard to shuffle because we're still on this kind of incline, and we're not on a trail. We're just kind of running through the leaves, slip in, just kind of, kind of just trying to make it stay level with this side of the mountain of where we think the patrol base is. and we're just kind of running along or we keep on shuffling whatever's behind us I can hear whatever's behind us now

it's back behind us it starts shuffling up with not really shuffling it's just like I mean it sounded like someone not beating the ground but I don't know if you've ever seen like a kid like when they run they kind of like they'll kind of like hit the ground really hard with their foot like if they're running and they try to stop or whatever

it was like that but over and over it's just like there's a big thud thud thud right after another and it wasn't running but it was substantial enough that it it was it was moving about it was matching our speed and i said just keep going keep going don't worry about keep going and so we were we were moving and he stops and i'll go what are you stopping for and he goes look and we look to the right and there's a trail we look to the left and there's a trail and i said so wait a minute this is a trail we were just on like 10 minutes ago he goes yeah, this is the trail we took down from the ridge.

And I'm like, this, this can't be right. I know, because I had a, I had a pace counter on my, on my rig. And I took a pace counter when we hit the draw and we set up the patrol base. And I measured it out enough. And even, even if that, I mean, this draw, you know, this mountain side, it's not really that big. So if we would have been moving, someone would have yelled out, you know, contact and we would have heard them. He goes, dude, this, something's not right. I'm like, I'm like, all right, we got to find that where we are.

We need some major, you know, land feature. So let's get back on this ridge. And we started heading up this ridge. And we're not, we're not, we're halfway on the mountain side down. We're moving up towards the ridge. And we're probably about 10 to 15, about 10 yards from the ridge. And he stops. He's in front of me.

And I'm like, what are you stopping at? Not a word. Not saying a word. He's just looking dead ahead. And I'm like, what are you looking at? and I shake them. I start shaking them. And he grabs me by my shirt collar.

He said, don't move. He goes, there's a boulder right there. I said, the boulder. And he goes, the boulder.

And we're looking at the trail. And because of where the ridd's line is, there's almost no trees on it. So there's a lot, there's a little bit more light coming through. You know, it's dark right there. And sure enough,

this boulder that was not there before is standing directly. in our trail, in our path, right at the turn for us to take a right to go on the ridge or take a left. It's standing right there, and it's just standing there. And we're both looking at it. We don't know what to do. We're frozen. We can't move.

We're in shock. We're just petrified out of fear. And at that time, that same whistle that Hal sent to me that, that whistle came from I left. And this boulder, which was not a boulder, the boulder from the ground to the top of it was probably about about five, five feet tall. It was probably about, I'd say, about four feet in diameter. And the big thing is there was no, there's no like, you couldn't tell, the reason it looked like a boulder is because, you know, a boulder rock as you, as you go up the side of it, it rounds up to the top. on a human, the shoulders go up and then it rounds to the neck and then to the head.

This thing had like no neck. It was just the shoulders straight to the head and it was like a dome pretty much. And so that's why we thought it was a boulder. And when that whistle came across, this boulder stood up, slowly stood up. And I can see it's on two legs because the light of the trail behind it is going between its legs. You can see the light. and you know how if you look at a background image, you can see, you know, through someone's legs,

even if it's dark at, you can see behind them. And so it's the same mode of like deer hunters, when they're, if they're in a ground blind, a lot of deer hunters, they have a black canvas or the backing is really black, and then they'll wear black gear and they'll cover their body in black. That way if a deer's looking in,

and even if you're wearing like camera or whatever, if you have light coming through the other side, they'll see your silhouette because your silhouette will will show on that over that canvas of where that light is. If it's all black and you're wearing black, there's no light coming through. They can't see through it. So it was kind of that situation where there was light on the other side

and we could see that this thing was in the way of the light. And it was, I couldn't tell, I couldn't really tell, you know, features of how it looked. I know for a fact that it was shaggy.

You could see, you know, Rimbals of the, the hair, it was kind of like a shaggy, like an old, like an old 80s carpet, pretty much.

