Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:193 Primal fear of being hunted

Episode Date: February 14, 2016

Tonight I welcome Jeremy to the show. He was recently out on expedition in East Texas and talks about his experience. Jeremy had a piece of concrete thrown at him in the middle of the night and then was roared at. He will be sharing this along with a short sighting he had while he was down there. I will be also welcoming Robert to the show. Robert talks about an Appalachian Trail encounter with "tall brown man." The witness and his son were hiking and decided to stay in a shelter along the Appalachian trail when they encounter a strange creature the witness says "It was NOT a bear or a man." My final guest had a scary night hiking into a remote location. Ben talks about seeing the creature outside of his tent and being harassed all night by several creatures. The witness writes "Wes, I had an experience last year that left no doubt in my mind as to the existence of Sasquatch. I told my dad about it and he said I should check out your show, he started listening after being screamed at in Idaho by an animal that he had never heard before and with a powerful set of lungs. I had a previous encounter the same year but was in denial about the whole thing. Its a pretty hard thing to wrap your head around…. The latter of the two experiences happened in a national park in Nevada while on a backpacking trip with a friend. The experience lasted around three hours starting at two in the morning. Ive never felt that kind of terror in all my life, it was like the primal fear of being hunted, there was more than one. There hasn't been to many nights since that it hasn't been in my thoughts as I try to go to sleep. I'm not a skittish guy and have logged more time in the woods than most people my age, thirty six by the way. I've been up close and personal with most of the big game animals of North America. My dad is a wild life artist and avid outdoors man and I was home schooled giving me the opportunity to spend countless hours in the back woods bow hunting, backpacking and exploring ect… I have never heard or seen anything like this before. I feel like it would help if i could talk about it with some one that knows the kind of fear that come's along with running into to these things at close range. If you want get in touch with me and hear what happened I would love talk with you! you've got a great show and I'm sure that you have helped a lot of people by giving them a safe place to share stories that would other wise never be heard."

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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 no one of the damn thing I could have done about it. This thing I got to notice in its eyes. Its eyes was real, real evil, real sinister looking. You know, the look it was given me. What are you reporting?

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

Uh-oh. Welcome to Sasquatch Chronicles, a place where people share their encounters. Let's start the show. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. I've got a great show planned for you this evening. If I sound a little bit hoarse, I apologize to everyone. I've been sick, gosh, all week.

It's really beat me up, running a high fever, and fever finally broke Saturday morning, and starting to feel a lot better. But for tonight, I've had three or four cups of coffee, and so I feel like I'm starting to get back to my old self. Thanks for being here tonight. Thanks for listening. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show,

show me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance, please visit the website, Sasquatch Chronicles.com, become a subscriber, get additional shows. Tonight I'll be welcoming three guests on. My first guest is Jeremy, and Jeremy went down to the recent expedition in Texas, and he'll be sharing with us some of the things that happened to him. including getting a chunk of concrete thrown at them.

Very interesting stuff. I was going to have him on Friday night, but I almost want to say I ran out of time Friday night, but I think it was more or less I wasn't feeling so hot towards the end of the show. I'm grateful he could be here tonight with us. Jeremy, thanks for coming on tonight. Oh, man, thanks for having me, Wes.

It's a privilege and an honor for sure. No, the honor's mine. And I know you were out on that expedition trip down in Texas, and I really wanted to have you on the show Friday. Start from the very beginning. Tell us about your experience down there. Well, man, just overall, it was just awesome experience, man. You know, obviously I found out about those guys, Bobbing those guys from your shows.

And we drove up from Wichita Falls, a little bit of a drive, eight and a half, nine hours. But, man, instantly we got there and met those guys, Mo and those, Tim, and all of them were just super cool, welcoming. I mean, instantly made you feel like family. But we were pumped from day one. I mean, you can imagine eight to half, nine hours of driving, anticipation and excitement, I felt like a kid.

And me and an old buddy of mine, they used to hunt with, drug him along with me. And as soon as we got there and met everybody set up camp, and it was instantly the story started flying of the past experiences. And, man, it was just an awesome overall experience. but definitely would do it again. If anybody's out there listening, you're considering it, man, do it.

It's a chance of the lifetime. I was always a believer, but now I'm a no-er for sure. You had a major thing happen when you were on the expedition, but before we get to that, I'm curious, what did you, did you hear any vocals, or what did you think of any vocals that you heard? Yeah, almost immediately, Wes, it's like crazy. You hear these guys talk about it,

but they say it's like, soon as the sun goes down, You know, you always hear a long time hunter and out in the woods quite a bit as a kid here and even as an adult. And you instantly get that chatter from the coyotes. And that happened instantly, but it's immediately following those coyotes. You're getting calls and howls and screams. It's like, whoa. And, you know, I've heard recordings all my life and never been exposed anything like this. And it's just hair-raising how fast and how soon those house and calls start.

immediately. As soon as the sun goes down, it's game on. Yeah, that's what I noticed, too. I know it's during the day, it's pretty quiet there. I mean, I don't remember really hearing anything during the day. It's, it's, you never even know those, those were good areas during the day, but you're right. When that sun goes down, I mean, they start really going off. And then I would say around two, three, four o'clock in the morning, it all kind of stops and yeah, I don't really hear anything more. Although, I noticed that the Friday night, of course, because we stayed up pretty late Friday night, but Saturday night after everybody ate, I wasn't feeling real well, so I kind of hit the bed a little early,

but I didn't really sleep well, kind of catnapsed. So I was kind of up throughout the entire night, and man, I tell you what, that High Island didn't stop at all Saturday night. It was three, four, five in the morning. It constantly, about every 30, 45 minutes, it was game on all night, just crazy. It is crazy there. You know, it's, I've never been to a place like that where, it is nonstop like that. Out here in Washington State, you can go to some areas, and you might hear something.

You know, you can go into some areas. You might hear something. You might not. It's kind of a gamble. But out there, I almost put my money on it every time that you're going to hear something with those guys. Oh, yeah. You had a rock thrown at your, didn't you? Was it the concrete?

