Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:174 Hairy arm reached in the van's passenger window

Episode Date: December 13, 2015

Tonight I speak to two guests. My first guest is Josh who was riding on some ATV's with his family when they came across a strange creature that was watching them. Josh and his brother were on the trail riding their ATV's when Josh's brother stopped ahead of him. Josh said "As I came around the corner my younger brother was stopped and was pointing so I stopped and looked and that is when we saw it…" I also speak to Eric who had probably who had some very interesting encounters, Eric writes: My first experience occurred in either summer 1993 or 1994. I simply cannot recall the specific date any longer. My friends from high school and I went to Cave River Valley near Campbellsburg, IN, which at the time was privately owned (it is now a state-owned natural area). We stopped by the owner's house, paid for a few nights of camping and received the key to get past the iron ranger blocking property access. The property was magnificent. The upper section of the property was about 60 feet above the valley floor and had two camping areas. The valley was wide and covered in sparse grass and hard packed dirt along with an old log cabin. A creek ran through the valley. There were also several caves – River Cave, Endless Cave, Dorsey's Cave. We spent the first day setting up camp near the park entrance and exploring the caves. Nothing odd or strange was noticed. We started cooking dinner over the campfire at nightfall and enjoying a couple of beers apiece. After dinner, we were all sitting in chairs around the campfire and heard the clear sounds of footsteps coming up the hillside to our east. This hill was a *very* steep grade. The footfalls were consistent and sounded like someone walking normally. All of us turned around and watched, expecting someone to crest the hill. The footfalls stopped at the top of the hill. We waited a few seconds and began calling out to this "person" in a friendly manner. We waited a few more seconds and began to get nervous. No one had any weapons – if this is a hermit who wants us out of here, we have no way to defend ourselves. Then we heard this "person" take off running in the brush and deeper into the woods. We could follow the path taken aurally, leading to the north and away from us. Whoever was running out there did not slow down, make any effort to be quiet and was moving very quickly. The runner got to a point about 500 feet away from us and the sounds stopped. Once we all got our wits about us and discussed what had just happened, two of us (myself and my friend who was 6' and 300 lbs.) decided to investigate. We began walking towards where we last heard the runner and stopped at the edge of the firelight. My friend went to the west and started moving north on the dirt road and I headed directly towards the last location of the running sounds in the woods. I may have taken 5 steps when an ear-splitting scream erupted from the darkness. While I am no Les Stroud, I am not unfamiliar with the woods, animal sounds and the general cacophony of nighttime in the forest. I've heard all manner of animals scream – foxes, rabbits, owls, coyotes. All of them make sounds far louder and stranger than you'd expect. However, even when close by, I'd categorize their sounds as startling but never (to me) ear-splittingly loud. This scream hurt my ears and made me back up. I could physically feel it. The scream sounded like a bizarre owl screech, but deeper, louder and powerful. The sound was very deep, almost rumbling, for about one second and then increased in volume and pitch for the next 5 seconds, ending as a paralyzing shriek. My friend ran back to camp instantly. I stood still and listened. I could hear whoever this was retreating into the forest to the point I could no longer hear them. I went back to camp, joked it was probably a bobcat or owl, and let it go. We spent the night sleeping in a van rather than tents. Everyone was freaked out but no one wanted to say it. It was pure comedy. By that time, we'd been drinking beer for a few hours and were drunk – no two ways about it. We all passed out. About 3AM one of the guys woke up and screamed he'd seen a hairy arm reach in the van's passenger window (all windows were open to cool off the interior and allow the horrible odors we were emitting to escape). He said it picked up all of our leftover food stacked on the seat and retreated. Everyone piled out to find the food missing and plates strewn about, with a path heading into the woods. I said he probably saw a raccoon. He didn't say anything else and we went to sleep. The next morning, we did go over to the hill to look for tracks and found nothing. We went down the hill and tried to walk and run up it. None of us could do so without using handholds and stumbling every few steps. All of us were in good shape, young and played sports actively. We were perplexed but shrugged it off like the teenagers we were and went about our day. Everyone went home the following day. The next summer, three of us went back and camped in the valley. We spent the day exploring the log cabin (we did find two bedding areas inside, but no idea what made them), caves and trails. We went rock climbing. We had a great time. When we came back to where our cars were parked, one of the cars had been spun around and moved a good 20 feet away from where it had been parked. There were large scuff marks all over the ground, but no foot prints and no detail. We chalked it up to locals being jerks, though we'd neither seen nor heard anyone in the area. We then set up a 3 man tent, cooked dinner and sat in the cool creek water to relax. About 1AM or so, we all went to bed in the tent. Very shortly afterwards, both of my friends were snoring when I heard distinct footfalls above us at the top of the valley. I then heard the sound of something sliding down the valley wall. Each slide (4 in total that I recall) came with a several minute pause in between. It took a good 30 minutes or more for this sliding creature to reach the valley floor. Once at the valley floor, all was silent until I heard two distinct splashes in the creek (it would have taken me 4-5 steps to cross the creek). Whoever or whatever this was, it was now in our camp. I could hear occasional rustling sounds, followed by silence, then more rustling. Eventually a cooler was knocked over and dead silence filled the camp. It was then I realized I'd heard nothing but this creature making noise and the babbling of the creek for about an hour. I heard the footfalls leave the fire ring and circle our tent. The footfalls stopped directly behind my head. My heart was in my throat and I had my eyes closed. I distinctly remember thinking "F___ it" and opening my eyes and looking up through the rain fly. There was a massive head looking down at me. I could see no detail, eyeshine, hair or anything else. It was just a massive head. The moment I opened my eyes, the head moved backwards and out of view. I never heard it leave camp but did hear it climbing back up the valley wall. Once it left, the normal night sounds came back and the fear subsided. I stayed awake until one of my friends moved. I woke him up and told him what happened. It was my turn to be told I was dreaming or mistaken. I did check for footprints and sign the next day and could see the slide marks down the valley wall but nothing else. I don't recall that we found anything missing. I tried to look in the rain fly like the head the night before. I would need to be about a half foot taller to do so comfortably. I am 5'9" and this person would have need to be at least 6'5" to look directly down at me. I could almost look straight down but had to lean on the tent to do so. Whoever the head belonged to, they were not leaning forward onto the tent. We stayed a couple more days without incident and then went home.

