Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:165 Calling 911 and reporting a Sasquatch

Episode Date: November 15, 2015

A farmer (now deceased) who lived on Elkins Creek in Georgia called the police to report disturbances on his rural homestead. For several weeks, something had been frequenting his property. Strange noises were heard and eventually livestock and pet dogs went missing. Whatever it was would bang on the outside of his trailer in the dead of night. Eventually, the man had his barn door ripped off its hinges when something was apparently trying to raid his corncrib. He called the authorities once again to report the vandalism. A deputy named James P. Akin was dispatched to look into the matter. Deputy Akin suspected local moonshiners were trying to discourage the man from living at the property. The farmer told Deputy Akin that he knew what was doing the damage, and showed the officer five huge footprints along the banks of Elkins Creek. Though all five prints were clear, four of them were totally submerged in the water of the creek. One, however, was in the fine silt next to the water's edge and was still in excellent condition. Tonight I speak with the now retired Deputy Jim Akin who will give us some real insight on what was going on the witness' property. Jim shares a lot of strange and creepy behavior the creature was doing on and around the farmer's property. At the time, Deputy Akin did not believe in Sasquatch and felt that if there was a 1% chance it was real, it was in the Pacific NW. He found it hard to believe that a creature like this may be alive and well in Pike County, Georgia...

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They would have ripped my locked door from my truck, extracted me from my vehicle, and no one 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. What are you reporting? Jesus Christ, you bet.

Sheriff, see him. Hello? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know. Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. Uh-oh.

Welcome to Sasquot Chronicles, a place where people share their encounters. Let's start the show. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. We've got a great show planned for you, this evening. You know, I've had a lot of past guests on the show that had these creatures on their property, and they would call 911, have the cops come out. And so we've always kind of gotten that side of the story. What's cool about this evening is you'll get it from the perspective

of the police officer going out, kind of the thought process that goes through someone's mind when they go out to a property like this and they don't believe in Sasquatch. So I have retired deputy Jim Atkins coming up. He did the famous cast. It's the Elkins Creek cast. And if you've seen it, I've posted a few blogs about it this week on Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you go on there, you can check out the cast and kind of get a description of the cast. But tonight, we will hear from Jim directly. 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 so if you've had any sort of an encounter, shoot me an email.

I'd love to have you on the show. Well, let's get to it tonight. Jim, I want to welcome me to the show. I really do appreciate you coming on and sharing this experience. Oh, it's a great pleasure to have been invited to participate in Sasquatch Chronicles. And I want to thank you, Wes, for getting me an opportunity to share. mine, terror. Oh, no, no, the honor is mine. I appreciate you, you being here. I wanted to ask you, could you start from, now you're a retired deputy from Pike County, Georgia? Yes. And if you would

kind of start from the beginning, how did you get involved with this? I know you got the famous cast and actually went out and talked to the gentleman on this property, but will you start from the beginning how you got involved with this whole situation? Well, if you're referring to the belief or whether or not there is such an animal or I had any history of believing in an animal, I would basically

have to say to you that that was nonexistent. As you and I previously spoken, and I shared, I didn't believe in Bigfoot. And the fact of the matter is if there were an animal such as Bigfoot, I thought that this creature

was a Pacific Northwestern. phenomena. It was something that happened in British Columbia, Washington State, Alaska, you know, basically out there. And it wasn't anything that happened, especially here in an eastern state that's been well settled for, you know, over 100 years or more. So I didn't have any history with it. Now, how the situation started with the cast was this. And I want to preface what I say here because the summer of 1994, topical storm Alberto settled over the southeast during that month of July, and it just literally empty.

You know, there's no telling how many billions or millions of gallons of rainwater onto the southeast. And I remember basically most of that summer, you know, we were having to close bridges, rivers were cresting their banks, and all of the events that began happened subsequent to this event where all of the bottoms, all of these areas that people don't normally travel were flooded. I remember even the city of Nathan at one point was actually cut off from the world because the Oak Moody River, which surrounded the city, had closed all the bridges. And in Albany, Georgia, I mean, terrible things were happening like bodies that had been

buried were disinterred that were floating out, that sort of situation. To really launch into and talk about what took place and led up to the event of the casting of the footprint, I have to say that there was a gentleman, and he was considered rather a nuisance caller. seemingly, and this was not consistent in that you could expect it like every day or every week, but consistently you would get a telephone call that someone was prowling at his house. And Pike County being a small county at that time, there was only one deputy on the road at night. And we had two shifts, and I was one shift, and the other deputy would be the,

other night when I, you know, personal duty when I was off. So we didn't have a repeater. It was just me. After 11 o'clock, my nearest backup was 45 minutes away unless somebody got out of bed to come assist me. So, you know, I want your listeners to understand that we have a situation where it's very remote after night haul. It's me.

and I'm the guys out there having to run all the calls. So you can imagine on a Friday or Saturday night when the volume of calls would escalate, it would be a real nuisance to run all the way out to this remote location in the county. Basically, at least in my thought. That kind of puts, you know, the law enforcement job at a whole new level, a dangerous level when it's just you out there, Jim, you know, and you got your backups that far away and you're, you know, God, if you got into, some real trouble. You'd be in some real

trouble out there. Well, you know what? And the thing about that is is it's actually in the long run makes you a better policemen because you understand and know that you've got to handle the situation and it makes you a much more diplomatic police officer. You want to reason with people a lot more than just try to put someone in jail. And maybe that's a political

comment, but in my day, like I said, we were peace officers as opposed to police officers. and we, our whole goal was to resolve situations as opposed to try to jail somebody. But on the other hand, yes, if things did go badly, it was me and I had to deal with the situation until help might arrive. I think the thing to understand about this is, and I feel real bad about it now, because, you know, I was younger then, and when you're younger, when you're like in your early 20s, I think your patience level is not what it becomes with time.

You know, you learn to me a little more wisdom with age. But to me, you know, I'm having to rush all the way out here. There's domestic taking place in one part of the county I've got to go to, and someone says there's a car wreck, and I'm way off up here wasting time with this poor man, who, by the way, was kind of crazy. imagine me. He was a guy that he would get in your face

and he wasn't very pleasant to deal with. So he didn't help sell, in other words, to the deputies that responded out there, that there was truly anything going on. And that's

neither here to there, but I think it'll help make sense as we go through the story of what took place. Now this began in the fall of 1994, and it only lasted for say six to eight months before the cast. I remember my very first call out there where I arrived,

and if you ride out to the location, his house sat down lower than the bed of the road. So you had to kind of turn to your left and go down a slope into his yard. And I got there. And the first thing that I noticed upon exit in the car was that there was a smell in the air. And I had never really thought about it, having grown up in the South. Pigs are common in rural areas.

