Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:18 Sasquatch Stories with Jim Grant AKA Bear

Episode Date: February 24, 2014

On Sunday we welcome researcher Bobby Woods and Jim Grant aka Bear to the show. Most in the Bigfoot community know me as Bear, but my real name is Jim Grant. I was raised as a country boy in Montgomery County, Mississippi. Now, I find myself spread out all over the South. I have personally known of BF since 1966 when a "booger" was outside me and my brother's bedroom window, making strange cooing and clucking sounds.This caused an interest till this stage in my life. I guess you could say this was before the "Patterson" film came out in 1968. After a few more run-ins with our hairy friend, in 1975, I decided to attempt to study and learn the habits of our elusive friend. I have been doing this off and on for almost 35 years, with the last 10 being of the more serious nature.The aspect I find most interesting is the diversity of this creature between ecosystems from all across the South, including Oklahoma and Texas. This has pointed out to me that there are various differences, as the ecology makes this hominid seem different from region to region, but it is basically the same animal.

When I had come down this hill, I had seen this creature cross the road. It would have ripped my locked door from my truck, extracted me from my vehicle, and there wouldn't have been a damn thing I could have done about it. Look, this thing I got to notice in his eyes. His eyes was real, real evil, real sinister looking. You know, the look it was giving me. What are you reporting? What's going on now, sir?

That's sort of a bitch is about six foot. Yes, I'm looking right here. Welcome to Bigfoot Hot Spot Radio, Sasquatch Chronicles. Your host, Wes, along with my brother Woody, and researcher, author, and friend, Blame Jeffey. Let's start the show. This episode is brought to you by audible.com. Go to audibletrial.com forward slash Bigfoot hotspot for your free 30-day trial and your free first downloadable book. You know, we've been talking with our sponsor about these burial sites and some of these different locations that we have between the Columbia River and Mount St. Helens.

And a lot of people, a lot of people I think would enjoy going up to check out some of these burial sites that we have or potential burial sites. The mounds on them just doesn't look right. It's not man-made. It's not natural the formation of some of these burial sites. I just have this odd feeling we're going to find something in there. But I was thinking, as I was talking with our sponsor, our sponsor had mentioned that if we can get up to 5,000 people sign up for the trial, whether they continue the trial or not, but at least sign up for the trial, they will sponsor and pay for to have five people fly out to Washington out here in the

Pacific Northwest and go out with us for one week to check out some of these burial sites, to check out some of these. I know we have, I think it's five locations between the Columbia River and Mount St. Helens that are always hot. I thought that was kind of a cool offer from them. I know 5,000 is kind of a big number, but I thought that was kind of a cool offer for them to offer that to us and to our listeners. Yeah, it's a great opportunity. It'd be a lot of fun for our listeners, you know, the five chosen, and for us to be able to show, you know, what we're doing and the possibility that we could find something under one of these locations.

And not just that, but there are other things we could show, you know, the five people who would be chosen, some of the different things possibly tracked. territorial markings, things like that, a lot of different things that we see in the field. So it is a great opportunity. And as you mentioned, or we're going to mention about if they already had an Audible account, another way they could participate. Yeah, what I was thinking is, you know, again, the site is audible trial.com forward slash Bigfoot Hot Spot. It doesn't cost anything. You're just signing up for a trial. You know, some people already have an Audible account.

and I know a lot of listeners have sent you emails, they sent me emails saying we already have an audible account. So I set up a PayPal account, and when you go to PayPal, you need an email address to send money to. The email address to send money to is Bigfoot hotspot Radio at gmail.com. Bigfoot hotspot radio at gmail.com. What I was thinking is maybe we could take an additional five with us. you know, if you put in $10,000, we'll put your, the way I'm thinking of doing this,

unless the listeners have better ideas, doing somewhat of a drawing. So for every audible account that gets signed up, their name goes in a hat. If they want to donate, say for every $10, their name goes in the hat. If they put in $20, we'll put your name in the hat twice. And then come July, because I think we're thinking about doing this at the end of July, correct? Will? That's right, yeah. Yeah, to get to some of these locations, it would be better to do it in July. In May, what we'll do is we'll pull names out of the hat, and at the end of July is when we'll actually go out and have this expedition.

But when we'll pull five out from Audible, and then we'll pull five out from the people that donated. It doesn't cost you anything. All this is going to be paid for, so if you're out there in Texas, if you're out there in Connecticut, if you're out there in, you know, different, you don't obviously live down the road. Your plane ticket will be paid for. Your food will be paid for. Everything will be paid for. And we'll go and take several people out to these locations. You know, I almost think I'd rather do something like that than a television show.

It'd be kind of cool to take 10 of our listeners out there. I was thinking, too, that, you know, Renee DeHendon had, let me back up just a little bit, Roger Patterson, when he filmed that Sasquatch in 1967, he made three footprint castings that day. One of the castes broke, but he was left with the left and the right foot. And Renee DeHendon had those two casts after Patterson died, and he loaned me those casts, and I made molds from those. So for the people who win the drawing, I'm going to give them each a copy of the left and right cast and copies of my books also.

Yeah, we'll make it a good time. We'll make it a good time. I mean, like I said, those burial sites that we've been looking at, I mean, I really feel like there's something there. There's something to them. And I've been on the edge of just going out there right now by myself and digging them up. But I think it'd be kind of cool to get the listeners involved, have them be a part of the experience. And, you know, having 5, 10, 15 people with us isn't too out of the picture. You know, it's not too many to go and take out.

A lot of these areas, especially up on Muffet Mountain and some of the areas around Mount St. Helens, I don't like those Sasquatches care how many you bring up. So I think we'll be going on. And with, you know, the three of us, we could even break into smaller teams. So we're not making such a big presence when we're going to areas. But it's something we'll have to decide on, you know, once we go into these places. But the listeners, you know, whoever's chosen to go along would have a great time and have a great experience. You know, we never quite know what we're going to experience when we go into one of these places.

