Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:31 Chased out of the woods

Episode Date: May 19, 2014

A listener wrote the show "My friends and I were chased out of the woods by one when we were twelve. This happened in Georgia, in 1974. We were back in the swampy, sandy creek bottom, and were going to make a fort out of the bamboo that grew there. The first thing that happened is that the woods got completely silent - the birds and tree frogs had stopped their chirping. Then we heard a branch snap about 20 yards behind us in the dense brush. We thought to ourselves, what if some crazy guy with a knife was about to off us all, so we started to file out of there, when we heard this wild animal scream behind us, and could hear the footfalls running towards us. None of us ( about five of us ) saw it because we all tore out of there as fast as we could. We had to run up this ridge and follow it out to the subdivision. We got back over to our culdesac, and discussed what it was that chased us out. We had seen The Legend of Boggy Creek a year before, so I guess that's why we settled on Bigfoot as the likely explanation. To make a long story short, in the next four months ( this happened in February ) we got to see one adult, about a seven footer and two juveniles, all three of which came up behind our houses on the culdesac , each on a separate occasion. I would love to chat with you guys about all my experiences and about the subject in general." We will also be talking to Justin Steely, director of the new film "Hunting the Legend"

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 the son of a bitch is about six foot nine. Yes, I'm looking right in. Uh-oh. Welcome to Bigfoot Hot Spot Hot Spot Radio. Sasquatch Chronicles. I'm your host, Wes, along with my brother Woody, and researcher, author, and friend, William Jethy. Let's start the show. This episode is brought to you by audible.com. Go to www.org www.org-Bipfot hotspot for your first free downloadable book and a 30-day trial. If you want to support the show, check out the free offer from Audible. Again, it's Audible.com forward slash Bigfoot.

big foot hot spot. But what I want to play for you first will is this OnStar emergency call that I got from a listener. So this guy calls OnStar, it's OnStar emergency, and he's rolled over in a ditch with his wife. And the OnStar person says, you know, what's your emergency? Blah, blah, blah. And basically, the guy says, something ran out in front of the road, and I swirred off the road, now we're in a ditch, and we're upside down. And the OnStar person says, well, what ran out in front of you? in the road. Was it a deer? Was it a bear? And the guy says it was a dog on two legs, like a man.

Oh, wow. And the on-star person says, what? And he goes, yeah, it was like, he goes, it was like a dog on two legs, and it ran right in front of my car, and I swerved out of the way, so I wouldn't hit it. And then at the very end, I don't know if it's like staged or what, but at the very end, you hear this thing

start growling, and then you hear them screaming, and that's the end of the call. Oh, that's kind of cool. And tell me what you think. Kyle speaking, how can I help you? How many people are in the car and is anyone injured? I don't think we have an injury. Is the car on its top?

The state police should be on their way in a few minutes. I think we're okay. What ran in front of you? Well, it was, but it was big. It looked like a great big dog. Was it a bear maybe? Are you still there? I was on the Bill Lee, inspired by Bigfoot show.

You remember when we had Bill on? It went good. You know, Bill's, it's funny after he was on our show, I got a lot of messages from people ask me how much, you know, if I hate Bill or obviously Bill and I don't get along. Because him and I went back and forth on that show. I think it was, what, episode three? I think so, yeah.

Yeah, him and I went back and forth on a lot of things. You know, it was like counter-debate back and forth. And I really wasn't prepared for it, but, you know, going back and forth with Bill, And it's funny after we all hung up, I kind of like Bill. You know, Bill's a great guy. Yeah, he's actually. I thought it was a great dialogue.

I thought it was. Yeah, you know, reality and insane. I'm just joking. Bill, Bill really is a great guy, though. I like Bill. Actually, I kid. I kid that. I can say that because Bill and I are friends.

If Bill and I weren't such friends, I wouldn't have said that. but Bill's a good guy. I think Bill's one of the nicest people out there. He is, yeah. He's actually one of the nicest guys out there. And he's one of the few people who are on the fringe that I can sit down and argue with. And at the end of the day, still say, hey, you know what, I'd buy that guy of beer. You know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely. No, it went good. You know, him and I, we talked a little bit about, you know, mine and Woody's encounter. And I'm kind of getting to the point where I almost don't even want to talk about mine and Woody's encounter anymore. I hate to say that, but... You know, I went for a long time not talking about it. Yeah. And it took me a long time to...

Yeah, and that's kind of how I feel. I feel burnout talking about it. I mean, it's funny to talk to people who've actually had encounters that we've had on the show, and I can relate to what they're saying. I know you've always said that, but it's easy for me to go back and think about my encounter and think about stuff they're saying and saying, you know what? I can actually... I understand exactly where you're coming from.

but to go and relive the encounter and retell the encounter, I'm kind of getting to the point where it's like, I almost didn't want to talk about it anymore. You know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. No, I understand exactly what you mean. You kind of get burned out of for a while talking about it.

But we had a good conversation, Bill and I. You know, like I said, in the interview with Bill, you know, Bill and I, honestly, we disagree on almost everything Sasquatch, but at the end of the day, I'd buy the guy of beer, and I'd hang out with him. You know what I mean? And that's the one difference with... Yeah, I had a lot of fun. He went easy on me, unlike when he was on our show.