Five, five, four, four, three, three, two, one. One. When I had come down this hill, I had seen this creature cross the road. They would have ripped 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 with him.

The look it was given me. Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot. Sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. Sasquatch Chronicle. A place where people share their encounters.

Let's start the show. One, thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you this evening. Got two guests coming up. The first guest is an ATV writer and came across to Sasquatch on a trail. The other guest, Eric, he's going to be sharing some encounters he's had throughout the years. and they were pretty fascinating encounters. Some of the best ones I think I've heard.

But first up, I want to welcome Mo to the show. Mo, thanks for coming on. I really do appreciate being on tonight. Hey, thanks, Wes. I appreciate it, too, man. I'll be doing well. Thanks, man. And I wanted to bring you on.

I know you guys are starting to do expeditions out there in the Big Thicket. And do you want to tell the audience a little bit about that, how they can contact you? Sure, sure. what we're doing is starting expeditions, and the first one we're going to be starting is going to be in February, the first weekend in February, which is the 5th, 6th, and 7th. And the expeditions will go for three days. There will be a base camp, and from the base camp, we'll take people out into really good hot spots to get vocals, you know, possible sightings and interactions. Now, with that said, it's $500 for three days, and you do get fed each day.

There is a base camp that is tarped off. There will be protection. There will be people there, you know, basically who have experience and some people who don't have experience. And the best way to get in touch right now at this juncture would be to call me at 443-947. 7, 698. Again, 443, 7994, 7694, 7698. We're really excited about this. Wes, our mission statement, if you will, is, and it was cool because, you know, we got

together the other night and we basically wanted to get a mission statement going, and we want people to come, here's our statement. We want people to come and experience what we've already experienced. And with that, it said, you'll get to meet Bob Garrett, the rest of the guys, and you have expert field guides taking you out. And, you know, I can't guarantee that you're going to have a sighting or anything, but it's going to be, as you came out with us and you know. Yeah.

So with that said, I mean, to just, you know, can touch with me, and then later on, we'll probably do something in March, probably two expeditions in March, depending on how it goes. You know, it was really cool going out with you, Bob, Tim, all you guys. I learned a lot from each and one of you guys, you know, tracking. I mean, I've been tracking animals hunting my whole life. And I walked away learning a lot about how to track, especially these things. And, you know, the time that we were out there, there was a ton of vocals going on.

I mean, it was, when I say like Jurassic Park, it really was like Jurassic Park. Almost every one of us had some sort of something happened. If you don't see it, you definitely hear it. you have something thrown at you or I was amazed when I was out there how much activity was going on and I know Mo you're you're a I know you're not a professional chef but you might as well be because when I was out there with you I ate I ate great when I was out there you know steak and you know I don't know what you're feeding people but I know if you're cooking it's going to be good so I hope people sign up for it I hope they go out with you guys I walked away I learned a lot

I hope people enjoy it yeah um and again again, we want people to walk away experiencing what we've experienced. That is our goal. And to even people who are on the fence or non-believers, we invite those people to come on out and see what it's like out there, Wes. And I want to thank you for your time. I appreciate it very much. And, you know, again, if people can't get in touch with me,

if they can either, you know, go on Saskatchewatch Chronicles, do a posting there. I'll go to the postings and look at it. people and if they want to leave their email address, we can contact them by email. Sounds good. And for the listeners out there, it's up on the website. If you go to Sasquotronicles.com, I just posted it to the blog today. If you miss the number of the numbers up there, the way to reach Mo, give it a chance, give them a call and head out with these guys. Definitely, they'll definitely experience something. I mean, I hate saying that. And I know you'll

never say that, Mo, but I'm pretty confident if people go out with you, something will happen. So thank you for coming on the show, Mo. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. And I want to say thank you to all your listeners to Wes. And that's Mo, everyone. And again, I posted that to the blog, so if you get a chance, check it out. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email, Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com.

And it's an interesting night. You know, the both encounters are very fascinating that I'll be bringing on. And I want to jump right into it because of time limit. tonight. So let's get right into it. Josh, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Hey, Wes. How's it going? Now, I know your encounter happened about 10 years ago when you're out writing your ATVs, but if you would for the audience, just kind of start from the beginning. Tell us what you were out doing. Tell us what you experienced, what you saw. Walk us right into it. Okay. First off, my younger brother and my dad,

And we used to live in Davy, which is kind of like a redneck, you know, country type area. So we used to riding, you know, ATVs and stuff like that, you know, going muddy and all that. But anyways, to the lakehouse and Lake Places, that's in, you know, kind of near central Florida. You know, my dad, while we're up there at the Lakehouse, he discussed, I don't know, I would say maybe like 20. 30 minutes trails that he knew of, some sand trails. You know, we unloaded the ATVs.

My dad and my sister went on the big one. Then me, and basically we just went through, you know, we're riding, and we had just made this turn. He made a right turn. Now it's about, you know,

10 seconds behind him. Turned it, the whole sand track area, it opens up into a wider, you know, long stretch. Then it goes back into the little curvy, you know, sand tracks. Anyways, he had stopped, and I was wondering why he had stopped the ATV, and, you know, he had shut it off. As soon as I was pulling up, he started pointing, I showed it off,

shut up my ATV. Then he, you know, pointed, and, you know, he asked, you know, hey, you know, what is it? and it was over, it was like a big, like a big way, I was in distance, but pretty, it was a little ways down. And we at first thought maybe it was, you know, some, you know, big person, you know, down ATB or something like that. But anyways, it looked like it was,

looks like it was looking for something, I would say. It wasn't looking in their direction yet. It was five seconds after that, you know, talking, the figure kind of direction, it didn't look directly at a, you know, looks over. And shortly after that, we saw whatever this thing

was, I'd say it was probably about you know, seven and a half foot tall, maybe a foot tall was. It just, you know, from, you know, from what I mean you, there's bushes, you know, and woods on both sides. And when in further

I knew of the legend of Boggy Creek a DVD, you know, years and years ago, been a big foot. Let me ask you, Josh, when you first saw this saying, was it on two legs or four legs? It was on two legs, but the way it was run of almost like a humpback, but, you know, obviously it didn't have a hump. And I had very well, maybe like four to five inches of, you know, hair, you know, dark brown,

maybe blackish, that color. Were you able to get any details by looking at the creature? Yeah, like I said, the only details I saw, I mean, the face I could tell when he, when he glanced over in our general direction, it was definitely like a, I want to say a black face, but a dark face, maybe like a dark gray, blackish. It looks kind of, you know, it exactly reminded me of a chimp's face. And I couldn't really see any, any of the ears that you had when I was running across. This thing had, you know, a pretty much flattened nose. It was pretty far away. I couldn't get really good details of the face, slightly conical.