People keep pigs because pigs are very profitable for, you know, you can have a boar in three sows, and you could essentially feed several families just from the piglets, you know, as you feed them out, etc. So that was not an uncommon smell. But the thing was, this had more of a, I don't know, it's like a rotten trash, dead animal smell that was just kind of mixed in with a sour pig-pin smell.

And it was just, it was startling. And if you ever encounter this smell, you'll never forget the smell. The smell's overwhelming and is pungent. So I got out, but I attributed to the smell. to a pig pen because he did have a pig pen and you could see it, you know, from the location where I said that or at least the fencing. So I said, oh, okay, this guy's got pig. Went up to the door.

And this is another thing that's never been, you know, published or let, you know, be known because this is kind of my statement about the sense that no one's ever really interviewed me for it. So I'm going to be adding some things in that you probably haven't heard before. It became apparent to me when I first contacted the complaint that he had diminished vision. He couldn't see very well. And I think that also leads into not only the reason some of this took place in the fact that it lasted as long as it did, and the fact that he survived this.

and I'll talk about that more than later. But anyway, I contacted him, and we're going to call him Mr. Wilburne. That's not the actual name, but because he at one point really asked me, he said, please, you know, don't ever tell anybody. And I promised him, so I'm a man in my word,

and I'm not going to tell who he was. But I am going to tell you the elements of the story. And he said, you know, someone keeps tapping on my house. he said they'll start at the back of the house they'll tap tap tap tap on the outside of my house and they follow me around the house

if I go to the kitchen they tap on that wall if I go to the living room they tap on that wall and I said well you know you have any trouble with any neighbors no I don't talk to my neighbors do you

have somebody you think could be playing a joke on you No, don't. All right. I said, well, all I can do is take a look around, and I will do that. I'll go out and walk around your property a little bit, and I'll see if I can, you know, locate any evidence or see somebody that's, you know, around your house prowling. So I did. And, you know, the thing is, the first couple of times I did this, I never got any kind of strange feeling. I'd go out, I would take my flashlight, and I had a million power light.

I don't know. You know what I'm talking about their big, your handheld. Yeah. Yeah, and it was portable. The big maglights. That's right. Except this was one that was a police one, and you could attach it to your car. So what I'm saying is, it's like a spotlight, but anyway, the point is, the thing

ended up me in the power, and I really. could light up the area. So I would get up and I would do a check. I would get down and shine under the house. I would go on the back side of the house. I would shine. I would look. You know, and

to me it was just, you know, I noticed that he did have an acorn tree that was adjacent to where the house was. And I thought then and there said, okay, this is what it is. You know, the acorns, it's the fall. The acorns are dropping.

onto the roof of the house because it was metal, and, you know, he's hearing this. So I went back around and I told him, and I can remember the very first one very well, very first call, and I told him, I said, look, you know, Mr. Wilbin, I looked around, I think these are just, you know, acorns that you're hearing fall from the tree onto the roof of your house. No, no, no, no, you know, that's crazy because these things are tapping, and it's coming from the side of the wall. And I said, well, sir, you know, maybe, you know,

it's getting deflected somehow. I don't know, but either way, you know, there's nobody here, and I'm going to have to go back in the service because I have other calls like that. You know, nobody's going to Yala worthless. You can't find anybody. So, you know, it would leave me kind of with, you know, I've got enough on me, and this is kind of sour apples for me to have to deal with.

I'm up here looking around your yard. I'm trying. But what it is is, you know, he's alone. He's there. Well, his wife was there. But she was elderly as well. And it just led the frustration, I think, on his part, because no one could find anything. Well, we get forward a couple of times, a couple of three times.

Next time I'm called out there. And remember, this is always happening after 10 p.m. This is not going to be a call. for him in earlier in the evening or the daytime. His calls are going to fall between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. They're going to land in that span somewhere, and they're going to be random. Next call, I remember he comes out. He says, somebody has broken into, somebody's broken into my barn.

So I go and I go look at the barn. and someone had ripped the door, and they had a huge master lock on the door, and they had literally taken it, like they had peeled back one barn door from the other, and, you know, it had been put, the face plate with the hash that catches, had been ripped out.

And we're talking about set bolts. Four large eyeballs have been set in, and he just, boom, just pulled that out and opened it up. And he had had dog food in there, and he claimed he heard it, you know, torn open. And now some of the dog food was missing. And I said, well, how much, he wouldn't come out of the trailer, you know, the house there. He wouldn't come out of it to come down there to show me. He just said, you just need to go take a look because somebody's done this.

So I did. I went down and I looked. I could see where it's going open. There was a pile of dog food there in bags, but, you know, I couldn't really tell how many had been taken. Well, again, you know,

but this night, I'll tell you the truth, on this particular occasion, my hair stood on end. And people who have, in law enforcement, you know, you learn to trust your gut. You have a feeling when there's something not right. And that night, when I walked around, I didn't feel like I was alone that night.

I felt like somebody was out there watching me. So, again, we repeat the process. Let me ask you, Jim. When you go out there, obviously something with a lot of strength and a lot of force ripped this guy's barn open, didn't you think it was kind of weird that they took dog food? Yeah, I did. I thought that, well, the thing is, you know, in law enforcement, you have to kind of to learn not the second guess what you're presented

with the evidence of the scene. I had noted a couple of things that were odd. For instance, there were no tool marks to have torn open the door. And I'm going to tell you, the size of the doors on this little bar, it would have taken crowbars. In fact, I almost think it would have taken something like a chainsaw

to have removed that. it clearly is as he did. But, you know, people were still the oddest things. So at the time, you know, I was like, well, you know, maybe there, you know, he has a neighbor that doesn't like his dogs, you know, because he had a couple of dogs at that time at this early point of, you know, this episode. I'll be honest with you.

At the time, I wrote it up as a miscellaneous report. and I just went on because I was always terribly impressed for time, being the only guy out there. Later on, I knew that things weren't right because of some of the other stuff that he shared subsequent to like this event.

But it took time for this because it's like, you know, you're looking at a movie in slices. I'm getting to see this portion of it then two weeks later, I get to see another portion of it. After time, you can make sense of something, but at that moment, it was just another burglary to me. But I did know this, though. I did have this inkling that he was definitely being harassed by someone.

Someone was around there, you know, in my mind they're human beings. and that was the thing that started my thought process towards, well, you know what, maybe because he's adjacent over to the creek here, maybe somebody wants to be able to have ease of exit from the creek in this area because, you know, they still have and do in other parts. You know, they still have moonshiders around and they do that people who have pot grows going from the Pacific, you coming from the Pacific Northwest, would understand that as well as I do that, you know, you could be walking into woods and suddenly walk into a field of marijuana. So these people don't want to be identified. They, you know, they won't pretty much as much clandestined sort of setting as they possibly to get.

