Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:368 Boy Scouts Encounter Sasquatch

Episode Date: October 13, 2017

A listener writes "Hi Wes! Been listening to the show for a few years now. I had an encounter in northern MN back in 2012 while guiding canoe expeditions on the boundary waters. Myself and my crew of 8 other boy scouts/scout masters had several consecutive days worth of encounters and we weren't the only crew that did." I spoke to Chuck and he and his crew of boy scouts endured several nights of encounters with a creature. He said "I heard what sounded like crying coming from the bush. I kept hearing what sounded like someone walking through our camp. I sleep under a tarp to keep dry. I could tell this thing was standing over me. I thought maybe it was a bear so I swiped my hand out and hit this thing in the chest. It felt like a hairy bodybuilders chest and this thing ran off. I think it is important to note that I am 6'2 and I tie my hammock up at eye level so when I hit this thing in the chest it had to be at least 8 feet tall. I didn't really know what to think until later when one of the scout masters told me he got up to use the bathroom and while he was taking a squat this 9 foot tall gorilla ran past him." Chuck talked about how they encountered this thing several nights in a row and it seemed to get more and more aggressive.

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 were 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 out, and he grabbed 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. 9-1-1. What are you reporting? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about 6'9, I don't know.

Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. Uh-oh. You're listening 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. Here we go.

Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you tonight. I'm going to be speaking to Chuck, which was my dad's name. and not that that's relevant to the story, but just thought I'd let you know. And Chuck is actually a scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts. Chuck was out deep in the wilderness in Minnesota, and he had encounter after encounter after encounter while out there.

And Chuck didn't really believe in Bigfoot, didn't really know what to make of it. And it wasn't until he came back into camp and started talking to some of the other scout masters that had been in the general area, and they started sharing encounters that they had had while being out there. They're very, very fascinating stuff. 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. If you get a chance to check out the website, I went ahead and posted a blog yesterday. It was from the BFRO website.

It was actually an encounter on the Oregon coast. I think it's titled Storm Watchers Encounter an Animal on the Beach. But it's a very fascinating encounter, and I know that beach well where that happened. And it's pretty much a ghost town 24-7. I mean, hardly anyone ever goes out there, especially during a storm. But it was a very fascinating encounter. And if you listen to the guy, I kind of retold the story, but if you listen to the descriptions and what he was seeing

and the saying taking two or three steps to walk up a 10-foot-tall hill, it's a very fascinating account. And I know a lot of encounters happen out that way. I'm also working on an upcoming show regarding, Sasquatch and Possible Language. And I'm hoping to get Ron Moorhead on and Scott Nelson to talk about their research into the language. And I was contacted by a guy a couple days ago who claims to have cracked the code.

He talked about it being kind of an Arcadian proto-language that all languages come from and he was naming off different phrases. So I hope to get Ron Moorhead on and Scott Nelson on to do a presentation for you guys on the possible language. The gentleman I talked to, he didn't want to come on, but he had a lot of great, great information. And again, if you get a chance, check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com. Let's jump into it tonight.

I want to welcome Chuck to the show. Chuck, thanks for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you being here. How long ago did your encounter take place? Let's see. This would have been in the summer of 2012. And for the audience, would you kind of start from the beginning and tell us what you're out doing and just kind of walk us into what happened?

Yeah, sure. So I was a canoe guide at the time. I was working for the Boy Scouts of America. They have three high adventure bases in the U.S. And one of them is a canoe base. It's like right up on the Canadian border in the boundary waters from northern Minnesota. We were based out of there. And basically, I would take out crews of,

eight other people, usually two adults, and then the rest were boys. This particular crew happened to be fairly young. I think my youngest was 11 on that crew, and the oldest was 14. And I would just take them out, get them point A to point B. If they wanted to go fish, we'd fish, or if they wanted to do mileage, we'd do mileage. So it was a pretty standard, pretty standard trip for this go-round. Well, I guess it's worth noting. I'm going to mention some places.