But it was mostly just a round head, you know, very wide, you know, to the big head. And, you know, obviously, that's when we knew it definitely wasn't human. What was going through your mind when he saw this thing? Were you thinking bear? Were you thinking, what was, I mean, what was going through your mind? Obviously, it never dropped all fours. I've read your encounter several times, and it seems like it was on two feet the whole time. Right, right.

I mean, what was daunting from my mind originally was, like, right when I pulled up to my brother, I saw that he had the weirdest look on his face. And that was before I had seen the figure. Then when I looked at him here, he started to point. You know, when he pointed it over there, I saw what he was looking at. And then basically what, you know, put that, like a puzzle, kind of explaining his, facial. He, yeah, I don't know, I was thinking pretty much that maybe it could have got lost or something. I thought it was kind of, we broke down in the bushes, which, yeah, I mean, that's right.

At that time, it saw, you know, right when it turned, it wasn't, it wasn't human. What did you guys do next after this? Right after we saw it run across, we talked about it for maybe like 20 seconds. You know, are you sure this? Are you sure that, you know, was it this, was it that? You know, we're asking questions about it. You know, did you see this? Did you see that? Like, maybe, you know, 20 seconds to drive.

And, you know, we were going slow. We left ATVs on just in case it was still around, so we didn't, you know, shoot anything. But we did see these foot impressions in the same detail. Like if I would have tried to cast them, they probably won't have came out well. And these footprints were, you know, give or take, you know, inches, maybe like 20 inches max. So they're pretty big feet. And like it, it looks like a human footprint.

Imprints back hill, you know, a human footprint has that kind of, this was more just like, right, didn't have the current view, what I'm saying. Yeah, it was more of a, was it more of a square? Would you describe it as? More boxy? Yes. Well, it'll turn it like a square, but more with, you know, rounded edges. You know, to be honest with you, I'm always amazed by encounters like this. You know it heard you come in. It had to have heard you come in. But it's not the...

Right, right. ATVs are loud, so, you know, yeah, it definitely had to hear us coming, which is what I was wondering is why would it still be standing there, although it looked like it was doing something when we pulled up. I mean, it didn't see us coming from a distance since we had just made the turn. So maybe it just heard the sound in the distance and knew, you know, there was some kind of sound in the distance, but, you know, we made that right turn, and, you know, it was, you know, right down there. So you were going to continue talking. That's not the first time I've heard something like that, you know, from ATV writers where they turn a corner or they're coming up and they run across these things.

And when they run across these things, every encounter I've heard almost on an ATV, you know, these creatures had to have heard them coming, but they choose not to leave. And I think maybe because there was two of you decided to run off, might have been a different story if it was just yourself, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, that's how I was my younger brother, which was much smaller than me at the time. I had already hit, you know, in puberty. So I was already growing. You know, he is much smaller. He still had the, you know, like a little kid voice still.

then I don't know what would have happened to be honest. Fiat shot off his ATV like that. You know, that thing could have just, you know, ran over there and been to him and, you know, it didn't shoot, it didn't run super fast across the pathway. It ran. So it didn't, you know, it wasn't like shooting across, but it was running pretty quick. Yeah, no, I tend to agree with you. I think that, you know, it was probably more of a curiosity,

and there was two of you guys. But it's still a very, very fascinating encounter. And, you know, you got to see something most people dream about seeing. And I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. No, no, no, no problem. I appreciate you having me on. Wait until Christmas, I'm going to get the membership. Yeah, I mean, thanks again for having me on.

And, you know, happy holidays. And, you know, hope you have a good one. Hey, happy holidays to you, and thanks for being on, brother. All right. Thanks, Josh. And again, if you've had any sort of encounter and he'd like to be on the show, shoo me an email, Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. Next up on the show is Eric.

I want to welcome me to the show, Eric. I appreciate you waiting and thank you for being here tonight. Okay, no problem, Wes. If you would, Eric, you had three encounters, very interesting encounters. Kind of start from the beginning. Tell us about the first one. Tell us what you're out doing.

And then just walk the audience right into it. I was fascinated by it. The first encounter was actually a two-part encounter over a two-year period. And basically, it was when I was in high school, my year, year, 1994. And a friend of mine had found a property here in Indiana that was privately owned called Cave River Valley. I'd never heard of it. It sounded interesting. So we booked three nights there, paid for our night, got our key to the Iron Rane,

that guards the property and went on in. Beautiful property, pristine. You know, you drive in, and there's, obviously, there's the upper section and then the lower section, which is the Cave River Valley. And the upper section is just simply just woods with a couple of spots cleared out for camping. And then there's a switchback road down into the valley. So we walked down that. There were eight of us there.

And we all walked down. There was a log cabin, an old, old log cabin in disrepair. Then a river cave was right in front of us. Further down, we followed the creek that runs through the valley, and it was just grass and dirt, very hard packed, and then trails leading off into the forest to the left, which should have been the west. And one took you to Inblitz Cave, which was literally a long cave that ended up under a cow pasture, under the neighbor's property, and then Dorsey Cave, and then one we never knew the name of

that you had to crawl in and it had a stove pipe in it, so we never went too far into that one. After we explored all those all day long, we were beat, climbed the switch back out, and started making dinner. And as teenagers are what to do, we had beer with us, but we were not by any means intoxicated when this occurred. We cooked dinner, had a couple drinks. We were sitting around talking, had a big campfire going. And then to the east was a wall of a very wide farmer's field. It was all soybean.