So they would potentially be, you know, an assailant. They could be somebody who would want this guy to leave his property. Let's check forward. the next time around his dogs are missing you know I'm like well you know what's happened well you know they come back to tapping and you know he was using some colorful language he had a little dog he kept in the house

and he had a couple of bigger dogs that had been out in the yard the bigger dogs were gone and he was upset about that and I asked him about the dog crew we walked back down there and he said you know, well, it's all gone now. And there were 50 pounds sacks. You know, he probably had, say,

10 sacks that he had, you know, piled up in a pyramid in the barn. I said, well, when did they go? He said, I don't know. They, you know, they just started missing over time. I had these many, and now they're all gone. He said, I did find a

empty sack over at the woodline you know, next to the bottoms towards the creek. So I'm scratching my head at this point. just to be honest with you. I'm like, you know, did they just pour the food out? No.

It was just an empty sack. So you're saying that they took the dog food and just left the sack. He said, I don't know what to do. The love of little dog inside the house's name was peanut. And this is where things I knew had taken a strong, strange bent because he reported on that one,

on that particular one, they come up here, you know, they tap on the house, they hit the house, and he said, you know, that's some of a guy, he's making fun of me. And I said, what do you mean he's making fun of you? Because he said he's whispering peanuts name through the wall. I said, what? He's whispering your dog's name. Yes.

He said that whoever it was would get outside of his bedroom. and, you know, he said he had a real low voice and go, Peanut, like that. Well, during the daytime, not at night, the little dog used to a little chihuahua mix. He let Peanut out to use, you know, the bathroom to do his business. And when he called him back, he would stand on his front porch and yell peanut. Peanut, peanut, you know, trying to get the dog to come back to the house. Well, I knew then, I said, okay, we did it with a human being now.

because he's heard a voice, he's heard somebody. I don't know. I mean, to tell you, because I didn't believe in this, and I don't know about you, Wes, but, you know, every once in a while, I still don't believe in it. It's almost like this couldn't be. This is a part of my reality.

Even though it's been presented to me as such, you know, it's so alien from what I believe about the world, that it shifted how you see things now, that there is something other there. I've really looked this time across his yard, and I had a really odd feeling that day. And, you know, I knew I told him, I said, well, you know, why do you think this was taking place?

He said, no, he said my dogs are gone, the food's gone, he's torn in my barn. and now, you know, he just stays up here at the house and says, I don't even call y'all sometimes. He said, because y'all can't do nothing about it. And I said, well, my officer said, we'll try. I promise you, we'll do our best. But, you know, I have to travel here by car. And I know they're going to hear the engine of my police car.

And there's no way I can prevent them from leaving or fleeing from the scene when I'm here. It was very frustrating, frankly. Because I was trying to serve as a police officer and do my best for the man. But I also had this doubt in my mind as to whether or not we were actually dealing with a real situation. Was this really real or, you know, was I being put on or were these just neighbors who were trying to, you know, drive this poor man out? the old man would share with me basically this scenario for night because he never left the house at night. The only way he would open the door to his house at night was if he saw me driving to the yard in the police car. He might then open the door, although I have talked to him through the door before because he wouldn't open it.

he said that when nightfall came, essentially, you know, he and his wife, they went to the living room and they watched television. And they were okay until about 10 p.m. or 11ish.

He said, then the tap would start. And he said he could see, because his vision was diminished, but his wife volunteered that you could see the shadows of whatever this was, keeping pace with them

inside the house. inside the house, they would follow basically them from room to room. And this could go on for hours. He said sometimes they would move into the center hallway because there were no windows, simply because they didn't want the shadow of this thing sitting there watching them from outside of the house, which I don't know. I mean, to me, that's a horrifying way to have to live your life. Yeah, it is.

You know, you're in your house. It's horrifying. And the fact, you know, on top of this, he has diminished sight. They're both elderly people. You know, and what I'm going to come back to say is that, you know, I honestly, though, think, I don't care. You know, there are a lot of people who have this misconception about this creature. And I believe a lot of people think that, you know, I think you, I've heard you guys call them the friendly forest giants. Well, not you quoting someone else is what I mean.

Right, right. You know, like his Harry and Henderson. But the simple truth is, I think the thing that saved this old man's life is the fact that he never opened the door until I was there. And he never existed the trailer to try to take care of this business on its own because I believe had he done so that this would have turned into a missing person, report rapidly. And we would have been looking for him being out lost. He's probably, you know, he had, you know, he's an older man, so we don't know if he has dementia, but he's last seen in this location.

And we might never find anything. Yeah, or a crime scene. Or crime. That's exactly right. I mean, it would have been something that, you know, why did this old man, you know, why did he disappear? There would never be an answer. to be an open taste.

So anyway, finally, I'm out of pure frustration. One night he calls and, you know, I went up there, and this night, this is a little different, and this is the night before the casting took place. I was going off shift. I was going to be off for a couple, three days, and I was glad of that. And I knew that, you know, I didn't have to rush home

and try to get to bed because we were working 12-hour shifts during that time frame there. So I had a little time the next morning. I looked at the house. Someone had punched the house, and you could see where they had punched it. But it was a huge imprint on the back of the house. I mean, it was like, honest to goodness, it looked like almost a foot across. And I looked around for a rock.

And I finally just to come and said, this wasn't done with a hard object. This was done with a hand. and I said the hands is at least 10 or 11 inches across the knuckles. I said, this is something else. You know, somebody's up to something, and I've got to go see. Well, during that time frame, there was the famous city of Woodbury, a lot of people are familiar with Woodbury now because of the walking dead. But back in those days, there was a lot of activity, smuggling activity to the place,

and came through that area. And I thought, you know, I said, probably I need to go in the morning when I get off beauty and I've got some actual time and go walk this creek and let's see what's going on back down behind there because I believe that that's, I'm going to find the source of the problem back down there. Much to much agree, you know, me thinking I'm going to find a moonshine still or a pot grow or something, but I found something a little different. I get off, I told Mr. Wilbur, and I said, look, I'm going to come back in the morning.

I said, you call again if somebody else, you know, if this, whoever this is comes back around. I said, but call me, and I'll still come out here, but said in the morning, I'm going to, when I get off you, I'm going to come out here in my truck, and I'm going to walk down behind your house. I'm going to see if we can find either, you know, an explanation for all this, and dog food or at least some kind of sign of what's going on behind your place back down in these bottom. So the morning tank, there was no other call. I pulled off, went in there, and I walked back down.

He walked with me out. It was very early. Just getting daylight like that gray, grayish sort of, you know, you know, it looks kind of blue in the mornings when you get out. It was that early. We weren't, didn't have. full sunlight. I went down there, found the edge of the creek, and I started walking in a

southeasterly direction back down towards behind the house down in the creek. And I walked for a while until I found the place, and you have to understand that there was lots of leaf litter. It was a hardwood deciduous forest, thick leaf litter. so there wasn't any real sign of any kind of footprints or anything back down there. Say not even a mile, maybe half a mile, back down along the creek. I come across the place, and I felt funny. Again, it was that feeling that I felt up at the house before.