So for anybody that knows the area, the maps that we use are called Fisher Maps. They're made by the W.A. Fisher Company. These maps are circa 1983, and I think they're the ones they're still using. They're not entirely accurate because they're not really made so much for real navigation. But anyway, I'll be referencing those maps, and it'll make a little more sense to anybody that has one. So anyway, this particular trip, this was a 10-day trip, and it was right around night seven that we started having something interesting happen. And so that night, well, we came in, we had had to amend our trip because the boys just weren't physically big enough to do the mileage they wanted. So I decided to show them a waterfall out there.

And waterfalls are kind of tough to come by in that area. It's relatively flat. So we went and found this waterfall. It's called Eddie Falls. And we hiked into it, messed around there for a minute. And then we camped pretty close to the waterfall on the next lake over, which was the south arm of Knife Lake. There's like middle knife, upper knife, and then the south arm. And they're like three kind of long finger lakes that hang out right next to each other.

So we were on the south on, we were camped right near the waterfall, like I said. We could even hear the waterfall from camp. So that night, we were, you know, in bed, asleep. It was probably two or three in the morning just based on how dark it was. Because out there it's in the midsummer, you don't get full dark until probably 1130 and it doesn't, you know, start to start to get light again pretty early. So just based on the fact that it was fully dark, I was. say it was probably between, you know, two and four o'clock in the morning when this happened.

I was asleep in my hammock, and I would generally set up my hammock, like, pretty far away from where my crew was. I just like to have a little space at night and read my book or whatever, and I would usually just string my tarp up, throw a tarp over my head rather than, you know, pitching it, like, outright, just to keep the dew off of me. It wasn't going to rain that night. So I'm covered. My head's covered. I'm in my hammock. And I wake up and I hear it sounded like sobbing. It was like a woman kind of sobbing. Kind of like, I don't know how to explain it. Like in between cries kind of, that kind of breathing real rapid sound, you know. I can hear this off toward my feet out in the brush. And I can hear the footsteps as well. There's footsteps coming with the sound. And they're coming kind of in the direction of my feet. but off to the left also. So it's actually kind of moving more toward where my crew is camped at in the main campsite. But I'm listening to it and trying to place it because the footsteps just weren't, they were weird.

It just sounded, it sounded like two, you know, two feet, like it was on two feet. Because I've listened to bears move and they're, you know, they're not very distinct about the way they move. They're just kind of, you know, crashed through. I'm sure you've heard bears and moves through the same way. I mean, moose room's huge. You know, you know it's a moose coming usually. And so I'm listening to it. And I'm like, I thought it was a person, you know, when I was sitting there, listen to it.

Because nothing else made any sense. But I'm laying under the tarp and I'm trying to, I can't see any light. There's no, you know, I can't see any light coming through the tarp. So whatever it is is in full dark, which I thought was really interesting. Because it's thick brush out there and brambles and it's just, you know, it's not. It's not manageable in the light, much less pitch black. So I'm laying there and listening to it, and I kind of listen to this thing as it moves through camp. So it actually heard the pads of its feet move from like the brush and all the pine straw and the sticks and all that and onto the rock, the granite, just kind of hard packed dirt and granite of the campsite.

And that's when I could really hear the weight of whatever it was kind of stepping through the side. site there. And so I listened to it. I was probably, I don't know, it was 50 to 100 yards off from the site. And I could hear it that far away. It's how heavy it was. And I listened to it as it pretty much came straight through camp and it was heading directly toward where I was set up in my hammock. So now I'm still laying there. I'm trying to decide what to do because I'm kind of, you know, I'm thinking bare, at least bare protocol for whatever it might be. So I'm just, you know, I'm like, I'm going to lay still and, you know, maybe to move on, what have you. And I listened until this thing got up, I mean, right next to me.

It was on my left side. And it was just standing. I could feel the body presence of it, just standing right next to the hammock. And I woke up before with bears next to the hammock and they're pretty obvious. But this thing was, you know, pretty silent other than loud breathing. You know, I had a really kind of a raspy breathing. And so I could hear the breathing and I could just feel that it was just standing there, kind of looming over me.

