Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:314 I thought it was going to kill me

Episode Date: April 9, 2017

A listener writes "Hey Wes, I'm Ryan from Indiana. I had an extremely close encounter a number of years ago with these creatures in the Monroe county forest." Ryan describes being out with his friends in the woods. I spoke to Ryan this afternoon. He had a very close encounter with a Sasquatch. Ryan said "It stepped out in front of me and was rocking from side to side. When we made eye contact its whole attitude changed. I thought this thing was going to kill me. I was so close to this thing when it huffed at me I could smell its breath. When my friend called my name it seemed to interrupt whatever this thing was going to do." I will also be inviting Shane to the show who had a strange encounter with what he describes as a banshee screaming at him.

Black thing go from left to right, and I thought, I'm going to die out here and no one's ever going to know. I couldn't believe what my eyeballs was showing me. I'll never forget how evil the eyes were. It was horrible. I mean, I've never seen nothing that evil. It ran towards me at a rate that I can't even explain, turned and stared at me. And this look of, I just want to kill you. I want to say it was human, but it wasn't.

He was yelling at me to grab a gun, grab a gun. I was like, for what? He said, just grab a gun. And there's footprints all the way to the door of my house. It had went inside my garage all the way to the door. 911, what are you reporting? Sure. Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir?

That son of a bitch is about six foot, nine, I don't know. Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. Uh-oh. to Sasquatch Chronicles. Check us out online at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. If you've had an encounter, email me. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you tonight. I'm going to be bringing Ryan on. We had a very terrifying encounter out there in Indiana,

and he'll be sharing a couple short encounters he had in Ohio. But you'll want to listen to the descriptions of what Ryan ran into, what he saw, and what he experienced. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out the website, Sasquatch Chronicles.com. You can become a member, get additional shows, a lot of cool things on there. there's a store there at the top you can go in and get merchandise

all kinds of Sasquatch gear before we jump into the show I want to welcome Tony Merkel on to the show he does the Confessionals podcast probably one of my favorite podcast to listen to if you get a chance check it out on iTunes and Stitcher Tony welcome to the show

thanks for being here man thanks for having me man and tell us about this week's show yeah this week we actually have a a little bit of a mix of a show where we opened up with some bigfoot activity where a guy he describes a lot of different activity that he's experienced on a certain property throughout his life a lot of things being moved around no real sightings up to a certain point but then it kind of intrigued him enough to really start looking into the big foot aspect of things and

trying to figure out you know is this possible that you know a big foot is moving all this stuff around and he talks to his cousin in a different location in the state of Pennsylvania that has been known for Bigfoot sightings. And he brought it up one night that, you know, hey, have you ever seen a Bigfoot around here? And he said when he did that, things totally changed. The environment changed. It got real serious. And his cousin just kind of looked at him and was like, yeah, yeah, I've seen one. And he proceeds to tell him the story of when he saw one up in northeast Pennsylvania.

And it's a pretty good encounter. and then he kind of goes on and shares other experiences that he's had throughout his entire life. One thing I've been really learning throughout interviewing people and talking with people about Bigfoot and stuff, because that's kind of how I got my start and everything. People, they have experiences in life that, you know, are just all over the place. And it's not just so obscure for one person to have multiple experiences. And he kind of goes into different other things that he's had experienced throughout his life, such as seeing some UFOs to seeing entities in his bedroom.

And so it's a really good entertaining show, and I really hope people enjoy it. Yeah, and if you get a chance to check it out, like I said, it's one of the very few podcasts I listen to, and I really enjoy, and I'm happy to promote it here on Sasquatch Chronicles. But it's called The Confessionals podcast. You can go to the Confessionalspodcast.com

and check out Tony's website. But if you're like me and you listen, however you listen to your podcast, I generally listen on my phone. And so, like, I have an iPhone. So I get all my through the podcast player that comes with my iPhone. That's how I listen. Some people listen on Stitcher, like if you have an Android.

But check it out. Type in the Confessionals. And you can see the guy with his hand over his mouth. I love the logo that you have Tony on the show. But if you get a chance, check it out, the Confessionals podcast. Thanks so much, ma'am. Thanks, man. Well, let's jump into it tonight.

I want to welcome Ryan to the show. Ryan to the show. Ryan, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it, Wes. No, I appreciate it. And I know you had two prior encounters with Sasquatch. The main one is the one that's the most terrifying. But before we get into that, if you would, can you talk about the two prior encounters? What did you run into and what did you see?

What did you experience? This one was, like I said, it was kind of just a hair stood up on the back of my neck. felt like I was being watched type of deal. I was about 16 years old. A good friend of mine that I used to play baseball with, his grandpa passed away, so he had to meet my dad, his dad,

and him all had to go out to West Virginia to pack up some of the belongings that were at his farm. And he lived right in between two foothills of a mountain. Not sure what mountain range that is. I think it's the beginning of the Appalachian. One day I was, we had gotten done with business there and I just decided to go poking around on his, on his little property there. And behind this house, there was a big foothill. So I just decided I was going to go up that hill and check it out.