He didn't grill you over the roaster, huh? No, he didn't grill me over like I did him. But I had a lot of fun, and I like Bill, so, you know, I was happy to do it. I'm not a big fan of doing interviews. I think I'd rather be the interviewer than the interviewee, you know what I mean? Yeah, I know what you mean I used to think Yeah

Yeah, I'd rather hear other people's encounters Than talk about my own Yeah, me too Yeah, absolutely I wanted to say So tonight we have on the show Justin Steely Who is the director of an upcoming movie

Called Hunting the Legend It's coming to DVD on July 8th Yeah, I guess this place It's known for Bigfoot Everybody has a story I've always bliped in big foot Half of them don't say anything They don't want people to think they're crazy too

I just started up on top of the real I heard this god-awful sound And he made this awful growling cry And the hair on the back of my neck stood up It's stuff's being found every day He smelled like wet dog and blood I look over and there's just big black figure

I mean it was just gigantic It was tall It was like eight foot tall Reddish fur When he passed by Like the moon disappeared for a few seconds. It was that big. It was more human than anything.

And it was walking with this. They're out there. If there is something out there, that's actually a cast. And so I wanted to go ahead and bring Justin on the show and talk about his new movie. Hey, Justin. It's Wes and Will. How are you, man? Oh, I'm doing great.

How are you guys? Doing pretty good. Doing pretty good. I wanted to welcome you to the show. and I want to talk a little bit about this movie that you have coming out. Tell us about this movie you have coming out. Okay, yeah, thanks for having me on the show. I've been listening to you guys for about three months now

because I had to find a podcast to promote the film and I was on iTunes looking to different Bigfoot podcasts, and I saw your guys. The title and the artwork really got my attention, so I started listening, I was like, and I was hooked immediately. I was like, I got to email these guys. Oh, that's nice

You appreciate that Yeah As far as the film goes though Ultimately it's a It's a horror film Kind of in the vein of The Blair Witch Project It's like a found footage

Documentary feel movie And it's a feature length And it'll be coming out July 8th And it's all About Bigfoot The trailer that I watched And I post it up on Facebook I mean, it's so good, man.

I mean, it's coming out on DVD on July 8th? We know for sure it'll be in Walmart in the U.S. and Canada, Australia, the UK, and we're working on a deal in Germany. Yeah, July 8th on DVD and pre-orders on Amazon.com are already up. But it'll also be, I guess, available on all the different video on demands like Red Box and Netflix and iTunes. and Hulu and all the video on demand streaming stuff as well. I'm not sure if those will hit on July 8th or shortly after,

but closer to time, I'll have a better idea of those things. What was the inspiration? Growing up, we'd have babysitters come over to the house to babysit me and my little brother when we were young, and they would always tell us creepy stories and stuff about, well, here in the South, I'm from Alabama. Here in the South, they call it. them a woolly boogers or wood boogers and they'll call them big foot as well but ultimately to me

it was all the same thing it was just you know a big monster in the woods and they'll come over and tell stories at night about about that kind of stuff and then i watched this uh there's this series of there's series of movies called the last chance detectives and it was like a kid's show and they had one about, like, UFOs and one about Bigfoot and a third one about something else. Anyways, I watched that Bigfoot one. I think it was called The Legend of the Desert Bigfoot, and it was a kid movie, and I think I was around 9 or 10 when I watched it. And I don't know, something about it just, like, you know, really intrigued me.

And so growing up, I was always, you know, whenever I was in the woods, I'm like, oh, man, I wonder if a Bigfoot's watching right now. I've never seen one, never had an encounter, but, you know, you know, maybe a big foot seen me running around the woods on my dirt bike or punning or whatever, camping. We've had a couple of reports out of Alabama, but I would figure there should have been more reports because we have a lot of rivers, a lot of woods, and a high population of deer. So I watched the Blair Witch Project probably in the early 2000s. It came out in 99, and I love the way they filmed that movie and how real the actors made it seem

and how real the way it was shot. It made it seem very natural, and like you were watching, like, actual footage that was, you know, found laying in the wood somewhere. And so I wanted to try to tackle my first feature film. I mainly do music videos and commercials for television, and I wanted to try to tackle my first feature film, and I was trying to figure out, you know,

what can I do with a limited budget, and in the film world, it's really considered no budget. And, you know, what can I do with the small crew and people that aren't trained professional actors and stuff? So I started thinking about the Blair Witch Project, and I was like, you know, we can pull that off if we do something kind of like that. Because it's been over a decade since that movie came out, and we wouldn't need that many people. We could shoot it kind of really raw and guerrilla style. I started writing a script in 2011, and I was like, you know, I want to do it about Bigfoot because it's just, to me, it's the most plausible thing out there that,

you know, could be real and stuff and it could really freak people out and I'm like, you know, if people don't buy into Bigfoot by watching this film at least they'll be kind of scared to go in the woods after. As a horror director, I'm just like, you know, this is, I've got to have a goal in mind and,

you know, winning people over to believe in Bigfoot after watching the film. It's kind of a long shot because they know they were just watching, you know, fiction. But I was like, at least maybe I could get them scared. you know, to go in the woods after they've seen it.

So I started writing in 2011, 2012, took a break for a while and procrastinated and came back to it. And then in January of 2013, we actually shot for nine days, split it up, four days, and then took a break, and then shot another five days. And then we did it 53 days of editing, and then we had a little premiere with just the cast and crew. here in Alabama and tried to go to film festival route but didn't have too much luck with that and then I was contacted by some guys in L.A., and they pitched it to some different companies, and it ended up getting bought for distribution, and now I'm just counting down the days to July 8th. Looks like a hell of a movie, man. I mean, just from the trailer, the trailer is, I mean, God, I'd go on the theaters to watch this movie

after watching the trailer. Awesome. I appreciate it. That's something I just cut together myself, and the company that bought it is called Image Entertainment, and they recut a version. It really makes you want to go see the movie. It's much better than what I cut. And it's not released yet, but hopefully any day now they will release their official trailer.

I hear about a lot of stuff in Georgia. And Florida is Alabama? Yeah, a lot. And it's just... Yeah, when I was doing my research. research and stuff. Basically, I had no idea what I was doing because I'd never done a feature film before. I had worked on some short films, but this is my first feature length.