And I was like, what, you know, what is this? So I decided I, you know, something's up. So I threw the tarp off. And when I threw the tarp off, my left hand actually struck it, the body of this thing. And I hit it like right in the chest because I could just feel this pure muscle. Like, you know, like if you were to, you know, hit a strong man in the chest. chest, just that kind of solid bulk muscle. It wasn't fat. It was just solid muscle and it was covered in hair. Like, I mean, at the time, honestly, I had, I had kind of long hair and, you know,

big beard. And after seven days on the trail, it kind of felt a lot like my hair did. At the time, I had really coarse hair. And it gets super, you know, knotted and matted down. And that's kind of what this thing felt like, but it was even thicker than that. The hair was just, it was just incredibly coarse and, you know, it was just, it was hairy. This thing was really hairy. And so, as my hand hit it, I got to touch it for maybe a second. It was very quick. This thing took off back down toward my feet and back into the brush. And I just heard it, you know, crash on through the brambles down at my, at my end. So I'm fishing around from my head. So I'm fishing around my headlamp find my headlamp get up uh looking around no sign of anything at all except

you could see clearly where it had gone through all the brush so i started thinking about it i'm like all right you know trying to think logically um about it and i'm like all right maybe one of these big instructors got up or one of the big scoutmasters got up and you know maybe he's got a hairy chest or something and i just was half asleep so i go over to camp and i'm doing head counts and they they slept through the whole thing. None of them woke up for it. Uh, so they were all sound asleep. So got to exclude them. And so I was like, all right, well, you know, maybe I was a bear. You know, who knows? So I just, you know, because what else do you think, you know? And so I got back in the hammock and just kind of laid there and read a book till morning.

And it was probably like another hour and a half until the sun came up. Um, once the sun was up, I got up and did around through camp to see if I could find any tracks at all. And there was nothing because like I said it's pretty hard packed dirt and granite uh really difficult to determine anything so I couldn't find any prints but uh or any kind of tracks but I did find the definite path where it had crashed through going out at my feet and I mean it's it was thick bramble uh for this and this thing was out of view shot so quickly I remember that being something I was really amazed by how fast it was just gone I couldn't hear it anymore just kind of dumbfounded and uh so I was just like all right

well, you know, not going to, you know, not going to say much. I told the crew that we had had a bear in camp the previous night, because that's pretty much what I, you know, attributed to. And I kind of went from there. I was like, we'll just be real careful with our food at the next site. And so we packed up and we started heading on. And so this would be night eight at Robbins Island. So Robbins Island, you can find on one of the maps.

So the Fisher maps are using our F10 and F11, which makes sense for anybody that has those. The Robbins Island is on one of those two maps. So this is about 22 miles down, down the lake, the South Arm from where we were the night before. So we're kind of like midway down the South Arm of Knife camped on the small island. There's two campsites on the island there. And campsites are designated by a fire grate and a grumpur, which is just a toilet. We call it the grumper.

So anyhow, that's how you know it's, you know, you can camp there. So we started to settle on the island. I was like, less chance of bears potentially if we're on this small island. So, you know, we settle in, get there. And I had the boys working on camp setup. I had the two adults working on cooking dinner with the camp stove. And then I was going to get fire. So I'm outgathering firewood.

I was probably no more than a quarter mile down from camp. just kind of on a dead end little trail, maybe a game trail or something. But people had been using it to collect wood. It was pretty obvious. But there was tons of deadfall back there. So it was really easy pickings. So I'm back there and I'm collecting up firewood. And I hear off to my left side, I can't see over there.

That's why I've said it's so thick. But over to my left, I hear a scream. And there's been a few, I wish I could remember which sound it was that I've heard on YouTube. that was really close. But, I mean, it was loud. I've never heard anything like it. And it stopped me dead in my tracks. I mean, it stopped me and it kind of,

I don't say it, not the breath out of you, but I involuntarily almost barked back at it. Like, it just kind of took me by such a surprise that I just made a noise, an involuntary sound. It was really strange. And so I listened to it. I couldn't move. I was paralyzed.

And it screamed a second time. And this thing's coming closer from my left, almost like it's just kind of hauling toward me. And I'm like, this might be it right here. It's like, I don't even, I just didn't know what to do. But I'm standing there listening to it. It screams the second time, louder, angrier sounding. Then it goes a third time and a fourth time. And it's getting closer each time it does this.