So be prepared for anything. Yeah, be prepared for anything. I'd definitely be prepared for anything. I can tell you that much. But, yeah, no, if you would like to get your name in the hat, again, if you go to PayPal, it's Bigfoot hotspot Radio at gmail.com. If you want to send a donation, like I said, $10, get your name in the hat. every $10 you send, we'll just put your name in the hat again. If you sign up with Audible, we'll be able to pull your information from Audible, your email address,

and we'll put your name in the hat that way too as well. I'm looking forward to it. I think it's kind of a cool idea. I'd rather do something like this and say, well, you can come with us, but it's going to cost you two grand and blah, blah, blah. You know, I mean, no one has two grand to throw around. No, of course. And something listeners might consider, too. one of the places we're going to are where you and Woody had your encounter.

So for all you folks that, and we had a huge response and continue to get a big response about the show we did about your encounter, that's one of the places we're going to. And the Sasquatches are still in that area. Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I'm telling you, man, that area is creepy. It always has been. It always has been. I know tonight we have on the show, Bobby.

So let's bring Bobby on and hear his engagement. encounter and then we will get to bear. Well, Bobby, you've had a number of an email, so I guess the way we've always been into it. Well, actually, the first, you know, I never knew that it's accident again. And there was nobody out there. And so that whoop came again. Well, after I left there, I saw the more I got into it and the more I dealt into it, I started talking to people down in the area.

I think there's been like maybe between, and I never knew nothing about it. You know, it's like an accident down in there. and I met a few people they started like, you know, saying, well, you need to be in this. I'm not about me, but we got chatting back and forth and come to find out, both quote me on that, but it was either two or from

and was actually down. She thought it was a buffalo at first. And then she thought, well, there aren't any buffalo here, so she drove by this thing, you know, down next to the, on the side of the road on the shoulder and actually found, you know, portions of a killed deer there the next day. So there are definitely things going on.

you're part of the country. So, you know, and again, you know, people don't realize that. There's stuff going on in a lot of places that nobody ever realized. Yeah, I know because I found out just a few weeks ago that actually where I live at, yeah, it is. And I went down there to the area, but the area is like, it's not like, you know, it's just, but it's all like private land. So I started looking into that, and then I met a guy about four weeks ago,

and he came up to me. And I've gotten kind of popular in my area with what I do. People know who I am now. He said, you're the big foot guy. He said, I want to tell you something a month ago. People about it. And he said, I don't want you to think I was crazy. And I'm like, well, you know, you can get on the crazy.

He said that about, and he said, all of a sudden, he said, this thing is waste. He said, not only to today, he got back that one area behind them were pulled over, and they were all stemming. And then I started in the Gulf Creek area when they first, you know, newspapers, there wasn't, you know, the Associated, disseminated these stories around the country. They were usually localized events, and these kind of stories weren't big. New Yorkers go back 200 years. There are a lot of things,

a lot of areas where they aren't aware of. Well, that's like that in my area. I use three different areas, but actually just about everywhere down there, there's been a siding. But there's three main areas that I use. And the area that I'm in, four-mile trail,

but you've got trails, like if you go from north, There's a lot of walking room. That's not enough room for that, and you will never find me. Right. And, you know, and if people are saying that, they're not aware that usually a group size for a six individuals, just one group occupying that much space, chances of seeing them are pretty slim. That's exactly right.

What I've heard from people who've actually done stuff, I mean, down here I'm at least, that there's like a... Yeah, exactly. Exactly how. The groups are never really any bigger than that. But now the biggest one that's been seen, here. From what I understand, I haven't seen him yet. No, yeah. The one we saw,

actually, it was probably a little bit closer to 10, maybe 11 feet tall. But yeah, within that range. Now, I've seen two down here, and the first one I saw was a female. I'll say between six and the second one I saw, and he was almost eight foot. Yeah, that's

pretty big. A great one, was, had to be at least nine feet, and it was somewhere between 1,500 pounds. It was massive. Good Lord. The first two, I encountered back in 1974 that the male was about eight feet. It was lighter and I've grown yet. Yeah, that big one in 1988 was really a massive one.

And hunters had seen that one around for 20 years prior to the So occasionally you will get a really big one. Yeah, like I said, I know this one that's nine foot or down here. He's been seen, from what I've been told, he's been seeing a little bit as it's with me, but he did. And that same group that we investigated in 1990. occasionally you will get a gray one and that may be the dominant. Yeah, that's, that kind of goes in line, you know, with the silver. You're exactly right because the one that we saw was gray,

but like his, the right shoulder maybe had been broke because he was hunched over a little, but the right shoulder was like cocked up in the air. Like, if you know you've seen if people like they're breaking their shoulder, some of them walk over like one side's cocked up a little bit, right shoulder was. I mean, it was like way up in there almost about living out like that. I'm sure things happen occasionally. Do you theorize that the gray hair is age, and so it's somewhat of the alpha of the group due to age? Is that what you're theorizing on the gray?

I suspect it is, yes. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, too. That's what I thought. Because in a lot of the areas, you know, and this is really talking about the gray ones that I use, and each area that gray one has been seen in. And if you go from one area to the other, you're looking probably been seen all three. What information have you been able to come up with Bobby while you're out there researching them, kind of investigating what's going on? What, um, have you come to any, have you hypothesized anything with regard to their behaviors or, you know, the actions, different things, what they do what they do?

Well, you know, it's like I have, but then sometimes I'll sit back and I think, well, is that right? Am I actually thinking it's right? Because I've had so much activity. It's like, now, sometimes I've got this thing set in my head where, like, you know, I've kind of figured this out. This is what they're doing, and it's a whole lot different. I mean, it's like you've got a new incident a incident a few weeks ago where I had never heard this before. Yale, scream. I've had those stuff at me, a little bit of everything in the area that I was in because I was listening to the sound dish, a parabolic dish. And I could hear one moving, but you would hear one like it would walk.