Be a curious, I was probably 15, 14 at the time. So I was just going to go check out the woods and stuff like that. My buddy's dad said, uh, why don't you take him? rivers with you, which is his grandpa's dog. I took the dog up there with me and it was a really intelligent Australian Shepherd mixed dog, I guess. So we went up the mountain. I got probably about halfway up the hill and the dog started acting really weird. Kind of whimpering and look at me, trying to get me to go to the other direction and like really kind of blocking me from going up the hill. And I started getting a feeling like I was being watched and just uneasy, really. So I just

kind of turned around and went back and the dog started acting normal. That was the first encounter. The second encounter actually happened in a place called in South Central Ohio. It's right around a man-made reservoir. Me and two of my other buddies that I used to, I went hunting with one time. We were taking a, actually coming back from another friend's house, we took the back roads back to my buddy's house. All three of us were in the truck. We were just kind of talking, laughing, having a good old time. We come around this bend right before this bridge that goes over the reservoir, woods on both sides, and there's two guardrails. This is a two-lane county road.

I wasn't looking at the road. my buddy was that was driving. He hits the brakes real hard and says, oh, crap, we all stop what we're doing and look at the road. And we saw it was from chest down. We all just kind of stopped and our jaws hit the ground. We saw this thing, walk, step over one guardrail, made it across both lanes of this road, and stepped over the guardrail on the other side and jumped. Oh, I'd say about 10 feet up the hill on the other side.

And it made across the road in four strides. We all just kind of sat there for a second, dumbfounded. My buddy looked at me. I looked at him. We looked at our buddy in the back. And the buddy in the back said, I'm not going to say it. So my buddy driving said, that was a big foot. But in Ohio, they called a grass man, I guess.

So that was the second encounter. Yeah, and I think it's important to talk about those. You know, it's a lot of times hunters and people at hiking and people who are in the woods a lot, generally can tell you about strange things that happen to them. And it's not until they actually see it face to face that they realize what they've seen and what they've experienced. And prior to this,

before we get into your third encounter, what was your thought process on Sasquatch? Did you think, well, this thing's probably out there? When I was in school, elementary school, I wasn't really new to it, I guess. I mean, I'd seen books in the library in elementary school and kind of checked them out with the pictures and stuff like that. It was LockBest Monster. I saw the famous Patterson-Ginland film of the Patty Monster.

And I knew about it. I didn't really think much of it, though. I didn't really think it was a real thing. I just thought it was kind of a trend. Like UFOs kind of. It's kind of like I'll believe it if I see it type of deal. Yeah, no, I understand. Yeah, no, and walking into this third encounter,

and I was fascinated when you and I were talking on the phone earlier. For the audience, if you would, let's kind of start from the beginning. What were you guys out doing? And then walk the audience into what you saw, Ryan, what you experienced. It was back in 2010. It was late October around Halloween. Me and my buddy were hanging out with a couple of his friends.

He got the bright idea since it was around Halloween to go ghost hunting. And I don't know if you want me give specifics location or anything like that. That's up to you. That's completely up to you. Well, from my encounter and how scared I was, I won't because I don't want people, other people to go through that. There's a, he found a place on the internet, little cemetery in a forest in south central Indiana. And this forest had been there since the 1800s.

surrounded by woods on all sides and there's one path wide enough for a B&R vehicle to get in and out of it. One way in, one way out, unless you're going through woods. So he decides, hey, let's all go up there. Supposedly there's ghosts and paranormal activity there

and I'm along for the ride, so I'm like, yeah, sure, let's go. Something do. And we're all our mid-20s and adrenaline junkies as kids are like that. So we all head out there. Didn't think to bring a flashlight. Didn't think to bring anything else other than our cell phones that we had at the time. So we had to use those as light.

Me and him decide that the spur of the moment thing, we were just going to get out of the car, take off hauling butt up of the main trail. When we do that, I'm to his last. left, east of my right, and we're just hauling ass up this main trail, like I said. And we get about a quarter way up the main trail, and I almost run into the rear end of, I don't know if it was a dough or a buck, but I know it was a deer. I almost run right into the butt end of it. And I scare the crap out of it.

It scares the crap out of me. It takes off into the woods. So I'm like, whoa, hey, man, stop. There's wildlife out here. It's probably 11 o'clock at 11.30 midnight, something like that. So I'm like, hey, man, stop. Let's go back and wait for everybody else. I really wasn't thinking.

So he stops, I stop. We turn around. We go back to the car. We all go up to the little cemetery up there. We're all split off kind of doing our own thing, listening, kind of trying to spook each other a little bit. Like I said, we're using our phones as light because that's all we thought to bring. I start hearing a grunting sound coming from the back end of the cemetery off, I would say probably maybe, I don't know, 10 yards into the woods maybe.

And I'm not a professional outdoorsman, like I told you earlier. I know what a buck grant sounds like just from what I've heard on TV and stuff like that from what people have told me. So to me it sounded like a buck grunting at us, telling us. hey you're kind of too close get away so I tell everybody hey let's back out because these deer around this time of year they can get pretty dangerous and their horns are really sharp and they'll screw you up they'll make your good day bad real quick so everybody's like yeah you're right let's go we walked down the main path we found two little foot paths on both sides of the main trail one goes to the left one goes to the right so

Everybody wants to take these little footpath, check them out, see what happens. So we take the one to the left first. I start in the front because my buddy wants me to be in the front because apparently I'm the brave country boy of the group. So I start walking down this path and I start seeing that it goes around to the left and it looks like it's going right back to the back of that cemetery. And it just gave me an uneasy feeling like I didn't want to go there. because of the sounds I heard

at the back in cemetery, so I tell everybody, let's go to the other trail. I don't like where this one's going. So they all turn around. We head over to the other path. I get back in front. We start heading back into the trail

that goes to the right, which is like I said, it's just a couple feet across, just a little foot trail. We get about halfway down that trail. I start hearing something paralleling us to our right side in the woods.