Yeah, Friday night. Friday night, man, it was crazy because all the guides were real cool, you know, about whatever you find is yours. You know, we all had our ghost. pros and all our equipment and everything that they did tell us, you know, to kind of try to stick close to the camp, you know, don't, don't really venture out at night, especially on your own too much. Well, that's just way I roll. I kind of just, Tim and I just, hey, let's just kind of sneak away from the group and we grabbed our flashlights and our headlights and we hit it, man. We started to venture away from the camp there and, you know,

just checking things out, looking for your footprint, anything. I was just excited. It's just like a kid in the candy store. So we were rolling a little bit further away, a little bit further away from camp and getting this almost like a corner of this tree line, if I can explain it. And as soon as you get,

I bet I was five to 15 foot maybe from that tree line. Everything's so thick. It's hard to determine how close you are to the tree line. But all of a sudden, I heard this whack. I mean, it's hard to explain how loud this thing Kim whizzing over at me and basically the chunk of concrete about five foot in diameter

or sorry, it's five inches of the dam, about five pounds, sorry. But that thing came in with authority and just cracked a piece of deadfall right by me. I mean, within 10 feet of me. So instantly I'm thinking, I'm ahead of Tim, my buddy, and I turned around.

I said, Tim, did you just throw that at me, dude? He's like, throw what? I heard the noise, but throw what? And I got to back up, a little bit back story on. Tim, he's been in a bad car wreck, man. His back is toast. I mean, for him to bend over and even touch the ground, let alone pick up a piece of five-pound

concrete and throw it impossible. I knew that, but I'm still questioning. I'm like, no way. That did not just happen. And he's like, I swear I did not throw that. I did not throw that. So I'm like, oh, my God. So instantly, I'm starting to freak out.

We start shining in the general area where it's, came from, or at least where I thought it came from. And you can hear some movement. I don't want to say it and sound like real crazy stuff going on, but you could hear movement in the brush. And then almost immediately I heard this roar. I mean, it was this crazy scream. And I looked at him and he looked at me, Tim, and we just buggyed out of there. We went running back to camp and I found those. And Tim, I said, this just got thrown at me, swear to God. I mean, I was freaking out, shaking. I couldn't even talk. It was crazy, man.

Yeah, and come to find out later. I don't know if you've talked to Chuck or a guy named Chuck that was with us, man. He had an audio recorder out there that didn't even realize. So he answered me back on your blog a couple nights ago. He said, you're not going to believe this. I'm playing back in my audio recorder. It was out back where you got that rock thrown at you. And I got it all on audio.

He said, I can hear the crack. I can hear you questioning Tim. He said, I got it all. It is crazy. Yeah, I had Chuck on Friday night, and he casted some tracks, and he was telling us about his experience. But it kind of goes to show you, too, how dangerous things can be. It's kind of like I was telling you when I was there, we had that log thrown at me and Bob, and that would have taken one of her heads off if it didn't hit the tree in front of us.

Yeah. And just like that piece of concrete, man, that thing would have eaten in the head. I mean, Jesus. Well, it would have been lights out. Yeah. Absolutely. Like that, man. And it's just crazy. Like I said, all these, I'm about a two-year diehard into every spare moment I have. Even I own and operate a collision repair facility here in town. And I walk around all day with a piece of earphone in and listening to your show all day, man. I mean, I'm going to die hard. I've heard about rocks throwing and logs throwing that and throwing at people, but never did I think that they can happen to be, especially night one, you know? It was nuts. Yeah, well, I'm glad you got a chance to experience it, at least in a safe way, you know, relatively safe way. No one got harmed.

Oh, yeah, yeah, those guys definitely made you feel safe. I mean, they always had your back and always looking around thinking of things that you normally wouldn't take up. It definitely made it safe. Although, saying that Saturday night, I was so, probably so into my head by that point. Saturday night, I couldn't even step out the tent to go to the restroom. I literally unzipped it long enough to get out there and do my business, and I was dying back in. I was scared to death Saturday night, you know, on your own.

Yeah. It's crazy. Were you able to capture any of that on audio? Did you take audio records with you? This trip, I didn't think, to take audio at all, but thank goodness that Chuck guy's got it. He said he'd be able to hook up with me later and maybe give me a copy of that. But we did, I don't know if,

Chuck and those guys told you, more or less, I got a day siding, if he called it a date siding two, Saturday during the day after our first little day, our excursion during the day, everybody kind of regrouped. And the second group wasn't back yet. And so it was just Chuck. And I think is it, is it Tim's wife or Mark's wife? Is it Vicki? I don't know if you know them or not, but she was there kind of keeping an eye on camp. So Chuck and I hung back with her, and she comes running over and says, I got one on my camera, on my iPhone. And we're like, well, I was looking at it.

And sure enough, she got a picture of one. So where did it come from? Obviously, we're over there in an area. And Chuck and I, about the same time, yep, there's something moving right there. So I could see, I would say maybe a half of the head and maybe an eyeball and it just kind of darted in behind the trees. Well, this whole time, Chuck's taking pictures with this 35 millimeter film camera. I mean, he's seeing everything I'm seeing and snapping pictures. So I ran off to my tent to grab my binoculars.

And, of course, by the time I come back, all the action was gone. But, yeah, at the same time that Wayland flew his drone over there and got a little video of it kind of running back into the woods. So we had some daytime activity, too, Saturday. That's crazy. Was that all in the same place? All the same place. Yeah, it was just pretty nuts. And I'm anxious to hear if Chuck had got his, did he mention if he had gotten that developed yet, but film.

Yeah, I'll have to ask them. I'll ask him if you got it. I know someone did have a daytime siting. I wasn't sure if that was you or if that was someone else. That's crazy, man. It's weird, though, that you don't hear them, though, during the day, do you? I mean, they aren't screaming. They're not really yelling.

they're not really vocalizing like they do at night. At night, it's like you think they become alive at night or something. Right. Obviously, that's their territory at night. And I think daytime, they're just awesome stealth mode. I didn't hear anything during the day at all. It was pretty cool. Definitely will go back, man.

I mean, a lot of people say that. I mean, I'm going back. I don't know whether I'll drag the wife there with me, but I'm going back. I'm addicted from this point on. Well, again, I'm glad you got a chance to experience it. You know, it really is an experience of a lifetime, and it's a lot of fun to go down there, and I'm going to make it down on the next one or the one after that, I'm not sure yet. But I'd love to go down there and just hang out and get a sighting, you know, or get vocals.

One of the things, the only advice I give to people I wish I would have done is buy a couple digital recorders, take them with you because you will get some great audio out there. Oh, yeah. Next time I'll definitely do that. I just had no idea. Well, you know what all I needed this trip, but not. I know now. I'll do that next time.

If I had any complaints at all about the entire trip, and nothing could have been happening. But I wish I got to spend more time with Bob. He's just such a knowledge, a piece of knowledge. I just wanted to scrub as much as I could off of him, you know. But we enjoyed him while we had him. It was awesome. Yeah, he's good people.

Bob's good, ma'am. Oh, man. Yeah. And his boys are awesome, too. Got to visit within quite a bit Friday night. Yeah, Brennan and Travis, those are good guys, too. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, for sure.