And I was like, you know, I don't consider myself a writer, but I did write this film. And I was trying to figure out how to go about doing it. And I just started by watching every little YouTube clip or movie or documentary or TV show, anything about Sasquatch. I would just watch it and see what I like about it, you know, try to find out what I didn't like about it. And things I wanted to pull ideas from and things I wanted to, you know, take and borrow and make it into my own. So, you know, and then I stumbled across the BFRO's website.

And then I kind of started to figure out, okay, so in the south, you know, people call them swamp apes and say they look a little different stuff. But I knew we were going to try to pitch it through, you know, a worldwide audience. So I was like, let's just stick with calling it, you know, big. foot and make it larger. Yeah, and then when I started to listen to your guy's show, I started learning a little bit more about what exactly is in my part of the country. I was like, okay, well, some people say these are a little bit more aggressive and maybe a

type of smaller. Right, it's a different. Yeah, see, to me, it was all the same when I was writing, and now I'm starting to learn a lot more after the movie's done. The two that stand out that I heard from your guys show was the siege at Hanobia And the Cowman story Both of those would make

GoPro cameras and DSLR cameras Those are real popular now to shoot video on Like I said before It's like a documentary feel So the lead character in the movie is Chris He's hunting with his dad When he was a teenager and they're in separate stands a couple of hundred yards apart

and he hears a gunshot go off and a loud scream and he hears his dad scream and he hears this beast scream and he gets out of his tree stand and he's taken across this field his dad's just gone and he looks down and there's you know footprint and blood everywhere and his dad's rifles laying on the ground and then we flash forward in time and he's like in his early 20s and he's had to live with this for five years now,

and no one wants to believe him, but he knows what he saw, and the police want to, you know, say it was like a wild boar or a bear or something, and no one will believe him, and he's the only one that really, he knows what he saw and stuff, and he knows what he heard,

and despite having it on camera because he was filming himself for his deer hunt, nobody really wants to believe him. So, you know, he's like, okay, I'm in my 20s, you know, I've saved us some money, I want to go do this right and prove to the deer hunt. the world that these creatures exist. And at the same time, he wants to seek revenge and, you know, and kill one or go into

the same area of woods where his dad was killed and were taken. And he wants to try to find the same one or any of them and seek revenge, which is where we get the title, Hunting the Legend. So basically, he takes his best friend and he takes his girlfriend with him. There was a scene that was cut from the film, but I'll just go ahead and share it. where his girlfriend wants to come, and he doesn't think she needs to come along because it'll be dangerous,

but she insists that she's going to support him and she believes in him. And so she goes along with him and his best friend. So they go into the woods in South Alabama, and they go in with a German Shepherd tracking dog and some shotguns and rifles, and they run in all kinds of shenanigans and trouble and stuff and kind of throws them off their original plan,

to have to improvise. And it's slow at the beginning and gradually gets eerie or and creepier and it climaxes. And you're holding your breath in the last 15 minutes of the film. So I feel very confident and good about my work. Just giving myself a small pat on the back considering it was just my first film. But it's by no means perfect. And I can't wait to do my second one and do some things different and better that I didn't do this first time around. Sounds really good.

As far as the sound footage part, yeah, as far as the sound footage part, he hires a documentary crew to go in with him to film this, and the doc crew puts gopros on everybody's heads and stuff. So at times it can get a little disorienting, but it doesn't make you queasy when you watch it. I think there's like Cloverfield,

the Blair Witch Project are much easier, so if anybody's worried about getting queasy, I don't think it will happen. Yeah, I'm kind of glad you went that route on it, Justin, with the kind of the blur witch kind of theme, you know, where it's like found footage. Yeah. Even though, you know, you watch like the blur witch, you know, it's not real. It still creeps the hell out of you, you know what I mean?

Yeah, and just the way you never really see anything. You never see the monster or the entity or the antagonist, but you're still terrified. Yeah, and I'm a big believer in that where it's all about buying into the story and letting the vibe creepy. out and stuff and using your imagination. Now, did you come across any old stories about violent encounters or anything like that prior to doing the movie?

Not really. I mean, the things I would watch, I mean, a lot of them would, you know, as you guys would call them the flute players. You know, they make it out to be where you can just go into the woods and pet them on the head and give them an apple and go about your day. So I saw a lot of stuff like that.

And I was like, you know, they're needs to be more, you know, there needs to be a take on Bigfoot where it's creepy and it's, you know, violent and stuff. And I'll watch a bunch of horror movies on Bigfoot and I just take care for them. We call that reality. Yeah, real. Yeah. And you love the McGregor. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, when I was writing and filming in my mind, with never having an encounter, I had Bigfoot in my mind, you know, Just treat it like a bear or a gorilla, you know. It's a wild creature that lives in the woods. It's going to protect its. It's young. It's going to protect its territory. And other than that, it'll probably be alone.

And that's kind of how the movie portrays it. You know, it doesn't portray it as it's dropped off by a UFO or anything like that. Thank goodness. Yeah, it's more just like Congo or something. You know, it's more like a gorilla or just, you know, a wild animal that's attacking these people. And there's some other things in there that can be portrayed as the antagonist. It's not just Bigfoot. I don't want to give too much away.

Well, Justin, we can't wait. I can't wait for the movie to come out. And I can't wait to see it on July 8th. Where can people find information about hunting the legend? I know you've got Facebook.com forward slash hunting the legend. Is there a website people can go to? I think it might be Hunting the Legend movie. or is it just Hunting the Legend?