Start hearing footfall. I'm trying to hear what it sounds like so I can get an idea of what is down off the trail. And I know what a deer sounds like. I know what turkey sound like just from being in the woods a little bit. I know what, I know there's hogs in Indiana. I know they're rare, but I know they're out there. And I tell everybody to stop and shush, kind of shush them down. I take another step and it takes another step.

But I noticed it only takes one step. And I realized that this thing is on two feet. And at this point, I'm not thinking it's a Bigfoot or Sasquatcher. Whatever. At this point, I'm thinking it's Jim Bob out there trying to scare kids for Halloween that wander into the cemetery in the middle of the night. So I'm like, whatever, it starts giving me an uneasy feeling again. I'm like, I don't want to be here.

So I tell everybody, just a shush, we start walking again, it starts walking again. And I start feeling like I'm being preyed on, like it's stalking. Or he or she or at this point I'm still not thinking it's an animal. I'm thinking it's a human. So I tell everybody, we need to go, turn around, shut up, don't run, walk back to the main trail, very calmly. everybody's like why why why I'm like just walk man just walk back to the main trail really calm don't run don't walk fast just walk really calm I'm ready to go so everybody starts walking back to the main trail and I hear whatever it is it's paralleling us start paralleling us

back the other way towards the main trail and now I'm starting to get freaked out as why this thing is basically stalking us, or this person is stalking us. We get about 10 feet from the main trail, the mouth of that little footpath to the main trail. And I kind of look, turn my shoulders in my head to look behind us to see anything is coming up on that main trail. And right when my eyes hit the trail behind me, I hear, Everybody in front of me, haul ass running down the main trail. Nobody screamed. Nobody yelled.

Nobody said, like, yelled run. Nobody said anything. It's like somebody fired the gun off the starting line and everybody was running for a world record on the 100 meter dash. Just hauled ass down the main trail. When I heard that, I turned, I whipped my head around and thought I was getting ready to run into a tree. So I stopped. I took a step back and realized the tree that I was getting ready to run into was swaying back and forth. And it was just a big black mass.

And I realized it's not a tree. There's something in front of me that is alive and swaying side to side. So I kind of pan up really slow. I see huge, huge chest, shoulders, and a silhouette of a head. I mean, like I said, it's pitch black in this woods, and all we were using for light is our phone, which at this point I had already put mine back in my pocket. So all I was using for light was in light. It wasn't a real bright moon that night.

It was probably about a half moon, and it wasn't real high in the sky. So it wasn't providing enough light where I could see detail. The only thing I could see is shoulders about five feet across, and whatever this thing was, was pushing nine feet tall had to be. And it was swaying side to side, and it had its fist clenched. At this point, I'm still panning up, and I can make out enough of a face to realize that it's expression changed as soon as we locked eyes.

It went from like a curiosity like, what are you doing here? Look. As soon as I hit, as soon as we made eye contact, it changed from a curiosity look to a you screwed up. You're going to die look. And at that point, my blood ran cold. I went into shock. My eyes hit the ground.

It stopped swaying. It just started breathing heavy. I took another step back. I'm thinking about what I'm going to do. I started praying. I'm not a religious person, but I started praying. Please. At this point, I realized what I was looking at,

that one of these creatures was standing right in front of me. If it wanted me, it had me. I was dead to write. I started praying. Please don't let this thing take my head off my shoulders. like it's picking a cherry out of a bush or a tree. And I took another step back. And the only thing I could think to do was put my hands up really slow

and show this thing that, yo, I get it. I'm out of here. I'm not armed. I'm not here to hurt you. You want me to leave. I'm gone. So I put my hands up as slowly as I could. I mean, palms up.

Hey, I'm not armed. I saw its head sway from side to side like it looked at my hands. I saw it take a deep breath and it huffed at me. Real hard. And this thing is, I'd say about four and a half, five feet in front of me. I was so close that when it huffed at me, I could smell its breath. And it was a real hard to describe smell. Kind of like a salty garbage mixed with fermented fruit.

That's the only way I could put it, I guess. Like I said, yeah, it huffed at me. And I closed my eyes, clenched my eyes real hard, and everybody, every muscle in my body tensed up. I got a real strong pain in my stomach, like, this is it. This is how you're going to go. And, I mean, I started saying goodbye, like, thinking of my family and my friends that are, God knows where. And once it huffed at me, I said my final goodbyes in my head to everybody. And I heard my buddy that had hauled ass to the car.

I heard him scream my name. And once I heard him scream my name, I kind of opened my eyes and, like, came back to reality. I heard whatever was the preacher in front of me turned to the side, took one big jump. I heard trees shake and sway, and then I heard a one big thump on the ground. And I realized that it had gone to do whatever it was going to do. It made its point. I read it loud and clear. Now is your chance to haul ass.

And that's exactly what I did. I hauled ass back to that car faster than I've ever probably run in my life. When I made it to the car, everybody was what's that? What it was it? What was it? I don't know. And then I realized I heard a dripping sound that I hadn't heard before. And I was thinking maybe the car was leaking a fluid or something like that. So I looked down and I had urinated on myself without even knowing it out of sheer terror.

