Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:147 The Chewbacca Man
Episode Date: September 20, 2015"I have a story in my past that I have never told except to my Dad and best friend, either of whom ever believed me until this week. My best childhood friend called me this week and said" Remember tha...t weird story you told me about the Chewbacca Man? Well I believe you now buddy!" He had an encounter this past weekend in East Texas and for some reason he's a believer now! Let me explain. When I was about 11 years old. My Dad was a land developer in east Texas around Toledo Bend and Sam Rayburn Reservoir. He would buy lake side plots of land and get a surveyor to break it down and Dad would sell the lots. He developed a few campgrounds this way. I grew up in a small town in Deep east Texas around the Sabine and Angelina National Forest just above the Big Thicket. Every so often my Dad would go see the surveyor to discuss business. Mr. W, the surveyor had his office in a small building beside his house.The surveyors house was way outside of town down a FM road in the Sabine National forest. Dad would ask me to come along sometimes because the surveyor had a son about my age. The boy's name was Tommy James "TJ". He was really a couple of years younger than me but Dad just thought I would like to come along for the ride. Mr. W and my dad would discuss land and I would go play with TJ. At this time I think I was 11 and TJ was 9. TJ had a dirt pile in his back yard we usually played in. We were playing and TJ suddenly said " There's a Chewbacca man that lives down that trail there", pointing to a thin trail in the back left corner of his back yard. "Do you wanna see it?", TJ said. I said "Chewbacca lives back there?" "Yes" TJ said, "He's a Chewbacca man."
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Today's sales leaders face a difficult task, selling the right products at the right time through the right channels.
A new three-day program from Harvard Business School Executive Education addresses this problem directly.
Join us on the Boston campus in August for managing sales teams and distribution channels,
where you will discover strategies that can lead to the best sales performance.
Learn more by clicking the banner or visiting hbs.m. me slash sales.
That's hbs.m.m. slash sales.
5-5-4-4-3-3-2-1
When I had come down this hill, I had seen this creature cross the road.
It would have whipped my locked door from my truck, extracted me from my vehicle,
and there wasn't a damn thing I could have done about it.
This thing I got to notice in its eyes.
His eyes was real, real evil, real sinister looking.
You know, the look it was given me.
What are you reporting?
Jesus Christ, you bet.
Here?
See ya.
Hello?
Get somebody out here.
What's going on now, sir?
That son of a bitch is about 60 foot nine, I don't know.
Do you see him now, sir?
Yes, I'm looking right at him.
Uh-oh.
Welcome to Sasquatch Chronicles, a place where people share their accounts.
Let's start the show.
One, thanks for being here tonight.
Got a great show planned for you.
You know, it feels like a lot.
good to be back in Washington State. I was down there in California for a few days.
I want to thank all of the fans out there that sent me emails. I will be in touch with you.
I apologize for not getting to you while I was down there. Just one thing after another,
after another. And I'm still pretty tired from running around. I feel like I was going 110 miles an hour
the whole time I was down there. But it feels good to be back here in studio. Feels good to be back here
on the radio with you all out there.
If you've had an encounter, email me.
My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com.
And if you get a chance, check out the website,
Sasquatch Chronicles.com.
Well, I want to welcome Jason to the show.
Jason, thanks for coming on, man.
I really appreciate it.
No problem, Wes.
And you're down there.
This encounter actually took place in East Texas,
one of my favorite areas, I'm sure, as you know,
from listening to the show.
Absolutely, one of my most favorite areas down there.
But if you would kind of start from the beginning, you know, walk us through how you got in the situation you got into, and then just walk us right into the encounter.
Okay.
Well, basically, you know, this is deep east Texas.
It's almost to the Louisiana border.
This is, I grew up around Angelina and the Fabine National Forest there.
which is just above the big thicket.
Two big lakes there and Toledo Ben.
And this is a heavily wooded area.
And my dad was a land developer in the 70s and going into the 80s there.
And he had a business partner, a surveyor,
that would go in and break these lots up.
They would build roads.
and then he would sell them off these acre plots.
And so this business partner and my dad lived in the Sabine National Forest.
And this is, I guess if you want to know where it kind of is,
there's towns like Center, Texas that's in Panola County, San Augustine, Texas,
hemp hill.
It's right there close to the Louisiana.
a border. The Sabine River actually runs right through there, doesn't it?
Right, right. The Sabine River opens up into Toledo Ben Reservoir, which is a huge lake that runs.
Oh, I don't know how many miles that lake runs, but it's a huge lake there that borders Texas
in Louisiana. And they have highways, you know, bridges that go over the lake into Louisiana.
So, you know, he had developed some campgrounds around there and things, things like that.
But this surveyor lived down there, and, you know, sometimes on a Saturday, my dad would go and visit him.
And he had his office, the surveyor had his office kind of beside his house.