I don't have a computer right from me. No, no, no, no, you're right. It's Facebook.com Hunting the Legend movie, I apologize. Yeah, or you can, yeah, and I guess if you just do a search on Facebook for Hunting the Legend, you'll find it. That's probably the best way to pool of information. We also have an IMD page,

and then on my personal filmmaker page, I'll have a couple of videos on there as well. Watchimage.com, that's Image Entertainment's website, site, you can buy the movie through there on July 8. And like I said before, Amazon.com already has pre-orders up. Hopefully shortly after July 8th, it'll also be on Netflix and Red Box and all that good stuff. What is it going to ask you if it was going to be available on July 8th on Netflix?

I feel like it's going to be a little bit after that, just because I know how that process is going to be a little bit longer. But I think the best way to do is if you have Facebook, like the Honeyville, and Facebook page, and that way, as it becomes available through these different outlets, I'll update the page, you know, letting people know about it. Perfect. Yep. I already liked it.

And I can't wait for it, Justin. Thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate it very much. Looking forward to the movie, Hunting the Legend, coming July 8th. Awesome, guys. Yeah, thanks for having me on the show. And I'm a huge fan. And even though I've moved on starting, you know, writing a different movie, I'm still going to listen to you guys and keep up with the

Sasquatch community because it's definitely very intriguing to me and I don't know if I want to have an encounter judging by your guy's story and some of your caller stories, I don't know if I ever want to see one, but on the other hand, I kind of do. Yeah. Now as you're going to say, if you're ever up in

Washington, look me up. I'll take you up to a few spots to show you around. Oh yeah, absolutely. Sounds good. Thanks so much, Justin. Appreciate it very much. Hell yeah, no problem, guys. Thanks for having me on. Everyone here at Bigfoot Hotspot Hot Spot 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 audibletrial.com forward slash bigfoot hotspot.

So next on the show, we have Stephen. And Stephen has an interesting account. He was actually chased out of the woods when he was a child. I believe he was 12 years old. Do you see that encounter? I sent you, Will, about Steven's encounter? Yeah. Yeah, so he was actually chased out of the woods by several of these creatures, him and his friends,

and he wanted to discuss what had happened. So I'm going to go ahead and bring Stephen on. Hey, how you guys? Hey, how are you? Yeah, I'll try to relate. I've never been on a radio show or talk show or anything like this, so, yeah, I'm kind of... Oh, you'll do fine. I'm a little nervous, but I'm really excited to share the story,

and I'm really glad that I found you guys online. It's really cool. I have Will. I have Will on the line with us. Hey, Will. I'm doing great. Really excited to talk about my encounter. Well, looks like you had quite an experience.

Yeah, well, you know, it made an impression on me. You know, it happened when I was 12. Yeah. And so I'm kind of... Well, you know, the only thing is that it's like ever since I really wanted to have a better encounter, a closer encounter until I started listening to you guys' radio shows. And I'm like, maybe not. You know, I really want to thank you for coming on the show and sending us your company. Yeah, no, I mean, a pleasure was ours.

and don't be nervous. Don't be nervous. There's nothing to be nervous. That's right. It's just three of us talking. Yeah. I know. Yeah, correct.

Yeah, I lived down in Georgia at the time. Okay, so what? Okay, well, like I said, we're all about 12. There was about four or five of us. And I think three of us, we lived on the same cul-de-sac, which was off street. dead-ended at a petroleum pipeline field, and then back behind that was the kind of like a swampy area, lowland, sand and creek and everything, and we would go back in there and play. And one day we just went back, I don't know, maybe, it was a quarter mile, maybe, not too far back.

There's some bamboo that grows down there, you know, little patches. and we thought, well, we're going to make this forward out of bamboo. The first thing we noticed, and I have a question for you guys about this, is the fact that the birds and the tree frogs, that just dead silence. Yeah. And I've read about other encounters where this happens. So I'm just really interested.

And for years, I thought, well, what could have made the birds and the frogs just stop dead like that. Do they do that with other predators in the woods? Well, these creatures are definitely... I just, you know, since I've come across the idea, you know, I know you guys

are familiar with it, that they might emit infrasound and their growls. And I was just, you know, I was wondering if that could have been something that would make them stop. You know, they seem to, like with other predators. Well, that's what happened.

And we just, you know, that caught our attention right away. And just like three seconds later, we heard a branch snap, I don't know, maybe about 100 feet behind us back in the, you know, the swampy area. And at that point, we looked at each other and we like, I think we all thought the same thing. There could be some guy out here with a knife or something. Who knows? And we better get out of there. You know, we just felt threatened.

So we started a form of single file. line and move out of here. And no sooner than we had started that, that this thing screamed at us and ran toward us. You could hear, you know, the stomping. And none of us looked back at that time. So we didn't see it. We didn't see what it was.

We just hauled butt out of there as fast as we could. You know, some of the guys, they went home to dinner. I think at least me and Mike, went up this, or our car. Colossack and we were just kind of like discussing what was that? What could that have been? And we just had no idea and somehow I think because, you know,

we were aware of the movie Legend of Boggy Creek had come out, I think, a year before. So, I don't know, somehow we kind of just settled on Pond Bigfoot because you know, we heard that the footfalls, you know, we could tell it was, you know, it was like a person

running toward us. But the scream that we heard, you know, that was definitely an animal sound. That was, that got us thinking, you know, it got us pretty excited, at least me. That would be then to get you excited. Yeah. So I was, I think I was the most excited out of the whole group that, you know, something might be back there. So I'm not, I think it was maybe next weekend, the following weekend, we went back in there, and we went back to the place where it had screened from,

and we came to this little area. It was not, I don't know to say like a clearing, but, you know, there were a lot of wild grass growing, and a big area had been patted down about the size of a bed. And then around that were some smaller areas. We thought that was really hot, and I still think that's odd, you know, But, of course, the conclusion that we came to was, oh, this thing chased us out of the swamp because they had babies. We were looking around, and somewhere not too far from there, there's a big creek, and we came across one track, and they weren't distinct tracks.