And yeah, we got in the car and nobody spoke a word on the way home. It was probably the most silent ride I've ever had in my life. And nobody spoke a word of it until about a week later, my buddy said he saw whatever it was, too. And he thought I was gone. Did he tell you what he saw? He said he saw a big, tall shadow, is what he called it. He just called it a shadow. And I said, did you see hair or anything?

He said, no, I just saw a shadow. I asked him if it was moving. He said I couldn't see. I guess he had already ran so far that to him, he just looked over his shoulder and it looked like a shadow. He said he didn't even see me. That's why he figured I was already gone. Let me ask you, when, so your friends take off,

and do you turn around and see this thing standing in the pathway, or did it cross right in front of you, blocking your path. And that's what I talked to you earlier. It's like this thing separated me from the group. I don't know if it was already in the pathway or if it had stepped in between me and our group without me knowing it. All I know is I turn around and I almost run into it. That's terrifying, man.

That's a terrifying encounter. A lot of people, as you and I were talking earlier, Ryan, a lot of people, they won. want to see these things. And I get it. I completely get it. But at the moment you actually see one, you regret ever seeing one. You almost wish you would have never seen one. And a lot of times encounters really aren't happy encounters. I find it interesting that when it was in front of you, as you and I were talking earlier, when they, you'll see a lot of great apes, gorillas, and you'll see chimpanzees do the same thing where they'll rock from side to side. And I think that is them being nervous, almost like they, and this is just my theory, but almost like they're nervous.

They're not sure what you're going to do, and that's a nervous reaction they have. It's an emotional reaction of what are you going to do, and it's not, and it's intimidating when he see something that big rock from side to side because, you know, you think God is this thing going to charge me. But I think that is a really nervous reaction. Yeah, it was, it was almost like a, like a, what am I going to do with you now? kind of a reaction. Like, do I let you go or do I just take you down? Yeah.

And like we were, like I said, we were talking earlier, if I don't know something, like I said, I had seen one before in Ohio. It wasn't that close. This encounter really got me, I mean, it got me scared. I mean, when something's in front of you like that, you realize you're not the apex predator. There's something bigger and battered than you on the planet. And like I said earlier when we were talking, I'm the kind of guy if something intrigues me or I don't know a lot about it or it confuses me, I'm going to research the hell out of it. Everything in that encounter pointed to from me and him running up the main path and me kicking a deer into the woods, whatever was off the main path stalking us, and the one standing in front of me swaying side to side, basically being pissed.

off to no end. All of it points to me and him and our group. We broke up them hunting a group of deer that we scared away, and it pissed them off. It sounds like it. It sounds like you interrupted the hunt. I wanted to ask you, was there any details that you could give the audience? I realize this is nighttime. But is there any details that you can give beyond what you've given regarding the creature and what you saw. Anything that stood out to you? As far as facial features go, I saw, like I said, there wasn't a lot of light.

So, I mean, I couldn't make out a lot of facial features. I could definitely make out the change in expressions. This thing definitely went from confusion and curiosity to mad real quick. I saw high cheekbones. I saw no nose. the eyes were just black as night abyss. I mean, it was like two holes going through its head. The hair, I want to say it was about three inches long all over its body.

Maybe a little bit longer. I saw its fists were clenched. I mean, like I said earlier, this thing was rock and roll. It was ready to go. and just muscle mass. This thing was huge. It was a truck in front of me. And like I said, it was close enough that if it wanted me, it had me.

Yeah, and I think that's a part that terrifies you the most. When you encounter these things, you realized really quick that you're at their mercy. There's really nothing, I mean, if they want you, there's nothing you can do to stop it. And I really think that's a terror. beyond the size and beyond everything else, the unknown, the fact that that feeling of like, wow, there's nothing I can do in the situation. I'm a goner if this thing comes at me. There's nothing I can do to stop it. And it's interesting. It reminded me of an encounter you and I were talking about in Alaska, I believe, where this 12-year-old boy was out hunting with his 22 rifle.

It was a 22 he was carrying around. And he'd come across three of them. And he did the same thing. man, he made eye contact with it. It started growling, and these three creatures surrounded this kid. And if you hear this kid's testimony, this kid saw something, because he's almost in tears as he's telling it. And he's talking about he started crying. He put his head down, started crying, and they huffed at him and then walked off. And I was always shocked by them.

Yeah, that's what you said. It gave me chills when you said it huffed at him, too. It's like a show of dominance. Yeah, I think it is. I think sometimes the grunts are more or less an acknowledgement that you're there. But this kid said it huffed at him and then they just walked off. And I was always shocked that they didn't kill his kid. But the part that I think is interesting is he even talked about the smell.

And he said it was a real wild smell when it huffed at him. He could smell it. The creature itself didn't smell. But when it huffed at it, he said it was a real wild smell. He couldn't really place. It wasn't like bad breath. it was just a real wild, gamey-type smell coming out of this thing's mouth. How has this affected you running into this thing?

Oh, it's life-changing, man. I mean, this happened in 2010. I still have nightmares to this day about it. I don't know if it's PTSD, if that's what you want to call it. I'm not one of those guys that I think that's a soldier's thing going to through war, stuff like that. I know that changes people. I have really good buddies that are in the military,

and I've helped them through PTSD. Yeah, it still gives me nightmares to this day. I would imagine. And why do you think the creature didn't harm you? I mean, you guys are kind of in a Mexican standoff who's going to make the wrong move first, and it sounds like no one made the wrong move, but why do you think the creature didn't attack you?