By the fourth and the fifth one, it's. I was pretty amazed when I first heard about you guys' encounter the way you described like you got hit in the chest almost, you know? And then it did take the air out of me. That fourth and fifth one just completely took the air out of me. And I just didn't know, you know, I wanted to puke, it was dizzy, had no idea it was going on until, you know, I started doing research and learning about Infrasound and all that type of thing.

But, man, it just rattles you. It rattles your cage. but it screamed about like five times probably before I kind of like snapped to and I was like I got to get back to camp make sure my crew's all right so I run back without the woodpile and they're all kind of standing around just like what the hell is that and you know what do you tell you tell a bunch of 11 12 year old boys that you're in China and I had no idea what to tell them I told them it was a wild boar I made something up they don't have wild boar up there that's why I chose that but these guys are from Oklahoma and the two scoutmasters knew

immediately that that was not a bore. And I pulled them aside and I had to tell them that I didn't know. I had no idea what it was. So camp that night, I stayed pretty close to camp, actually. I was pretty scared. But, I mean, you know, because we had looked in this screen probably 13, 14 times total. And it seemed like it was kind of right through a grove of trees somewhere on, I guess, our part of the island. I'm not sure exactly, but I mean, it was horrifying.

So we didn't sleep all that well that night. But night nine, so this was the, I decided to kind of change it up for these guys a little bit. And we decided to do a night battle because nights were starting to get kind of intense. And I guess they were all kind of feeling it. And I was like, all right, guys, we're going to rest today. We'll sleep it off in the sun and fish all day, eat, and then pack up and head out at night. night and paddle almost the rest of the way back to base camp. So we did that. We had a really, you know, really mellow day. Nothing at all happened. And then we left around nine or ten that

night, packed up everything, and we headed out. We probably did, we were going southwest, back to our base. We did probably another 30, 35 miles. And you have to come through a, you go through it from Newfound Lake to Moose Lake, which Moose Lake is where our base camp is, and Newfound is connected to Moose by a really tiny pinch. So you can paddle between the two of them, but it's pretty narrow. You got to hit it straight on because this is pretty shallow water right through there.

It's kind of one or two feet deep. Fully loaded canoe, you'll bottom out if you're not dead center through this thing. It's probably 50 yards wide at the most. It's not a very large channel. So one, two a.m. probably, we're coming through there. We're shooting pinch right through the middle. I'm in the lead canoe sitting in the back of it, scaring it through there, show everybody else where to go.

And as we're right in the middle of this, a rock comes out of the right bank. And, I mean, when I say a rock, this thing was probably the size of, like, a basketball or a bowling ball. I mean, it was a very large rock, kind of a boxy-shaped rock. And it had an arc to it. I mean, this thing was, I don't know, probably 15, 16 feet in the air at the height of its arc. And it kind of had an arc and it flew way out all the way out to the middle to where we were. And it landed right in the canoe.

I mean, if we'd been two feet ahead, it would have swamped the canoe because they were Kevlar canoes. It would have crushed it. So it just, I was just dumbfounded, had no idea what to think. And I mean, yeah, it just, I was like, I don't know. I was like, I don't know guys. I was like paddle, we're going to the middle of the lake. So we got out in the middle of this lake and we tied off everything together and dropped an anchor. And we stayed out in the middle of the lake all night because I didn't know what else to do.

And I mean, it's that area, there's no way that it would have been like, you know, it didn't roll off of a cliff. There's no cliff right there. It's just trees. And this place is accessible by, you know, canoe and float plane, really. We were kind of near the motor trail, but not to the point where people are going to be sitting out. there with, I don't know, like a treachery, like what? You know what I mean? Like, what else would it be? And I just couldn't figure it out. I had no idea what to think about any of it. And neither did they. So we, we slept on night, kind of in a flotilla out there. And we, you know, we went back into base the

next day and we didn't really talk about it. They didn't want to talk about it. I didn't think I was really ready to talk about it because we weren't really sure what to think. And so I'm just going to kind of right it off as weird. And so I was, you know, at base camp and I said goodbye to my crew. And the next day, kind of in between trips, you would work on base and do some kind of maintenance style duties. So it was that next day, I was in the canoe yard. And a buddy of mine came back off of a trail.