They were washed out from the rain. But one track was in the side of the bank, the far side of the bank. the other track was up on in the mud, on the swamp, on the other side of the creek. So I don't know. It's kind of weird too because it was like a leap of, I don't know, 20 feet or something. It was just ridiculous. And those were the only two tracks that we could find. And I said they were pretty washed out, but the one track I took a picture of,

it had to be at least 15 inches and length. you can't really it's a narrow heel and that it comes out to a big you know a wider area where you know that would be the

the ball of the foot and the toes and everything which it was like a puddle just filled with water in the mud but it's definitely unusual

some kind of a track I'm not sure after how long it was before we actually saw the adult but I know it was it was a while see this this when it chased us out it was in February the 74 and so I know it was before school was out

so it was at least two or three months before we saw the adult I think and what had happened was that my friend Mike he lived in the corner of the cul-de-sac was L-shaped and he lived in the corner and there's a house between his and mine and there's a strip of woods that came up behind the houses that if you went through that woods, you could come out to the petroleum pylon pylon field. And that was like come up a hill a little bit from down low where the end of the road dead ended and where we would make our egress to the swamp. He came over one morning, we were going to walk up to the bus stop together. And he's all excited, and he said, well, you know, his bedroom faced the back.

in a nice two-story house and a floodlight and he said with the floodlight and everything he could see the shadow of this thing standing at the edge

of his yard just into the woods just kind of swaying back and forth and when he came over to get me he could hear it running back into the woods and so

I was really excited so we went down the Colossack you know turned left and started up the street all the time looking down to the dead end. And the way this worked out,

this field off to the left, that narrowed down to a strip of dirt toward the end of the street, there was a dust-da-da-da-dawn lamp on one of the posts. And we thought, well, we're just going to look down there and maybe we'll see the thing in the field

run into the woods or something, you know. But what we noticed off to the left, off the side of the street, and that little strip where it narrowed, and underneath that street lamp, was a mound, and we're looking at it, and we're like, there's no mound of dirt, no mound of sticks.

We knew that was just flat, you know, ground, and we're just looking at that, and I was like, what is that? And we're looking and looking. And the thing stood up, and it started walking, and it picked up a rock, turned sideways, and ducked into the woods.

And I'm grabbing, Mike's sleeve and I'm saying, come on, we got to run down there, we got to run down there. We're like, I'd say like four or five houses away, you know, from it, just to give a length. There were no houses on the left side. It was just the dirt field that narrowed and a strip of woods off to the side there between that street and the next street up. And, of course, he didn't want to run down there and I didn't want to run down there by myself, being only 12. But I kind of wished I had now, but, you know, well, maybe not. So that was the adult that we got to see.

And it was, I estimate now it's about seven foot tall. I had the real long arms. The hands came down near the knees. And I had the sagittal crest, it was a cone-shaped head. And it was rather thin. You know, so that was really exciting. So ever since, like I said, I just wanted to get a closer look at these creatures, because they're so fascinating.

And then other than that, the other two exciting things that we had happened during this time was we had two separate occasions where a baby came up behind the houses. The first occurrence, I believe it was the first one, It was getting dusky, and we were coming back from playing, and coming back up the cul-de-sac to our homes. And Mike and I, we walked to my house first, and we heard the dogs barking, Nipper's dog and my dog,

and they were barking at something back in the woods behind my house. The way that worked out was we had our yards, there were like half grass and then half woods before it got back to this fence that was the back line of the property of the yards of the houses from the next street behind. And it was pretty deep. And so we walked back in there to see what the dogs were barking at. And it looked at first like maybe another dog coming up along the fence.

But it was really odd. It was coming up slow. And we were looking at it and we were looking at it. And when we realized it was not a dog, it scared us. Turn around, ran out of the woods, back to the house. All fours? Yes. And the best way I can describe this thing was that it looked like a ground sloth.

Oh, it would be? Yeah. It had a little round head, and it was grayish. And it was like it was moving slow, you know, like you would expect a sloth to move. and it was just coming up along the fence line. And it wasn't looking over in our direction, but it was just looking forward, and it was just moving really slow coming up.

And it was just the strangest thing. So then the next time we saw a baby, it was again, it was Mike and I, we were coming back from playing. It was getting dusky. It was even a little darker this time. And we were walking up to his house, and like I said,

they had a nice two-story house with a fireplace, on the left side, you know, a nice long front yard. So we're coming up and we're looking up at the house. We noticed this little black thing standing kind of behind the fireplace, the brick, you know, coming out from the house that was the fireplace. And it's kind of just peeking around, you know, looking at us. And it was only about three, three to somewhere between,

three to four foot tall, and it was black, just jet black, and it had a little, you know, pointed head, and we just, you know, we just couldn't believe what we were seeing. And to this day, I don't know why we didn't, you know, I guess being 12, we were just too frightened to get closer to these things, but I wish we had, would have had the courage to, you know, now. Yeah, this little thing, it was just, right, right, exactly. But I still think it was. stood there. I mean, it's a very common detail. Well, that's a typical behavior for apes.

Then the other thing that happened that was really interesting that I mentioned in emails was one morning that we were walking up, you know, to go to the bus stop. And, of course, we're looking down at the street again, you know, hoping maybe we'll see something again. And I think this was like the last thing that happened that we had, you know, any experience of during this four-month period. But what happened, we heard this call coming way back in the swamp.

And it was a two-toned call that I mentioned in the email. It was kind of like a, ah! Like that. And I have never heard that, you know, on any big foot site or any recordings or anything. and I just, I still think that was just a really unusual call. And it was way back, but you could, you know, you could hear it pretty distinctly. So I answered back to it, and a few seconds went by, and I called again, this time it was closer in the woods. So I'm getting pretty excited, and I'm like, wow, you know, this thing's running up through the swamp, you know, toward the subdivision.