Deep in the woods, you had to go down a farm market road and break off down.
down a dirt road. And sometimes my dad would ask me to come down there with him, to visit with him,
because he had a kid that was about my age. And I was about 11 years old, and the surveyor's son was
probably about nine years old. He was actually a couple of years younger than me. But he was,
you know, my dad would take me down there and we would play with, I would play with the surveyor's son,
and we would hang out in his backyard and beyond his backyard was just, I mean, woods,
just pine trees and deep East Texas woods.
And we would play out there.
This one particular time, the incident, we were playing and he looked up at me.
Chabaca man lives down that trail.
Chabaca man, he says, yes, that a man, a man, a man, a man.
hairy man down there lives down that trail.
And I said, all right.
He says, you want to see him?
And I said, yeah.
And I was a couple of years older than him.
And I don't know if he was playing make-believe.
I don't know what we were doing.
But, you know, I said, yeah, show me, show me Chabaka Man.
And so we headed down this little trail that was kind of in his backyard, but it led deep in the woods.
And I followed him down there.
And we went a pretty good way.
I was getting surprised we were getting far away from the house.
It was late in the afternoon, so the sun was getting ready to set.
But we went down this little thin trail, and we got to this deadfall.
And, you know, a tree and some limbs and brush had fallen over.
I don't know if it had been bush hogged over, but it was just a big fall that kind of blocked that trail.
And I looked around and he said, this is it.
This is where he is.
And he said, I'll call him.
And so he said, I'll call him up.
He gave this, you know, this whooping sound.
And we didn't hear anything.
And he did it again.
And I started hearing cracking and footfalls and walking a distance away but headed towards us,
towards this deadfall, behind this deadfall.
And it kept coming and all of a sudden I heard, you know, real heavy breathing, you know, just,
whoo, I thought it sounded like a horse.
And so I thought he had called up a horse.
I kind of got, you know, relieved a little bit, and I was like, he's just called up some kind of horse.
And he was caught, he kept calling him.
And about that time, I heard a word.
It was a sound.
It was, I don't know how to describe it, but I remembered it went just like a deep word.
And it, and it startled me.
It got my attention real quick.
And it.
got serious real quick, and I knew there was something other than a horse behind that
deadfall, and he kept calling it real sweet, like a kid would. He would go, come on, come on,
and it would move, and limbs started to kind of crack and move behind that deadfall, and my eyes
widened and I took a few steps back and I was like what in the world I said I said to
TJ I said to him I said what is what is that and then this sound it went a huge
percussive sound came from behind that deadfall and it it punched me in the stomach it
It totally floored me and my stomach dropped.
And I froze like real fear just freezes you down.
And Tommy was unafraid.
I mean, T.J. was unafraid.
He said, come on, come on.
And he goes, Chevacca.
And he kind of sings to it.
And it was creeping me out.
And this thing started having.
a fit. It pulled limbs from that deadfall. I could see them slide out away, and they were slamming
on the ground, and this thing was, I mean, grunning and slamming the limbs, breaking limbs,
and I just kind of came out of my stupor, and I looked at Tommy. He turned around slowly,
and he said, he doesn't like you.
He doesn't like you here.
And I turned on a dime and took off running.
And Tommy Gills, wait.
And I said, no, no, come on, let's go, run.
And I took off running.
I ran down that trail, and this thing gave chase about a few yards away at first.
And then it kind of went deeper away.
It circled around, and I was running.
as fast as I could.
I didn't care about TJ.
I didn't care.
I was just running.
Limbs were slapping me in the face.
I was trying to get back to that house.
And this thing rounded it around,
and I looked to the side over my shoulder at times
or to the side of the woods where I could hear it running with me.
And I could see a big black figure.
It wasn't a horse.
It wasn't a cow.
It was a tall, slender, big black figure.
I could see the stride of its legs running at times, in and out of that brush.
And it circled around, and it was beating me.
It was beating me back to the trail.
It was getting ahead of me.
And I started to panic because I thought it's going to cut me off on that trail.
And I screamed, I screamed, Daddy, Daddy.
And at that second, the brush just came to a halt.
This thing just stopped as soon as I started calling for my dad.
I ran into that backyard.
I ran up to that office where they were talking, and I grabbed my dad.
And he said, what's wrong, son?
And I explained it to him.
I was telling him something was chasing me.
T.J. comes running up behind me.
He doesn't say a word.
He just kind of just is unaffected.
And my dad said, well, you know, I don't know what that was.
You're okay now.
You're all right.
And the surveyor said, well, we've got a neighbor that, you know, lives down the way.
And sometimes their goats get out.
I bet an old goat chased you out of that trail and this and that.
And my dad said, go wait in the car.
We're about to go.
I go and get in the car and I talk the doors.
And I'm panicked and I'm scared.
And Tommy, TJ, I called him.
Comes walking around.
And I rolled down the window.
And I said, what was that?
what was it?
And he says, I told you
Chabaca man was back there.
And I said,
what was it, though? And he said,
it's the Boca man.
It's Chabaca man.
And my dad got in the car.
I rolled up the window.
I saw Tommy walk to the back of the house.
As we drove home,
I told my dad all about it.