Thank you for coming on the show and sharing the experience, man. I really appreciate it. Oh, yeah. It was awesome, man. I'll definitely do it again. And thank for having me on, man. It's definitely an honor. You're my hero, man, for sure.

Well, I appreciate it, man. Thank you. You back. All right. Next up on the show, I want to welcome Robert. Robert, thanks for coming on tonight. You're welcome, man. Glad to be with you.

Thank you, sir. And if you would, now you had an interesting encounter with your son. Do you kind of want to start from the beginning and just walk us right into what happened? Yeah, it's been a good while ago, and from the very beginning, it didn't seem like such a big deal until later on there were threads that seemed to more make sense of it. But in any case, my son at the time was 12 years old, we had a golden retriever. by the name of Ginger, a really fine dog. And it just so happens. I had a business visit in Charlottesville on a Saturday morning,

and my son said, well, Dad, we've got stuff in the car. Why don't we go up to Cold Mountain? He may have said, Widgeon Springs area, and sleep under the stars tonight. And I said, well, you know, that's a little crazy because it's going to get cold. He said, well, it's not going to be that bad, I don't think. Well, in the end, we ended up going to a shelter on the Appalachian Trail about a mile and a half off U.S. Route 60 north. The shelter is called Cal Camp Gap, I believe it is, and it's your classical three-side shelter.

We set up camp there and decided to make some food, hot food, which we needed because it was getting really cold. maybe probably in the middle 20s at the time. And this area is, you know, on the Appalachian Trail, talked about with a small stream in front of the shelter and a picnic table. While we were drinking and eating some food, ginger started barking. The thing is, we had camped at a lot, and she was familiar, and she won't happy to see bears or hear them, but she knew what they were, and so did I.

I looked up, and I saw it first. It was confusing because it was a rather tall man, I thought, and it was about dark, so we really couldn't tell a whole lot until it got closer. Then I realized this thing is wearing a fur coat. It was brown, really dark brown. And ginger is continuing to bark. I called her to my side. She came to my side while sitting at the picnic table.

And without thinking, I sort of hollered at this man, beast, whatever it was, and say, come on over and have some hot chocolate. This thing turned, and that's when the doll went berserk. She had a problem. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before or afterwards. The best way to describe it was she had no control of her hind legs. she was making this, instead of a barking, it was a gurgling sound like she was being choked. This thing, it looked like it turned and maybe waited for maybe 15 seconds, then it turned away and took about two or three steps and literally just disappeared into this twilight kind of

darkness. What it looked like in its face, I couldn't really tell you. I could see there were eyes and a nose, but I couldn't tell you whether there was much hair on it or whether it was a man with a heavy beard. It just wasn't enough daylight. Did you notice the color being uniform across the whole? It did. It was very uniform. And again, you know, when you say, well, it's bitter cold, hey, people wear four coats. And so it was really confusing. And like I said, I was not uncomfortable in calling out. Now, let me tell you that behind this creature down or this being behind it, the closest house was probably two miles. Ahead of it, the closest house was two and a half or maybe three.

There's nothing in between. It had no flashlight or anything, and it's getting dark. That's the thing that later on I kept, and my son, we discussed it. Later on, amongst her, between the two of us, we never told anyone else. I think I told my wife that there was an odd occurrence and that we don't know what we saw. And she kind of scolded us because we were out. And this weather, we probably had we known, we wouldn't have been there, that it was going to get as cold as it did.

It got down into the mid, maybe below 10 degrees that night. Ginger, on the other hand, recovered. but she tried to get into my lap, which was the strangest thing I've ever seen. You know, she just, she was, she was terrified. During the night, she sat between my son and I at attention. She never went, she never laid down the entire night. Yeah, that is strange, strange behavior for a dog. It was later on that we, it became even stranger with ginger.

It was. Let me ask you, before we get into that, how did the creature turn, Did it just turn its head and look over it, you guys? No, it turned its whole body, and it was squared away at us. And I could, if I had to guess, I would say this thing was at least six feet, five or so. I wouldn't say it was seven feet, five, or anything like that, or taller. I would guess that it would weigh upper 200s, maybe 280, 300 pounds from, the size, but again, this thing was covered with brown hair, and it was really hard to distinguish.

And did I notice the size of the arms or the length? No, I didn't, because it happened too quick. As I told you earlier, Wes, my son and I, we were not into this thing. We were not into Bigfoot UFOs. He and I, we were hanger rats. We loved aviation. but we're more grounded, if you know what I mean, into the real things that you put your hands on every day.

Right, and I understand that. You know, it's interesting the way your dog reacted. Do you remember if the creature made any sort of vocalization? No, there was no sound from it at all. That's interesting. I almost wonder if it did growl, and it was such a low, they do have a low guttural growl, but I almost wonder if it was such a low growl when the dog picked up on it,

and that's what terrified the dog. I'm speculating, I don't know, but that's a fascinating, fascinating encounter. And there was nothing else that happened the rest of the night then, huh? No, we didn't hear anything. It was quite windy. We suffer from the cold. He and I were. We thought we were ready for it.

But when you're talking about below 10 degrees and it's windy, you're never going to be comfortable as far as I am. know, with the equipment that we had, you know, we had some wool blankets, and it was just bitter cold. I think the only other thing I can think of with that thing was the total surprise, and that my son and I were not afraid, though. We didn't have any fear about us, but it was Ginger who, she was one upset. But again, I never heard her make the sound she made before or after.

And I, that dog lived to be 15 years old. She was three years old at that time. Yeah. Constant companion. No, and they are. And usually dogs are the ones you pay attention to in situations like that, you know, especially with these things or really any predators really, if you pay attention to the dog, dog will tell you where it's at.

Well, yeah, she would, uh, we would hear. bears where she would alert me to something going on and then eventually you'd hear a black bear around here they make a kind of a sniffing noise like you know that they're sniffing and trying to find and tearing away stumps to look for bugs and whatever they can get to eat and they don't like dogs and so ginger being as she was if i call her to my side and and put her on alert But by saying, listen, she would perk up, and I put my hand on her head and just flinch it, she would bark until told to stand down. She was a wonderful dog to have.

I never ever felt any kind of a concern for bears. And we, in this area, we don't have wolves or, I think there's some coyotes. And every once in a while, somebody says they've seen a mountain lion, but I don't believe that. You just don't, they've been gone from this area many, many, many years. That area, by the way, though, is heavily populated with deer. I mean, they're like roaches out there, huh? Oh, that mountain called Coal Mountain, I would guess it's probably, it's like a big loaf of bread, more or less, with fairly steep sides.