But then all of a sudden you'd hear it like another one. And it's like it was not really running, but kind of running a slow jock. And this was like one shuffle. Well, that went on for what they were doing, they were getting closer to me. But then they started doing something like I said that I have never heard in my life. It was, and you started tapping on a tree, kind of like Morris Coat. It was three hits, then it would be one hit. And then about maybe less than a minute later, you'd hear two knocks, and then one knock.

and then that went on from like three hits to two hits to one hit to two hit back to three that went on for like 20-some minutes it's like they were just communicating with each other like Morris coach like I said I've never heard them do that before and that was in that one area that I used was it just stopped and then I heard a and after I'm like the uh like if somebody's crawling on her stomach you could I could hear that like it was going off down through the valley and the rest of the night I didn't hear nothing else and it's sort of very similar to what things we've been talking about. Well, something else that I've come to theorize, too, and I've had this happen probably

not like a, like a, there's nobody around, you know, because who would be out there, you know, stupid, and we'd be hit, and all of a sudden, I mean, just out of the blue, they would come, like, you hear them come walking, and it would last half the night that me and Sam was out there when we actually saw this big one. We were hit out, and it had been raining. It's like a camo tarp. and we had completely hit ourselves around it. We can cut branches, and we had branches and leaves.

I mean, it looked just like a tree sitting there's what it looked like. And we got inside that. It done got good and dark. I'm sitting there listening with the sound dish, and he's sitting there listening to him. He reaches her and punches me on the arm, and he's like, I'm hearing something walking. He said, it's coming towards us. Well, I started listening in the direction he was listening. And you could hear it.

I mean, it sounds just like a big man was stomping his feet coming through the trees. well all of a sudden it sounds almost 11 o'clock we didn't hear nothing else and then all of a sudden you started hearing it again like it started walking again but this time it was getting louder and louder and it sounds like an elephant coming branches and limbs left around i'm not talking small twigs i mean it was breaking right dead in front of us and what we could hear was it sounded like you've heard people when they got asthma they can't breathe like like like that right that's what this thing sounded like and i mean we were like so we were listening through the dish, and this sounded like it was right over your head, breathing on it. That's what it sounded.

It walked completely right in front of it. It walked right in front of the area we're in. It kept walking, went across, and went down in the valley. Well, I took my headset off, and he did, too. And we said they're looking at each other, and we were kind of whispering back, I can't believe that thing got that close to us, because I'm talking the sound wasn't like to, like, maybe 40 or 50 feet from us. Well, about that time, I could see if, you know, we're completely hit. You cannot see it, and we've got mud put on us to hide our smell, you could. Within probably 20 minutes of that thing walking off, we heard these loud cracks. I mean, I'm talking like huge branches just snapping.

I reached over, picked up my night vision, he did too. And we had two little sections cut out in the tarp, so we could just put the night vision right there, and it would hold it. We had touch, we could look right through it. Well, on the right-hand side of us, we started hearing that. It was getting closer and closer. and basically the way we figured it was it was right dead beside us. I mean, I'm talking like right shoulder to shoulder.

We heard it as it walked in front of the tarp, when it came by it, went to the front of it, it went around, and I was looking through the night vision. At first I didn't say nothing, he just reached over and he punched me on the shoulder, and I could see what he was doing. He was motioned to me to look through the night vision. Well, I leaned over, and I looked right dead in front of me, about probably maybe 20 years, straight ahead of me, was between 7-5s, right shoulder cost of the veneer.

It was hunched over. It was bent at the knees, not like a normal man stance, but it was bent at the knee. It has long, shaggy hair like a wet, magic doll. It stood there for maybe 15, 20 seconds, and it was looking at the ground, and it was going around, around, and just kept going around like it was looking at something at the ground.

I don't know what it was looking at, but it's like it was looking, and it would reach down, and it was just, like, scraping at the ground. Like, I don't know if it was trying to dig something up or what, but it just kept scraping at the ground. It'd done that for maybe, I don't know, it seemed like it done it. I'd say maybe two minutes at the most. It sat there, like, digging at the ground.

Well, after it done that, it stood up, and it just stood there looking around. And like I said, it couldn't see it, and it couldn't smell us. It stood there, and it was looking around, and all you could hear was that. That's all you could hear. And then all of a sudden it took off and it just went down to the valley. And that's the last assault that night.

But later on that night, about three hours, not like the Morse code, but just like somebody tapped in the tree or rock, just what happened that night. The tree limbs into the clearing. It was just standing there moving the leaves around with its right foot. And it was, I had the same kind of thing. I don't know what it was doing. It was like the next morning to track these two. You know, we saw the leaves moved, but I couldn't tell what it was doing.

So that's interesting. That's the only other time I've heard. you know, someone watch one do something on the ground like that. But yeah, you know, with the rain it made me think to it back when I was in the Army, I was a

cavalry scout and my job was reconnaissance was to go out and find an enemy and then to gather intelligence and, you know, move in and pull back out without ever being noticed. Things like the rain are what they call noise camouflage, you know, so you can be, you know, when rain's

coming out and about, number one, it kind of cleanses the air, so your scent is now floating around as easily as it would be, and hide whatever minute noises you might be making. Well, that's the truth there, because basically all you could hear with its feet and breaking in branches, all that's the darnity. But, I mean, I've had several people. It sound like an elephant coming home coming through there, but then, you know, I say it sounded like an elephant.

But, I mean, it didn't really care if anybody was out there. Bobby, what's probably the most aggressive encounter you've had, or have you had one yet? Probably the most, well, I wouldn't say it's like really like aggressive aggressive was we've had one between, this was back in between 2012 and 2013, we was getting a guy that helps me, Keynes, he does like the call blast and stuff. And he had a, so we tried that. He was actually doing the parabolic bitch. Well, the area that we were aimed at is going on, but the second time we've done the call blast,

he looked at me and he started waving his hand around and he started. pointing that way. So I reached over and I didn't hear anything at first. And he said, play the thing again. He said, because I just had something just give me it really. So he put his headset back on and I played it. And about probably between nine to 11 seconds after I done that call blast, I mean, I don't know if I can do it, but this is kind of what it's done like it was like, like that. That's exactly what we heard. We played that call blast four more time. And every time we played that call blast, we would get that a great. Well, the last time that I played it, we got that aggressive grunt.