To get to it was a very steep hill. I mean, down at the bottom we later saw, it was probably 30 degrees incline. Up at the top, it had a solid 50-degree incline part that was very hard to climb. well after nightfall we started to hear footsteps coming up this incline and of course we all wheeled around immediately like you know who is this and what he did to see here came up the hill and the footsteps were very consistent just step step step step step all the way up until it got to the to the crest of the hill and they stopped and we all looked at each other like you go, who is this? And for about five to ten seconds, we waited, and one of the guys called out, you know, hello, and we all would have to take turns for about 10 or 15 seconds calling out,

and you know, hello, who's there? And no response at all. And so we really started getting nervous because we were thinking maybe it was a hermit or something living out in these woods we didn't know about who really didn't want us there. And if that was the case, we had no weapons. other than a couple of us are pretty big guys, but no hope against a shotgun or something. And so we proceeded to begin to stand up thinking something was about to happen, and we heard whoever or whatever this was take off to the north through the dense forest. I mean, just an all-out sprint. And, I mean, it wasn't like Jurassic Park.

you know, where the ground shook or anything like that, anything like that. But it was a hard, fast sprint into the night. And it went about 500 feet into the forest, and then we could hear it audibly stop. At that point, we had no idea what it was. Now, as a quick backstory, very short, I was aware of Bigfoot. I read about it when I was a kid, knew about Momo. I knew about the Patterson

Gimlin film. I knew about the scumkeep in Florida because we had spent many years vacationing in Florida and we heard about it. But no one had ever said anything about it in Indiana. So that was never by assumption. I thought it was a crazy person.

Yeah, I mean, that's what you would assume hearing all that. You'd think it was some crazy guy out there running around. Absolutely. So what happens next? So then my first friend who is six foot, three hundred pounds and ended up playing college football on the offensive line, and me, I'm 5-9-300, we got brave and decided to go out and try and see who it was. So my friend went over to the dirt road that kind of curled up into the forest, and I

went straight forward toward the sound, where I last thought I heard it. And we went probably 30 or 40 feet to the edge of the firelight, and my friend went away. little further ahead, so he's flanking the sound, and I'm going right at it. And I might have taken one or two steps past the firelight at most, and this

unbelievably loud shriek came out of the night. I'm very familiar with the sounds of the night, and again, a quick backstory. My father was a policeman, and was in the Army, so he did a lot of night operations and forest operations, and he had

taught me as a kid, how to listen in the night, how to be still, how to wait. Don't chase, don't make noise, don't yell, wait. So I had been waiting, and I had heard nothing. And also as part of what he did, you would go out there and intentionally make noise that scare things up so I could hear it. So the sound of the deer running, sound of a man running, fox, rabbit, owl, not unfamiliar. earlier. This was none of those. It was so loud I could feel it in my body, and it was directed

at me. You could tell from the power of the sound it was coming to me, and I would attempt to make the sound, but it's so high-pitched that I can't do it. Yeah, just like a real high-pitched scream. Because it started very guttural. And, quickly ascended pitch, almost like a, but much louder and much higher pitch. And it went about five seconds.

And that was all I needed to give up at that point. No, I'm not going out there. I looked at my left and my friends are running like hell to get back to the camp. So I squatted down because I figured I was still in the firelight. I was probably all right,

even if it was a crazy man. And I was getting rights anyways. And I just waited. And in about one or two minutes, I could hear whatever this was. Again, take off on a run. Up, just slight incline

into the forest. And I could hear it running and running and running until I could hear it no more. No idea how far it went, but a considerable distance. Came back to the camp and all the guys were, what was that? What was that?

I played it all. off, you know, probably Bobcat or an owl screeching. I didn't want to be that guy. And so we proceeded to go ahead and have our party for the night. We were all, we weren't wasted and everybody got drunk, half sobered up, decided to go to bed. And the funny part was at that point, we had brought tents. Absolutely. No one stayed in the tents.

They all piled into the van. No one wanted to be out there. I don't blame you guys. It was terrifying. And, of course, again, being teenage boys, nobody wanted to be the weak one or say anything. He was just kind of grumble, grumble. You know, I'm going to be in the van.

We get in the van. So we rolled the windows down. Yeah, eight guys in the band is hot. It's stinky. And so we left the windows down. And about 3 or 4 a.m., one of the guys just, and he hit me and woke me up. up. Like, what? He goes, there was a hairy arm reaching in the window. Now, I said, what?

You're crazy. You know, that's about it. You say, it reached in, and it picked up all of our leftover food. It took it. Oh, boy. No, you're seeing things. You're seeing things. So I crawled up to the front of the van, and it was gone. I said, man, it was probably a raccoon or something that you saw. Now, the stack of food was pretty big. I mean, bigger than a raccoon can carry it once. I don't know why I pulled a raccoon out as my example, but anyhow, woke everyone up. We all piled out of the van, and the paper plates that everything was on and the cellophane, it was in. The food, you know, it was hot dogs, macaroni, cheese, steaks, things like that.

The celpane and the plates were strewn all over the place, heading into the woods. And that was enough for me. I was like, all right, we're done. We're going to go home tomorrow. There's no way because I wasn't about to be the guy to get out of the van at the Iron Ranger and fumbled to lock it if something was out here. So you know, close the windows, lock the doors, we'll go in the morning, which we did. And the rest of the night and the next day was uneventful.

The guy that saw the hairy arm come in, was he able to get a look at it at all? Yes, he gave a very detailed description of it later, you know, kind of in private. And he said that, it was coming in. So, you know, this is just a standard like Econa line band. Nothing out of the ordinary. And the arm was coming down at an angle from the top of the window down into the seat. He didn't see the hand when he came in. He woke up at the sound of it grabbing something,

saw the arm. He said the hair on it looked kind of like a, he described as like a reddish-brown rug. And then he saw the hand when it pulled out, and the hand was black. And now it's nighttime, so hard to tell a lot of colors. But that was his impression. He just saw the hand draw the food back out.