And when you get to the crown, you'd find, a lot of trees growing down the side of it. But when you get to the top, it's maybe a little bit of mountain laurel, but it's got a lot of vegetation. And that mountain in that area is probably five or six hundred yards at the very least, the nearest part, across. A lot of vegetation in the summertime, the deer are up there eating in place, and plenty of butterflies.

It's a wonderful place to go to. But in the deer, especially when you start getting around late September, they'll be in there on that mountain in groups of 10 and 12 eating, and you can literally walk within five feet of them, and they won't even pick their head up because they're putting on fat for the winter. It gets tough around there. These are fairly large, but again, getting back to this area, And the habitat is, if there is a being called Sasquatch, if it's real,

yeah, it could make a living off the deer there with no trouble. There's plenty of them. Well, let me ask you, what do you think you ran into that night? You know, something after the last few months of reading through some sites, I got a feeling we saw something, and it won't a man and it won't a bear. What does that leave? This thing about misidentifying bears, that's a crazy. I've been around too many of them, and they don't stand up to be six feet tall around here.

They're not that big. And they may weigh 180 to 250 pounds, and it's unusual to see one in the three or 400-pound range. And when they are, they are always on all fours. They may sort of rare up a little bit, but they're stooped over, and they never appear to be over about five feet tall. I've seen so many of them and took a lot of pictures over the years, and Ginger had a lot of experience around them. She wasn't afraid of them. She knew the barking would send them away. Yeah, and, you know, you wouldn't have called out to it and said, hey, do you want hot chocolate if you would have thought for one moment it was a bear?

You know, I think at first when he saw it, it sounds like you probably thought it was. a guy. I did, but then it became later on. My son and I talked about it. He said, that I think that was a man, but if it was, it was a very, very tall man. And the one other thing I can relate to you is that this thing was very athletic for this man. And I've seen Ralph Samson, and he's a big tall guy or was back in his prime, but he didn't appear to be as athletic and smooth as this thing was walking. It was like poetry. This thing wasn't some out of shape dude. I'll tell you that much. Now, you went back, and you had another strange experience there. Do you want to tell us about that? Yeah, about eight years later,

I returned to that area with just ginger. And I had the intention of walking down to that shelter again, and I don't think at the time, I was really thinking, well, it would clarify my mind about anything because it really wasn't a big issue for me. But when I got to the tree line to start down the path off that mountain down to the shelter, Ginger stayed back. Normally she would be in front of me, but when we got near that tree line, she stopped. She sat down. Her ears were perked up. And it was like she was, her nose was up. She was, she did not, she wouldn't go with me. Even when I called her and went back and petted her and started back down, she sat down. She didn't go with me. And so I declined to go down to that area. I've been to that shelter one time. And that was the one time I had that experience. Let me tell you, that would have been probably 92 or 93. A few years later, I took my mother to this little town called Buena Vista, which is about 15 miles from there.

I told you this Appalachian Trail crosses Route 60. That shelter was about maybe a mile or mile and a half to the north. But Buna Vista is about 15 miles away in this particular Sunday. It was in the wintertime, and snow was on the ground. And we stopped at a restaurant. There was no one there except a cook and a young teenager who was doing the waitress stuff. And so my mother, who loves children of all ages, of course, just mentioned something to the little girl about,

I really love this place. I'd love to live here. or any houses for sale. And then I spoke up and I said, yeah, especially around Coffeytown and Cole Mountain. And she turned to me and she said, Mr. She said, I've got to tell you, I've got a couple of uncles who have hunted all their life. They saw something a few years back that scared them so bad. They have stopped hunting. And I'm thinking, you know, that sort of, that's sort of.

It was another little thread, and then a couple of years later I was in Buna Vista at a little paper plant they had there, and I was talking to the plant manager, and he had to leave, and it was in the employee break room, and I was the employees, and I said, do you live close by? And then he said, I live in Lowe'sville. And I said, well, this coffee town area, are there any houses for sale through there again? And he said, yeah, he said, starting about maybe 10 years ago, we've had a lot of people empty out from that area, and there are quite a few houses for them. These are little mountain houses. If you know what I mean, they're on dirt roads and fairly secluded.

And we got to talk, and I asked him, I said, You know, a few years ago, something happened to me up here. Have you guys ever seen anything that was really unusual? And he said, well, back in the middle 80s, we had a fall and winter where I had a neighbor that lost a calf. We never found it. And then he said, and we had some dogs that were constantly barking at night. A number of them got missing. He said, we called the sheriff, and the sheriff said, well,

Maybe it's some coyotes stirring up a mess, but they never found anything, and he didn't elaborate on it anymore. Other than that, I've been back through that area a few times, and one time I had kind of a creepy feeling. I don't know what it was. It caused me to really reconsider going to that area by myself again, and I haven't gone, you know, on these hiking. I used to go on, but I am getting old. As I told you, I'll be 70 in May. Old will be by yourself five or six miles from any human beings, even with cell phones.

Well, yeah. It's like I always tell people, Robert, it doesn't matter how old you are or how young you are. You should never be out there alone in situations like that in case something happens, you know what I mean? Especially. And so one of the reasons I became interested in this. this whole story again. In August of 2011, that's five years ago coming up in August, a hiker by the name of Lily. That's a really busy area in the summer, a lot of hikers because you can hike off 60 and this, like I told you, this mountain is very beautiful, and it's accessible

and, hey, it's a great place to go with children too. You can get children there. It's not such a terrible hike from a old Widgin Springs road, I believe it is. In any case, a hike by name of Lily was discovered dead. He, the FBI says, and the cause of death is listed as affixiation. He was strangled, the suffocated, I don't know. And the odd thing was that he was half buried. That is really odd, and it was at that shelter. You know, it's, it, it, it, it, So, again, these strings really have sort of brought that original encounter back, you know, to memory. And, again, I have a son. He is 40 now.

And as I told you, you know, we've talked this morning briefly about why people don't come forward. Well, he's in the medical field. You know, that that's where, and he would be happy to talk, but he probably wouldn't be willing to come on in, on your program, however. And I understand that. You know, we just, it's probably a lot more encounters that people just don't talk about. And again, my own, it don't make a lot of sense to me, West. How in the heck can something that,

that's so often reported go without some sort of evidence being left behind. I don't know that answer. Yeah, well, going back to the first point, I mean, I tend to agree with you. I understand people who don't want to come forward who have professional careers. You know, it's like I was telling you I have airline pilots that told me about their encounters, and they're like, hey, man, I can't come on the show. They'll take my wings if they catch wind of me talking about Bigfoot. I understand that.