And I had not seen him in a while. We trained together when we first got there. And we were both from down south. So, you know, we were kind of good buddies. and I was just going to talk to him, so I was helping him put a canoe away, and you could just see on his face that something was off, just kind of, you know, kind of the scene of ghost look.

And so I asked him, you know, how his trip was? And, of course, I'd not told him about anything that happened with us. And said, you know, how was your trip? And he said, you know, it was really good until they were, on their second to last night, they were camped on Birch Lake, which is right in the same area as Knife Lake. We were, I mean, pretty close.

One of their adult advisors, one of the scoutmasters, got up to go to the grumper, which, like I said, is a toilet. They call it the grumper because the bugs are so bad up there. Nobody ever wants to go use it. So he said he'd gone up there to go to the grumper, and he had just sat down. He said, no sooner he sat down. Then a gorilla ran across the path in front of him. That's what he called it.

He said a gorilla ran across the path in front of him, and that it had to have been like nine feet tall. this is based on the, you know, on the report from the scoutmaster. But, yeah, nine-foot-tall gorilla on two legs and it ran across the path in front of him. Just absolutely scared him to death. He came running back down the trail, and they packed up and left that camp that day and started paddling back toward base camp. And on their last night, they had a rock thrown at them in the exact same spot that we did at the pinch there. So I thought it was really interesting.

I started thinking about him saying that it was nine feet tall, and I thought about that night in my hammock, because I've not thought about the size so much, really. I guess so much had happened, but as a rule of thumb, I string my hammet pretty high. I just always do it. I like to sleep pretty up off the ground.

And so usually I'll string the ends of it as high as I can reach, and then that way the middle part is almost eye level for me, and I'm like six, too. that way when I'm in it I'm almost at my own eye level basically when I'm waiting in the hamming I was thinking about that and if I hit this thing in the chest and the chest was up at six feet

then I had to put the head at eight or nine and I just not thought about it in those terms until I heard about somebody saying a nine foot creature and yeah we just kind of right a loss for words but through those next couple of weeks we kept having crews come off off from that area

that had had heard screams or had rocks thrown at them or I don't think there was any other sightings. I think that was the only sighting, but just people kept coming back with these stories. And the thing you have to remember is we're not in communication out there. The best communication we have is a satellite phone that might work if you really need it. And that's if you're lucky.

We had no way to contact each other. There was no way for these stories to spread because we couldn't even be in contact with each other in the water. You can get fined for having more than nine people in your group. So it was very strict that you don't talk to other groups, you don't stop and communicate with them. So, I mean, there's just, there's no way that all these people, you know, you know what I mean? It's just. Yeah, it's interesting.

It's very interesting, actually. I wanted to ask you about the crying. Yeah. Did it sound like a woman crying or did it sound like a man crying? It sounded like a woman to me. it was just a little softer and not a whimper but just that in between kind of like that kind of

and it just kept coming but it was just kind of a constant sound a little bit like that and then it would stop there was never any real cry to it but definitely that kind of breathing rapid shuttered breathing and then it would there'd be nothing for a couple seconds and then it would happen again and that went on until it got into camp.

Once it was in camp, it went completely silent until, you know, until I guess the next day. If it was the same one, I'm not sure. But like I said, when I touched it, I didn't feel breast or anything on it. It felt like a male's chest. So I don't know.

Maybe a juvenile. I have no idea. Yeah, it's interesting. It makes you wonder why it didn't hurt you, almost like it was just curious on what in the world are you doing, hanging in this thing. That's what I was thinking, too.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, and the interesting part is, because I still didn't know exactly what it made of all of it until we were sitting around kind of probably a month or two later. Everything had calmed down. The reports had stopped. And we were sitting around in the base camp and we were talking about in staff lodge, just kind of talked about experiences. And one of the, the veteran staff had been there for years, was kind of sitting over in the back of the room and just had a smile on his face. Let's chuckling. And somebody finally, you know, asked him what he's laughing about.