I felt like I was being watched that I was in danger. and, you know, I had a pistol on me. I didn't have a long gun, but it was a horse pistol. I carried a 40 caliber. So I said, well, you know, I'm going to walk a little further. I better watch around, though. I don't feel right. Get down there, and it is a place in the creek where it kind of turned.

And in the middle of the creek, there was a mud bank. It was kind of pebbly, sandy mud. You know, because the clay here. and Georgia's kind of read, and it will do a good impression. And I looked down, and I saw where someone had walked in the creek, they had stepped onto the mud bank, and then they had stepped up from the middle of the creek over like nearly eight feet, but five feet up at the same time to the other bank. And I said, you know, that's an impossibility.

a human being could not make that step. What, you know, what am I looking at? I climbed down in there and I look at the print. Well, there's not even water seepage in the print. So I know that what has just happened is, you know, mere minutes before I'm there, someone has taken this step up from this mud bank, up onto the other bank, you know, this, I don't know, the sandbar, whatever you want to call it.

And they have just aged it. So I went across and looked at it. Again, it was leaf litter. So I could see where they had kind of sort of made a half-print stepping up onto the other bank, but never saw anything else. The truth is, at that point, I said, you know, I had some CSI sort of equipment that was in my truck because I carried like a little briefcase with that sort of thing in it.

And I had plastered repairs. I said, I'd never go up there and see if I can't get a press. plant. And I'm just going to tell the truth. Part of me really wanted to get out of there because the print I discovered was 18 inches long. And I think it's about 8 or 10 inches wide. And I said, you know, I don't know exactly what I'm confronting here, but my gut says I really probably don't need to linger. I need to go back up to the truck. So I did. I left to get my equipment. And the funny thing is, when I come back down there, you know, there was no problem anymore in the way I felt. Didn't have any issue.

Then it was just me pouring and, you know, taking a cast. I did the cast. And I told Mr. Wilburne, I said, well, I said, this is what I found back down there. And he said, you know, somebody's playing games, et cetera. and I felt the same thing. I said, I don't really understand or know what we're dealing with. I said, but I haven't seen any sign of any people down there. Just this is the only thing.

So I talked to a friend who was also a supervisor, and I said, you know, I did this on my own time. And he said, you know, I just really don't. I think somebody's hoaxing. I think somebody's playing the games down there. he said, you know, this is just not pursue, pursue this. I said, I agree with you. So essentially what happened was very shortly after that,

I had been working to improve my economic situation because we were making very, very little. And I moved jurisdictions and began working at a more urban jurisdiction. And in time, apparently, this ceased, and there weren't any more cause. and I wasn't there anyway, so the cast just went into a closet at the house. I didn't throw it away because I felt like, well, you know, this is kind of the odd memento from my time at that location, and I kept it there. A few years later, two or three years later, and I didn't really share this with anybody,

except one day a friend who I knew, we were at a local hangout, and he brought up the fact that, you know, the casts of these feet that will be taken out in the Pacific Northwest. And I said, you know, just goofing on them. I said, well, you don't have to go out there to do that. I said, I've got one at the house. He said, what do you mean? I told him the story.

And he said, well, bring it in. So I brought it into him, and he taught me into sending it to Grover Krantz. Well, Grover Krantz looked at it, and he said there were some positive things to it. but he never would commit to saying anything about the footprint. So next, he wanted to send it to Dr. Meldrum up in Idaho. I said, well, sure, you know, it's just a piece of pastor of parents. Go ahead. Well, what we got back from Dr. Meldrum completely, totally shifted by world,

essentially, because he had sent it to a man named Jimmy Chilcut down. I think he's in plain of Texas. but he found you know myodermal wedges and basically like you know finger prints but there were toe cramps and stuff on this chest

and at that point you know they both said you know this thing's real this is the first one you know and even at the time I don't know now since because I haven't really kept up with it but Dr. Benjamin said this was the only legitimate cast he had ever seen east of the Mississippi

well you know in a nutshell that's the story and it shifted the entire way i see the world you know beforehand i didn't believe in such things and even today i have a crisis sometimes and say you know what this is just really sophisticated hopes and but i've pursued it a little bit and i i've just have to be honest i've come to believe that there is something out there I tend to agree with you. I think the old man was telling the truth. I've had a lot of, I mean, I really think the old man was telling the truth. I've had a lot of people on the show that will report that same type of behavior.

They'll report tapping in the walls, things being thrown at the house. You know, I've actually spoken to a lot of witnesses that had the side of their house punched or slapped. And the interesting part is that it was mimicking him calling him. as dogs. I mean, I've heard that time and time again from people in these same situations. And it's always people out in very remote locations. How long did all this go on for? This went on for about six months. The cast was actually made in 95 in April. You know, I don't know. You know how things are on the Internet, but I think they have one day up for, you know, the, on the Internet in 97 or something. But the actual cast was.

was made in April of 1990. And I think what happened was when it was submitted, they took the date when the cast was submitted and put it on there. So that's probably accurate on the dating. But yeah. Well, you know, the scenario you and I talked about before, before, you know, what we're doing today. My guess, after many years of Ponder of what's a place was that this thing had been

driven up out of the bottoms by the flooding. and Dr. Meldrum had even said that he felt that the individual that left this script grant was somewhat emaciated. So I think the thing was perhaps starving to death a little bit and that he was looking for an opportunity. And you see, this is the thing I want to point out to people is that, you know, he went through the man's dogs, he went through his dog food, the things he could get outside. But that wasn't enough.

I honestly think that the strategy was to get the old man outside. And I wouldn't have thought about this, but I know you have read the missing for one thing by Dave Polite. And, you know, he pointed out in those books, he said, you know, the people missing are always in these categories. They're a special need person. They're an elderly person. They're a particular kind of woman under a certain size and height.

and it just dawned on me after having read that. I said, you know, the old man saved his own life because he locked that door would not go out at nighttime. Because this thing was out there, and I fully believe now, that he was hunting the old man. Oh, absolutely. And I know that that goes against the general fault of the big Walmart-sized, Bigfoot resource organizations. But the fact is, he wasn't. that they're leaving flowers or gifting the old man will bark or anything. He's trying to get him to come out of the house.

No, and I agree. I think that's exactly what this thing was doing. You know, these things are predators. And, you know, like any other predator, predators always can go after the very young, the old, or the weak, and ill. Those are easy pickings. And this old man was easy pickings. And I think you're right.

It went through the dog food. It ate all the dog food. Now that's gone. It's going to go eat his dogs. and now it needs something else. And I think you're right, it was trying to draw him out. You know, it's reminiscent of the Siege of Honabi account. You know, the exact same thing was going out on those guys' property.