You know, I completely understand that. And these are, they're sane people. They do their jobs every day, and they're certainly reliable. The people in my life, my daughter-law and my grandchildren adore me. And I've got folks who, you know, who think a solid person they can rely on for friendship at times at need. And that's a great thing about a life that you really think about and try to live, you know, in an honest manner. And getting back what I told you about dogs, I said, I think this morning that the one thing about dogs is they don't lie, they don't hoax, and they're the most faithful of animals that may be on God's earth.

I do love dogs And after Ginger, by the way, I never got another one that just hurt too bad when she died And just other people have told me the same thing Oh yeah No, I hear you on that I'm the same way

I always say I'm never going to get another one I'll get a dog and I'll love that dog to death You know, as long as it lives And then when it's gone I'm, you know, I break down like a child And I'll say I'll never get one again I'm never doing that again

end up getting one, but I understand that completely. You know, going back to your other comment with regard to not finding anything, and I know this is kind of the generic answer, and I guess I don't have a better answer for you, but, you know, you don't really find any dead deer that die naturally. Unless on the side of the road, yeah. Yeah, unless they get hit on the side of the road. I've never come across a dead bear either that died naturally. So, I mean, a lot of these animals, especially.

especially predators. Most predators will go off deep into the woods when they know they're going to die. I don't know how it is out there, but I know here in Washington State, a dead carcass will last about a week, two weeks tops, and there won't be much of anything left by the time the scavengers get to it and it rots and everything else. Yeah. But it is frustrating. You know, a lot of people see this thing and more and more people are coming forward. and I think it's just a matter of time before this comes out. I really do. Well, since I have some time on my hands, I'm thinking about getting a really good camera,

doing a better job than when I see on the Internet where these people are sweeping these cameras at a high rate of it. I mean, I don't see the things that are pointing out on one of those websites, Wes. I don't get it. I mean, and I've got a big video about, I got a big screen that I can view stuff on 48 inches, and I just don't see anything most of the time. And so I look at this as that the evidence just is not good enough right now.

And who's going to get it? I don't know. And while we don't get it with all the trail cams out, I don't know that either. I hope somebody does come up with, and gets some definitive picture. So I see on the Internet all the objections that the skeptics have, and the one that drives me crazy is about them being blurry and whatever. Well, I'll tell you what, you take a long lens, wonderful SLR that I had years ago, and you set it on a tripod, and if you have someone walking across that field of view,

200 yards away, you're not going to get much. And it was state of the art with the fastest color film or black and white film. It's going to be blurry. And if you're trying to hold it without a tripod, camera without a tripod, it makes it much more difficult to get anything. It goes back to what I was saying, you know, videos and pictures, We'll never prove this. They'll say you hoaxed it.

They'll say it's a guy in a costume. They'll say this. They'll say that. Unfortunately, someone's going to have to shoot one and bring it in. It just has to happen. As cold as that sounds, it has to happen because, you know, there has been good pictures that have been put out on the web. And then people just get attacked left and right. You know, oh, you're hoaxed in this.

That's a guy in a suit. It's kind of like Bob Gimlin. Yeah. in the Roger Patterson film. You know, Bob, he took heat for, I don't know how many years that guy took heat for that video. And he wanted nothing to do with this topic for many, many years. Because everyone said, oh, it's a guy in a suit, it's a guy in a suit, it's a guy in a suit. Well, how many years later are we still looking at that film and they can't prove it to be a fake?

They can't prove it to be a guy in a suit. In fact, as technology grows, it's leaning more towards it being real. That's what I've been seeing, that there are some pretty good folks with the pretty good videographers, and they're pretty good analysts. And some of these people are coming out of the military, and some of them are doggone good with photo analysis. My job was in traffic analysis, and I, you know, the complexity of that, was a lot more difficult than seeing something visually. And the people that I knew way back in my time that were getting video off cameras in Vietnam and elsewhere,

man, they could point out things that, you know, I would look at and I wouldn't see anything, but, yeah, they could see a little man perched behind the log when I couldn't see them. long, Harley. So anyway. Well, we hope one day it gets proven. If there is someone that does shoot one and it becomes, you know, it may save the rest of the population because the pressure that I can see could be putting on such a being or groups of them is considerable. We're just tightening up to areas where they could put. possibly live the way they apparently have lived if they exist at all over the last. The Appalachian Trail seems to be an area, though, that gets a fair number of reports.

I don't know if you've noticed that or not. And the West Coast has a couple of trails, too, I understand. Are there any reports from those trails that you've heard of? Yeah, there definitely is. I know with the Appalachian Trail, not only is, are a lot of sightings. There's a lot of missing people on that that come up missing in that area. I don't know about the missing people. It's not uncommon. It's not usual, but it's not uncommon for there to be homicide. There was a crazy guy that apparently killed two women. There were

two women who were camping together, and they were killed here a few years back. But it's, you know, it's not uncommon, but it's not separate. You go three or four years about anything happened. But this guy Lily, that poor man and his sister has no idea. I feel bad for him that there's no answer

for why that man was killed. And he doesn't seem to be someone that presented money as a focus or anything else. He just was a guy that was from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

I believe, and it'd come to this area to battle areas and to do some hiking and fell in love with the trail. It can be enticing for people who do have mental issues, by the way. I've been there and had people come through the day, you know, they were through hikers, and I really worried about them. They were just, they were not acting like, you know, like my brother's assistant. with, I'll tell you that. And I'm not saying anything bad about all the hikers,

but there are some folks that are on the trail that have had problems. And one of the things the FBI in the agent Charlottesville talked with them about when I knew there was a, they were looking for, you know, strange people who were, like, stood out, and there was a fellow, but this area is remote, and the fellow that I had contact with several times, he never ventured more than about 50 yards from his truck. You know, so they still, they don't have any real solid leads. Now it's been almost five years. Again, I feel sorry for the man's family.

I do. Yeah, my heart goes out to the family. Yeah, yeah. Robert, thank you for coming on the show, sir. I appreciate you sharing the encounter. You're welcome, West, and I'd love to get out to West Coast and maybe travel some of the areas where the big guys, because I think from what I can see,

the reports around here are generally not from super big, massive that some people out the West Coast reports seeing end up in Canada. It makes me feel a little bit better about the whole thing, getting it off my chest sort of. Well, good. I'm glad to hear it. Talking about it helps. Yeah, talk is good.

Thanks, Robert. And my final guest tonight is Ben. Ben, thanks for coming on the show, man. I appreciate it. No problem. And if you would, you actually had, well, a couple of encounters. The major one that sticks out was a hiking trip. Do you want to kind of start from the beginning?