Just kind of like that shaggy dog fur. But you could kind of see it. There was enough, there was enough light behind it that you could see that the shape and outline. And the shoulders, I mean, West, the shoulders were massive.

I mean, like this thing looked like it could tear me in half. No problem. Like, tearing down trees. So in Alaska, there's these they're called upside down trees. And there are a lot of people believe they're a symbol

that the Mnizanuk or the Bigfoot of Alaska had taken them, pulled them out of the ground and stuck them back in the ground because there's no signs of machinery. There's no chainsaws, nothing. It's just it's all natural. There's moss going on there. They've been there forever.

And when I looked at this thing, like I'm telling you this thing looked like it could do that with one arm it was it was crazy how big this thing was and and it wasn't fat either you can tell like when you look at someone's physique even if it's dark out

you know you can tell like you know they'll have like a big torso and then their arms will be kind of kind of fatty benouskin this thing looked like it was all muscle like it was just two toned all muscle fully stocked out and um and so we're looking at this thing

and this whistle that How did earlier comes from our left side. When that whistle comes through and that thing stands up, it just turns to the right quarters. So it's pretty much quartered to us. It turns around and goes right, it takes a left on that ridge line and it walks, it just walks that way. And me and him were just standing there.

And next thing I know, someone grabs us behind, guys behind me, I turn around and I start fighting because I think I think this thing's behind me and I need to fight for you know, fight or flight and I can't run anywhere. My body can't move and I pull, I feel something grabbed me and turn me around and when it turns me around I throw my arm out and I just start punching and slugging and come to find out it was actually my drill sergeant turned me around and I didn't know it was him and I saw I just punched the crap out of my drill sergeant and and then I really

realized it was him and I was like oh I'm dead so I just kind of like laid on the ground I don't know what to do and I was like I was like I'm sorry I can't do I can't do I can't do and then how how is just in there and and so he got he got us up we were both in shock he couldn't get anything out of us I was swimming him saying like we've been looking for you guys for like hours where you guys been and and we're like we're you know we're pulling security we thought the patrol base was here and he goes you boys are a mile from the radius of the patrol base. I'm thinking to myself a mile. There's no way we walked a mile.

I know for a fact, I know we wouldn't have walked a mile because we scope this trail in the daytime. And so now we're both in shock. We're both freaked out. And, you know, Joe's saying he's yelling, he's trying to move us and stuff. And Hal's just, he's out of it. He's white as a ghost.

I don't remember what I, I really don't remember how I looked. I don't really a lot, remember a lot of, of that initial, that initial reaction other than I know that, that drill started and smoked the donons out of me for punching them. And, and he goes, you know, why'd you do it? You know, why did you do it? And I just, I didn't want to come up and say, you know, I saw Bigfoot and it scared me and I was in shock.

You know, I don't want to, I don't want to sound like crazy. And then you'd be like, you know, when you're talking more, you know, you want to, you want to make jokes. I said, you know, let's go, you know, let's make some jokes and then, you know, end up getting smoked more. But come to find out a little bit later as, you know, apparently they did know. And if I would have said something, I think I could have got it a little bit, a little bit nicer, you know, a little, they'll be like, hey, you know, they're in shock, just, you know,

you'll come talk with us, you know, you're with the boys now, just kind of calm down. So, so yeah, that's, that's how that happened. And I hope I never have to go back. Yeah, I hear you. And Fort Benning, you know, out there in Georgia is just as notorious, I would say, as Fort Lewis when it comes to encounters. And it's scary. I mean, this thing's standing right in your path or sitting in your path. I realize you guys thought it was a boulder. Would you kind of describe what you guys saw? Um, yes, sir. So we're headed up and we're headed up this draw. There was, um, there was the woods here and then the woods get thicker and then it just opens up. At first, we thought it was, you know, there's this boulder that it was just, it was bulky. I want to say, um, it looked like a boulder would look at night. You know, it's just dark. It's just sitting there. At this time, it was probably about five, six feet tall sitting down and about, probably about four feet wide. And when it stood up, it was just, it was massive. It looked, it looked eight, nine feet tall. I'm six foot five.