I think it got its point across and it knew that. I think had I made one wrong move, had I maintained eye contact or took off running the other way, I mean, who knows, I could have took it off running the other way and ran into the other one and they could have just pounced on me and ripped me limb from limb. I think I made all the right decisions. I remember my dad telling me when I was a kid, if you run into a wild dog or a predator, if you make eye contact, that's a challenge for territory.

If you take off running, that's going to trigger their predator instinct, and they're going to chase you. That's why I made eye contact. I saw its expression. I knew what it was thinking. It was thinking, you're dinner. or you're another male I'm going to challenge you and, yo, I'm looking at the ground.

I don't want anything to do with you. Yeah, the eye contact thing is even more so in the primate world. You know, whether it be human or non-human, it's even more so in the primate world. You know, you make contact with a gorilla or with a chimpanzee or, you know, other primates, and they look at that as a challenge. You're challenging them.

And even some humans, I mean, walk into a bar and look a guy in the eyes who's been drinking, all of a sudden he thinks you want to fight, and you really have no intention of fighting. Exactly. He just looked in his direction, you know. Right. And I think it's the same with these things. I didn't want anything to do with it.

Yeah, I don't blame you. I wanted to curl up in a ball. I mean, you feel, it's a feeling of helplessness and just utter doom that you'll never feel in your life. Well, it makes you think, too. They think like predators. I mean, you don't take on a whole group if you're a predator. You just don't. But if one falls behind, that's the guy you pick off.

That's the easy target. Yeah, that's another thing. I don't know if maybe this thing was watching us the whole time. Maybe it saw me shush the other people up. Maybe it heard me communicate and we all turned around and went the other way. maybe it picked me to be the alpha of our group and said that's the one I'm going to challenge everybody else it I mean that's the weird thing if the tension was solely on me it didn't even turn to look at everybody else until my buddy screamed my name it had no idea that they

were even there I was its main focus it was like alpha on alpha and like you said he wanted to rock and roll, and I wasn't having it. You win, buddy. Yeah, well, I think you made all the right moves in that situation with this thing. Like I said, I think if you freak out or if you run, you're in trouble in situations like this, or if you continue with eye contact, there's a medicine woman I know down in Arizona. She always tells me if you ever have another encounter, Wes, or you need to tell people don't make eye contact with these things. And I'm always like, yeah, yeah. But, you know, you hear encounters like yours. And, and, you know, you hear encounters like yours, And the whole demeanor changes when you make eye contact.

And I've heard other people state that. Have you ever thought about going back to that area? Absolutely not. The good friend I was with at the time, he's asked me many times to go back even in the daytime. And I tell him, you can't pay me enough to go back there. The only way I would go back there is if I was with a whole platoon of Marines, and we had tanks and bazookas and guns. and landmines and all kinds of armament, man,

because I don't know what kind of gun would take this thing down. I don't want to find out, though. Yeah, and it's hard to explain to someone how physically imposing it is to stand in front of something that's eight, nine, ten feet tall and, you know, weighs anywhere between five and a thousand pounds. It's hard to express how intimidating that is. And you're right. You know, when you walked out, you were probably looking at its stomach,

and you're describing looking up and up and up and up, And that's not far off, man, when you run into these things. They're a lot... It seemed like it never ended. Yeah. It seemed like it never ended. Like this thing went up to the top of the trees. And it was...

It took me a minute to realize this is... This is what everybody's been talking about, you know? This is the thing that you saw in the books now in elementary school. This is what you're looking at something that's not supposed to exist. And it's looking at you like you're... dinner. Now what are you going to do? So many emotions go through you at one time. It's it's confusion, it's terror, it's a feeling of hopelessness, it's a flighter, a flighter fight, but there is no fight. When you see something that big, you just want to run.

Yeah. And I'm looking back on it, I'm glad I didn't. I didn't know if the other one that was paralleled on the trail was behind us or not, like I said, I could have turned around to run and ran right into that one and it could have just took my head right off and that would have been the end right there yeah well it's an amazing encounter and i'm glad you came out okay you know it's a cautionary tale too for people out there you know these things are real they are out there you can run into them and yeah man it's not what you see in books and on tv that's all fun in games but if you're actually out there pay attention okay it's it's not a game it's not a TV show.

These things are real and they are big and they are mean and they are wild. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And that's why I always say, you know, I know people give me crap about it, but I always say you're not going to go out there with the apple in your hand and it's not going to walk up and eat an apple out of your hand. You're not going to pet it on the head. These things, they can be very violent. They can be very, very violent, very territorial.

And they have short tempers. You know, there was no sense. for it to come out and cut you off and stand there and give you the stink eye. If you would have just kept going and it would have never stepped out, you probably would have never seen it. And that's what, yeah, you said a hair trigger tip or this thing's, its expression went from confusion to pissed as hell in less than a second. As soon as I made eye contact with it, it was ready to rumble.

and I mean if I probably wouldn't have made eye contact with it who knows it might have just stepped out in front of me and just went on its way but I think I made eye contact with it that's why it just stayed there yeah and the other part you bring up is when you said you you thought it was a tree and that should give the audience some sort of gauge

and how big this thing is if you think it's a tree standing in front of you I wanted to ask you did the creature smell it all beyond the breath I didn't get a smell. I've heard stories where people smell this awful smell like a skunkwink's with wet dog. I didn't. The way I describe it, it smelled like where it came from.