I told him what I saw,
that it wasn't a goat that chased me out of there.
And he, you know, yeah, okay, you're all right.
You know, well, I don't know what it is, but you're okay now.
And we drove away.
And, you know, one of the things, what's so crazy about this is I remember at the
deadfall. There was a lot of snack packages. There were cracker jack boxes open. There were
Little Debbie snack cakes opened. It's like this kid had been going down there and feeding this
thing. And it just, it creeped me out. And it is a story in my childhood that I've kept,
and I don't tell anybody.
I told my dad, I told my best friend who still lives in East Texas, and I'll get to that.
But it's just a story that has been in my childhood that has always scared me.
At the time, I didn't really think, Bigfoot, that's Bigfoot.
I'm an Eagle Scout.
I was in scouting a couple of years after this thing happened to me.
We got to go, our scout troop got to go camp out in the Big Thicket.
And there is the Alabama-Kashada Indian Reservation that is in the big thicket there.
It's near Woodville, Texas.
And somehow they arranged for us to camp out out there.
And we did.
And we were around the campfire at night.
And all of a sudden, the chief or a councilman or somebody came in with two braves,
and they were part of the reservation.
They were all dressed up.
They had their shirts off.
They had paint on them.
And it was real neat for us to see these guys come in, these Indians.
And they sat down at our campfire.
and the chief started talking and telling us stories and he was very good.
He, you know, he would throw something in the fire and the sparks would light up.
And, you know, the forest seemed to accent his stories.
He was just very good.
And we were, all the scouts, we were just glued to him, you know, listening to him.
And he began to tell this story, the head.
very man of the woods. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't a story of this, you know, nice, you know, thing. It was a, the wild man of the woods that we battled for years and who would take our children and would kill you and drag you away. And it was a horrible, you know, the horror story of, and he described a bigfoot creature. And, you know, he said the words.
big foot of today, you know, and, and then it kind of, then that, when he told that story,
it kind of hit, um, a nerve. I'm like, oh my gosh, that thing, the Chbacca man, this thing that,
you know, was out there, you know, immediately it clicked and I'm like, it was a big foot.
It was, it was something out there. And, uh, from then on, I was kind of,
You know, anything about Bigfoot, my ears would go up and any show I was interested in.
And then I get a call a couple of weekends ago from the friend that I told this story to.
And like I said, I told it to my dad.
I've told it to my wife.
And I told it to my best friend growing up.
And he is a deputy sheriff in a county in East Texas right now.
And he's on the night patrol.
And he calls me and he says, I have got, I have got to tell you something that happened to me.
And I am, I'm busting.
I've got to tell someone.
And you told me this story of this Tobacco man when we were kids.
And this thing that I saw this weekend, I'm telling you this is it.
and he proceeded to tell me a story.
So he was on patrol, and there's a stretch of road, an old farm market road that is near the Angelina Forest,
and it is a long straight road.
And he said people have called in complaining about kids going out there racing,
and they would race up and down this straight, long road.
It was not near any residential areas deep out in the forest.
They called in and said, hey, they're racing on the wrong side of the road.
They're going to kill somebody, and there were a lot of complaints.
So he made that part of his patrol, and he had been going out there on Friday and Saturday nights to patrol that area and try to catch these kids racing and get them off the roads.
so he said there's a lot of you know places on that stretcher road where he could back into
and there's one dirt old dirt road in particular that he had backed into a couple of times
and this particular night it was actually a few Friday nights ago and he backed in
he shut everything down all the lights went down and he waited
and he was setting up a speed trap waiting for these kids to come through.
And he said he waited there about 15, 20 minutes, and he said the cruiser was running.
He had the Tahoe is what he was assigned to.
And he said the cruiser was running, but he had shut all the lights down and shut his laptop down and was just there in the dark.
And he said, I'm ashamed.
to say that I drifted off to sleep.
I started Dozing Off.
He says there was a pop on the radio, and he woke up and had to shake himself awake and pulled up and got him a drink of water.
He said when he turned to throw the water back in the seat, he looked over and in his passenger window,
was a face just staring in the window.
And he jumped back.
He said, man, I pushed myself all the way to the, to the daggone door.
And I looked, he said, man, I was looking at something I have never seen.
He said, I actually screamed out.
And its breath was starting to fog the window.
And he saw a massive face of high,
cheek bones, dark face. He said its eyes were inset deep. It looked like it was two black marbles
in his eye sockets. And his nose was flattened. He said as soon as he turned and looked at it,
it stood up and its face pulled away and it gave him a, like a grimace, it gave him a,
you know, just a look.
And he said, he goes, man, I've never, ever been so scared in my life.
He said, I turned and I hit every light on that cruiser.
I threw my cherries on.
He said, I threw the spotlight on.
I hit the brake light in the back.
And he said, that's when I saw it, walk on the back side of the cruiser to the back.
And he hit the brake lights and the red lights lit up in the back.
In his rearview mirror, he saw its back light up.