But then we had a rock about the size of a baseball. I mean, what were you thinking? Was it time to leave at that point? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Unless it actually, I mean, it takes it. It was just... Do you mainly go out at night or do you go out during the day? We do both.

What we'll do is, it's like if I go out with Ken and his son, we'll go out during it, you know, he's either gone one. You know, if we get the area that we want to be in wherever, and then we'll let it die down. And then we start hiding and getting the kid's attention. Once you get his attention, you go hide. Yeah. Are you worried at all when you're out there with, you know, are you worried at all when you're out there doing this? Nope, not a bit.

Like I said, I've never felt. Yeah. But no, no, I mean, I've never had it. Well, not in my area. Doing this research, is there kind of an endgame to what you would like to accomplish? Or is it more, let's just learn as much as you can. We started it was to, like, you know, learn as much as I, and then when I asked. And how do you think you're going to go about proving to the world that it's real, just out of curiosity?

It says, you know, you've got to have that, you got to have that million-dollar video, or you got to have. And, you know, I'm not pro-in my best to get that, I guess you want to say that DNA that people, you know, or that. But you stop at the line of shooting one then. Yeah, like I said, I'm not pro-keal. The only way that I would actually... Well, let me ask you this, and I'm sure Bear is going to tear me apart on my next comment. But... And he's a big guy, so I'll try and word it a certain way.

That's a good. Yeah, you know, when people talk about proving them, I just don't see how you can go and prove them without having some sort of people. of them. I don't think the DNA thing's going to work. The DNA thing, especially after this whole fiasco, if Melba catch him, I have a hard time having anyone

buy into that. I have a hard time even, you could have the best HD video, and people are going to call it a hoax. You know the Bigfoot community is. I mean... Oh yeah, man, they'll rip you a new one in a heart, me. You know, they'll rip you apart, so I'm wondering that, you know, with

and I've given her a lot of thought, too. And I was going to talk with Farah about this tonight, but you know, honestly, I feel like if you are wanting to prove it, you're going to have to have a piece of one of these things to prove it. Well, that's

something I didn't really want to, you know, I didn't really want to say too much about what we're trying to do on my wall. But we'll say this, I will do what it takes to bring that proof back. You see what I'm saying? It takes to get that proof. I'll just leave it to that. Okay. Well, be safe.

doing it, man. Some of the stories we've heard it could be just short of a battle trying to bring one back, dead or alive. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because they go in grief. Yeah, so be safe while you're out there, you know. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and a lot of people think that, you know, once you bring one in, everyone's going to be out there blasting away at them, I don't believe that. I really don't. That wouldn't happen. I don't see it happening either. I see more people shooting them now

based on misidentification than if they were proven real I think most people would realize not to shoot them. Everyone here at Bigfoot Hotspot Spot Hot Spot Radio would like to thank audible.com Audible.com is the internet leading provider of audiobooks with over 150,000 different titles to choose from. To download a free audiobook of your choice,

go to audible trial.com forward slash big butt hot spot. Jim Grant, aka Bear, how are you this evening, sir? Oh, mean, as a rattlesnake

with a toothache. What about you guys? That's a good way to describe it. Yeah. About the same. Thanks for coming on. We sure appreciate it, Bear. No problem, man.

I've heard a lot about you guys. Since I quit doing Bigwood Outlaw Radio, I've kind of just stayed away from the radio shows and good things about you guys. So I investigate the investigators before I decide whether they're worth the time to come on here and fill your heads full of lies and hoaxes and all the other good things. Yeah.

You know, I think that's a pretty smart approach. Yeah, absolutely. That's what you need to do. I mean, everybody out there needs to really research the researchers before they start doing anything else. I mean, look at your, oh, Rick Dyers of the world. then look at the idiots on TV and patting itself on the back, breaking their arms, patting themselves on the back about what they've invented, what they started, flop-ball, so forth and so on.

Nine times out ten, they stowed it from some good old boy that was sitting over there doing it all right, and what the old saying in the South is, even a blind hog can find the maker and never now and again. Yeah, and that's so true. I've had so many things stolen about you don't think. I've seen so many things over the past. 20 years or so,

because we came up with, and I'll give me an example, and it was a little, my idea. Somebody else took it and ran with it. So that happens all the, you know, Renee DeHendon used to tell me all the time.

You know, he, talking with that guy, people who said they were involved in this because that's what he did. And he was like the CIA. You could run a name across him and within 24 hours

you'd know what his grandmother's name. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You've got to do that because, everybody out there is out to stick a knife in your back. When you trust human nature, and then you see how many people out there take advantage of people for volunteering or offering things they've learned through their own hard work or by accident, which a lot of people really don't understand this,

we wouldn't know what we know about this preacher, human, or whatever people choose to call it, if it hadn't been for the fact that it chose to present itself in one-shaped viewings all the time, we wouldn't even be talking about or knowing what we currently know up to this point in fact. Most of it's just things after the fact. People don't realize that these creatures have got to trust you before you can trust them. I mean, it's a trust situation. And then watching how people do each other in regard to stealing their research or their claim or whatever,

it kind of makes sense why a bugger decides, well, hell, I ain't going to show myself to these idiots. Why would I? I mean, you know, they're just going to go out there and destroy whatever they fool with. Hey, Bear, will you go back and you had two encounters when you were a kid, correct? It's hard for me to be brief, but I'll try to be as brief as I can. That takes as much time as you want. All right, 1966. I know it was that year because my baby sister had just been brought home from the hospital.