They ended up shooting one of them. I tend to agree with you. I don't think these things are, they're friendly forest giants. I don't think that these sayings are going to be your friend. I think they are predators looking for food. The old man was easy picket. You're right. I think he saved his life, but not going out there.

I think every time you rolled up, they probably exited the area trying to... The part that's interesting, though, and I don't know if you've thought about this, Jim, do you find it fascinating, though? Sometimes you'd go out there, and the hair on the back of your neck would stand up, and then sometimes you'd go out there and you felt fine? Yeah, I'll tell you, I've learned... You know, I had a fairly long career before I transitioned into another industry, but a law enforcement career.

But over the years, I learned to trust my gut and how I felt. And, you know, unless you're in like a spook house, you're in some place where you know you're going a scary movie. You're going to assimilate this. If you're out and about on your own business and this happens to you, you should stop and listen to it because your body, We have a sense, and I don't know why, but I have a feeling. I've heard some of your guests say this before,

that we've had dealings with these things in the remote past. And when you are in the presence of one of these things, your body involuntarily reacts. You're picking up pheromones or something. There's something out there that notifies it, that let your body know. You've got problems. You need to be, you know, you need to be on guard. Your head needs to be on the swivel.

You need to be looking around because something here wishes you ill. So, yeah, I think that, you know, you have to listen to your body in these situations. And I would strongly recommend, you know, maybe if you're going to a park in a city or something, that might be okay. But if you're going into an area that has a history of sightings, it is very remote. I really honestly don't think a person should go without a buddy now. I think you need to go and have somebody else just for plain safety, you know, because if you go out, and I didn't realize how many people were disappearing from national parts until I read those books. But, you know, you imagine you have no chance against this state that if he physically wants to take you and you don't have a firearm, he's going to take you. And there's not going to be too much you could really do about it.

Whatever happened to the old man? Did he just pass away, or is he still there? Do you know? Yeah, he did. And I don't really know the story. And the one book I read about my account said that she had gone to a nursing home. But she, the wife was never truly, I never spoke to her. She let him do all the talking.

I always saw her. Every time I saw her eyes were, you know, big around as saucers, because she was terrified. They both were terrified. I think the old man was covering it up, you know, being the man of the house and everything. He was putting on his best face. But I don't remember her other than she might make an occasional head shape, yes, in agreement with what he said or or a comment about knowing he's tapping, he tapped at the kitchen first or, you know, never had any kind of actual interaction with her verbally. It was always with him. And be on. nice with you, sometimes he could be a rather

foul mood because of that. It would cut down the you know, the communication time because life's hard enough as it is that this guy yelling at me, you know, because I can't find he's capped in his house. But, no, I think in the end

that by, probably, I think, if I understand correctly, by the end of the 2000s, he had passed away, she had moved away, and that the property basically was in disrepair. What I did discover, though, because subsequent to this, we started sort of just investigating it, and I think this happens to a lot of people.

You have this experience, and then, okay, I want to explain this to myself what took place. So we started like a little group called the Georgia Swamp Eight Research Center and some of the real older guys in the Bigfoot world, they'll remember us. We were out there, you know, around the late 90s, early 2000s, before we just folded it up.

But we followed that creek, and we found some interesting things out there and almost a perfect storm of elements necessary for you to have a Sasquatch. And I would tell anybody, if you really want to find them, All you need are three or four elements together, and you have a chance of encountering these things. One is it has to be isolated.

You can't be in a place. You're going to deal with a type B creature. If you're in New York City in Central Park and you see Sasquatch, you're seeing a type B creature. You're not seeing the flesh and blood type A guy. You're seeing something that's other. You're seeing the dogman. you're seeing something else because these guys act like animals. They want to be alone.

They want to be off on their own. They're not going to be very aggressive to you unless it's necessary for them to be aggressive to you. But they need to be an isolated area. You've got to have food. And down on that creek, we found a deserted apple orchard way back. It had one time had been a pretty big apple orchard. Next, you've got to have a little apple orchard. you've got to have water present.

They're never going to be far from water. And I think that a lot of people might disagree and say beer. I don't think that's the case. I don't think their primary protein sources beer. I think their primary protein sources fish. I think that fish are there all year long, even

in the wintertime. You know those guys, they don't, I think they do it around here, but I know it's real big out in Texas where they get down and they noodle and they go in under the banks and they catch those catfish. I think that is part of what they do. I think that they're all the time fishing, and then they're, you know,

getting deer as they can get their hands across the deer. And I think also mountainous or elevation. And, you know, I'm an area, there's a little mountain chain runs here called the Pine Mountains. So, and also, according to Dave Pilates, and I think this is true, to it, you have to be an area that has, like, 50 plus inches of rain. a year. Obviously, you guys got that. We've got that here.

And if you have all of this together, if you were looking at a map, if you had all of that together, I think you'd have a chance of encountering the biological type of this thing. Now, the type B dogman and all that stuff that has come subsequently, you and I discuss this. I don't know, because they skew everything. They're in urban settings. They act completely differently.

you know, they do odd things compared to what you and I accept as a biological creature. And, of course, this is all about being, you know. It's like you say, and that's one of the things I like about your show so much, you say, you know, well, I don't really have a saskatch in the garage and, you know, studying him. So this is all me just throwing stuff out, too. You know, things that I think have happened. I will say that we did find later on another set of tracks way down in the bottoms, but they were submerged and there was no way to cast those.

But there was a track path in the hill to toe between the two stride that we could measure was 72 inches. And I think that equated out. I believe they said that it was probably about seven and a half or eight feet tall to make that stride. And we got growled at on that same trip that night. We got growled at. And like I told you before, that was really a god. It was almost like it had projected the ground into the middle of where we were sitting around a campfire. It didn't sound like it come from around us.

It sounded like it came from in the fire. We looked and never saw anything that night. And that was the only incident that night. Yeah, it's interesting. The toe prints, I was looking at, I'm looking at the cast right now. and the toes look like they're curled in on your cast. Did you notice that when you were taking the cast? You know, the honest truth is I didn't.

I think the honest truth is that the entire time that I was pulling the plaster of perished for that calf, I was looking up and around. I, yeah, I was really, I mean, I saw, I know what you're talking about because you can see like the tendon behind the toe where he's gripped in. and I think that he griffed in because he was going to make that big step up onto that opposite bank. But, no, at the time, I'll tell you the truth, Wes. And, you know, I'm not a scared of cat, but I really honestly had my head up looking around. I didn't think that it'd be proven to get too interested in what I was doing on the ground.