He could see the inset of his spinal cord and the layover of the hair.
He thought, in his opinion, it was seven foot tall.
He turned around and looked back and saw it walk out of the reach of the lights.
He said it wasn't like a big, fat, giant thing.
It was a, he said it was a big seven foot, tall, kind of stooped.
He said it kind of had a stoop to it.
It stooped over, wide, wide shoulders and muscular, but not just huge.
Just kind of lanky is what he said, and he goes, it just calmly walked away from those lights.
and he said just then he put it into driving and sped out of there in fear he said i could not bring
myself to get my sidearm step out of the vehicle and call on this thing he said i could not do
it i was that struck by fear and he sped out of the of the dirt road got on the main road turned
around through up all of his lights and headed back down the dirt road to see if he could get it
in his high beams.
He drove down.
He said it was gone.
Just like that, it just disappeared like a ghost.
He went down about a half a mile till he just said, and I'm getting out of here.
He turned around.
He said the whole time he had his cherries on, he had his lights on, lighting up the
woods.
He spotlighted.
He didn't see anything.
And he turned around and left out of there.
And when he called me, he was, I mean, freaked out like I'd never heard him.
And he says, man, he goes, unless it was a freak out there in a gilly suit or some
hunt or coon hunting out there, it was a big foot.
it was a big foot.
And he says, I cannot believe, this is Texas.
I cannot believe, you know, what I saw.
He says a badgum hunter would not be messing with a police cruiser at 11 o'clock at night.
You know, who could get shot.
They're out there.
They're definitely out there in that area.
Let me ask you, how did he react when you originally told him your encounter story?
All those years ago, oh, I don't know.
he says, you know, yeah, yeah, whatever, you know, there's not a big foot, you know, that's, that's not
really, you know, that type of thing. And yeah, and then I go, yeah, I know, because you don't want to
get me fun of, so, but, you know, and with Bigfoot, I've always been, since that, since I've had
that weird thing in my past, like I said, I've always been, like, you know, listening for it. I've
always been an enthusiast. I'm not a big
footer. I'm not a guy that goes
out looking for this.
You know,
this kind of just
this story, him calling
me, was a big surprise.
And
he was
just floored. He could not believe what he
saw. And he says,
you know,
you don't tell anybody, none of our
friends. I'm telling you this,
because you're my friend.
And he's in law enforcement.
He's not going to talk about it to anybody but me.
Yeah, those guys, they have to be careful on who they tell what to,
especially being in law enforcement.
Yeah.
So I get that.
And, you know, even at work, if I ever say, oh, did you see that Bigfoot show,
you know, and, you know, I'm kind of like trying to find somebody who would, you know,
talk about it with me because I'm so interested.
You know, everybody blows it off and laughs it off.
And so I just shut up, you know.
And, but there is something, and there's a lot of stories that I've heard in East Texas.
There's areas of East Texas that I don't hear mention much, but I have heard things
come out of.
like there's areas, the Boykin Springs area.
This is near Zavala, Texas.
It's close in between Lufkin.
It's also on the Sam Rayburn Reservoir.
I've heard of things happening there.
I have another story of a scout telling me it wasn't my troop,
but he told us that this was at Double Lake.
It's a lake called Devil Lake.
It's down on the Lone Star Trail, a little closer to Houston, Sam Houston National Force,
but kind of more on the more east.
He had taken a troop in there, and they had left a campsite one morning and was walking away,
and he got a little ways away and realized he had left a knife that had meant a lot to him,
and he was looking in his pack for it.
He couldn't find it.
And he says, I'm going to run back and I'm going to go find my mouth.
So he left the troop and ran back to the campsite.
He said as he approached it, as he rounded the bin and started and was seeing where they had camp.
There was something crouched down just beyond the campsite that was startled, jumped up,
and ran away on two feet.
he said it was black covered black hair.
He said he stopped and was startled.
He wouldn't approach the campsite.
He didn't know what it was.
And he finally eased up there and got his knife and left.
And he says, you know, I've never been able to explain that.
It was a tall, dark figure that jumped and ran away so fast.
And he said it just spooked me.
And I know that's, you know, there's not a lot of detail there, but there's these whispers and stories in East Texas.
And it makes me think that, yeah, it makes me think that something, you know, like this creature, you know, or a type of creature like that is in the woods there.
It's definitely out there.
I mean, I think that, if you are my honest opinion, I think the whole East Texas area is infested with them.
and the reason why I say that is just being actually out in that area
and hearing the sounds that I heard
and hearing the finding footprints.
It's different than it is like in Washington State.
You know, Washington State's kind of hit and miss running into these things,
but I kind of think that East Texas area,
I think if you know where to go, I think you'll have an encounter.
And I kind of cringe when I hear the Boy Scouts going out.
I don't know if you heard the show.
I was in East Texas, and we had localizations all night long.
And as we were leaving, there was a Boy Scout troop coming in.
And I thought, I don't know if I should say something to these guys.
I wanted to ask you about the encounter that you had with T.J.