He didn't see anything else. And that's the point he screamed. so I was only maybe 10, 15 seconds behind him seeing it and probably two minutes behind it leaving. Because I pretty quickly moved to the front to kind of look around, but there was nothing to be seen but the place. And the other thing we did do the next day is go down that hill where it walked up. We wanted to see if we could do it. And through the lower section, absolutely. You can just walk up it.

Like I said, my friend and I were pretty big guys and pretty athletic guys. Pretty powerful. And then the other guys were all baseball players and basketball players. So everyone was athletic, and nobody could walk right up the hill. Everyone had to start grabbing for handholds or would stumble and slip. You know, we were grabbing saplings to, you know, kind of work our way up that last pitch. whatever came up, didn't stumble, didn't stutter, no problems. We didn't know anything about Bigfoot, quote, unquote, at the time other than it existed out in the West and in Florida.

So we didn't look for sign. We didn't look for footprints. We didn't really go that around until later. And when everybody kind of got together, oh, my, I wonder if that was it. All of this happens. You guys decide to leave. But you returned a year later. Why did you return a year later and what happened?

We loved the property. We assumed whoever or whatever it was wanted to stay on the top side of the valley. And if we went down into the valley where there had been previous human habitation, we'd be fine. That was our assumption. So we did go back, and this time we booked a seven-day stay, and we were going to actually go actual spilunky. Take a raft, go into the river cave, actually go all the way into endless,

crawl all the way into Dorsey, and go look for other caves, do some rock climbing. That was going to take more than a couple days to do it. We were super excited, and the first night, it was just me and one friend, and the second night,

a third friend joined us, and we started our little adventure. We explored the log cabin for the first time, We found two bedding areas. Can't tell you what it was from, but it was kind of odd. It hadn't upstairs, but it looked like nobody's been up there forever. The property owner actually visited us the second day, and the only reason I mentioned that is that gave me an idea of what it would sound like if someone drove in,

and then what it would sound like if they tried to drive down the switchback, and I also got to hear the guy walk up the switchback. and kind of what it would sound like. So, you know, that was interesting. I'm like, okay, well, now I know what that sounds like. It went on a better day. The third day is when it started to get strange. And we went into the caves, and we came back at the end of the day.

It was still a daylight. And one of the cars had been physically moved away from the campsite. It had been spun at least three times, like somebody was showing. on the car at one end. And then they'd go back and shove the other end and shove the front end. There were scuff marks all over the ground around the car, but it was, again, it was dirt, hard, hard dirt. So it was just scuffs.

And we immediately chalked it up to maybe locals or something, or, you know, a prank, but, you know, Campbellsburg, Indiana is a microscopic dot on the map. It's not like there's an army of teenagers that are going to invade cave river valley. So that wasn't most likely it, that we told ourselves that and went about our day. We camped right next to the creek. So, you know, it was a very peaceful night, and we made our dinners and had a couple beers

and were chilling out and eventually got tired around 10 p.m. And so we had set up a three-person dome tent and took the rainfly off the top. probably about 1 or 2 a.m. I didn't have a watch, but I could tell by the darkness it felt about that hour. I heard footsteps up at the top of the ridge. Well, I thought back about when the guy climbed up there, I could hear him about halfway to switch back, and then the sound of the creek blotted out all of his walking sounds after that.

So whoever this was up there was making... noise, is intentionally making noise, or as we later thought, was really big. And so I heard the sounds, and I said, and my heart got in my throat like, oh, man, you know, he's back. So I kicked my friend and tried to wake him up, no hope. Kick the other guy. No hope. He's out.

So I'm wide awake in the tent just listening. And I could hear the first sound of something. someone sliding down the side of the valley wall. And they slid down and waited a solid five minutes, slid again, again five minutes, and did that two more times, which at that point it sounded like they got to the bottom of the valley wall. Of course, I thought that was really bizarre because a person would have walked down the switchback. and these valley walls are 60 feet high.

So if you caught a root or a rock or something gave way, that's a hell of a fall. Yeah, especially in the dark. Yeah. And being down in the valley, it was darker because of the tree cover than if you were up top where the tree cover was a little thinner. We had had a camp fire, but we'd put it out. We didn't have any lanterns on. so there was nothing I could see, even if I'd gotten up to look. Then I heard two splashes, which were, to me, obviously, somebody walked across the street.

And that's when my heart really sunk because they're in the camp. Oh, boy. You know, we're not hunters. We don't have guns. We were out there for fun. I've got nothing but my fists. and the other two guys with me are really little guys, so other than they, they weren't going to be any good to be.

And, you know, and I'm actually planning this out in my head. Like, how do I get them out, and I take this guy and just, you guys run. So I didn't zip my sleeping bag in case I needed to get up, but I did it really, really, really slowly. And I could hear rustling in the campsite. And it's, you know, we had some trash out there, some, you know, like cocaine's and stuff and some beer bottles and some cardboard. And the food was in a cooler. And I could hear whatever this was wrestling with that.

And it would stop. And then a couple of minutes later, you'd hear it wrestle again. And that went on for a few minutes. And then I heard the cooler fall over. Oh, boy. You know, it's going for the cooler. And I'm trying to think, you know, in Indiana, we don't really, we don't have bears. We don't have, you know, large population of mountain lions.

We don't have large predators. So I'm thinking, okay, maybe it's a raccoon, possum. Maybe I'm just making way more out of this than I should. And then I heard the footsteps circle around our tent. And they were heavy. Again, not like Jurassic Park. shook the ground that they were prominent in the night. And the footsteps stopped right above my head.

And at that point, I was just in pure terror. I had my eyes locked shut. I'll clean it up for the public, but I thought to heck with it. And I just opened my eyes and looked straight up. And there was this very large head. it leaned over the top of the tent, looking right down at me. Now, I couldn't see any facial features, nothing, just a black head. It reminded me of, like, Brock Lezden.

You could see where you had big trapezias muscles, and you're right next to the neck, but you couldn't make out any detail. You just knew it was really big. looking right down, and as soon as I looked up, I looked up, the head moved back. I heard nothing for probably 15 minutes. And at this point, I've just lost my mind. I'm like, oh, God, you know, there's no hope. We're going to die.