I need to keep my eyes up. I was just a little bit apprehensive, let's say that, you know. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, at what point did you stop and go, this isn't a person out here, this is probably a creature, this is probably a Sasquatch. Was it when he found the prints, is when that really started going through your mind? No, you know what? The truth is, I was still dabbing in my mind. I was trying to figure out how someone could have cut out a piece of wood to make this print, or I was still, you know, in my mind, this, I'm still dealing with a huge.

human perpetrator. I'm still dealing with you know somebody's, you know, maybe there's a lot more sophisticated than I would imagine, but I'm dealing with somebody that's a human being, the source of this.

I'll tell you the truth, that real startling feeling that you get didn't happen until I read that letter from Jeff Meldrum. And when Jeff Meldrum said, you know what, this is deal. This is like, you know, what we're getting out here in Washington State. This is a real

thing. I think I had a sinking feeling that day, and I said, you know, there's no telling how close you were out there at night with your pistol. You know, looking around this guy's, looking around this guy's yard, how close you came to standing by something that's completely alien to what we as modern human beings, modern Americans, except as being reality. That you've touched something that's beyond. You've touched something that's different, something that's, you know, shifts your world. That's the only way I can say, and I think anybody who said, you know, I've never been, I don't want to say blessed because I don't think it is a blessing.

A lot of the Native Americans I've talked to about this. told me, they said, you know, you're lucky you didn't see the thing. And said, you know, seeing it's worse than if you just found the evidence that it's been ramped. So I don't think I don't think I've been blessed, but I think I was allowed to touch and see into something that most people never get to see. And what it does is it shifts your view of reality. It unhinges like, yeah, no, no, no, this is real.

this is not Hollywood. This is a real thing. This is something that's taken place out there. In fact, you know, you and I had talked, and, you know, I would just give a shout out to Brenda Harris because I never would have probably come forward and talk to you on the show except for the interview you did with her because the things that were happening on the Navajo lands

that she talked about were so close, especially when she was talking about the corn and stuff because I fell to mention there was corn. He had some cracked corn that went missing too. But when she started talking about people have to cover up the crack corn because these things are coming and just eat barrels of it, I knew then I said, you know what, this isn't just me. Other people are experiencing this thing.

This thing's out there. And, you know, for that, I'm grateful to Sasquatch Chronicles because you shared this information I probably would have never heard. So kudos you for that, honestly. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. My heart kind of goes out to the old man. You know, I can kind of understand why he was kind of a jerk when he came out.

You know, he's probably at the boiling point every time he came out or, you know, at fear or freaking out. You know, one thing you and I were talking about the other day, and I don't talk about it a lot on the show, but I tend to agree with you. You mentioned you touched on it earlier. You know, there's two, I think there is two separate things going on. out there in this world. And my eyes really got opened up when I went down there to Southern California and talked with the Border Patrol, found out what they were seeing,

just the weird stuff that they run into. And I tend to agree with you. I think there is a flush and blood animal that's out there. It's a very smart animal. It's a very intelligent creature. But I do think there's something else going on out there that people are, you know, it's like you mentioned. You know, if you see one in the middle of Central Park in New York,

you're probably not seeing a flush and blood Sasquatch, you're probably running into something else. That's right. I mean, you know, I've heard you guys talk about, you know, type A, type, you know, type 1, 2, and 3 and 4 and stuff. Well, you know, people who have pursued this and have studied this have for a long time known that the bigger animals seem to be from the Pacific Northwest. Although we do have equally big animals here in the South, at least allegedly. but then when you start talking about something that's tainted in origin, like a dog man, this is not any kind of primate. You're talking about something that's completely opposite.

And it's also with crossing species, you know, you've got a dog's looking head on a primate sort of body. All right, that's something other, you know, and that's why I opened my mind up for this several years ago. And you know how it exactly is in the community because you're there, you know, really a lot more than I am. I've been there for a long time, but there's a narrative that they won't hold in the big people community. And the narrative is this guy is completely, he's a pacifist. You know, he makes daisy chains, and he wants to eat watermelon with you, and he wants you to bring him out raisins and cakes and put him on the log. and, you know, he's going to look over you, the friendly, whatever.

And you know what? Maybe there are individuals that could be like that. But a lot of people, especially those folks out in Texas and Louisiana, you know, shout out to the G.C.BRO because I've talked with those guys over the years in the past. Not everything that you're encountering out there is friendly or likes you. And some of the things people are reporting don't qualify is what the classic description or John Green's description of the Sasquatch is. This is something else.

And for a long time, I've argued in the circles, and I just finally quit. But you know what? It's not that people are telling you lies. They're not, people aren't hoax in this stuff necessarily. I know that there's a large amount of that that takes place. But there's some honest people who come to. forward and say, look, I know I saw Bigfoot, and

his eyes were glowing, and Bigfoot, you know, he had a head of a dog, he had a muzzle, or whatever, and this thing came up, and he tried to attack me, and that seems to be the thing, is the other thing seems to be very aggressive

towards human beings. The actual flesh and blood thing that we're talking about, he doesn't. I think he can be aggressive out of necessity, but I don't think that in and of itself he wants to deal with us. He acts just like an animal. He

wants to stay away from us. He knows we're dangerous as hell. He says there's nothing to be gained by going up to the, to deal with that guy with that long stick that goes boom. He says, stay away from him. And if he gets too close, I'm going to be him with a rock.

But otherwise, you know, he's out there in the woods. The other thing, those things to almost seek people out, attack their cars. you know, do these, do the things, you know, that the other creature just doesn't seem to do this. So I don't know. How are we going to type these things? Well, an A creature, a B creature, I don't know.

You can categorize anything. Humans love to categorize things. But, you know, there's a definite spiritual aspect to the type B type of creature. I think they would call them skin walkers or whatever out in the Native American culture. But I tend to fall with the Native American culture on this that you've got other involved in this. And maybe it's put there. It's a cosmic joke to fool us. Maybe this is there because they don't want us to know the truth.

I don't know, Wes. I mean, it's really philosophically. It's really deep subject matter. Yeah, I think with Sasquatch, you know, like you and I were just saying, generally speaking, I think they'll try and stay away from you. However, there are situations where they can be very unpredictable, they can be very aggressive, and they can't attack. And usually it's like you said, like any other animal, with food, they're hungry, they're in a situation like the old man was in where the bottoms had flooded out. It was kind of driven out of its area. And now it's in a different area and needs food.

But with the dog man, what's interesting is everyone I've ever spoken to that has come across to a dogman or has seen a dog man. dog man, the word that always comes up is evil. They'll always say it was evil, evil looking, had an evil feeling, evil being, it was evil. And generally you don't get that with Sasquatch. People are just terrified when they run into them, but they generally don't say evil. That's right. So I tend to agree with you on some of it. Again, I believe people, I think they are running into these things, these dogmen things. What they are, I couldn't tell you. I mean, I can't even tell you what a Sasquatch is. But what the dogman is, I can't. can't tell you, but it's just interesting the impression that most witnesses get is evil.