And even at my height, I was, I was looking up, even at our angle from how far away, about 10, 15 yards, we were looking, I was looking up at this thing. I mean, the muscle mass on this is just, it was, I don't know if you ever seen the images of those like Olympic horses or the, I don't know the species, but it's a,

it's a species of equine. It's the ones they use for farming equipment. It's the big stirbreads, and they're just, like, you look at their chest and their legs, and it's just, like, giant muscle. You just see the veins, the muscles protrude. Now, I couldn't see veins. I couldn't see a lot of, a lot of features on this. But I could tell this thing was massive, and it looked like, you know, it could literally take me

and let me in half, like, no problem. The arms hung down past the hips, though, like almost to the knees. it's like the arms were longer than the torso, which doesn't know on a person, usually if they're standing, their hands will stop about their side. But this thing, the arms went down the torso

and almost not to the knees, but about to the mid-area calf. And I realize that it's dark, but were you able to see the face? No, the face, I mean, it was whatever it was looking right at us. I do know that I was so keened in on looking because, I mean, it's huge. It's right there.

I noticed that when it turned, you know, if someone turns and there's a light behind them, you can then, you know, it's darker. Maybe if you ever look at like, you ever watch like King Kong and, you know, when he turns away, you can tell like on his quarter, if you look at his face, his lips kind of come out a little bit and then his nose, you know, dips down or if someone turns, you can tell that they have a nose. when this thing turned whatever the light was behind it it it the lips there were the lips weren't like tim plumps like they don't bubble out anything they were just it was just it was it was flat there was no the nose didn't pop out like a human nose and the the hair it's like I couldn't really tell because

it moved so fast when it turned around it it it quartered stopped and then it and then it quartered again so it did a full like 180 um with a small pause in the middle and so the, I could tell that the hair though growing down, like not really from the beard. It looked like everything was connected. It looked like all the hair on it was connected on it. And when it moved out, when it stepped out into the light, which was a little bit lighter because the moonlight was coming down, it was like reddish brown. And it was it was a shaggy, kind of reddish brown.

I didn't tell, I didn't get a lot of look at it. It went around the corner right there. And I'm like, you know, I don't, I don't. don't want to go after it, you know, that thing, that thing's going to rip me in half. Like, no problem. It could just, it could flick me with a finger and I'm dead. You know, I don't, I don't want to mess with that thing. I don't want to follow it. And like, to this day, I wish, I really wish I would have, Wes, I'm telling you, with all the accounts that I hear, that people tell all the stories, like, you know, I wanted to get out of there. I don't want

anything to do. I wish I would have followed it or got, you know, maybe, you know, waived at it or something. But then again, I'm thinking, like, now I think, I think it's better. Better that I didn't. Because if I had done that, I don't know if I'd be standing here today. Yeah, I'm not so sure it would have, it was looking to hurt you guys. But if you push your luck, you can definitely get hurt by these things. And I think it's best that you didn't follow it. And I feel for guys on military bases because you're basically unarmed.

I mean, I realize you guys have guns, but they're full of blanks. And about the best you can do is make a lot of noise. tell me about what your drill sergeant told you. You guys go back to base and what happens? So basically, when we got back from the field event, everyone was tired. We just did the 12 for, I think it was maybe a 14 mile ruck. We did it back to the, our C area or CQ area where we sleep at.

And so downstairs we have all the platoons and then they just go upstairs on different levels. And so we're downstairs. We did our counts for SI, made sure we have everybody. And then we're like, hey, you know, you guys did it, you know, pat yourself on the back and said, all right, you know, tomorrow's a rest day. We're going to stretch and do all this stuff. And we're like, okay. And he goes, all right, the PG send them out. And then I remember the drill sergeant was standing next to RPG.

And the RPG didn't say anything. So everyone else went upstairs and our platoon just stood there. And he said, he called out. He said the text and then, which we all had nicknames and basing and stuff. So he called text and then Hall and we went up, we went to PG and said drill start needs all in the office. So we followed drill started in there. Everyone else went upstairs. They said, you know, go upstairs, rest, everything.