It was just a real musky dirt smell. Like it was just dirty. Like it smelled like the woods, obviously. I think that's a case of either they put off some kind of a pheromone when they get nervous or scared. I don't know what would scare one of these things, honestly. But either that or it's just where they come from, that they spend a lot of time in water and mud and muck and stuff like that, I think they're obviously going to stink.

If they come from more of a dry environment, I don't think they're going to smell that bad, you know? No, I understand. And, you know, the thing with that creature, too, if you would have ran into a grizzly bear, for instance, grizzly bear, it's on or off. It's either going to kill you or it's not going to kill you. There's really no in between.

And that's how most wild animals are. It's on or off. They're either going to run or they're going to stand up and fight you. And if they come into the, you know, if that would have been a cougar or that would have been a black bear or that would have been any other known animal and it would have cut you off the way it cut you off, you'd be a dead man.

They're going to fight you. And what always fascinates me about these creatures is the intelligence, almost like why cut you off, stand there, make you terrified, and then your buddy starts yelling your name from the car, and it turns and kind of looks that way, and then it bolts off. What's a point in doing that? Almost like it was trying to intimidate you or it was pissed off and wanted to let you know how pissed off it was. Exactly. Exactly. That's the only thing I could come up with. I think it wanted to make its point that it was their dinner time. I mean, think about how pissed you would get if somebody just bolted into your house when your family was around the table eating dinner. You know?

Yeah. Somebody just bolted into the door and was like, hey, you guys, what's up? And all the food fell on the floor. You'd be mad. I would be too. and I would probably try to scare the crap out of whoever bolted in my front door and knocked all my food off the table. It was either the deer or me,

and I think I made all the right moves like you said, and I think they just went on with their hunt, maybe. Did you ever talk to your buddy? You know, he said he saw more of a shadow of something large, but did you ever have ever sat down with them and say, hey, listen, here's what I saw. Yeah, about a week ago, I had my, my latest nightmare where I woke up in a hot sweat.

I was flailing, taken from my life. My wife actually woke me up. And that's when I told her for the first time. She was blown away. My buddy came over that weekend, and I had actually drawn a picture for my wife because she was like, how big was it? How big was it?

She kept asking me, how big was it? I can't put it into words how big it was. It was, like you said, I thought I was getting ready to run into a tree. That's how big it was. She said, well, draw me a picture. So I kind of rough sketched on our dry erase board what I saw. And she basically was, holy crap. And then my buddy came over that weekend and saw the picture.

And he was like, if that's what you're. saw. He said, all I saw in the shadow, but he said that's about how tall the shadow was above you. No, I understand. Well, Ryan, thank you again for coming on the show and sharing the encounter. I think when people hear people share their encounters, you know, it sounds easy to do, and it's not. You tend to relive it as you're retelling your encounter, and there's a lot of emotions that take place. And so it's not an easy thing to do, but I really do appreciate you coming on the show. and sharing what happened to you. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity.

You're actually the first person I've told outside of my wife and my buddy was obviously there. Well, I'm honored that you would come on the show and share it. Thank you again, Ryan. I appreciate it, Brett. Well, next up, I want to welcome Shane to the show. Shane, how are you? Doing good. How are you? Doing pretty good.

Doing pretty good. Thanks so much for being on the show. and you had a very interesting encounter. If you would for the audience, maybe start from the beginning. Tell us what you were out doing and walk us into what happened. We were just down in my buddy's grandparents' property down in southern Ohio, outside of Rome. Just for the weekend, I think it was a long weekend, just going to get away from everything, camping and all that good stuff. And let's see, the night before.

this property is really beautiful, right off the river and very secluded. I think the next neighbor was a good mile down the road, at least until the next mailbox anyways. The lady that used to live there, I guess the original owner or something, was taking rocks off the mountain and she wanted to build her quote-unquote castle. And it was beautiful. She had these huge rock walls and all kinds of stuff she'd build. up there.

She had a little shack that was left over decrepit, like one room was left standing in her fireplace. So we decided, I think, the first night we were there. And we've been there before and everything and never thought much of it. But the show Ghost Hunters, I think, and all that was becoming popular. So we wanted to go in there late at night and get some pictures of some orbs or something, whatever, just stupid kid stuff. we were early 20s, I think, and

didn't really see much and whatever. We had good night, had a fire and everything. Went to bed. Next day, we got up, went to his grandparents' house, visited and everything, did all that. We went to walk to the river. Went back later that evening and decided to hike up what we call a mountain to us.

We're from the western Ohio. There's not really much. It's kind of rolling small hills. So to us, it's a mountain, but probably to most everybody, it's a big hill, huge hill. Yeah. So we decided to start walking up at hiking up. And it's steep enough to where every once in a while, we'd be grabbing on the trees to help pull ourselves up. And a beautiful, like, foresty area, clear, you know, not too much brush or nothing.

You can see pretty good ways. we get up pretty far up there. I'm going to say probably three quarters of the way. It's probably a half hour hike up this mountain. And we'd come to this rocky outcrop and everything, and we figured this is where the old lady and people that live there were getting their rocks from. So just going on with the myth,

maybe this place is haunted. I dared my buddy to carve his name into the rock face. and just whatever, you know, I don't know. So I get my knife. He starts carving away. He gets halfway through his name. And we just hear this ungodly, banshee, awful cry, scream. I don't know what you want to call it, but coming from, like, our campsite down there where her little shack was and stuff.