See, that's the thing. I never once, I mean, I did feel in danger, but it would be the same sort of thing that I would get if I were, you know, in the bush and had encountered an African lion or a grizzly bear. It was, you know, I didn't feel like the thing was unnatural. I just felt like, okay, there's something out here. it's not right. You need to be careful. Maybe you need to back out of this. And anybody who's ever hunted a predator will understand this feeling.

And I can say this because, you know, as a police officer, I've dealt with the ultimate predator. That's human being. So you understand when there's a feeling that comes across. But what these other people say is, you know, I had listened to some of your other shows, especially the one about the Nephilim. And, you know, that's a very interesting. subject simply because if you throw these ancient descriptions like you and I had talked about, you know, in ancient Egypt, they have men depicted with dog head.

You know, and they're not the only people. They're not the only culture who has this and the pictograms that you can encounter out in the southwest. They have similar sorts of pictograms, so this is not a new phenomenon, but it's not a natural phenomena. And that's the thing that I just want people to see is that okay, you've got this one creature, but on the other hand,

what you may be encountering out there, if your eyes are glowing red and they're, you know, pretty naturally blown red, if they are illuminating themselves, that's not a biological creature. You know, we're not dealing with something that comes from the deep ocean. We're dealing with something that's

just, you know, it's a land-based mammal. So, if If it's like blowing eyes and it's out doing whatever, in my mind, that would fall towards the type B sort of creature. You've got something else. This thing, you know, whether you want to give it a spiritual origin or whatever, I don't know. That's not for me to categorize. But, you know, if you look across the south, you know, over in Bishopville, South Carolina, they have a lizard man. lives in the swamp, except he's supposed to be scaling, and he is still occasionally seen.

The skunk ate down in the Everglades, and I've been into the Everglades and look there. I've never seen anything there, but the Seminole people say that this guy, he's just a kind of human, just like a lot of other Native American tribes say. That's what he does. He eats out of dumpsters. He hunts, he fishes, he does what anybody would do to make a living. out in that big swamp. You know, so I don't know.

I'm just a listener. You know, I don't claim any expertise in anything involving this. I just know that I like to observe everything. And I think as an investigator, you betray yourself if you just buy into one narrative. If you don't open your mind up and say, okay, I'm just going to take the witness what they say, because seeminglyly the most bizarre. tails are generally true as tails. Because if a person

is, yeah, I mean, because if a person comes out and they tell you something really odd, you know, that doesn't fit the quote-unquote classic Sasquatching encounter, roadrunner in Canada where it crosses the road or something, if they add something that's really odd in there,

chances on what they're saying is more likely true because it won't fit the narrative. And I would say this just as a public service announcement, if you and of one of these things, and you do decide to call an organization. You need to stick to your guns with your narrative, what you saw in your mind, and don't let them guide your narrative, because a lot of times I've heard this from other people. These people seem to almost have a script.

They arrive, and they want to tell you what you saw. They want to change. Are you sure that it was gray? I mean, could it have been black? Could it have been brown? No, it was great. Well, if they continue to try to change your narrative, that means they're trying to control your encounter and what has taken place. And that's not good business. That's not fair investigating because if you're going to investigate,

you need to open up and just take it as it is. Take what the person has to say and let them say it fully. I don't care if what was the one you were talking about, West, when you were talking about the guy that said he acted like a bag of lady oh yeah he uh that was on the down the rabbit hole episodes the the gentleman he was saying that it reminded him of a crazy bag lady on the street and this thing would come off the mountain in the morning work its way down down the canyon and he would see it from his home on occasions and he said it would have weird bag lady moments and i asked him what do you mean by that he said what it would do

is it would stop it would jibber and throw its hands in the air and it just reminded him of a crazy bag lady on the street, you know, like a street person. And then it would start walking and then it would stop and then it would flail its arms in the air and it would scream and yell and jibber real weird and then it would start walking again. And so I thought maybe these things, you know, maybe there's susceptible to mental illnesses. It's one of the very few times I've heard that. But, you know, if they're in our family tree, it would make sense, you know, that they would

be successful to that, just like we are, you know? And you see, what you said, you know, exactly. That was the first week when you told me the story was that, okay, you know what, maybe this guy's having some issues. Maybe something's going on and he's melting down a little bit. He's been to woods too long. So something's happening. And, you know, but I would tend to believe that story because that's an odd thing for someone

to just pick out of the air to say about Nick Cannon with Sasquatch. you know, mostly the television ones down there. He crossed the road. I saw him stand on the edge of the campground. It seems to be almost like a boilerplate sort of activity that these things do. And I think some of that's true. But when you get the odd one and they want to eliminate that because it just doesn't fit their narrative of what Sasquatch is.

He's Haley & Henderson's. He's completely harmless. And I think there's an agenda behind that. I think there's an agenda for years has been driven by particular corporations. Bigfoot, not only is he not real, but if he is real, he's friendly and he's not going to bother you because we just really don't want one of these things to be captured. And I think at the bottom line, that's the thing. You know, you were talking about earlier some of the escapades and stuff that you had with people, you know, covering things up.

out there around your neck of the wood. You know, for a long time, a lot of us who are actually kind of more independent and who've investigated these things, if you get into a situation where one of these things is captured, I honestly don't think you'll ever be allowed.

That's a dream. People, you know, all the old guys, DeHenden, green, the truth is we want to make them, you know, lift them up to being, you know, these great experts. But the fact is, They were really just treasure hunters like the rest of everybody else.

They wanted to get this guy to cash in. Well, if you cash in, if you do get the thing, you're going to destroy the economy in the Pacific Northwest in Canada and Alaska, in Georgia. If you actually capture the thing, billions of dollars immediately are going to be lost to the American economy because, you know, these environmental groups are immediately going to call on a complete sense. of looking for them, harassing them, going into the woods because it's now all habitat. So I think there's, you know, I think there's a hidden agenda taking place to stop this. I know that might sound a little odd, but it just some of the stories you shared,

maybe I'm completely wrong, and I'll say that, but some of the stories you shared seems to me that there are parties out there with a vested interest that if you took the Bigfoot, if they find out about it, they're going to see your big foot carcass. They're going to take it. It's never going to feed a lot of day. So I don't know. I would just share that with the audience. I tend to agree with you. I think

that these things, I think it would absolutely destroy the economy. I think it would be more than just lumber. Because lumber touches a lot of different economies like you and I were talking the other day. And I think it would absolutely destroy the economy

having this come out. But in the same breath, it would be nice for it to come out to let people know these things are out there because they can be dangerous. A lot of people freak out when they're running to these things. A lot of people are out there in the woods. You know, it's like the old man that you went out to investigate a quote-unquote prowler. I've heard that so many times and police officers get very frustrated. They think it's some crazy old man. They've got to go out and deal with. And 99% of the time, I think a lot of cops think there's nothing going on. It's just an lonely old man that's telling tall tales.