So I called back, a few more seconds, it called back. Again, this time it sounded like it was right at the edge of the woods at the petroleum pipeline field. And then my stepdad, he yelled from the window of their bedroom, and from the cul-de-sac, was like, get your butt up to the bus stop. Okay, okay, we're going. And we heard it one last time, the same call. This time again, it was like way back in the swamp. so I don't know if you guys have ever heard of that kind of a call

yeah it's that's just to me that's still really strange very interesting not your typical Sasquatch call that's for sure I forgot to add the morning that we saw the adult we went ahead we went to school but when we got home the very first thing we did we went up to Mike's house we went back to his backyard to where he said he saw it, you know, standing, the shadow coming from where it was standing. And his dad had dumped a bunch of grass clippings back there at the edge of the yard,

and there where it turned into woods. And we found a print, you know, an impression, I should say, in the grass pile. And we measured it, and it was 22 inches long. They had the narrow heel. And, yeah, you couldn't make out any toes or anything, but it was an impression. It was a foot. Yeah, that's like, that's what I thought. I was like 22 inches.

That's huge. And then back from that were like these scuff marks like it was running on its toes and the pine needles when it ran back and through the woods. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. But I thought that was unusual too. I was like, well, what are the things were fine doing? Yeah, well, and they're definitely different in built. I mean, like the adult we saw, I said, it was thin.

Yeah, I would guess, only seven foot at the tallest. That wasn't really big. Younger when sometimes. Yeah. It's just fascinating to me that, you know, there's this creature out there that we haven't even caught up with. By all appearances, it's just an ape. But, my goodness, how smart must they be to be able to allude, capture this long? I just came across the thing on the web last night.

some chimp in Japan supposedly learn how to remember a sequence of numbers on a computer board, like within milliseconds or something like that. It was crazy. I didn't quite understand it all that somebody posted it in relation to Sasquatch. You know, like if chimps are the smart, how smart, you know, do you think a soft squash can be? Right. Yeah, it always burns me when people say, you know, it's just that, you know, what are they just a dumb ape running around?

Well, most people don't realize that apes are actually... There's no such thing as a dumb ape. They're actually pretty intelligent creatures. I wanted to ask you, Stephen, did you... Did any of your neighbors ever talk about encounters that they had, or did you ever remember them talking about different experiences that they had out there where you lived? Well, yeah, you know, I talked to my best friend when I got back to, you know, got to school about all this. And because I had to see him once in a while since he lived like three miles away in another subdivision.

And he was telling me that him and his brother had seen it on a couple occasions. Well, he saw it once. There are a lot of paths and trails in the woods in Georgia down there at that time that people would take their bikes on and things like that. And he claimed that he was back in the woods walking once. of these paths one day and off to the side almost in a field there he saw one digging and he said when he came you know he came upon it and i heard him it leaped up in the air and he said he his foot you know his feet looked like he compared him to like rabbit's feet you know i guess because there were so long

and he said this thing just leaped up into the air and ran took off you know i i i I tended to believe him just because of the 22-inch track that we found, you know, embedded in the grass. I thought, well, you know, that's a pretty big foot. And with that much leverage, I bet they could push off and leap up in the air pretty good. And then he said that him and his brother, another time they'd been in one of the patrolling pipeline fields shooting off fireworks. And off the distance, supposedly one of these things ran from one out of the woods, you know, and crossed the field and to the other side of the woods. And at school, another fellow that I was talking to about all this,

he said, well, yeah, he said, my uncle's had encounters with these creatures. And I asked him, well, where's your uncle live and everything? Well, it turned out that his uncle lived off of a little road that only had like three or four homes on it, and it was back on the other side of the swamp. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, it wasn't far away, so, you know, okay, I believe him, too, because it was like in the general area. But that's, yeah, that was about it.

There were a couple of other things, or two or three things that happened to me. And one of those was the, at one point I got into hanging out with a bunch of guys that lived, and apartment complex that was about a mile or two away from our subdivision. And the way to get to there was on the side of our subdivision where we had the pool and everything. There was a big field on the other side of that, and then there was a bunch of woods, and there was a trail that went through there.

And you came out on another pipeline field, and then you crossed over a two-lane highway, and their apartment complex was over there. So it was a good little trek through the woods on the bicycle. So one night or one day I'd gone over there after school, I hung out with them, and then the sun started to get low, and I thought, I better get going because I want to get back through those woods before it's dark.

I certainly didn't want to be pedaling through the woods in the dark. So I got into the woods, and I was peddling, down the trail and I heard something paralleling me back in the woods. And it's, again, it sounded like somebody walking. It was like two footfalls. So I stopped the bike. It stopped. So I started pedaling again.

It started paralleling me again. I stopped. It stopped. It really freaked me out. I was like, okay, no, I'm not ready to have an encounter by myself like that. So I tore off on the bike and just got down that through that trail as fast as I could. You know, to this day, I'm pretty sure it was probably a squash. Yeah, I used to think, well, maybe it was just a cat.

And I came across some information where, well, I think it was on that Finding Bigfoot show, they kind of mentioned, well, cats, cats never parallel you. They always come from behind. So I was like, okay, it did sound like a couple of footfalls, like, you know, an upright. Yeah. Yeah. And then another thing was during, you know, this time, I don't know if it was after all this, but I heard on the radio that they had found this guy that had been mauled to death, and it was in the general area of that two-lane highway where, you know, the apartment complex on the other side. So that kind of freaked me out a little bit. I even mentioned that to my mom at the time, and she's like, you better stay out of those woods then. they didn't say what mauled him, huh?