I mean, it had just, we stopped what we were doing. how we looked at each other, our jaws dropped, and our heart stopped, and we just seemed like time stopped, and we didn't know what just happened or what we just heard. And it was loud. Oh, my gosh. I wanted to ask you, did it sound, I know when you and I talked earlier, you had mentioned the Ohio Howl. Was it like that, or was it different from that? it was different I mean

I'm not going to say it was a Sasquatch or whatever but if it was I could see it being the same creature that made it sound but it was not like the Ohio or the Ohio Howl it was more of a really mad

scream and it even had like a pronunciation to it which was like we were thinking, okay, first thoughts we've all said, I think at the same exact time we said, Banchi, like, oh my gosh, banshee,

is what our first initial thoughts were. And we started talking for just a second, you know, okay, they can't be. No, someone's got to be down there, just trying to think logical. There's got to be a person down there screaming as loud as they can. But at the time, we didn't really think much about it.

this, it was so loud, it, like, shook your insides kind of. I mean, it was loud. No human that I know could ever make this kind of volume come out of them. But, uh, so we decided to book it down, and we didn't get very far. I don't even know, not very far at all. And a pack coyotes started going crazy off to our right, which would have been, west and they were just going insane. And we just like, oh my gosh, not this too.

Now what is going on? So we started really booking it. And it's pretty steep, so we couldn't go too fast without doing rolls down the hill. And it takes us, I don't know, five or ten minutes to finally get all the way down to the bottom. And the whole time we're hearing this pack of coyotes like every couple minutes, maybe They would stop just for a minute, you know, screaming and crying, doing whatever they do. And that would give us enough time we could hear just, like, wrestling on our other side of us. So at this point, I'm like seeing tunnel vision almost like, let's get out here.

When you say wrestling, was it going on the whole time you guys were running down the mountain? Was it saying off to the side, following you down? Is that what you were saying? No, I mean, I think it was like way down at the bottom. them when we heard it. So if anything, it was starting to come up, I think. And it wasn't constant. It was

like every once in a while we hear a slight rustle in the leaves or a stick break. That's about, and it was not like a constant, you know, nothing, the noise that we weren't really too concerned about at the time

because we got a pack of coyotes behind us and freaking bansy or so are you know at this point we're still thinking someone's down there let's go we finally go down the bottom there's nobody there no one who's been there and we keep jump in his car it was my me and my friend and his wife we're all there jump in his car we raised to his grandparents house we're like was anybody out there come on okay you guys was there anybody out there. Somebody was out there

screaming at us. And they're like, no, no, no no one's been out there. You're crazy. The road's not very traveled. You can hear cars go up and down. I mean, very occasionally, a couple times a day, cars get up and down this road. We end up going back. I think we grabbed some hot dogs or something from. We go back

pretty quick. And, like, we saw just a little daylight, and we started fire, and we didn't really hear much the rest of that night. Let me ask you, at what point did you realize, okay, that that's probably a Sasquatch I heard. Was there a time where you thought that, or did you start looking up animal sounds? No. It probably wasn't until about last year.

We were watching TV, and I can't remember what show it was, but I'll be God darned if we didn't hear the same exact sound on a Finding Bigfoot or Bigfoot evidence show or whatever it was. And that's when we finally put two and two together. And we just, me and my buddy, we were both watching it. We just stopped last year. And we were staring at each other. Like, oh, that's exactly what we heard. So many years later, the whole time, we didn't,

hardly ever talked about it or anything. We just chalked it up to a bansy. You know, well, I don't know what it was. We didn't have any explanation for it. That's interesting. And I wanted you to tell the story, Was it your grandfather? It reminded me so much of the old woman in Texas I talk about all the time.

Yeah, it was my grandpa. Yeah, he lives in a trailer down in Tennessee and kind of out of town and lived on the edge of a small trailer park and everything. And he had, I guess, real late at night, like almost early morning after midnight, had someone tapping on his window. and loud enough to get him up and get him mad and everything. And then he storms out to the door with his gun, grabs his gun, and starts hollering and shaking his gun out. I don't even know what he was saying. And he said he'd seen this huge black guy kind of run off

as soon as he started hollering and, you know, turn on the lights and everything. And so he was all in black and had to probably like, a hood up, you know, or something. And my daddy said, he only told him about it once, but he thinks it's happened to him a couple times, maybe just how

my grandpa was acting about it. It wasn't an unusual thing for them. Yeah, and that's interesting, because that lady down in Texas is the same thing. She says that it's three black guys, and they're in hoodies, and they're big, huge black eyes. It always cracks me up,

because I'm like, what would be the motivation between, why would these three African Americans have the need to throw rocks at your home. Why would they sit up and tap the windows at night on your windows? It makes no sense at all. What would be their motivation in doing that? And it always interests me because the more she talks about it, the more you start to realize what this woman's actually seeing, it's definitely not human what she's saying. I think it's a I think it's a group of saskatches messing with her. And I'm curious about your grandfather, too. you know, you start tapping on someone's window trailer at night and screwing around with them or someone's home,

your chances of getting shot are pretty high. And, you know, there'd be no, I just don't, you know, understand that. But I guess if you don't believe in Bigfoot or Sasquatch, it would make sense. You would think, well, it's just a huge African-American guy with a hood on. And the hood's interesting, too, because I've had a lot of witnesses on the show that, that say it had kind of a conical head. and I would imagine under dark conditions you see that, you would think, oh, that guy's wearing a hood.