Kind of tell us what you were doing. Walk us right into what happened, what you experienced. Okay. This was August 29th last year. It was going to be an overnight backpack. trip. Definitely a rugged rural area in a national park. It was quite remote. It was seven miles in from the nearest road or, you know, it was just a hiking path. Elevation was almost 11,000 feet. And there was a lake there, and I had my spy rod, caught quite a few trout, released them all.

It was a good evening. But I kind of had a sense that I was being watched. It was kind of creeping me out. And there was a... Where we had camp, there was a ravine that... It started out kind of narrow and shot up the mountain and got wider, and then it went up above tree line. And to the...

Oh, let's see. The left side of that, there was smaller trees, the Christmas tree, maybe 10, 14 feet tall. And that was the area where I kept thinking something's eyeballing me, but I could never catch a glimpse of anything. And I forgot all about it. It got dark. We had a little fire, had a good conversation about 10 o'clock, 10.30 hit the sack.

And I had my tent, maybe 150 feet closer to the mountain than my buddy, toward the tree line and this ravine. 12 o'clock comes around. I get up to go to the bathroom. Everything's calm. Nice. The moon was out. It was bright.

It was a super moon. I don't think it was all the way up yet above the mountains. But I went back to bed. And at 2 o'clock, and I say 2 because I looked at my phone later to check the time, there's only two things that could have been is a slap or a clap like if you took your hand your palm as hard as you took it was loud and it was a pro i would say maybe 10 feet from my 10 maybe 15 on my right side and it i was immediately aware awake and staring into that direction. After about

maybe 30 seconds, there was a crow call. Unlike anything I've ever heard before, it really it really created me out. You know, right when I heard, I was, I knew it wasn't a crow at 2 in the

morning. It didn't really sound like a crow, but it was meant to sound like the crow. At the end of the call, it got really kind of deep gurgly and just this thing lost it.

At that point, the fear kicked in. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. And I just I was terrified. And I listened and I could hear footsteps move around

my tent towards the bottom end and, you know, I'm listening, the sound stops and I'd look at the bottom end of my tent. And I see at first what I thought was a massive shadow.

And then I realized it was behind me. This is a, this is a shape. My tent was a light yellow and I'm looking right through it at this thing. This thing was massive and was swaying back and forth.

Not a lot, but enough movement to pick it out. And because of the moon, how bright it was, and because of how light my town was, I was getting a pretty good look at the shape of this thing. And I would estimate it was a 37 feet tall. I would say, I don't know, the shoulders on this thing would just not something you forget. Very wide shoulders, I would say, about 42 inches wide at least, maybe 48. but the head seemed proportionately small on the shoulders to me.

At that point, I don't know, I was losing it. I was trying to calm myself down. I had my pistol in my hand, pointed at this thing. I'm trying to talk myself out of this. Like, you know, this can be happening. After about 30 seconds of looking at this thing, a cloud covered up the moon and it was dark. After what seemed like quite a while,

it was probably about 15 seconds. So the moon came back out and this thing was gone. Now this thing is on, and now I'm pretty sure I'm looking at a sat watch, which is kind of a hard concept to wrap my head around, but I mean there just wasn't anything else it could be. Now it's on my left side, the left side of my chance towards the tree line. Oh, and I forgot.

When it did its call, there was an answer at the tree line. The only way I can describe it is just air passing through the lips. It wasn't a distinct call. You could just hear, I don't know how to describe it. Kind of like a lip blow. Yeah, yeah, I guess. That would be a perfect way to describe it. But definitely an answer.

And so I knew there were at least two of them. When this call happened, I know it woke up my buddy, and I could hear him kind of shifting around on his mat. I wanted to call out to him, but I couldn't, I was just kind of paralyzed. I couldn't even muster up the courage to yell. I was pretty terrified at that point. So basically, at the point of the call, I had grabbed my phone. I'd seen the time.

I'd cut my pistol. I knew it was 2 o'clock in the morning. This thing was creeping around. I couldn't say if it was more than one on time, but always I would hear one. And it was distinct footsteps. If you've been out in the woods enough, it's fairly easy to recognize. what four feet versus two sounds like. And this was definitely something on two legs creeping around.

And it was heavy. I was trying to be quiet. And when there would be a twig snap, this thing would freeze, and then would continue just kind of working back and forth around on the left side of my turn, maybe 20 to 30 feet out. And sometimes that activity would pick up, and I would think that thing's going to attack.

It would sound more like a more like it was shuffling around or moving quicker. At those points, I would turn on my laser sight and point it in that direction, and that seemed to calm things down or it would quiet it down for a minute. But this went on till basically first light, just before first light, And before it was all over, it's being charged with the tent. And that was probably the scariest moment because it just sounded like an elephant charging the tent. It was very loud, very heavy steps, moving quick. And at the last second, the thing killed off my tent.

I fully expected my tent to collapse. I was ready to fire at that point. although I didn't want to shoot at this thing because honestly it was so large I didn't think that a 45 was enough to take this thing down and I mean

I was basically I was too scared to make this thing even matter at me but and you don't want to just start shooting off in the dark anyway without a clear

I mean, clear shot at something, but I had my friend out in the tent, and it was that concern. But when it charged, there was that thought crossed my mind that I needed to be ready to shoot. That's interesting about it charging your tent, you know, coming in and charging your tank. God, I can't imagine sitting there with a gun, hoping to God that it doesn't run you over, you know what I mean? Oh, man, I, you know, it just, you know, it just, it. It was so loud, the footsteps. And part of it was, I'm on the ground and picking up the vibrations coming to the ground. And being around horses, all things that are heavy, it gives you an idea of what, you know,

the vibration that you kind of pick up in the ground when these things move is the same type of deal. Definitely a heavy animal. I think it's interesting to your description. It's like you and I were talking the other night. you know, I took so much crap over talking about what I saw. And, you know, I said it was proportionate like a cartoon. And its head really seemed like it should have been bigger for the body. I mean, the head seemed like it was way out of, you know,

I find that interesting, you know, and it's interesting, too, how you just zoomed in on the shoulders. You know, it's, and that's so, I guess it's hard for people, I guess maybe to picture. Because whenever I do these shows, I always try and think about what the listener would want to hear? What would the listener want to, what questions would they want me to ask? And it's really hard to articulate that, articulate how big the shoulders are on these things. I think my old wife has heard this story probably 30 times. And I know she's tired of it,

but it affected me. You know, it's something that I think about on a nightly basis. And And that's one of the things that I keep trying to tell her is that the shoulders on this thing that you just can't even imagine the size. And so what did you do next? Well, after the charge, it's still dark, but you can, you could just tell that things were starting to lighten up. And after that, there was a few more noises creeping around, but not as intense. and eventually these things left. There was no way I was going to sleep.