I heard two splashes, and it crossed back over the creek, and then I heard it go back up the wall. of the valley very slowly and nothing. I waited about a half an hour to make sure there was nothing else going on. And I kicked my friend as hard as I could and woke him up, told him what had happened. And it was my turn to be told, you're crazy. That didn't happen. Go back to sleep.

I didn't. I prayed for the daylight. Daylight came. I was the first one out looking around. what I'd heard in the night had actually happened. Everything was kind of stirring about. The cooler was all off the table. Nothing was missing, though.

I looked all around. There were no signs. I could see, though, the slide marks down the valley wall. And whatever had done it had left obvious slide marks because there was like, you know, tree debris up there. And it was, you know,

obvious ruts down to the ground. So I showed my friends, and then they were like, whoa, you know, what could that be? And we all talked. While they were trying to figure it out, I went over to the tent and tried to look down in it. Like I said, I'm 5'9, and I could lean on the tent and look down into it. But I would have seen the whole body laying on the tent, you know, trying to look in. Whoever this was was at least 6'5 because they looked straight down. That's pretty terrifying.

Did your memory go back to a year earlier? Did all that kind of come flashing back when this was going on or after this happened when he had time to think? Oh, he came back as soon as I saw the head. Yeah, I'm like, I know what that is. There's no doubt. I mean, I've been around, from various reasons, extremely large men over my lifetime. You know, even ridiculously large people. and they don't shape like that.

They don't look like a, you know, a head with no neck. Even when they crane their neck, I mean, they look like a person. And this just looked like, almost like the shape, like if you had like one of those, like an anti-radiation suit, a big blocky head type, like leaning over looking at you. It was just huge. I knew what it was. I remember laying in the sleeping bag thinking, those aren't here.

You know, that's west. You know, that's south. That's not here. So we cut the trip short. We were out of there. Yeah, we were out of there. We returned the key, and I never went back. It's now a state natural area,

so I would guess less going on there now. that it still exists. But years, years later, once I actually researched this topic, my personal opinion is it was most likely a juvenile male because there was never anything but one. And it wasn't ridiculously huge. It was just big. Six-five-ish is totally plausible for a person,

but not that big and not doing what this thing was doing. But that was my opinion years later. Yeah, and you might be right. You know, it's ballsy. The thing was definitely ballsy coming in the way it did. It sounds like it was probably looking for food like it was the last time, you know what I mean? I mean, obviously, it never directly threatened us, and it wanted no part of us. I mean, as soon as we knew we were looking, it got the hell out of there, which I would expect, generally, from a wild animal.

but it also if one of us would have gotten up or gotten too close so it could have turned really bad looking back yeah no I tend to agree with you on that how many years later did you have the I love the troll looking in the window story how many years later was that

and can you kind of go into that that was a solid 15 years later that one was weird I always stumble into these things. I was not out looking for these things any of these times. So I was out on the western edge of Bloomington, Indiana, where Bloomington's where Indiana University is.

And that's more the center of the city. The outlying areas are more typical Indiana. homes, little additions, farmers fields, and forest. And this friend of mine, her family lived right up against the soybean field. And I would guess they probably had an acre. I had been to the home once before, wasn't unfamiliar with it, but we went back and it was probably nine at night.

And I stepped out of the car and I immediately heard this strange sound in the night. And it sounded like a cow mooing in distress, but there was no lead in. You know, I had heard cows in distress, and then it's more of a mooh-kind of sound. This was just that, oh, oh, loud. You know, I have no idea what that is. and she said, well, that's the troll. And I said, the troll.

I said, you know what a troll is? And I explained her what a mythological troll is. And she said, well, it's not that. It looks like a hairy guy. And I said, oh, well, I know what that is. So I stepped out the back door to listen. The way that the area was set up behind the home was an open field about two feet long, right directly behind the house.

There were three small hills, a garage, and then about at 150 feet, a very large eight-seat, like a table and chairs. And to the right was a stand of trees that was in a triangle shape. It followed the back of the homes where their fences ended. and then in an angle, it went along the soybean field. And in the backyard of all these homes, I could very clearly see they had their porch lights on, and I could see dogs.

And I could hear the moaning getting closer, and it was moving along that angle out by the soybean field. I said, so where does this troll live? And she said that it had a, it wasn't a hole, but like you had a depression out past the soybean field and into the next forested area that it lived in. And I kicked myself to this day for never having gone back to look,

but not my property, and I don't know that that person who owns it would be amenable to me looking for a troll. So I never looked. But as it got closer, and we're talking about where it lives, The dogs, house by house, run out to the fence and bark ferociously. And as the moaning moves nearer them, the dog would run back toward the house and cower.

And this happened for at least six pounds. And I could see it with my own eyes. I'm watching this happen. And I'm thinking, that's a predator out there. Dogs aren't going to do that unless there's an alpha predator out there. And I thought, well, is it going to show itself? And it got to the end of the stand of the trees, quit moving or moaning, and nothing. And at that point, I started getting nervous, like, wondering if it's looking at me.

Now, I'm like two steps from the door to the house, so I know I can get inside pretty quick, but still, unnerving. and right at that moment I see a gray borer move out from behind a tree lean down and run behind the hills and in between the hills I could see it move and its body is nearly parallel to the ground and its arms are too and it's pumping like the front wheels on a train engine

just burr-r-r-h-h-h-h-h and it moved across I couldn't see its legs and it went behind the third hill at that point I just I checked out and I said no not doing this going inside this is crazy

and uh when you saw it was on all fours then running no it was a bit over you could see it's two other it's two arms up by the side pumping I got you it wasn't running like inhumanly fast it was running stealthily like a special forces kind of run just real low to the ground if i go inside and we're talking and she said well i said you know what is it do now and she said

sometimes it comes up and looks in the windows i didn't want to see that and i'd totally admit chickening out looking down. I'm like, the last thing I want to look up and then see that thing looking at me. And so I looked down and it was a good 20 minutes, if not longer, that I did

not look at the windows. Like, no, I don't want to see this. And after that time, cast, I could hear a commotion out the back and it sounded like metal hitting metal. I finally got some guts, went back, looked up the back

door and all the table and all eight chairs had been completely thrown about. Not, again, not in human distances, but it had been trashed. And her dad reacted, oh, no, not again. And they openly talked about the troll, having done this multiple times. And he said, why'd you have to go out there and make him mad? Well, but for me, I just stayed at it on the porch. they made a few comments about having to clean it up in the morning. They weren't going out there.