Have you ever spoken to T.J. Sensen or spoken to his dad, Sensen?
No, you know, I do have a follow-up to that.
And one night after dinner, I heard my mom and dad talking.
And he had said that he had not seen this surveyor.
I'll say he's Mr. W.
And he said, I have not seen him in a while.
And I've called him.
And I'm going to go out and see him because I haven't talked to him in a long time.
He said, I've got some, you know, some opportunities that I want to talk to him about.
and it was a like a week later I guess I heard you know them talking again and he had he says
uh mr. w has moved he's gone to my mom and he said it's so strange he goes he I got a lot
of business for him and he had a business a good surveying business here and he said I
We have done a lot of lots together and a lot of projects together,
and he didn't say goodbye to me.
He didn't call and say, hey, I'm moving,
and he said it was just a real quick move.
And he had talked to a neighbor of his,
and he says, you know, yeah, he goes, they moved away real quick.
I think he said that his wife and the surveyors' wife had talked,
and said, well, you know, we're moving.
We're going back to Alabama is what I think you said.
But they just abruptly moved not long after that.
And, you know, I'm not going to tie in anything of what that could be.
But they moved without saying a word.
And I don't even know, you know, I haven't had any contact with T.J.
I mean, he would be a grown man now.
And I don't know, but the weird thing about that that's always kind of freaked me out is that if really this kid was going down there in his woods and discovered something or saw something and was bringing food to it or, I mean, that's scary.
I mean, that is a real creepy thing.
And no telling what could have happened to that kid.
Yeah, and you're absolutely right.
You know, I don't know if you heard Friday show or not up on Saswatch Chronicles.com, but I talked to Laura, and she's a tribal member out in South Dakota.
And she, you know, she said, hey, these things are lured in with kids.
They'll come in with kids.
And it's not a good thing when they actually come in.
Her and I were talking off the air, and I told her about the baby crying, the audio I played, seemed to draw it in.
And she goes, you know, it's even better than that.
She goes, try playing a bunch of kids playing.
She'll see if you can find that on YouTube.
Yeah.
Just a bunch of kids playing.
And she goes, these things will come in to check them out.
And you're right, that kid going down there and feeding you that thing?
I mean, that's crazy.
That's completely crazy.
Yeah, that's all I could think that, I mean, all these rappers and snacks and things.
And if he was going down there and calling that up like he did, I mean, this is something, when I went with him, it's something that he had done.
several times before.
And he had even given it a name,
you know,
Chabaca man,
you know,
and when I was 11,
that would have been about 82, 83.
And,
you know,
I guess what he thought,
what a kid would think,
hey,
that looks like Chabaca.
It's creepy.
It's really strange.
And I guess nothing ever happened to him,
but they didn't move away abruptly.
And that surveyor had a,
had a really good,
good business there, a lot of land developing at that time in the 80s down in that area.
And for him to move away abruptly, I mean, I don't know, like I say, I'm not going to tie
that in with it, but it is strange.
And these things can be very unpredictable, just like it was with you when you were there,
like it was pissed.
It was shaking the brush.
It was shaking the trees.
You know, it was pissed.
I mean, that kid must have some balls of steel to just kind of.
to look over at you and go, well, it doesn't like you.
I mean, you know that kid must have seen it a few times.
He had to have.
Yeah.
It's like it had a rapport with him.
It had a relationship with him.
And, you know, I've, it freaked me out so bad.
You know, my dad had asked me again if I'd want to go back then.
I was like, no, I'm not going.
And I don't know if it was his innocence.
I mean, he was, he was a real country kid.
You know, I was a country kid.
kid, but I did live in a town, and this kid lived, you know, in the woods, and I like playing
with him.
We would play outdoors and play with knives and cheap baby guns, and, you know, we had a good time.
I remember the times that I played with him.
It was just this one last time that, I mean, it was so strange.
And, you know, I've told my wife, and she says, oh, well, you know, I guess you saw something.
But, you know, when I kind of started thinking about it as I got older and it's just something that's the strange thing from my past, I was thinking Bigfoot.
I was thinking, you know, no animal is going to say things or, you know, I want to say it was speaking.
I want to say that, you know, I remember, oh, or it was like a deep.
I can't even do it.
I mean, it's so deep and base coming from behind that thing that it startled you into life real quick.
And it was not an animal.
It was like that.
You know, it wasn't unknown.
I couldn't tell you what it was.
And when it really sounded off that weird sound or word, you know, it wasn't a howl or a grunt.
or it was a, I mean, just a scary, percussive, deep word or something.
And I tell you, that's not a bull, you know, there's no bears in these Texas that I know of.
I mean, there are mountain lines.
The mountain lines are not going to, you know, these small cougars that are down in there.
They're not, they're not going to make a sound like that.
not something that's so deep and heavy like that.
And that's what I'll never forget.
You could feel the mass behind there.
You could feel the deep heaviness of the thing back there.
And, I mean, it gives me the creeps even now.