I was six years old. I was born in 1960. I'm an old park. 54 years old. 1966. It was in August or September. that because my sister was born in July. My sister had not been home as an infant six weeks, and my father left my mother. Well, she left two little boys, an infant girl, and a mom in a house

out in the middle of central Mississippi in the boonies, in the woods, whatever you want to call it. My baby sister was a newborn. She was crying at night, you know, colicky, jaundice the whole nine yards. for some reason we had went to bed. We didn't have air conditioning back in those days. What we would do would stick a window fan unit into the window on the north end of the house, facing outwards, and then we would open up all our windows inside the house to draw any prevailing air through the house. Well, when you do that, of course, you know, you've got to open up curtains and so forth and so on.

and it's hard for people to understand I was six years old. I was able to determine the date because of the fact that I knew how long it had been since my father had lived, how old my sister was at the given time. So I've roughly got it narrowed down to happening in probably August or September of that year due to the absence of my father. For some reason, I woke up during the middle of the night. Our bedroom faced back toward the east. When my grandfather and my father originally built the house, when my mother and father married in 1959,

they had to level off the property. And when they did, they pushed the mound of dirt that was unleveled toward the back of the house. On top of this was a slope that was going up onto my grandfather's place. That's how we was able to build the house. build it on one small acre off of my grandfather's property. Well, at the top of that mound of dirt, my grandfather, he raised cattle, and we had horses, and so he would always, you know, fence in the whole property.

And he just moved the fence line back behind the house on top of this slope that they created going into this hillside. And behind there was a bunch of pine trees and oak trees, hard. would. Something woke me up. I do not know what time I can't even conjecture. I do know that me and my brother slept in the same bed at the time. I was six.

He was right at four. I heard something outside the bedroom window. The fence line, due to the elevation created from pushing the foundation up against the hill, and to be on a level with our level. with our back window. It was probably, I don't deal in feet, I deal in yards because I played football and I judge yardage better than I do footage.

It was right at probably 15 to 20 yards from the bedroom window to where this fence was. It was what we call a four-stranded bobwire fence. In other words, I can't remember where it was a four or five because we did vary that, but as young as I was, I do know that the height of the fence was right at chest level to an average man, so I figure it was about five foot high. Something woke me up, and it was a noise.

It was going, whoo-and-you-hear. To go back to cooing what I called it at the time, and then it started clicking again. The noise woke me up. So I raised up out of the bed. Our bed was up against the west wall looking directly east straight out this bedroom window. The curtains were drawn back to take advantage of all the ambient air being pushed through the house. Evidently, it was either a full moon that night or it was a almost quarterly full moon, because you could see in the backyard.

Of course, being asleep, no light source around you. your eyes were adapted to looking outside. Well, when I looked outside to where this noise was coming from, I noticed that I'm going to tell you my general impression. This giant monkey was leaning over this five-and-a-half-foot fence with both arms draped over the top strand of the bulb wire. And the arms were, it was stooped down, it was kind of like in a crotch position.

It was slowly swaying its head back and forth to the right and to its left while it was making this cooing, clicking sound at the same time. Well, it just blows his head wide open, you know. My first reaction was I woke my four, five-year-old brother up. Look, look at the monkey out there. Look at the monkey. Of course, my brother, you'd have to know him. and when I get into the second tail, it'll become more obvious. Whenever anything it's sightable or something like that would come up,

his first reaction is to haul ass wide over. When he saw this thing, cooing and clicking at us, and he didn't understand what it was, he tore out of that bed like his butt was on fire hidden from Mama's bedroom. Panic is infectious. I tore my butt, smooth out of that bed, jumped straight in the bed with mama. We woke her up.

When we woke her up, of course, we woke up my baby sister in the bassinet next to the bed. Mama, mama, mama. There's this big monkey outside her bedroom window. Mama, ma'amma, come see, come see, you know, and we don't dove on top of her, the whole nine yards. This is what I remember about it. She looked at those other things calmly said,

now, you know, good and well, we don't have monkeys in this part of the United States, are in this country, you know. So you guys just lay down here and go on back to sleep. I do remember that my mom did not get up out of that bed to go and see what run us out of our bedroom. I do remember that much. That was the first time that I had any inkling that there was something out there. Senior grandfather kind of take you aside and say,

Hey, son, you know what you actually saw was? Yeah. That's what happened after the second incident happened. We ended up losing that house, but that house is still standing to this very minute on the perimeter of my property. It actually was the only acre of land from my grandfather's place that we do not own. I still own the property to this day. It was all passed down to me. That's the only acre of my grandfather's land that we do not visit.

own anymore. But due to the divorce, had a single mother trying to raise us kids. She was working all the time, and we had to sell the property. We moved into my grandfather's house, which was less than where this location is, where this first sight and occurred. Me and my brother and sister, by this time, and I remember these, I can get close to the date. It was in 19, uh, 69 or 70, and the only reason I know that, you know, when you're 8, 9, 10, well, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, who cares about a date? You know, I mean, it's just another day in your life. But I do know this was before my mother remarried and we had to relocate to a major city in Mississippi. Me and my brother and my sister were out chasing and catching what we call in the South Lightning Boards. Everybody else calls them fireflies. We was out in the back pasture. So when fireflies are lichen bugs in the south start doing their thing,

it's usually in the early spring. We was out there kicking these fireflies, put them in to clear mason jars in the back pasture. We was having so much fun screaming and hollowing and running around that pasture, you know, just having a blast as children play. Not having a care in the world. All we were doing was functioning on catching fireflies.