And he said, yeah, it's about time somebody else saw him. Just like it wasn't news to him at all that they were up there. Yeah. And that's interesting. Yeah, it is. It's really interesting. Well, what's interesting is this one, it almost makes you wonder, I mean, 22 miles really isn't that far for these things. But to get, have one come into camp, kind of stand over the top of you and then take off.

And we can assume it's probably a Sasquatch. I don't think it was a bear. But then to get a different type of behavior as you guys are going down the river, you know, that boulder would have, you know, even in a boat, man, you could sink a boat throwing a bowling by bowling ball size rock towards a boat. Oh, most definitely. And, you know, and you see the strength of them too. I know what you mean like the night I had a log thrown at my head.

I was like, wow, this thing really had some force behind it. Just like that, you know, what man's going to throw a bowling ball size? rock and launch it in the air like that. It's just, you know, I don't think it's possible unless it's a big man out there. Interesting. Have you, have you been back to that area since you had this encounter? No, unfortunately not. I was only up there doing a summer internship. I guess I went when I was 17 and did an expedition myself as a scout and nothing happened, nothing like that at all. But yeah, I was only there for a summer. I had planned to go back and then it kind of fell through. So, no, that's it, man. That was my one summer up there. I'd like.

to go back for sure. Yeah, and then the other guy's saying he saw a nine-foot-tall gorilla go running through, you know, while he's trying to use the bathroom. Did the Scoutmaster ever come out and say what he had seen, or did he just kind of smirk and say, yeah, they're real? No, he never really talked too much about it. I know I've heard a couple of stories because he also runs winter expeditions up there, which is actually dog sledding, snowshoeing on the frozen lakes.

And I know he has a couple of stories about finding Prince. in the snow, pretty big ones. I'm not really sure on measurements or anything, or even if he got pictures. But I don't know. I'd have to ask him. I'll see if I can get in contact with him. Yeah. And you know, the guy that sell the nine-foot-tall gorilla, I mean, that really makes

no sense. You said this happened in Minnesota? Yeah, northern Minnesota. Yeah, there's no guerrillas in northern Minnesota. Yeah. But what a terrible time to run into one when you're, you know, trying to do your business. Yeah. Well, we're a good place.

Because then if you crap yourself, you're in the right place. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Well, and so is that what got you interested in this field in the topic of Bigfoot, just this whole incident? Yeah, definitely. It is. And I've been pretty lucky. I mean, in school I studied outdoor recreation and outdoor ed.

So a lot of work I've done has been, you know, guide style or camp counselor style work. So I've actually had a really good platform to tell the story. And I don't know, people kind of love it. And it's like the one area I can work in and tell that story and not. Because I try to tell it at the bar after a day in the kitchen and people are like, man, this guy's nuts. Yeah, not as crazy as they might think, though. A lot of people have these type of encounters a lot, especially hunters and, you know, guides, people out hiking. And it makes you wonder if, you know, obviously you guys are going down river.

The thing I never understand about the rock throwing incident is why? You know, if you're floating down a river, you're moving out of an area, why throw a rock at someone like that? Just to make yourself known? What was your take on it? You know, I think the whole time, you know, we were too close. I think maybe, and because so many crews were coming back from that area, I think maybe that area. I think maybe that area got crowded just with people. And because it's not super far out from the base camp.

So you are prone to run into more people, you know, the closer you are to the motor trail. So, you know, yeah, I think my theory potentially is that the one that came up on me while I was asleep, like you said, it just was surprised and I startled it. And then maybe it, you know, went out and, all right, there's people everywhere. and maybe they were continuing to maybe kind of chauffeur us out in a way from their area, just in terms of maybe there would be multiple ones with screams and the rock throwing, but I have no idea.

That's who we can say. Yeah, that makes sense. It sounds like they were frustrated that you were in the area, you know, with the screaming you mentioned and then the rock throwing stuff. What did the kids think? Were they just freaking out? I mean, I think you did this right thing. I mean, staying out in the middle of the lake, even though these things can swim.