That really is one of the things that creeps me out the most about this subject,
is your impression is actually pretty good.
I've heard that more times than I care to hear.
but where they'll vocalize like that.
And what's even more creepy is when they start mimicking you,
they start mimicking, you know, family members.
That's when it gets really, really creepy.
And that is a part that really bothers, well, it bothers me.
I don't know if it bothers anyone else.
But it's just, it's too, a little bit too much like us.
You know what I mean?
It's a little bit too much, you know, like you said,
it formed a word, resounded like a word.
And I'm sure that was your impression.
the time. You know, I've heard that before. I've heard that from a lot of people and that your
impression that you did of the creature, that's pretty close to what I've heard in the past.
And you're right, a cougar, if cougar's going to come in like that, you guys wouldn't have
one or both of you wouldn't have made it out. It would have gotten you guys. And that's
interesting about this thing. You know, when you took off running and it was chasing you,
I wanted to ask, because you were looking over watching this thing, go through the brush.
Was it on two legs or was it on four, or could you tell?
I saw a leg separation.
Like I said, I saw like a stride at times.
And I'm saying this as an 11-year-old.
And I've looked over and I could see a black swoosh.
It was fast.
And I could see a stride like a separation of legs.
and I never saw it face.
I never saw it for faith.
Just this thing chasing me, and I'm a kid, and I was, I was, I mean, I was crying.
I cried for my dad, and when I finally thought I couldn't get out of it, I yelled.
And that's when it finally, and it stopped instantly.
I mean, it stopped on a dime.
Just stopped, and I screamed for my dad.
And that part's fascinating, too.
kind of got it to stop chasing you at that point. How much further did you have until you got to the house?
Oh, just just just a few yards, I guess.
His yard was pretty deep in this where the woods started. I don't know. It was I had about
maybe 20, 30 more feet to go on the trail when it stopped. And when I broke through the trail
and out, I mean, I was running. I was hauling butt, man. I was I was, I was, I was, I
ran straight to my daddy's side, you know, just like a kid would.
And that, TJ just ran up out of the woods.
He was out of breath, too.
We were rothed running, but he was, he didn't say anything.
He doesn't, it's almost like he was not going to mention it.
And it was weird.
It was a weird thing.
And I didn't mind playing with that kid before, but
after that, I didn't even want to be around him.
He kind of creeped me out after that.
I don't blame you.
I don't blame me at all.
Yeah, I would never go back there.
And growing up there, you know, yeah, I drove down in that area before.
I couldn't even tell you where he lived.
As a kid driving with your dad, you don't know where they take you, you know, down one
road and another.
I couldn't tell you where it was.
I know it was in, well, I do.
I know kind of where it is.
that area of East Texas around those lakes is beautiful.
It's a tall, tall pond.
It doesn't look like the rest of Texas.
You know, you've got North Texas, which is, you know, where I live now,
which is, you know, small trees and shrubs and mesquite.
But the land changes as you get, as you go down I-20,
which is headed into East Texas, Louisiana.
past, when you get to Tyler, Texas, it's tall pine trees, hills, very pretty.
But there are, and being in the scout troop and hiking, there are a lot of areas that are just wooded.
And there's a lot of bottoms and creeks and areas that, and, you know, East Texas, the woods,
at night out there. I mean, there's no light pollution or anything. It is pitch, black, dark.
If you ever stepped out into an East Texas woods at night and got lost, you'd never hear from
you again. I mean, it is a secluded place down in some of those pockets of East Texas,
and it's a spooky place. And I think there would be enough, you know, hiding and enough
enough places to be secluded and tons of food.
Yeah, I tend to agree with you.
That whole area, there's tons of food, tons of cover.
Some of those areas remind me of Washington State because the brush was so thick when we were out there and we were going around.
You know, I would love to talk with the law enforcement friend.
You know, the description he gave you really is dead on with the description that people get.
And, you know, I've never talked to someone who had an encounter like that.
I've read many online, but I've never actually talked to someone that was falling asleep in their car, looked over, and then saw the creature looking in on them.
Like, I've read many online, but I've never talked to someone.
I would love to talk to someone like that.
And, you know, your friend, law enforcement runs into these things more than you would imagine, especially being a lot.
out there in East Texas. I bet he doesn't go out there and park anymore on that road.
No, I got it. No, I remember him mentioning, he goes, hey, I have to back into, you know,
to places all the time. He says, I have no fear at all. He goes, but I'm going to have this in the
back of my mind from now on. But, yeah, I was going to talk to him. And if I go see him,
You know, I don't get to see him that much.
You know, we talk on the phone at least once a month.
This call was a, you know, a call in the evening and just, you know, just the next day after that and just was really pouring his heart out on it.
And just surprised, I mean, extremely surprised and excited and creeped out.
And he went on and on about, I can't believe it.
I can't believe it.
He goes, but I can't explain it.
And he's trained on, you know, how to observe things.
And he said, I just, I can't put anything else in that slot that it would be.
He goes, but, you know, I don't know.
I'm just saying what I saw.