They didn't know. No, it was just a quick little clip, you know, clip on the radio that they found some guy that had been mauled, and I'm like, so that was a little scary. Yeah, that doesn't keep you out of the woods. Yeah, well, and then the other thing that I thought was interesting, uh, in where the pool was, and then the field on the other side and on the woods with the trail. One day, one morning I was over there again and I'd walking around in that field and I went up to the tree line, you know. I guess I was, you know, kind of thinking about, well, to go up in those

woods and explore a little bit, but I wasn't quite brave enough to do it by myself. But I noticed from the edge of the field there and up in the tree, there was a squirrel that had been thrown over a branch. And I mean, it was up at least 25 foot. And I thought that was kind of weird. I guess at the time I was thinking, well, you know, yeah, I just thought that was weird. And then the only other thing that, that, well, there were a couple other things, actually. I'm looking at my notes here.

Another day, went after we had seen the adult and the seen, you know, it duck into the side of the woods there off the road, I did go back in there. one day look around and see if I'd see any tracks or anything and it came across some barbed wire the old barbed wire fence that had been knocked down pretty low but there was one strand

was up about six inches from the ground and it looked like in the leaf like there was a little you know a foot impression or whatever but it wasn't very big it wouldn't really fit the creature that we saw being seven foot tall but

there was some like reddish brown hair caught on one of the barbs there next to that impression and I had saved that for a long time so I don't know if that had come from that creature or a creature that was the other one the red is brown colors for the babies well for all of them in fact that's probably the most I wish I'd saved that hair then I had it for quite a while and then the only other thing well things actually and I don't know if this is related But I know one day, after playing around a while, we went back up to Mike's house, and something had got into the garbage on the side of the house,

and it was on the other side of the house from the chimney, the garage side. And it was all strewn all over. And there's a piece of paper with bite marks in it. And I just thought it was unusual, you know, because a dog could have got in the trash, for sure. And these bite marks, they showed canines, but the unusual thing about the bite mark line was it was in like a half circle. Whereas like from a dog or coyote or whatever you would expect it to be more of, you know, pointed or I guess as a...

Instead of a nice even round arc. Right, exactly. So I don't know if that was a baby getting into the trash or... Because it wasn't very big. I mean, you know, that was the other thing to puzzle me because it wasn't real big. I would like expect... And it's hard telling because these things will pick through. Yeah, I believe it.

It is something they will do. Well, and they do like to mimic, I understand. I know with their sounds and things, but do they mimic actions maybe that they see people doing? Okay, because this is the only other thing that happened during this time, and it was one morning, I went out in that petroleum pipeline field, and I went up on the hill where it goes up to the next street that was behind us. And I'm just sitting there and enjoying the sunshine and everything and looking around. I heard this thing run back in the swamp, the lower area.

I go down, there's a little path that went back in the woods, like if it had been bulldozed or something, at the end of it was a bunch of old railroad ties. And I thought about going back in there, but again, I just didn't have the courage to do it by myself. So I went back, you know, to the field and just, I was looking around, you know, toward the lower area of the field where, you know, the swamp butts up against it, where I heard this thing running.

And out of the top of the pines, you know, you know, how tall those Georgia pines are, came this stick that was flung like a spear, and it just came out of the tops of the trees. And I'm like, that was really weird. And after they left, they asked us to go out and look around. So on one of these trips looking, five-foot-long tree branch flying through the air toward us. Oh, my gosh. That's bizarre. Especially when you see something like that come out of the tops of pine trees that are, you know, yay tall.

And it's coming out horizontally, you know, like it was growing like a spear. I was like, oh, my goodness. And then, of course, you know, as an adult learning that they do climb trees. and, you know, and stuff. I'm not surprised now. But I don't know. It's just such a fascinating creature. And like I said, I'd like to have a closer encounter or more encounters with these things,

but I certainly have taken notice of, you know, of what you guys have talked about on your shows, about how dangerous they could actually be. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and it's funny, like, you know, how you see. say that I mean, so many people, you know, just have that naive viewpoint. And, you know, unless they've had, like, like, an encounter like you guys have had, you know, and they know, no, these aren't fuzzy, very friendly things. Yeah, I mean, it's exactly, you know, I mean, it's a wilder anything.

I mean, they perceive us as a threat, and I think rightly so, and they're going to react as such, walk out and animal by the backside. Right. I took a couple of our boys out squatching. Last year or the year before, now it's been a bit. I had perused the BFRO data bank and found a place here in Missouri that sounded promising. And it had a couple of clusters of activity over the decades. And I thought, well, okay, we'll go out.

there and take a look around. This is what I'm about to talk about just kind of highlights, you know, the point that there are things out there that aren't officially recognized, that they're just, you know, that are recognized creatures, you know, let alone a sauce squash that isn't even recognized by science. But so we went out to this area and we found this conservation area that we weren't aware of and we walked back in up of the trail, and we're walking up this path, and there's all this, it looked like poop, and it was strung up for a long ways on this trail, and I'm like, what is this? And it almost looked like washed from sewage or something, and I'm looking at it, and I'm poking at it with a stick,

and I could see that it was hair. And what they look like were really large hair balls, and most of them were black. There were a couple of them. There were like whitish, grayish hairs. And there was two or three of them that were actually wrapped around some paper, some like scrap paper from trash or something. And I still have to, you know, to check this out with people who would know better. But to me, they gave all the appearances of hairballs, you know,

and spits up hair balls, and that's a cat. If most of these were black, well, then that would be, you know, a panther. But the only, you know, the only panther recognized to exist in the United States is the brown panther down in Florida. They don't even, you know, officially black panthers don't exist anymore. Which is ridiculous because people see them from time to time, you know, in the East Coast and in Illinois and even photograph them. So I don't know why the official stance exists that they don't. they're not extent anymore because they obviously are. But one little detail about this, okay, it's kind of funny.