And at that point, everyone, no one's thinking like, oh, they're in trouble or, you know, oh, they did something. They're all like, hey, we're upstairs. I'm taking a shower. I'm going to sleep, you know, I'm resting. And this is nice. And so we, me and me and Hal got into the office and we walked in. We walked to the front. We went to, we went to parade vests, the drill, and he got up from the desk.

He said, follow us in the office. And when we go through the office every now and then through the hallway, but we've never been in the office and like in the office. And so we went to the conference room in the back, closed the door, sat us down. and I was like, I looked at how, I'm like, dude, we're, we're screwed. Like, we screwed the pooch on this one. I don't know what we did, but we are fried. And our drill sergeant said, look, he looks at us, he takes his hat off, first of all, which is, you know, inside of this, what they do.

But when they're around us as trainees, you know, they don't want to, like, you know, they don't want you to think, you know, your bros and that way you can disrespect them or anything. Takes his hat off. He sits down next to us. And he goes, I know you guys. have been through a wild, a wild week. And I'm like, yes, yes, real sultan. He goes, no, don't talk. He goes, just listen.

And I'm like, all right. And so he goes, whatever happened, I don't want to hear about it. I don't want you telling your buddies about it. And it's not to leave this room ever. And I said, I was like, yes, real sergeant, but I kind of looked over. And I'm like, I'm like, like, what are you talking about? And he goes, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And he said, don't ever speak of it.

He said, there's things out here that we can't explain. So if you end up saying some stuff about it, there's going to be some problems. And that was enough to bring it shut me up. But the weird thing is about it, Wes, is usually if someone does something, you know, in basic training, we do, we break a rule, we do something that's, you know, we're not supposed to. There's a piece of paper. It's called a council. and it's documentation. It says exactly what happened.

Who did it? You know, who said what? We'll write a statement on it. And then we sign it and date it at the bottom. That way there's documentation on it. So if it happens again, we can look back and be like,

oh yeah, this happened or we corrected it, this and this and that. There was no counsel. There's no documentation whatsoever. It was just a conversation of a jail sergeant on versus two. You know, hey,

this is, you know, don't even talk about this again. And when we left, we left. And before you went upstairs, that's when me and how I made a promise, I said, listen, I know you're going to want to tell people about it. He goes, I'm never saying anything about it again.

He goes, I don't want to think about it. I don't even want to talk about it. I said, look, if you do, it's only people you trust. And I said, don't ever say it to anybody else other than that, other than people that you trust. And I said, make sure you're careful with it. Don't be stupid about it either. Don't be bragging.

No, don't go nagging about anything. And he goes, you know what was weird? And I said what? He goes, why didn't we sign a council? And I'm like, I'm thinking the same thing. And that's what we're contemplating. He goes, if we did something wrong or he doesn't want us talking about it, we would sign a council saying, hey, this is what we said. This is what they're not going to do.

This is the corrective action, signed it, and date it and give a statement. We didn't do any of that. I said, dude, I don't know. And he goes, dude, they know something. And then we went upstairs. And that was that. We didn't tell anybody ever again. We talked about it.

And actually just the other day, you called me a little while ago. And he goes, hey, you remember that incident and basic? And I'm like, yeah, he goes, well, I'm finally out in the woods because it scared him so much. He don't want to go out in the woods. And I'm like, oh, heck yeah, man. I'm glad to see you're in the wood and stuff. He goes, yeah, I won't go alone. I won't go out of the gun.

But I got out here in the daytime, you know, we're out here doing some walking around, hiking and stuff. And I was like, awesome, dude. and he's like, how about you, man? How are you doing? I'm like, hey, you know, you're taking me out of the woods or you can't take the woods out of me. And he goes, yeah, well, I'm, I wouldn't feel the same way if, you know, if I ever saw one of those things again.

And then he mentioned your show. And I'm like, dude, I've been listening to his show for a while, you know, this, that's where I'm going to get on that on Spotify. And he's like, yeah, he goes, he's joking, he's like, pretty, pretty cool. And I was like, yeah, yeah, pretty, pretty cool. And I was, you know, good to hear from him, man, and then hollered at him later.