And it didn't seem to be scared and run off.
It just kind of looked in the window and calmly walked around the cruiser and walked away.
If I'm ever down there in East Texas again, and I'm sure I will be in the near future,
you should come out with, if I go out with Bob Garrett, Tim Sermans, and Moe, and all those guys down there,
you get kind of a, I don't want to say false sense of security,
but those guys are so calm and cool when they go out there under intense situations.
It's kind of nice to go out with them because, and I don't, again, I, I'm leery of these things.
I think that they can turn on you on a dime, and I think they're very unpredictable.
But going out with those guys is pretty cool because they can take you to a lot of areas.
I've always said I'd love to take a skeptic.
I know you're not a skeptic and your law enforcement friend isn't, but I would love to take a skeptic
or someone from like the Houston Chronicle and just say, hey, come out, hang out with us
for a couple days.
And I guarantee your theory, your thought about what's out there and what's not will
change overnight.
I guarantee it.
Wow.
No, I can't promise you'll see.
Yeah, I can't promise you'll see anything, but you'll hear enough, you'll hear enough
to make you stop and wonder about a lot of things.
Yeah.
Well, if they're nocturnal and if they, you know, or, I mean, you know, I've had lots of
thoughts of them of what they are,
what they could be, how many
are there? You know,
if it's a small
population, if they're inbred,
you know, you have all these thoughts
and I think the mystery
of it is the biggest appeal.
But
there has to be
something. So many people see things.
And I'm not saying
that thing that chased me
was a big foot.
But I just like
my friend, I can't put anything else in that slot.
That would be anything else.
It was so strange and unexplainable.
But I would love to go out.
Like I say, I'm not a big footer.
And, you know, I live in, you know, the city now, and I work.
And but I'm from East Texas.
I know all these places.
And there's something up around those lakes.
You know, I want to see, I wish, I can't wait for something to happen in real evidence.
You know, I want to believe it.
I want to believe it.
So it's a cool subject.
Yeah, and I think you probably were chased by Sasquatch.
Like you said, what else can you plug into that type of situation?
And, you know, these things, depending on, I really believe, depending on the area that you're in, the numbers change on how many are out there.
You know, there's a lot of different things that go into that.
There's a lot of things that come into that calculation, you know, as far as how many
are out there.
It's kind of like I was out there in Southern California.
And when I very first went out there, I thought, no way, is there any Sasquatch out here?
There's no way.
There's not enough cover for them.
But it's very deceiving.
You know, when you pull off of the road, you start to realize really quick, not only is there
enough cover. There's enough food. There's enough water. There's, there's, the environment's set for
these things. And, you know, there's mountain lion everywhere. There's deer out there. What's interesting is
going back to your law enforcement friend, you know, the border patrol out in that area that I was
out around the Ote Lake, Otee Mountain, they would run into this devil dog thing, which is a little
different than the Sasquatch, but they would describe it. They'd call it a devil dog.
and they would run into it.
A lot of different agents reported it.
I had a law enforcement official contact me while I was down there in San Diego,
and he said, hey, look, I got to tell you what happened to me.
I don't know if I want to come on the air, but here's kind of what happened to us.
And he told me the whole story.
They were out kind of near Ote Mountain, and they were going down one of these old dirt roads,
and this thing was walking down the road
and as they pulled up on it,
they realized it wasn't a person
and the guy hit the gas,
almost crashed the cruiser,
races back to the
station
and they make a pack, basically,
don't, let's not tell anyone.
You know, he's telling his partner,
I don't want to bring this up.
This is crazy. You know, everyone's going to think
we're crazy. And in law enforcement,
you've got to be careful on who you tell those things too.
But they go back to the
station, his partner starts telling everyone what happened. He steps away to the bathroom. He comes out and
his partner has spilled the beans to everyone on what they saw. And the interesting part about that
encounter story with law enforcement is the watch commander, sit down guys, so what happened? What did you
guys see? So they explained them what they saw and how big it was and it was all hairy. It was walking
upright like a person, but it wasn't a person.
You know, was it someone in a gilly suit? No.
This is 2 o'clock in the morning.
And these guys are saying it was some sort of creature.
They don't know what it was.
And what's interesting is the watch commander goes,
hang on a second, I want to print something up,
walks over to the printer.
And he printed out, I don't know if you've ever heard of the Procter Valley
Monster.
They call them Zubis, which is a slain term for Sasquatch.
but this if you get a chance check out the Procter Valley Monster online it's all over online
and he says this is what you guys probably saw and that was kind of the end of it
I mean there was really no jokes there was really no um you know so I mean it's just interesting
especially when a law enforcement official has an encounter and how it's received you know
I can understand your friend not really wanting to tell anyone yeah and there yeah there's a
There's a ridicule.
There's, I mean, something as simple as getting passed up for a promotion for, you know.
But I'm sure there's a lot of things that those guys see that never come to life because you just, you just can't, you know, it's just not perceived as something real right now because of science, you know, not really looking into it.