And that's not really a hood. That's just the way the head is shaped. Yeah, and I wasn't even going to bring that up to you until I heard you talking about it. And then my dad brought it up to me a couple weeks ago, too. So this was just a few weeks ago, I think, that that happened. For the last time he told us about it anyways. Yeah, and that's interesting. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show, Shane,

and sharing the vocalization. I always find it interesting, you know, and you mentioned it shaking you, you know, when a cougar screams at you or a bear or any of these known animals, you know, whether it be Ohio, Washington State, Texas, you can pretty much guess what animals coming at you, whether it be a fox or, you know, that foxes make strange sounds, but coyotes even make strange sounds. But the difference is they don't rattle you. They don't shake you when they, you know, I've heard some strange cougar sounds,

and I can honestly say it's never once shook me. And when these things go off, like the banshee, you know, I use the term all the time and I get questioned on it all the time. I'll say it sounded very demonic, but I guess another term would be that, you know, very banshy sounding. It's hard to place that. It's hard to place the vocalization that you're hearing. And so I really appreciate you coming on and sharing it, ma'am.

Yeah, no problem at all. And like I think I even said in the email and stuff, they've had like problems out there in the past on that property. And it was mostly they thought it was a homeless guy breaking in. They have a little tiny cabin there on the property too, and it's only good for the toilet that's in it. But they had a problem where they thought it was a homeless guy breaking in and kind of trash in the place and stuff like that. And I'm wondering if it's not the same thing that made that sound to us. Because it's out in the middle of nowhere. I don't see the reason why a homeless guy couldn't live out there, I don't think,

unless he's growing his own crops and hunting or something. Did they ever say what kind of damage was done? The door busted in. I've seen a door. It's a pretty heavy outside door. but just trashed, I guess. I mean, it was this not-finished cabin. And, like, I don't know, it seemed like, I think,

drywall ripped off the walls, and I think there was a couch that was shredded or something. And that could have been from other animals, I don't know. But, yeah, just, I don't know. They didn't say too much about what kind of damage, but. Do you ever go back to that property? they've since sold it and so we haven't we've been back there i think i have personally twice after that and nothing's ever happened but uh yeah i'd love to go back and but they've since sold it i've

heard and somebody built a new house on it i guess from what i understand oh i got you well i appreciate or go ahead man oh i just thought it was pretty interesting after the fact, when we found out that sound, whatever we heard on TV, was the same thing we heard, whether it be Sasquots or, I don't know, it wasn't a known animal that I've ever heard, and I grew up outside. But then they tell us that, you know, they've had problems with a homeless guy out there, and actually burned down the cabin, I guess, apparently because that was a year or two after last time we were there. Yeah, these things are out there. They're definitely real, and they're out there.

You can run into them. And usually it's when you're not prepared, when you're not looking for them. I always find that amazing. It's when you're not looking for them is when you run into them. You know, it's like I had Doug Highcheck on last week. And we were talking about the Snellgrove incident. Well, you know, he's been out to Snellgrove several times. And the times he's out there not looking for Sasquatch is the times he runs into them when he's not expecting it.

And when he's going out there specifically to look for them, he never finds them. It's fascinating, man. It's fascinating. And like you said, you can't run into them. Who knows why it was screaming at you. These things, like I said, seem to have very short timbers. But, you know, who knows why it was going off on you? I'm glad you're able to find some answers.

Because when you hear stuff like that, you know, you go look up cougar sounds. Okay, it's not that. It's not a fox. It's not a bear. It's not this. It's not that. And it's amazing when you hear a Bigfoot show. You're like, holy crap, that's what I heard.

And there's that light bulb that goes off. Yeah, what really told us wasn't an animal. We didn't even think twice ever about it being an animal because of the pronunciation. I can't really recreate the sound. My buddy can. He's just weird like that. But it had like a hard sea at the beginning, like a keel. Kind of like pronunciated something as it was screaming, which was right there just out of our mind.

It's not an animal. No way. It's an animal. so yeah that's interesting but it didn't it didn't actually make a word but it was it sounded like it was pronouncing something yeah right right I mean not a word that we could understand anyways so but yeah they make weird sounds I know one time I was out and I got a sworn I heard Yahoo I don't know if it was my I mean everyone in the group heard it and I kind of verified everyone did you guys hear

yahoo I thought I just heard something scream Yahoo but it didn't sound human. But I wouldn't say it was an animal either. But it had this weird, I mean, it just pronounced Yahoo. It sounded like it screamed Yahoo, which I thought was odd. And so sometimes you do hear that. You know, when you hear the Ron Moorhead recordings too, a lot of times you think you pick up on words. I don't know if it's our brain playing tricks on us. You know, sometimes when you listen to different languages, you think, oh, I know, I think I know what they're talking about. But it's, it's not. But in your case, hearing that, you know, animals generally don't pronounce syllables or words or, you know.

Exactly. I mean, there was even some valves going in there. Exactly. Well, I appreciate it again, Shane. Thank you again for coming on. Well, thank you very much. And you have a wonderful time. Thanks, Shane.

And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at saskwatchchronicles.com. If you get a chance, check out saskwatch chronicles.com. And also check out the Confessionals podcast. If you're a podcast listener, I think you guys will like it. Until next time, everyone, have a great night. Being across the country faster than the coronavirus and wagering week is your antidote.

I'm Tom Barton, and I'm a veteran sports analyst and respected sports handicapper who 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.