But yeah, that was that was all that was just a weird thing is is the two thing is one they told us don't talk about it like they know But there was no counseling. There's no paperwork which is unheard of in the army army is almost all paperwork everything you do There's a piece of paper for everything you have to date it you have to sign it you have to go through a catalog and then you have to sign a piece of paper that says you sign that piece of paper or signed the other piece of paper and there was no paper whatsoever It was, it was, it was just, it was just something like, hey, sweeping out on the rug, we're never going to talk about this again. And, of course, we said, you know, yes, Joe Sargent, because, you know, it was a respect thing. They tell us what to do. We have to do it. We sign the contract.

You know, we can't, we can't go against what they say. And we didn't want to disrespect them, you know, we don't want to get in trouble for it. And we were, we were tired. We were exhausted. We did, we didn't want to be doing burpees and pushups and running around the track for, with water cans, you know, and we're just like, you know. We just submitted it, you know, just drill sergeant and understand. And then that was that.

You know, and then we graduated and I went to airborne school together. And then I came to brag and he went to Italy. So that's where we're at now. Well, I'm honored you would share the account here. And you know, I've interviewed many veterans and current military

that have had encounters on these bases. And like I was saying earlier, Fort Benning is very much like Fort Lewis, and I could probably name five others, where accounts like this happen over and over and over again and over the years. And I've always wondered why when guys have these experiences, what you described there with your drill sergeant is very similar to what I've heard in the past when leadership gets involved. It's kind of like, don't talk about this. If you want any sort of career in the military,

shut your mouth, it didn't happen. And that's the end of that. Why do you think it's like that on these bases where it seems like there's no interest in these accounts? Especially coming from the government. You think the government would be very interested in these accounts? I don't know. Honestly, I'll tell you how I'd say I answer most things around here.

That's above my pay grade. But honestly, I just think that the people, if you're working there, you're working on that base for long enough or you're working in an installation, you're spending enough time in the woods. You've heard some stuff. You've seen some stuff. And you can have your own beliefs and stuff. But when it comes down to you have a job to do and you can't have anything that makes you unperform your job. And not just that, you're training. If you're a drill sergeant or your teacher, you're training students, you're trading people.

And you, you know, you have this title that, you know, I'm a big, kill-billy badass, you know, don't, you know, don't mess with me. And then you're like, hey, you know, I'm scared of the woods, you know, don't go out there and stuff. I think more so it's more of the situation of it's a, it's a hiding more so. I want to say, you know, a lot of people say, you know, what do you think Bigfoot is or you ask a lot of people, what do you think Bigfoot is? And I can't say I know what it is, but I think it's definitely wrapped around the government. I think the government knows about it. and you know the government likes to keep it a secret. I think the government knows that there's our big foot out there on Fort Benning,

and there's people that know it out there. And I think there's people that have their higher-ups, and they've talked to them like, hey, we don't talk about it. Don't say nothing about it. If you hear anybody, you know, shut it down. I don't want to hear about this, you know, in my unit or in my installation. And, you know, of course, you know, higher-ups tell you to do something. You're like, okay, yeah, I understand.

I mean, that's just, that's what comes up from it, honestly. And so usually I just think, you know, everyone's just following orders. You know, you've got to follow orders from your higher ups. If they're telling you, you know, don't speak of this. Don't speak of it. You know, don't talk about it. You know, if it's, if it's been talked about, shut it down before I hear about it. Or there's going to be, you know, there's going to be problems, it's going to be consequences.

But I think, I think it's just like it's something to be hid. They don't want the rest of the world. I know a lot of things that the government, the government controls the world. not really controls the world, but the world runs around. There's a control kind of situation where as long as the government has leverage like taxes or inflation, they can control how people are, how people react. And I think that if this news got out or, you know, this secret was unleashed about, you know, there's these things out there and they're dangerous and all that, then, you know, a lot of things,

a lot of things would change, that skepticism, science would change. You know, the whole, the way that we look at everything might just be completely gone out the window. I just think we're so far down in the rabbit hole that, you know, there's no getting back out of it. And if, if something like this comes up, then, you know, I'm not saying it's going to be a World War III. But, you know, there's just, there's, there's so much that we don't know about. And I think we don't know about it for a reason. And the government knows about it, but they don't want us to know about it because, you know, people will overtake and there'll be political arguments and fights and wars.