When my grandfather come out the third time to yell for us to come on in the house, he could see a panoramic view of the whole pasture, whereas we was all centered on just catching the next lightning book. Saw something moving next to a fence line that was straight to his left of where we were. we were. Instead of yelling for us to come on in again, once he saw this, this, whatever it was, it just started moving. He said it started loping towards us on, uh, it was not an average like a dog or cat or deer or a cow or horse loat. It was more like a chimpanzee does in its locomotion towards us. Of course, we didn't see none of this, because we didn't see none of this, because we

he was concentrating on catching lightning books. He did not have time to go grab a gun, shotgun, rifle, or nothing. He just been running across the pasture yelling as squirt loudly as he could. Our grandfather, he, most gentleman in the world, he raised me and my brother and my sister. He never really punished us or really yelled at us or cussed or anything. around us when we were younger. He was just acting like a wild man and my personal assessment.

For him to take that kind of a reaction out of just in our opinion going from calm to berserk, it really blew our mind. So we, I can envision

to this day us all me, my brother and sister, immediately turning around and looking straight at him because what was making my grandfather go nuts. All the time my grandfather was running toward us, just screaming and yelling, anything he could do to, what he was trying to do was to revert this thing's attention from us towards him.

We still did not know this thing was coming toward us. We looked at our grandfather acting insane, our interpretation of it, and we noticed all the time he was running towards us. He was flinging his arms up in the air like he was doing jumping jacks, the whole nine yards, but he kept looking towards our right, which was his left. Well, about that time, we said, well, hey, Papa's acting this way for a reason, but the reason is he's looking back over here. So we all turn around and look back towards our right, and here this thing is coming, loping at us on all four. This thing

it was hairy. It looked like it had the mange, the knee area, the knee pad area, the elbows, the midriff, the whole nine yards. It was like they were clumps of hair.

And, you know, a lot of people say fur, but it's not fur, it's hair. Had just fell off. I mean, it actually looked like a dog that had laid in a fiber class if the listeners know what I'm talking about. When I didn't realize that at the time, because, you know, I'm looking at something that I only seen when I was six years old that was leaning on the fence.

But this one was a different one. This one was not as big as the one that was leaning on the fence four years earlier. This one seemed, in my opinion, our estimate that he was younger. And all the time, once we visually saw what was coming towards us, here goes my brother again. He didn't waste one action of motion. He immediately dropped his mason jar full of lightning bugs and almost knocked my grandfather down,

heading straight to the house. Well, when this happened and my sister saw it, of course she wasn't but about five or six years old at that, her legs just melted out from underneath her. She hit the ground screaming as loud as she could. Because when I seen my brother take off running, and I saw the reaction, my grandfather was doing. I'm so bad, I mean, it's the feeling that nobody knows them because they've actually been in that position. But there was my sister, melted, laying smooth on the ground, screaming and crying her eyeballs out,

and I just stood my ground. I didn't want to deserve my sister. By the end, my grandfather still running across the field. I mean, I'm telling this story a hell of a lot longer than all this occurred. I can imagine it probably all of this whole episodic deal from the moment my grandfather's seen it until this point in time was probably within one minute's time, you know. I looked at my grandfather, and I look back at this. this thing, and there was no way in hell my grandfather would have got there before this thing did. It was so intent upon me and my sister standing there in front of it that it never noticed

my grandfather coming across that field, raising hell. Being that young, I did not know, and here we come back to all these tails, everybody tells. Don't never look one directly into the eye. You know, they don't see that as a challenge. They see that it as telling. Bull crap, that's all I was looking at was the damn eyes. But I got the impression way after the fact. A lot of people, you know, you're dealing with a 10-year-old kid here.

I thought about this a million times over the years. Reflecting back on it later, the intent I got from it staring at me and my sister was, it wanted to play with us. And I thought of that a million times. And the reason I say that is because of what happened next. It come up within about 10 yards of me and my sister. And then out of the corner of its eye, my grandfather come into the picture because he was by then getting close to us. But he still would not have made it to us if this thing wanted to grab us with full intent to harm us or whatever.

but it caught my grandfather coming across that yard, that pasture, and it stopped. And when it stopped, it was looking dead at my grandfather, and then it slowly rolls up and stood as erect as it can. I was listening to your last guy. I called him. I don't even know who he was, but, you know, it was really interesting what I thought. He's absolutely correct. This thing cannot lock its knees. It stood as straight as it could, which left its knees and a sort of like a, like you're bending down to jump, but you don't jump.

Yeah, he saw my grandfather. That's when he stood as a wreck as he could. It never took its eyes off my grandfather. My grandfather made it to where me and my sister was. Of course, my sister's on ground. My grandfather picked her up. This thing looked at us, and the expression on its face was, I messed up, I screwed up. You could see sadness in its eyes.

And I'm not trying to portray emotions here, because, you know, a lot of people overdo the emotion thing with animals anyway. It wasn't that playful intent look it had when it originally come loping across that field toward us. it looked at us, turned slowly to its left, never taken its eyes off of us, and walked bipedily into the woods north of where we was. Never took its eyes off us the whole time. Of course, you know, that got to be a fun moment when everybody got into the house.

And we was all sitting there talking, you know, and I said, we called my grandfather, I said, I think I can't recall, but I may have even brought up the fact that, you know, it looks similar to the one that was leaning across the fence looking in our bedroom, Monday when I was six years old. But Mama said there's no such thing. He said, son, I want to tell you something right here and right now. That's what we call a booger around here. And I said, okay.

And it made sense because here we was where kids raised in the country. we would be threatened with the Bougar man. A lot of people up north and everything, they call them Bougie man. But, you know, we keep things simple down in the South, so we just call them Bougarman. And it always made sense to me when my grandmother or my granddaddy or somebody say, well, you don't need to hang out after dark because the Bougarman gets you. We was introduced to the Bougarman right then. That's when my grandfather freely admitted that he knew these things were there.

Before we get cut down on too much time, I was hoping that you could tell the time that you were bluff charged. And then I wanted to touch a little bit on habituation and your feelings on habituation. But if you don't mind telling the story about when you were bluff charged. It was 1981 or two. Parted my way smooth out of college, went foolish, and went home, found a woman, thought I was in love, got married. but I went deer hunting in another location entirely different from. This is the first time, you know, I knew that these things were more numerous than people acclaimed to them to be in, even up until this very moment.