And so I just lay there in my tent until it was light. And it was weird. When these things were gone, it just felt like, oh, great, I'm okay. I'm going to be okay now. It was just like this weight was lifted off me. The fear was gone. The woods were safe again. You know, the fear that I felt with these things around was indescribable.

You know, they, and I don't know what that is. Before I even saw this thing to the tent, I had that fear, that primal, like, something out there could kill me right now is what it felt like, or, you know, like I felt like I was being hunted a little bit. Yeah, and that's interesting, too. it makes me wonder, you know, as I was thinking about your encounter after you and I spoke, it made me wonder, you know, obviously this was their playground that you guys had decided to set up shopping because you were what, seven miles in, weren't you?

Seven miles in, and it was a very remote area. There was no people in there. And then you get out to pee, and, you know, I've been in, well, there was one experience I can tell you about in Texas, where it was my girlfriend that actually, peed. She stepped away from camp to go pee in the bushes. And shortly after that, something threw something towards the camp, towards where we were all sitting, right where she had come from. And so, you know, I almost wonder if, you know, it's kind of like a dog. You know, if you, if you're ever out in the woods and you stop and you pee, well, your dog's got to stop and pee in that spot.

And I almost wonder if these things see that as, what's the word I'm looking for? Like you're violating their territory? Yeah. Yeah, like you're marking your territory. You know, you're marking their territory. And I almost wonder if that's what kind of set the mood, set the tone that night. Did you and your buddy talk after this? Now, yes.

And his face is white. He was scared. You could tell he was definitely terrified just like me. but here's one thing that I figured out even though he heard the calls and that slap and I don't know I thought about that

if it was a hand, a hand or if it was like a slap to the chest I just know it was loud so he heard those two things I'm not sure if he heard the answer because the lip blow wasn't very loud but these things weren't cruising around his tent

so I don't know how much of that he heard. I know he was too scared to come out of his tent, even though he had to pee from the time he was woke up at 2 o'clock until morning, but he would not come out. And he laughed at himself.

He was like, you know, being silly, scared of these, you know, some animal. And I told him exactly what it was. He laughed it off. Because, I mean, to some people, this just isn't even within the realm of possibility. It's hopes, it's this, it's that.

I think sometimes two people, people are better off knowing that they don't exist. You know, they make some feel... I think you're right, Lex, because it's definitely changed how I... You know, I've spent so much time in the woods and done so many of these trips, you know, and now I hesitate a little bit. I haven't been back. I haven't been out since... I don't want to let it ruin my lifestyle, but at the same time, I'm not too anxious to go back there unless there was at least our whole group.

I'd feel much better about that. And I guarantee you next time I'm not going to have my chance apart from the group. The other interesting point that you brought up was a laser pointer. It's something Bob Garrett's told me. It's something a lot of these guys have been doing this for a long time. They say a laser pointer is almost better than a gun sometimes because it will stop these things in their tracks. And I find it interesting that you turned on your laser pointer and you said things kind of seem to calm down. Yeah, I could freeze them.

And I say them, I don't know if both of them or if there was even more, I don't know less. But I definitely know one was coming in very close. But, yeah, when the activity started to be working up into a frenzy, and I would point that laser at them for where I thought they were, they would shut them up. I was just, I was glad I had it. I bet. You know, one of the things, too, is with their calls, when they mimic different things like crows and owls, I noticed that, especially down in Texas, you would hear an owl. And I remember stopping going, oh, wow, that's, you know, that's a little. really loud alcohol.

And then at the very end, they would always screw it up. They would always screw up the very ending of it. And you would know right then it wasn't an owl. Yes, that's exactly how I mean, there was no doubt in my mind that, I mean, for one thing, a crow just doesn't have a set of lungs like that. Like you said, the volume was way too loud. Even the beginning wasn't on point as far as the call. It was close, though.

Yeah. given the head on this thing, Wes, it just looked like it was set on the shoulders. I hope I can get that sketch to you because that's pretty much exactly what I saw, but it's weird. I mean, if you're just seeing a silhouette, it's like there's no neck. Yeah, and from what I'm told, they do have a neck, but it's very small. But I tend to agree with you. I mean, that's what most people describe. You know, it had no neck. The head sat right on the shoulders. It's just weird, man.

I can picture in my head what you saw because I've seen something similar. And it's just weird. It's like a cartoon, proportion like a cartoon. Did you know how long its arms were or anything else about? I could just see a little separation, you know, with light coming through, but I couldn't give you, you know, an exact length or, you know, even come close with the dark. And, you know, I'm basically just looking at a perfect silhouette.

That's understandable. But, you know, back to the shoulders, it's unbelievable. And I pulled out of tape. When I got home, I didn't want, and I don't want to exaggerate anything, you know. I want to tell exactly how it was what I saw. And I felt that 42 to 48 inches is, right on. Well, I'm just glad that you guys made it out okay.

Did you guys leave that day, the following day? Yes. Yes, we did. We packed right up that morning and headed out. Yeah, I'm kind of glad to hear it. A lot of times, you know, with encounters like this, and you'll hear it through historical accounts, you'll hear it through witnesses that get harassed like this,

especially if they're left charging your tent. A lot of times if you stay another night, it gets 100 times worse. if you make it out of there. If you're seven miles back, and they decided to really engage in a fight and you have a 45, you're probably not coming out.

I used to really, or a pistol, you know, and it was interesting how quickly that you change that didn't feel quite as comfortable, even armed. Yeah, no, and I understand that. Now, you had a couple strange encounters prior to this, didn't you? Yeah, and it's weird that it happened just months before that. It was in

June or July, and it was in Utah. We were on another camping trip, and it was a similar type place as far as granite peaks, a lake and a bowl, and we were at the very edge of the campground. We had a

pike in a ways, so we were in the primitive area. I had my family and I have a 15 year old daughter. She had a friend and we had all gone in the tent to go to bed and those two girls were sitting out by the fire. My father is very independent. She doesn't, she's never called for me because she's been scared before. I hear dad in a really concerned worried voice and I jumped right up once again grabbed my pistol, went out there and she said, there's something creeping around just outside of the firelight. And I said, well, what do you mean?

Like a deer? No. Well, was it a person? Well, kind of. And I'm like, what do you mean? Kind of. And she said, well, it seemed like it was too big to be a person. And I really couldn't pin her down.