And I think it's just one of those things where it's like, hey, you know, this is one of the things that we have to make sure we control where else things are going to get out of hand. And I think it's just that situation where like, hey, you know, they know about it. They know it's there, but you keep these guys quiet about it and we won't have any problems, you know. Yeah, I think you're right. It probably is control. And I do think the government knows about it because of,

so many encounters on these bases when these guys like yourself are out there doing training. I've heard it so many times. And I know if I've heard it, they've heard it and they know what's going on. And it makes me wonder, too, if the government even thinks that they're dangerous, the fact that they would send our young men and women out on these bases to do these training, knowing they're unarmed, that all they really have is blanks. It really makes me wonder. And I really appreciate you guys the listening. I didn't realize how much of the military was actually listening to the show. And one day I was looking at the stats and I was like, there's all these Middle East countries.

And I'm like, who's listening in all these Middle East countries? And it kind of hit me that it's the military. They're listening on the basis. So thank you guys, those out there who are listening. Thank you for your service. And thanks so much for your support. They're like, you're so, man. And it helps so many, so many people that may feel lost or like, you know, they don't have

anywhere to go. It makes a safe haven for a lot of people, you know, you'll tell you'll, you'll have a lot of people come on the show, like, you know, I don't want to talk about it because I don't want people to think I'm crazy, you know, people will criticize me for it or, you know, people will, like, cast, you know, chastise me and I just don't want to, I didn't want any problems. But this, this, you know, this that you have creates a safe place that no matter what happen, you know, how crazy or whatever, you know, whatever it was that, you know, you had this situation and you can talk and tell somebody about it. Because a lot of times when someone goes

through a hardship, if you talk about it or you talk about what you saw, you talk about your experience, it helps bring the burdens out and, you know, it helps bring it out in the air and then that person can feel more easy about it. I know a guy, he's in our unit and he ended up trying to take his life and his buddy was sitting there and watched him do it and he didn't stop him he just watched it and do it and my buddy ended up he he survived he's he's fine now but my other buddy that watched him he was scarred for a while and he he wouldn't he wouldn't he couldn't he couldn't function properly and he ended up seeing a therapist and he got he ended up talking about it and sure enough it just it just kind of slipped away you know just just kind of let's forgot about it um but

I think it's just one of those things like, you know, if you have an impacting experience and you hold that down on the inside, it's just, it's like putting a snake in a, you know, in a box. You just hold it down in there and you keep shaking it, shaking it's shaking. The more you shake it, the more it gets wild up. You let it out, you know, let it air out, let it calm down. You know, snake will be fine and go on about doing snake business, you know. It's more of the, not just, not just it helps people, but it's also, you know, you have, I think, soon. enough, there's going to be a day when people are going to be like, well, yeah, science says it's not real and people say it's not real or the government says it's not real, but this,

this, this, this, this, this happened here. This guy, this guy, this guy, this one, this guy. They all said this and everything matches up. So the biggest thing about me, and one of the greatest things that I argue with people is, you know, they're like, oh, big, you know, Bigfoot's not real. I'm like, let me tell you something. I said Indians, all in almost almost. all tribes of Indians have words for animals and it's in their own language.

And I said, they have a word for every animal on the earth that we know of. I said, why do you think or why would they have a word for an animal that doesn't exist? Like, you know, they don't have a word for the unicorn. They're not making, they're not making words up for, you know, some, some, you know, method, you know, mammoth or saber-tooth tiger. I mean, like, this is like, this is like a real-time thing. that they're having words for and it's on hieroglyphics you know it's on paintings on the walls and and there's um there's the aztec fields that that show um the uh i think it's the as tech signs

or what it is it's it's only it's only um you can only see it from from aerial surveillance aerial vision uh but when you look down it has all these hieroglyphics that have been carved into the earth and it's it's shapes and pictures and and images and i think that you know if if if Indians, you know, everyone, everyone believes in Indians. Everyone knows, you know, Indians were on the urge at one point or another as, as, you know, riding as tribal. And they're, um, they have a word for this thing that doesn't exist. Well, why do they have a word for everything that does exist, you know?