I went hunting in another section of the country in central Mississippi way about 60 miles or further from, I was hunting what we call a, swamp that was bordering a soybean field. White tail deer loves soybeans and corn and so forth, but this year they planned soybeans there. I had been watching this deer all season alone. I had the rights to hunt there, and I was trying to figure out its movements,

this actions, and so I can, you know, build a stand or set up a stand to probably harvest this deer. When it would come into the beanfield, it always come in from right off the edge of that swamp. And then when it would go back, you know, leaving out of the bean field, that it always would head the same direction back into the swamp. I just went into that swamp one day looking for the ideal tree stand to our ground blind to put up so I could have a chance at harvesting this deer.

And I noticed this, I call it a cane dicket or, it was interlaced with honeysuckle vines. It was very thick, and it was right on the edge of this creed that was running right through this swamp. And when I got to looking at it from a distance, I saw a blackjack oak tree that was growing in the middle of this cane thicket. And I said, you know, I bet if I could get in that oak tree right there, I could ambush that deer.

So when I walked up to the cane thicket, I got to walk in a little. around the perimeter of it. And I noticed that something was going into that cane ticket. I mean, there was a game trail going through it, and it stood about three foot tall. I mean, and three foot comes up to about my waist. I said, well, you know, maybe that deer is even bedding in this cane ticket. It's not impossible. I said, but, you know, that's neither the point.

I wanted to get to that black jack oak tree so I could crawl, build a stand up in the forks of it and have a chance that's harvesting this deer. When I saw the game trail, I said, well, heck, you know, I don't have to grab a machete or thrash my way through this junk. I'll just use this game trail and go on in there. Well, I stooped over to try to get through it, and basically I was mostly on my hands and knees just about at a crawl to get through it. The first thing that struck me odd about it was when I went into this cane thicket, it was so thick that you could probably take four or five steps inside of it and then turn around and you couldn't see the opening unless you got down on your hands and knees and looked back.

But the first thing that I found strange about it was when this opening into this game trail, it turned back to like a V formation to my left. And I kind of thought about it a minute to there. I said, wait, you know, deer or game always takes a straight line into anything. And I thought it was odd, but then, you know, just go with a float. So here I go. I go into the inverted V. well, I don't proceed into that

probably three, four yards, and it makes another inverted turn back to the right. I think of a backwards letter in. And that's what the trail was, into the same thing. Now I'm sure enough scratching my head. I said, wait a minute, you know,

this is really something strains. And I really didn't think of that much more, but then I looked ahead into the straight path then, and I could just vaguely see the trunk of the oak tree. Well, I said, well, I'm almost through this thing anyway. I'll just go on complete it. And so I just, and I'm still on my knees at this point in time. I had my rifle in my hand. My rifle was loaded. I was panning from the oak tree back to the left and right over there in the southwest corner of this thrashed up opening there was a dang booger and it was asleep it was laying on its stomach with its arms curled up underneath his chest cavity it was sticking up in the air with its knees

in a curled up position underneath itself and its head was facing back towards where I was. Man, I like to craft a growled brick because I already knew about these boogers but I wasn't even thinking a booger that day.

I was thinking and concentrating on white-tailed deer. Plus, I was not in my home territory where I knew, as far as I knew at the time, these things were. And this was an entirely different place for me, so it was a total shock to me. And I looked at this thing, and

I guarantee I wasn't 15, 20 yards from it, because it was at the very edge of this corner. Well, I said, well, shoot, I need to get the hell out of here. About that time when I start to ease out, it opened its eye,

and it looked square, directly at me. When it did, it jumped straight up with its knees up under, and just like a sprain does. And, I mean, it was continuously a super fast motion, and it crouched over as a wreck as it could. Its knees was bent also. And this thing just started huffing at me. I caught the tail in of your last guy, and this thing was... That's the term I've used. You know, I, being that I'm an ignorant old country boy, any dang way, you know, you come up with your own phrases. This thing was coughing at me. And what it started doing, it started at a side pace to its left, my right.

And it was coughing at me, but it never would take your eyes on me. And it was like it was slow at first. Then when it reached the apex of that corner, it went and started back. to where it was laying down, only its motions was getting more rapid, the coffin was getting louder, it was shorter, and it was more erratic.

And this thing, and it was throwing its arm, it started then thrashing the cane behind it. And my impression is it was working its courage up or getting more agitated by the second. So by this time, I said, well, I'll be damned if I'm going to be on my knees.

So I stood up. I stood up. I had my rifle point in square at it. All I had to do was hit the safety on and start pulling the trigger. And I don't made up my mind if this thing come toward me, that's what I was going to do. I had no other option. I had cornered it. And actually, it had me cornered.

It went back to where it was laying down. Then it went back towards this other side when it was. got into half stride, it come barreling at me screaming, bloody murder. I was shaking so hard. I was wearing boots. I could feel my ankles vibrating off the top of my boots. That's how scared I was. And I was shaking all over, and, I mean, this happened in a millisecond.

I mean, it was so fast. It's just, you don't have enough time to think, you don't, whatever. But there I was again looking at them down my eyes. And you know what? This thing wasn't as scared of me as I was over here. I could see the fear any side. I mean, I've done already told you three emotions that I've seen out of two different boogers. This thing come barreling at me.

It had his arms pressed out as if it was going to grab me. And when it got within probably four or five yards of me, it feared off to my right. left and it tore through that darn cane thicket like it was nothing but strong. Here I was trying to get out of this stuff now because I didn't have to shoot it.