And she came up and said, I think it's time for you to leave. And I'm like, I'm not going out to the car. Are you crazy? You know, I don't know what that is. And she's like,

no, it's okay. It's gone now. How would you know that? And, you know, I waited a few more minutes. They turned on all the outside lights.

I went to the car and I left. but that one was extremely strange. Yeah, and it's an interesting encounter because, you know, in a lot of these, it doesn't throw me off them calling it a troll at all, to be honest with you. A lot of these people in these remote areas, they will name it something. They'll call it whatever. The grass man, the corn man, the chicken man, a troll. They'll have all their separate names for them.

And what's interesting is a lot of these places, historically, have a lot of sightings. The problem is, is if you look up Bigfoot or Sasquatch, you won't find anything on it. Right. If you know what the locals call it, then you can start, it goes back hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Did they say any more about, did they give you any more information on this thing, this troll? Obviously, it wasn't Sasquatch, but. Yeah.

I saw her a couple more times after that. and asked her about it, and she gave more detail about where to find its house, you know, basically, and which path to take through the cornfield or the soybean field to get to that general area. And she warned me against going over there as private property, and of course, you don't violate private property, so I never went. the other things that she told me was basically that it would come in and basically have a temper tantrum every once in a while and destroy things. But it would come up and look in their windows and that she had seen it look in the window and said it looked like a troll to her. The other piece, which I did follow up on later in life, was the Morgan Monroe.

Monroe State Forest here in Indiana has a long history of sightings. And that's very close to this home. So I've been in the Morgan Monroe State Forest a few times looking around and kind of, you know, researching any history there. And it's, I mean, it's certainly not the Pacific Northwest, but it's known to be there. Did she ever describe to you what she saw? Only in the briefest details. She didn't like talking about it. Basically, she described it as looking like a gray-haired, dark-skinned, old man with huge eyes and a huge mouth.

And what I saw that night looked like the coloration of a silverbacked gorilla. Again, it's in the moonlight and starlight, so colors aren't always accurate. That's what it looked like to me. So I think we saw the same thing. Yeah, sounds like it. It's very fascinating. That whole encounter is very fascinating. How far away from where you had your original encounter to this property?

Other side of the state, basically. I got you. I got you. Campbell'sburg would be in the southeast corner, closer to the Ohio River. Bloomington is more southwest. So, I mean, it's a significant distance. I got you. I thought I would ask.

I wanted to ask you yet a final encounter. Would you mind going to walking right into that one? Absolutely. This is the one that actually scared me worse than the others. How many years later was this one? It was about a year or two after the one in Bloomington. And this one would have been much closer to the Campbellsburg area, not side by side, but much, much closer. It was near Salem, Indiana.

there's a trail there called the Knobstone Trail, and it's used by backpackers and hikers as a training ground for the Appalachian Trail. So it's not like your typical state park trail. There's climbing, there's bouldering, there's challenges getting through this area. A coworker of mine had read about it, and he wanted to go down there, and I said, yeah, sure, sounds good. And the problem was we couldn't leave work until about six. p.m.s, we were going to get down there at dust, if not nightfall. And it was in the middle of the

summer. I think we got there about seven, and then we got all our stuff together, talked about where to go and what to do, and finally started the hike about 8.30. The first step of the hike is about a 75-foot repel into this valley. And then the trail starts. And so we started off on the trail went about four miles. I like to hike without a flashlight on because my eyes are just the night better than if I just see what's right in a flat flashlight beam. It's a personal preference. You know, he wanted to use a flashlight, so I just never look back, and I'm leading the

hike. And at about four miles in, I start hearing the very definite sound of rock hitting rock. But how odd. and I've been out in the woods all my life off and on. Never heard this. And I'm trying to think, you know, there are some houses up at the top at the entrance to the trail, but there's nothing at this point. We're alone.

So it's not like somebody's up there racing rocks or anything. They were coming in in groups of four and echoing through the whole valley. and I turned around I'm a co-worker and I said, you know, what's that? And he's like, I don't know.

And he just wanted to go on. I said, that's not normal. I was like, that makes me nervous. And he said, well, why?

I said, well, who stands out in the night and bangs rocks together? That's weird. Well, I don't care. I want to go on.

So, all right. So we went about two more miles and during that process of going those two miles, we eventually put the sound of the four bangs on our east. So we were right next to it.

And I was looking over that way, and there was like a, not a waterfall, but like a seepage out of the wall in the forest, and I could see nothing moving, nothing at all. And when I looked, the sound stopped. When I looked away, they'd start. And I did that a couple times. I'm like, oh, great.

You know, I had at this point heard about Bigfoot's, you know, hitting a tree of the stick or banging rocks together. Not again. You know, really? I have the worst luck. And so we're out in this area where there's no escape. I mean, it's 75-foot walls up to the side, and they're sheer. I can't run six miles full bore anymore. more.

I mean, that wouldn't work. We're tracked. Then I heard responses to these rock strikes up ahead of me. The one, you know, kind of to the southwest and one directly to the south. And they were coming back in combinations of three to eight.

There was no rhyme or reason that I could pick up for the number of clacks. They were not nearly as hard as the one to my. east. But they were very old. In my head, I either I remember thinking, either they're hunting or this is a family. And we just walk right in the middle of it. And so we're supposed to camp out here tonight. This is not going to be a good thing. So we go up on top of this taller hill in the middle of the valley and my coworker wanted to check the weather. And it turned out there was a line of thunderstorms coming in that had already dropped some tornadoes

about 40 miles away. Well, we were not equipped to deal with a heavy torrential rain nor with the gully washers that come afterwards and could, you know, wipe our campsite away, making a muddy

hell out there, et cetera, et cetera. So I said, well, why don't we go back? And he said, okay. Thank heavens. I did not want to stay out there that night. Yeah, I don't plan. And, uh, oh, no.