I mean, I guess you have some people, you know, I guess the cryptosologists are looking for it, but, you know, it's not taken seriously.
And there's a lot of theories, as you know.
But, yeah, I mean, you just can't really put yourself out there.
Yeah, and I truly feel bad for people who have encounters, and they have no one to tell.
They have no one to get it off their chest because you feel kind of a relief when you get it off your chest.
It's kind of like I posted on the blog the other day about the lady that saw Sasquatch carrying a baby.
And she described the baby looking like Chabaca.
And she called 911 to tell them about it.
If you get a chance, check it out.
It's on the website.
But she describes, she said the baby looked like Chabaca.
She said it was like the ugliest thing she ever saw.
But what's interesting is she called 911 to get it off her chest to tell someone.
And that makes me feel bad because, you know, you know, she probably saw something.
She had no one to tell.
And it's just been eating at her, eating at her, eating at her.
I don't think that was a proper use of 911.
But, you know, she wanted to get off her chest.
And so, you know, I think people need some sort of outlet when they see something like this to get it off their chest.
So, and I can't think enough for coming on, Jason, and sharing it.
It's a terrifying story.
I mean, the, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the Chabama, it's terrifying.
Yeah, I mean, it's terrifying.
It, you know, and for, for weeks after that, I was, you know, wanting to go hopping my mom and dad's bed, you know, and sleep with them again, even though I was 11.
And I remember being scared, but, you know, it eventually kind of went away and went back to the corner of my mind.
But like I said, it won't tell a few years later when we were camping out,
and that old Indian chief was telling those stories.
And, you know, but it's got to be something.
And it's interesting, and I really like the subject and to think there's something.
that that's out there in the woods tonight,
the East Texas,
it's,
you know,
it's scary and it's fun to think of it,
but it's serious,
too,
because there's,
there's something to all these people seeing it,
and,
and,
you know,
it's not like,
hey,
this green monster,
you know,
it's throughout history,
you've heard,
it's always this thing,
this big hairy,
you know,
this big hairy monster,
you know,
Bigfoot thing. You know, it's not a green thing. It's not a, everybody keeps seeing the same
thing. So it's got to be, it's got to be something there. Yeah, everyone, everyone is seeing the same
thing. And what's interesting is if you go back over, you know, old newspaper articles, if you go
back and you listen to what a lot of the Native Americans say, you know, you can take an old
newspaper article from someone who had a siting from 1920 and compare it.
to what someone says in 2015, and they're saying the same thing.
It's an encounter that could have happened today.
There's no difference in what they said back then and what they're saying today.
And it is a fascinating topic.
It really is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a mystery.
And it's something that you want to find out what it is and you want to see it.
And, but, yeah, if you ever come to East Texas, holler at me, I'd love to come out with you guys and experience it firsthand.
Yeah, we'll be careful what you wish for.
But no, I would love, yeah, next time I'm out, I'll, next time I head down there, I'll take you out.
Like I said, Bob and Tim Sermons and Mo and those guys are the, as far as I'm concerned,
some of the top guys in this field, especially going out with someone calm, cool, level-headed,
and that's what those guys are.
So, yeah, no, next time I'm down there, I'll definitely invite you out with us,
but I can't thank you enough for coming on.
I've enjoyed talking with you.
I really have, Jason.
Sure.
And I thank you for sharing all the stories.
Oh, thank you.
I really enjoyed it.
I thought that after my friend had called me,
and got this stirred up in me again, and I was just so, you know, we've talked several times about it,
and I saw your website, and I said, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to email this,
and, you know, it's like you kind of want to talk to somebody about it.
So that's, so thank you very much for having me.
I appreciate it with.
Oh, thanks, man.
Interesting night, you know, especially when you have your own encounter to share,
and then you have our friends encounter.
And, you know, these things are out there.
You know, you've got to be careful when you're out there.
They're definitely, definitely out there, especially in East Texas.
And I want to give a shout out to all the people out in San Diego that sent me all the nice messages.
I apologize for not getting back to you.
I was going 110 miles an hour from the time the sun came up until the time the sun went down.
I was on the go out there.
But I'll be making another trip out there.
and I'd love to meet some of the listeners out
out in that area
and just go out and check out some areas with you guys
so thank you again for sending me all the nice messages
and again if you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show
email me my email address is west
at sasquatch chronicles.com
and if you get a chance to check out the website
sasquatch chronicles.com
thanks again for listening tonight everyone
hope you have a great night
I hope you had a great weekend, and I will see you next time.
The country faster than the coronavirus and wagering week is your antidote.
I'm Tom Martin, and I'm a veteran sports analyst and respected sports handicapper who will help build ESPN's brand.
I've been recognized and awarded by Pro Football Weekly and Gaming Today magazine as the honest handicapper.
Let the other guys give you the same old boring sports talk with the same tired storylines.
We'll give it to you straight here every Friday on Wagering Week.
Don't gamble with other podcasts.
Let SportsGarten Network's wagering week help your bottom line.