It doesn't, you can't, you can't have it. You know, why could you argue that point? And, uh, you know, it's in books. It's in, it's in catalogs. It's in news reports. I mean, people are seeing stuff. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's just, like, you know, I can't tell you what is or isn't.

I can tell you what I know and you can believe me or you don't have to. You know, I'm not going to, I can't force anyone to believe anything, but I can tell them what I know, what I've seen, you know, what I've heard, and they can take the information how they want to. But if I tell them that and they're like, no, no, I still don't believe. And then someone else tells them that. And then another person's like, you know what, you know, I'm hearing so much things about this. There's got to be something out there.

And then they start digging in. They start looking into it. and, like, you know, there might be something out there. And then they go out there and they see something. And they're like, dude, there's something out there. And then there's another person that's like, hey, you know, Bigfoot's real. I know that he's out there. And it's just, it's a matter of time.

A lot of people like, oh, you know, it's a matter, you know, they use the argument like, you know, well, why haven't we found a body, you know, why aren't their bones? Why aren't they're scone? You know, we're digging up like old fossils of fish and dinosaurs and the gigantic, giganticithes. gigantic, pickethysts, or whatever the word is, big words.

And so people are digging them up. And I'm like, oh yeah, this was like 30 million years ago, you know, lived on this earth. Why are there no bones of Bigfoot? And I'm like,

well, have you ever, you know, I'm like, you know how we bury our dead in the cemetery. You know, we don't dig them up.

You know, you bury in the sanitary and we have that place for a cemetery. And I'm like, there are places found out in the woods, in caves,

in nature, where there are bones of mammals, of monkeys, that have been buried and I'm like maybe maybe they don't want to be found maybe they bury them

maybe there's a certain place for them and they bury them or they put them in a cave or they put them in a ravine that no one will ever find them that way there's you know they don't want to be found you know they say that Bigfoot's the hiding of seek champions because he doesn't

want to be found he doesn't he doesn't want you know like yeah they're they are curious I hear that they're curious they'll follow people they'll watch you in the woods and people have, you know, some people have, you know, situational encounters that are scary. But at the end of the day, I think it's that they don't want to be seen. They don't want to be found.

They want to be seclusive. They want to be deep, deep, deep where no one else is going to be. You know, you're not their kind. Then they don't want anything to do with you because, you know, man, man is different than ape. They're similar as in two, but man thinks differently, acts differently. eight things different, we eat different, we socialize different, you know, we live our lives differently than those of, you know, the mammal world or the animal kingdom. And I think it's just that thing where like they recognize like, hey, you know, that man, you know, that guy, you know,

he's not me. Like, yes, we look alike, but he's not me. He's not one of me. And this is my domain. This is my territory. He's in my territory. He needs to leave. And then there's situations where people talk about, um, uh, like they'll have a gun and they'll raise the gun up to look at it. And it knows what a gun is. Like it's, it's seen enough hunters. It's seen its own kind die. And, and then that's when they get all angry and such. Um, I listened to, to your, uh, your story, or a story just the other day on your podcast of a gentleman, he's, um, he, uh, you said he was a, uh, uh, law enforcement officer or ex law enforcement. And he was going down the stairs, going fishing. And there was what he believes is a juvenile big.

foot at the bottom of the stairs and he dropped his he dropped his fishing pole and when he went down to pick it up you know he looked down for two seconds look back and all he saw was the back of this thing going into the bank and he said when he had that fishing pole and he dropped it this thing looked at the fishing pole and when he went down and pick it up this thing kind of flared its lips up and showed his teeth at him and you know i i think that maybe it thought that maybe he was going to hit him with it or maybe it was a gun or you know maybe they would be used as a weapon you know these creatures, they're, they're intelligent enough that they know to elude people. Yeah, there are situations where people see them and like in, you know, in this situation.