I think a million times if I would have pulled the trigger the first time, what would have happened? Would I kill it? Hell, I don't know. This one was about seven foot tall. This one was the color on this one was kind of a rust

color, more like a maroon. Russ Feller, the thicket that I tried to back out of, holding a gun, shaking, scared to death, I walked out of it and I ripped my, I still

got scars on my elbows and my back of my arms where I backed through those honey-thup, suck of vines and briars and all in that cane thicket, that this thing just tore through like it was nothing. And this thing paste

me all the way out of the woods screaming and yelling at me until I got to the truck. I was parked on the shoulder of the road next to the major road out of there. I was still shaking so hard. I would not take my rifle down or nothing. You know, I kept it pointed at it the whole time. And I couldn't even get my hand in my pocket. I was shaking so hard to get my keys to unlock my truck. Well, I finally got my truck unlocked.

I got in the truck. I didn't even unload my gun. Put it in gear, hauled ass home. I said, I'm never going back in the damn woods again. And then I got mad. I said, I'll be down if I'm going to let something like this keep me from doing what I love to do the best, then that's honey. You know, I want to make one comment. Actually, the way you described how it was sleeping is exactly.

if you go back in John Green's books, and they have a, I can't remember which one it is now, but he had a drawing, and this was from Russia, you know, the Russian almas. Right. Exactly that same way. Exactly. Well, I didn't realize at the time that, like I said,

what really blew my mind about all this was, I was not thinking, booger, I was thinking white-child-deer. And what makes it doubly worse is, I already knew that these things were running around Mississippi, especially my part where I lived and I was raised at. But that's when, you know, that old light bullet went off in the top of my head and said, hell, these things could be anywhere and everywhere. And that's where I've taken my research ever since I've been doing this.

I know what you mean about, you know, seeing kind of the emotion in their face when I encountered the two. They were angry. and it was clear that they were angry. And I pretty much That can change at the snap of a finger, too. Yeah, that's right. Hey, Bear, would you tell the story about the goats, the habituation site, and the goats that you and I were talking about?

I sure will. I think it's important from people to hear the story. These people who call themselves obituators, they're not ambitulators. They're manipulators. and I'll tell you why. If you go and you start feeding one of these things, something, you're taking away its dependence

on its own abilities. After a while, this thing is smart enough to recognize the fact, hey, I ain't got to go out and forage for this anymore. I can just walk up to this house and get a hand out. You know what I mean? When you get your handouts, you better be in this damn thing

for the long haul. And I'm talking about the long haul. I'm not just talking about, oh, this is cute and fun right now, and then you get bored with it and forget about it. You better hope like hell that you're not renting the place where you're living, because once you leave that location, somebody else is going to rent that same damn house. You better hope like hell that you don't turn around and have a terminal illness, like a heart attack, stroke catcher, something like that, and it does you in,

and then whoever moves into that location, you left a problem for them. Now I'm going to get into the story. A good friend of mine out of Missouri. He had heard about me on the Internet, and we had got together. He'd come down to Mississippi, and I showed and taught him a few things, you know. I said, but don't never feed them. I said, because that is the biggest disrespect you can give nature in the world is to take away their dependency on their own ability to find them.

because all you're going to do is make a burger out of them and it's not going to be pretty as an end result. Anyhow, I said, but you can cheat. You know, I've taught him a little bit about that. You can sit there. You can cut open a watermelon. You can sit there. You can open up a can of peanut butter.

You can do anything. Oh, yeah. You can get next to them if you want to. It's going to take them a little while. But once they realize that you're sitting there giving out the freebies, they're going to take it. advantage of it. But then when the freebie stop, you talk about a pissed off animal. I told the buddy, don't never start feeding them unless you. If you resume, if you assume this responsibility, you better stay with it because if you don't want to get pissed off, you're going to pay for it. He was in the Army Reserve. He got sent to Desert Storm back in the 90s. He lived with his. He lived with his grandfather. His grandfather was, he got interested when he saw the results of what my buddy was doing when he was feeding these things. Because guess what? His grandfather didn't think these things existed either until my buddy started feeding them. And then my grandfather, his grandfather started seeing these things. My buddy gets sent to QA. While he went to Kuwait. His grandfather assumes his responsibility and is continuously feeding these things. What people don't know is his grandfather

had 80-something goats on his property with five dogs. His grandfather, while my friend was in Kuwait, a severe heart attack. They had to put him in the hospital. Even my friend in Kuwait did not get leave from the army to come back to take care of his grandfather. thank God his grandfather recovered but while his grandfather was in the hospital and while my friend was in Q8 once somebody

figured out that somebody needs to go out there and feed his livestock and this was something like a week later so okay you know well what's is I'd rather not mention his name for you know his identity purposes but he's in QA

his grandfather's in the hospital let's do the benevolent thing go out there and feed the goose. They drive out there to the countryside, and when they get there are dead. Something had ripped them to pieces. Then all the

dogs, my buddy hears about it, you know, and he says, you told me not to feed these things. I said, I told you to leave them alone. I said, leave them alone. And what it was, this was their way of not getting there.

habit, you know, it's like a crackhead or a cocaine at it. Once you get them hooked on the cocaine, it's hell to get them off. And then once they're hooked on it, they don't want to get off of it. And then when you're dealing with something like this who has, in my opinion, and I'm not being insulting here, I don't want nobody who listens to this show to think I am. I think these things are, if I had to describe their fits or growing a fit or becoming dangerous is like a Dow syndrome type child. I think that when they pitch a fit, they do it right, and they will. I want to thank Bear for coming on the show.

I know we're out of time, but Bear really appreciate all of your stories, all of your encounters from sharing with us. Something I wanted to mention, too, to the listeners, that we get a lot of emails about how people just found our show. What we would appreciate from our listeners is if you can to spread the word about the show and help build a larger audience base. We'd really appreciate that.

Yeah, please do. Tweeping across 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 helped build ESPN's brand. I've been recognized and awarded by Pro Football Weekly and Gaming Today magazine as the honest handicapper.

Let the other guys give you the same old boring sports talk with the same tired storylines. We'll give it to you straight here every Friday on Wagering Week. Don't gamble with other podcasts. Let SportsGarten Network's Wagering Week help your bottom line.