Their town, Mount Sterling, was just north of there, about a five-minute drive up. I wanted to check that out, too, so we drove up there, and it was getting dusky, and we drove up on the side of this hill behind his church, and it was pretty wooded. And we got out, and we're doing the little stick-knocking, and we got a coyote yelping. to us from down on the gulch there. And I was hoping he'd come on up and I'd get to see him. I'm not afraid of coyotes at all, but we didn't, you know, we didn't see him and we didn't hear him yelping anymore.

So anyway, when we got home, I'm thinking, in the back of my mind, I'm like, and look at those reports again. So I went back and looked at the reports, and the one from Mount Sterling, this guy had posted, was like there were screams. that he thought might be from a Sasquatch. But he mentioned in the report, he said, oh, the old local, they said, no, it's just that old panther cat. When I read that, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I think so.

It's crazy. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of things out there that are dangerous. I wanted to ask you, how has it changed your viewpoint on going out in the woods? For years and years, you know, ever since, 52 now. For years and years, I wanted to have, you know, another encounter, a closer one, and just to get a good look at these things and to really see what they look like, you know, their faces and everything. But then, like, after, you know, thinking about, you know, some of the things that are also out in the woods,

like bears and panthers and things, and then hearing some of your shows, you know, where you all talk about, you know, how dangerous these creatures can be, and it's like, yeah, duh, a little wake-up call. I'd still like to see them, but definitely in a way that I wouldn't be in harm's way. Like driving the past one at 45 miles an hour? Yeah, exactly. That's what I told my wife and said, you know, yeah, we can go looking and maybe just, you know, we'd just drive around at night or whatever down the road, and, hey, you never know.

Maybe, you know, let's see one run across the road in front of us or something. but I'll say, yeah, as far as getting out in the woods and stuff, I told the youngest one, he wants to learn how to hunt and everything. He's going on 16, and I'm like, yeah, you know what, maybe if we do any more squashing, maybe we better be packing because there's just, you know, there are too many things out there that are dangerous that hurt us. I've always loved the woods, and I just think it's really fascinating

that, you know, these creatures exist, on that they're out there. Yeah, it is fascinating. Absolutely. And they're so unique. Yeah, they are unique. They're definitely unique. They're definitely special. And, you know, in my opinion, I think there's something to be reckoned with.

Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. All this happened, by the way, where we lived was only about a mile away from the Chattahoochee River. So I always thought, well, they probably came up from the river, you know, following the creeks.

And I don't know why they settled in this one particular area back behind the subdivision. But that whole swamp is taken out now. They cleared it out, and they have a radio towers, a repeaters, set up.

Interestingly enough, I think it's, I don't know if it's CNN. I think it's CNN. Yeah. So they tore that swamp, that whole swamp out. Yeah, it's interesting how they choose what to tear out and what not to tear out. I was going to tell Will, I didn't get to tell them at the beginning of the show.

But at the top of Yakult Mountain where Woody and I had our encounter, there actually had that whole area set to be clear-cut. And it's a weird spot to clear-cut because... It's a very odd spot to clear-cut. It's not... It's right next to the Lewis River, and it's right next to... there's a campground not far from there. And it's just a weird area for them to clear-cut.

It's just a really odd spot for them to clear-cut. But we went up there and they had marked all the, you know, when they marked the trees that they're going to... That whole area is set to be clear-cut here shortly. Yeah, that is weird. Well, this is like this conservation area that we came across and, you know, found what looked like the hairballs. We went up the trail further,

and we did find... It was kind of interesting. I took a picture. a tree that had been bent over and all the branches along the top of it were all broke off. But, you know, it had lived long enough. It looked dead

at the now, but it lived long enough for, you know, I guess, for the branches to remain, you know, along the bottom. But something that evidently climbed up on it and broke off all those top branches. And they had looked like blinds

here and there of these cut cedar trees, and just big piles, brush piles of cedar trees. Like they were producing blinds, you know, for the cats to hide behind to, you know, sneak up on a rabbit or something. I'm like, do they know these things are out here? It's okay. If they know, they should be, they should be at least acknowledging the fact that, you know, that they're still extent. Yeah. Well, we can't thank you enough for coming on the show.

Oh, thanks for having me. we appreciate you listening you know it's it's nice to I know Will and I we actually get a lot of nice emails from a lot of people

and we get some emails from trolls but it's nice to it's nice to talk to someone who listens to the show and wants to share their encounter we really do appreciate you coming on we can't thank you to not

sure do appreciate it oh absolutely absolutely like I said before I'm really glad I stumbled upon your show and you know glad you guys are there to talk with about this.

Somebody who's serious and, you know, recognizes, you know, them for what they are. Yeah, I just couldn't wait. Like I said, I'd like to see one again, at least once, you know, before I leave this world. But just not too close. Yeah.

I enjoy hearing it. I enjoy hearing your experiences very much. Oh, thank you. I enjoyed talking with you guys. And then, you know, I try to learn more about, you know, what happened to me and possibly why, you know. You're welcome back to the show anytime. We appreciate you listening. We appreciate you sharing your encounter and coming on. Okay. Great. Thanks, guys. And, yeah, you guys stay safe too. Thanks, see. Bye-bye.

Have a good night, everyone. Faster than the coronavirus and wagering week is your answer. Antidope. I'm Tom Martin, and I'm a veteran sports analyst and respected sports handicapper who will help build ESPN's brand. I've been recognized and awarded by Pro Football Weekly and Gaming Today magazine as the honest handicapper. Let the other guys give you the same old boring sports talk with the same tired storylines. We'll give it to you straight here every Friday on Wagering Week. Don't gamble with other podcasts. Let SportsGarten Network's Wagering Week help your bottom line.