But my situation is we're in the middle of the woods. We're in a military base. Very few people get in the military installations. It's not just that the location of where we were was so much deeper, so much farther than the main area of where all the companies or whatever we go to. I actually, I mapped it out. I ended up looking up. just on the other side of that ridge line,

there is a, like, super classified access center where it has, like, uh, has like the prison prison way, uh,

wire gates around it. And it's just, it's just like a small couple of buildings. And all around it, if you look on the maps, it says close to all classifications, meaning no one can go in there. No military,

non-military contractors. Like, you have to have very, very special things to get in there. It's kind of like an area 50. 51 thing and on and and and I looked at I was like why is this here and then I mapped it out I said this happened right next to that I said I don't believe in you know I believe in coincidence but this was not a coincidence this is something you know this this has a tie in with this there's something

around you know this ridgeline there's something around this area and and you know there's there's something with this this has a tie in some way and it's just one of those things where I'm like you know they know that they need to elude or they they need to not be around people. So here, let's go, let's go deep, deep in the mountains

where we, you know, we can be left alone, where we can hunt and fish and live alone, you know, raise our young and just not have to worry about people

because people just won't understand. You know what I mean? Yeah, I definitely understand what you're saying. Tacks. Do you think Sasquatch is more of an animal? Do you think it's more of a man? I think,

I think it's more of a man. Honestly, I think a lot of people say it's like the missing link. You know, you have apes and then you have man. Where's the guy in the middle, you know? I think it's, I think, I mean, I think it's an animal. I think, you know, it's been living, you know, it lives in the woods.

But the thing is, is man, we, you know, to survive man hunts and men fish, you know, we make fire and stuff. We build these huts. We build roofs to cover us. Deer don't build that. Deer late, deer don't care. Like, they'll go in a cave or none. They'll lay down. If it's raining, they'll lay down on the snow.

you see elk there on the snow all the time. There are these bigfoot nests, and there's these covers. There's a frames, and there's these markings. It takes two hands to do, and it takes muscle, and it takes intelligence.

You know, you have to know how things are put together to put this together, and it's put together that way, and then there's, you know, it's matted down, or it's a giant area,

or you'll look up in a tree, and there's like, it's matted down, you up there, it looks like a beds laying up there. Like, these things know, you know, not just like animals.

You know, animals don't do that. Like, yeah, birds make the birds nest. So it's kind of like a bird's nest, but a bird's nest does that for security, for comfort. So it can raise its young safely. It can lay on top of them and keep them safe. The same thing I think goes for, you know, Bigfoot. They put it up there or they put it to get off the ground or that way they have a security point. They can look out of this point.

They can see their whole 360 surroundings and they can see something coming before it's you know, they see it coming. And I think it's just, it's that thing where like, yes, it's still, I think it's an animal, but I think it's a lot more man. It's, you know, it's muscle mass and it's, it's all this, this, the same anatomy of a man. And it's, I can't explain face, you know, I can't explain the shoulder and all that. I think it's just the evolution. Over evolution, over time, things change.

And I think over the many, many, 100 years that back in time when the land bridge was at, there was a land bridge, I think everything crossed over. I think these things crossed over on the land bridge. And now they're all over. And, you know, they're in certain places. They're all over the place. But they're all similar in a way as where some are more animal-like, some are more man-like. But I honestly think it's more manly of a creature. than, you know, than an animal.

Yeah, I could definitely understand the way you fill text. I've often said even their, you know, appearances aside, their behavior alone a lot of times makes me think more human than animal. It's definitely a mystery. And I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share it. I'm honored you to come on and share this account. And thank you again for your service. Yes, sir.

I appreciate, man, I really appreciate having me on. I don't think my stories as great as other people's but you know I wouldn't have to count and it's it's such an honor to be here I'm happy you know be fighting for the country I appreciate you know your support and as everyone you know we can't do what we can't what we do without you know the love from the country and for everyone else that they have for us so I really appreciate you Wes thanks for having me on absolutely thanks for again, Tex. 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.