And by this point, though, the sounds had moved and were closer. He didn't seem to even care about it or think about it. He just wanted to hike. And at that point, he turned on his big flashlight, shot it right in my eyes, blinded me. My God, dang it, dude. And so my vision was impaired off and on for the hike out. So whatever was out there, the two at the back now moved forward, and I could hear them clacking the rocks.

And the one to our east parallels us out to a certain point, and I don't know exactly where, but probably a quarter mile or a half mile before the exit. That whole hike out, I'm just, I was just sick thinking about something's going to step out from behind a tree. it's going to happen. My luck has held out for three of these. I don't want any more part of it. And nothing happened, and we climbed out. We talked about it on the ride home, and he chalked it up to Rockfall. Well, no.

That was not Rockfall. Rockfall is bang, roll, roll, roll. This was bang, bang, bang, bang. it sounded like a 50 caliber machine gun. It was so loud. It makes you wonder, I've always wondered why they do that. I've heard other witnesses talk about that. I've never really heard true rock clacking like that,

but I've talked to a lot of people that have. And they described it the same way. I had a hunter who thought it was gunfire going off. And then he realized it was rocks. Someone was taking two big rocks and smacking them together. And I think he said like in intervals of three or four or two as well, But at first, when he heard it coming into this canyon, he thought it was gunfire. He thought it was off in the distance and it was gunfire.

And then he realized, no, it's rocks. Yeah, I had the exact same feeling. Initially, it was distant enough that I couldn't pick up the initial report. So it sounded like, you know, a gunfire. I don't know what kind, but just a gun firing, which in southern Indiana is nothing strange at all. But for it to go on like that And then once we got closer I could hear it was rocks

Oh man My heart just sank To see in the other encounters I could go in a house Or I could have gotten in a car There was a chance I could have gotten in a car And we could have tried to get away somehow There was no escape

We were trapped You guys were funneled right into an area Yes we were And I knew it was happening And I Again from My dad's training to me, you know, how not to get yourself caught while I walked right into it. You know, they had me.

You know, the only way to get out, of course, is to leave it. I mean, just leave. There is no other option at that point. Standing and fighting was not an option. Just had to leave. And thankfully, he agreed. What's your feeling on this topic today? You've had these three, I would call a major encounter.

Yes, they were. Well, actually four. Yeah. What's your feeling on the whole subject today, and do you ever go out in the woods anymore? Oh, I go out in the woods, sure. I'm more careful. I'm out by dusk. My feeling is Indiana is kind of a transitory area for them, I feel.

It's not to say that there aren't some that find a great place and stay, but I think it's, they move through more than they live here. I've talked to a lot of people over the years, from policemen to coworkers and friends, who have had experiences of different degrees, and it only happens in the summer and spring for them. And mine have all been in the summer, except for one, and that would be the troll. That was in January. But it sounded like it had stayed there for a long time. But for the most part, I think they moved through. And, of course, no idea where they're going or coming from.

But I've definitely been back out in the woods and looked around and tried to see if I saw anything. I really didn't. I don't really know anybody anymore that would want to go out there with me because I'm certainly not going out at night alone, unarmed, ever again. dodged the bullet four times total now. I don't want any part of that thing. I've not experienced extreme aggression. I don't know anyone here that I personally talked to that has. I've heard a couple of people on your show from Indiana.

I know right where they're talking about. Very interesting. Some have been more aggressive than what I've found, but I think we weren't after. them, so to speak. We weren't like doing things that made them feel like we were following them or trying to see them or trying to get closer. We were just passing through or just happened to be there. So I don't think I ever triggered that part. Honestly, some of your best encounters come from people who really aren't looking for them, more or less just kind of run into them.

People say dumb luck. I don't know that I call it luck, but just kind of run it. You know, I'll just kind of run into them. And it makes you wonder, too, you know, you see some territorial type behavior. In the first couple encounters you were talking about being out with your buddies, it might have been more curiosity, more of a good way to steal some food. Yeah. Easy target to get what you guys had. And then with the troll incident, to me, I see more territorial type behavior just in the way

it acted. Yes. It came up through a tantrum, broke some things. it shocks me that a lot of the local people don't talk publicly about stuff like this, and they don't really have a name for it, so they come up with the name, like the troll or the chicken man. Yes. They just come up with names for it. But generally speaking, in those types of situations, sometimes you'll have more aggressive type behavior

because it's more of a territorial, this is my spot, this isn't your spot. Yes. And my dad being, he's 82, he grew up at Southern Indiana, and he can vouch that they won't talk. I mean, you know, and having been a former policeman, you know, he's had a few very isolated moments of, you know, encountering the paranormal. And people won't talk, not here. Now, if you were in Indianapolis, Evans and Fort Wayne, maybe, but out in the smaller towns, no, no chance. You know, they may not make fun of you, but you'll get a weird look and they'll walk away. And I understand that.

I mean, having grown up here, that's just kind of how it is, and you just don't talk about that. and having asked many people over the years, you know, and trying to find somebody that would share my experience, you know, you do get a lot of weird looks, and then one day you're walking down the hall and they pull you in a room and, and I saw one, you know. Yeah, I've had that too. I've had that from a lot of people, you know,

where you're kind of criticized publicly and then privately, they'll say, you know what, I actually saw one, which kind of amazes me, but I'm really glad that you can't. forward, Eric, to talk about the encounter. Because, you know, a lot of people, I've had very few from Indiana, and I know stuff goes on in Indiana, but it's kind of like other parts of the country to where it's not really acceptable to talk about these things.

Correct. Those are the areas where you find the best encounters. Those are the people you want to talk to, you know? And people don't realize that parts of southern Indiana are not, they're not a rainforest, but it's not that different than where you're at. where it's just thick, thick forest. No one's there. No one's ever there.

So, yeah, when you go into those areas like we did, you might run into one. I tend to agree with you. Well, thank you for coming on the show. Absolutely. And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email, Wes at Sasquatchronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out Sasquotronicles.

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