It's a subjective Sasquatch and stuff. It's just not something that she's ever allowed. into our conversation, but I could tell that she saw something that had her concern. And she said that this thing had gone along just outside of the firelight and then gone behind some brush and trees behind our tent, maybe feet in this little ravine. And so I had my light and I headed that way. As I got close, a pine cone comes flying out. and it was actually pretty close to hitting me.

And that stopped me dead in my tracks. And I got this really weird feeling that I shouldn't go any farther. And I stopped right there. And I got the girls in the tent and, you know, stayed up for a while, keeping an eye on things. And nothing else happened. And that was that. And in future conversations with my daughter, it took me maybe two months. to get out of her

that, yeah, this was, this very well could have been what I've been talking about as a fast watch. That's really interesting, especially the pine cone part. I didn't want to allow it in my, I just didn't want to believe it

at that point, West. I just seemed too crazy. I didn't, I don't know, it's just one of those things. It's just unbelievable, but the more I thought about it and after this second experience, I knew, pretty much said, yeah, that's probably what it was.

The pine cone, you know, it came right out. It didn't rattle down the ponderosa and shoot out. I mean, and just the fact of how scared my daughter was after this happened, interesting. Yeah, and a person in that situation doesn't really make sense either. You would have heard them. People are loud, you know what I mean? even some of your best hunters out there, they're loud when they go through the forest and you not hearing anything.

It makes you wonder, you know, it really makes you wonder. A person just doesn't make sense. And it seems like your daughter, especially being 15, she would have said, hey, it's some guy messing around. Yeah. It just didn't add up to me. The location, I mean, I guess it's just a straight up shot to the mountains. And there's nothing, no roads, no trails. So it's definitely a possibility.

that that was another encounter. Now, was it your dad that has kind of believed in Bigfoot? Yeah. Like we talked earlier, and when I was young, we kind of would discuss it in the end, but maybe it was Kane, and there was one of them, and, you know, he roamed the earth, and that was that. And then when I was a teenager, we ran into,

a track in a very remote area that very well could have been a Sasquatch print. It was quite large because a long time ago. So, you know, I've talked to my brother, I've talked to my dad that were both there and I said, yeah, that was what happened. I wanted to make sure that I remembered it correctly. And so you know, we always thought there was a possibility and then a couple of years ago, my dad and my mom were in the mountains in Idaho,

and apparently late in the night they were screened at, and they both said it was the most terrific scream that they'd ever heard. There was nothing to compare it to. So that got my dad, you know, starting to research, starting to research, starting to listen to these different calls and try to match something. And he said that he did. And before that time, my mom was just laughed. And when I talk to him,

because it's nice to be able to have someone to talk to when this happens to you because you can't just tell anyone. And so they've heard, I've talked to them at length about this, and they definitely sympathize. There's a long, scary night for me. Yeah, I think it would be a long scary night for just about anyone, to be honest with you. I think that'd scare most people. God, especially, I'm still thinking about that charge in your tent.

You know, even though, you know, even though before that I'd seen this thing through the tent, that, the charge, I mean, I thought this thing's attack. It finally worked itself. up and it's coming in. Well, like I said, in those situations, it's probably, I think you did the right thing. Don't get out. Don't provoke it. I think with these things, in situations like that, and I'm just speculating on this,

but I think in situations like that, these things aren't stupid, and they're not just going to randomly go after you. I think they're going to want to pick and choose their battles. I think it was more or less to try and scare you out of the area, and that's just me speculating. You know what? I think you're right. I think honestly, reflecting on it, we were camped right at the edge of this lake that the water had gone down enough that it had split into three different lakes now. And so we had shallow water with fish trapped. And in my mind, that was their dinner. It was an easy meal. And they come in and there we were wrecking their plans. another thing that's interesting about that area is that people will write in the blog book about rock slides in the night or you'll read online you know the blogs about you know someone's

trip up there and always talk about the rock slides in the night and that kind of made me wonder you know is that deep because in this bowl there's all of that some it's a it's a it's a weird areas, granite and low-grade marble mix. But there's a lot of just rock-slide areas, and it kind of made me think that it might be these things moving around. You know, I know some caves up high, but I don't know. Them coming down at night? Yeah, exactly.

And my dad, you know, I keeps asking, when are you going to go back? I don't know. I guess I felt like these things were pretty aggressive. You know, it was more than checking me out, checking it out. They didn't know it was there. Yeah, I don't think it was curiosity at all. I think that your way you experienced was very aggressive, and I think it was more or less to get you to leave.

And I think that it could have easily escalated that night. I'm really glad it didn't. Yeah. Well, you know, and that goes to show that, you know, that's to your credit that it didn't escalate because, you know, if you got a gun in your hand and something's messing with you and you feel like your life's in danger, it doesn't take much to pull a trigger and start firing. No. Especially if you're in fear for your life. Yeah. Yeah, I was prepared that thought.

I had crossed my mind, you know, when that thing started to charge. and yeah. Yeah, well, I appreciate you sharing the encounter, Ben. It's a very interesting encounter. I'm sorry it's affected you the way it has. That's the way it generally goes, you know, especially when you're in situations like this. You know, you'll never forget it.

You'll probably have many more sleepless nights. You know, it gets better with time, but it'll eat away at you, you know, because you'll get to a point to where, you just want to know more and more and more, you know, what did I run into? What did I, what did I, what did I, you know, and I think part of that's human curiosity, but part of it is, you know, you experience real terror. Yeah, yeah. Very few people in their life experience real terror, and that's real terror. And that was unlike anything I've ever, something that I'll definitely affect your future choices about what trips you want to do and how remote you want to go and who's done, you know, a lot of these nine, a backpacking trip to try to get as deep in as we can. The whole idea is to not see anyone and not have any four-wheeler trails or, you know.

Yeah, well, be careful in the future, especially if you go deep down in the woods like you do, you know, seven miles in and because you're kind of on your own in some of those, it's some lonely, lonely places when you go in like that, and you're kind of on your own in some of those places, you know, I doubt you had cell phone service out there, No. So you're really, really on your own. But I'm glad you made it out okay. And I just can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing the experience with the audience and sharing it with me.

So thank you for that. Well, I appreciate, you know, what you're doing and having a place that people can come where they can share their accounts and not be judged or be labeled as crazy or, you know, that type of thing. so on. Appreciate you. Thanks, brother. 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 satchwatchchronicles.com.

And if you get a chance to check out the website, saswatchchronicles.com. Until next time, everyone, have a great night. Precision medicine holds great promise for treating genetic diseases, such as certain types of cancers. To drive progress, Harvard Business School Executive Education has developed a new program, accelerating innovation in precision medicine, which brings together leaders from business,

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