Right. I think it goes on a lot. I think it goes on more than most people realize. I think a lot of people would be shocked on a lot of... The best stories come out of situations like this where it's a rural setting. If you wouldn't have come forward, if you would have never taken that cast, the story would have never been told. That's right. And you know what?

Here's the amazing thing about it. You know, that cash was taken in the spring of 1995, and it's only by happenstance that anyone even knows about the cash, because the cash probably would have stayed in the closet on top shelf unless I've been talked into bringing it out and it being looked at. But, you know, I cannot honestly say today that I count this as a good fortune thing for me in my life. The truth is, it raised so many more questions than answers in life by finding this thing.

And I understand now a lot better when, you know, the Native Americans would say, you know what, if you smell it, don't go down there. If you hear it, don't go bother it. If you see, leave it along. Stay away from it. Because not necessarily, I mean, I think there's a cost that a person pays for even being involved. with this study of this creature. Is it worth it? I don't know.

I am glad, though, on the other hand, at least this thing turned out to kind of validate the old man and to kind of at least leave a piece of evidence there that he wasn't a crank. You know, he really was seriously having to deal with something that, you know, it was beyond what any one of the ones. of us would have been prepared to deal with.

So, you know, I felt bad for a long time as an officer because I try to be a good police officer. I try to truly serve the public and to help people and to do the things that are supposed to be there. But again, I felt like I let him down.

But later on, I understood that, you know, hey, there was really nothing you could have done. You know, you're having to deal with this on a 15-minute sort of situation. periodically and didn't even believe in the phenomena that was pestering the old man. If you don't know something exists, it's kind of hard to deal with it, you know?

Yeah, I think, you know, you do your best with what you know and what you got at the time. And it's like you said, really, what are you going to do? There's really nothing you could have done to stop this from happening out at that property. It would have happened whether you came out there or not. you probably just gave him breaks on what he was experiencing at the time. But for the most part, it's not going to stop it from happening. And I just wonder if, you know, I know you went off to serve a different community. You kind of got out of the rural area.

I almost wonder if it got worse for the old man. You know, when there was no longer dogs to eat, there was no longer dog food to eat. These things tend to get more and more aggressive. And I'm still thinking about him laying in bed and having that thing come up and to the edge of the wall and say his dog's name. I mean, that would scare the hell out of me. Yeah. I mean, well, you know, I thought then, I said, you know, we've stepped beyond now. This is really serious that somebody's bold enough, me thinking about a human, to go up to the window.

Because, you know, we're in Georgia. We're in a gun culture here. Everybody. You know, we have guns. it's part of life. You know, you're five, you get a gun, you know, at the birthday. So we know from the time, you know, we're standing up like that how to handle a gun, what to do with a gun.

So, you know, gun safety, all of the things that might be missing in the Northeast or somewhere. So for someone to be bold enough to walk up to the wall of someone's house, even as a human and start saying stuff like that, I knew I was dealing with somebody that was either really a hardcore criminal or a nutcase. I figured, you know, they're very bold. But, you know, like I said, my knee-jerk reaction is, okay, we got some guys down there that want to move some dope. They want to move some pot out of here.

He's causing issues for them to get in and out of the glow location, or, you know, they got are still running back down on that creek somewhere. So, you know, people would do crazy things in desperation. But the thing that really threw me, though, was he said it was so deep. And he said it was so deep, it was a vibration sort of, I can't really do it. I can't, you know, I think, you know, there used to be a thing. You ever stand in front of a speaker at a rock concert, and you could feel that vibration inside the torso of your body?

Right. If he said that it was that sort of deepness in it, you know, that sort of sound to it, So, yeah, you're right. You know, what I think happened is this. And I think the thing that probably saved him other than the fact that he really did stay in the house is when I made that test, it was in April. So probably things were coming into bloom. And the first corn crop was probably getting ready to come out in May.

And the thing is, people don't. you know, unless you see with a map, it runs, Elkins Creek runs approximately 20, 21 miles, and it empties into the Flint River. And the Flint is, I think, now the longest free-flowing river in the United States still. It runs from us to the Gulf of Mexico. I think the thing moved along.

I think it saw that this was, you know, not going to happen, and it moved down to creek foraging, finally perhaps found a cornfield or found another, easy-picking sort of thing and ended up on the Flint. And for many years, I second guess myself, but they took some infrared footage at, I think it's called, Correo State Park down in the panhandle of Florida. And I saw that finally, and the creature in that film or in that infrared footage

looked just like the Patterson Gimlin creature. And, you know, I looked at it on the map, and I said, said, you know what? Here we go. I'm at the other end. He's at the bottom end of this same river. And that kind of gives me validation, Ben, I said, okay, well, maybe we do have a group are individuals using this as a highway and moving north and south along the Flint River,

foraging and living and doing it, because I'll be honest with you to see things people miss is that we have all these rivers, but who goes to the river? honestly, you know, there are miles and miles and miles of a river where no one has developed it, there's no, you know, nothing along the bank. It's just wood and bottoms. And people naturally avoid swamps. You know, we drive over swamps and bridges and we go around them. So it's just a beautiful natural habitat for something like this to exist.

So I think in the end, that's what served the old man's life was the fact that the creature, the season changed a little bit, and it opened up, and whatever this thing was, decided to move along to ease your picking. And I'm glad for the old man's sake. Yeah, no kidding. Well, Jim, I can't think enough for coming on and sharing your side of the story and kind of telling it firsthand. You know, I really appreciate it.

It's cool to get someone to come on the air who was there instead of just trying to read it online. from what a second or third party wrote about it, you know what I mean? Right. Well, you know, court, let me thank you, Wes. And I tell you what, I know that I said this to you off. I'm going to say it online. You know, you are pushing this thing. You're going towards the truth.

You're bringing on stories that might be unpopular in some quarters. So, you know, you're going to face some flat in this community when you're successful and when you're getting out there. But I'll tell you this, brother, you keep the faith. and you keep producing probably, in my opinion, the finest show on this creature that exists, at least certainly as far as the podcast, but I really count as TV shows too, because you're the only show that actually will discuss everything. So, you know, keep the faith, brother, and you guys, you keep letting the truth be known to the folks out here in the world.

And for my part, thank you again. God bless you, and thank you, Wes. And I'll be listening along just like everybody else does to the Sasquatch Crum. Jim, I really appreciate the kind of words, man. It really does mean a lot to me. No problem. Thank you, Wes. And that's it for tonight, everyone.

If you've had an encounter, shoot me an email, Wes at satchwatchcronvals.com. Other than that, I will see everyone back here on Friday night. Have a great night, everyone. This is the country faster than the coronavirus, and wagering week is your antidote. I'm Tom Barton, 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.

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