I think you did the right thing. But what did the kids say to you? They, well, I mean, you know, half of them were super interested and, you know, wanted to sharpen some sticks and go find it. And the other half were just wanted to go home. But yeah, like I said, we didn't really, I didn't talk much to the crew about it because the topic of Bigfoot had not really come up at that point. At that point, it was still just strange happenings, you know, from our standpoint, because I had not learned about the sighting yet, so it didn't really click until after they had already left. But I think one kid said, he was like maybe a UFO dropped it from the sky or something.

I remember saying out about the rap. That was like the one theory I think any of them had. And at the time, that was as good as anything, you know. I had no idea what to think. What do you think that these things are, Chuck? What's your own personal opinion? What do you think Sasquatch is? I mean, I definitely think they're animals.

You know, I'm definitely not what you guys call the flute player crowd. Yeah, I think they're animals. I think they're really smart animals, way smarter than people were ready to give them credit for. I think that's why they obviously remain so elusive because they know better. They know better. Yeah, you definitely could be right. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to share the encounter. You have to let me know.

I know you do a lot of guidework. can you do a lot of different things? You're out in the wild a lot. You'll have to let me know if anything new happens while you're out there, will you? Yeah, it definitely will. If you got just a couple minutes, I've got one other thing that happened in North Carolina that was just curious. Kind of interesting. You got time? Yeah, of course. Of course. Okay. So I was with a buddy. We were, so this was right near Boone, North Carolina. So this is Western North Carolina in the Appalachians. And we were going out camping. was probably, this might have been, this was probably right before I actually went out there. It's probably a year before I went up to Minnesota. We were going out to find a waterfall called Little Lost Cove Creek Falls.

And it's, it is pretty hidden. And we missed the trail. We got entirely lost. So we finally were coming back up. We were getting near our camp. We were back on course, and the sun was starting to go down. And we were up kind of on a trail that was running up kind of on a ridge line. not quite a ridge long.

We weren't on the ridge yet, but we were kind of on a switchback with it. We had a real steep bluff on the side, and there was a creek kind of down on the bottom. And it was kind of twilight you could see a little bit. And we heard just these huge footsteps down in the creek, just kind of stomping around like somebody was just really stomping in the water. And we stopped and kind of looked down and just straining through the dark.

You could see a really large, upright figure down in this creek. and it was just kind of stomping around and being loud. We didn't really know what to do. We were just, we were over it. We were lost. We were tired. We were ready to get back to camp. So I was like,

all right, man, let's run, because we didn't have a weapon or anything. So we just, let's book it. So we just ran back to camp. It didn't investigate further. But that night,

we had, you know, just twigs snapping, like branches breaking. But it didn't sound like, sounded more like when you, like, break a dead branch off of a tree,

for firewood or something like add more of a pop quality to it like when you break pine branches they they pop yeah kind of sounds like a gunshot almost yeah yeah totally um we had that happening off in the woods all around us for most of the night um along with just something scurrying around we ended up in the in the vehicle actually but that next morning we got up and i went to get breakfast out of the out of the bear hang and found that the bear hang had been taken down but not ripped down. It had been untied and dropped down. And the bag was open and all of the fresh produce was gone. Like anything smellable. Like our fruit was gone. I think there was two apples and a banana. We had some blueberries in there. But we also had canned goods. And all the canned goods were still

there. Because the first I was like, I was like, I guess somebody just came into our campsite and stole our stuff. But why wouldn't they just take the whole thing? Like take the bag and the rope to, you know? And I never thought about it, so I started listening to you guys' show and hearing about them getting into like chicken pins and things like that with, you know, door lashes and locks and something that you need thumbs for. And then it kind of clicked. I was like, oh, maybe, you know, maybe that happened to us too. And we got Rob Buss Saskatch. Yeah, yeah, I know. They tend to do that.

I actually had a guy on, gosh, I can't even tell you how long ago. He had the bear hang thing like you're talking about where they keep all their. food up high, you know, away from so bears won't come. And he woke up in the middle night and he told me that a gorilla had untied it and actually had the bag and was digging through the bag and taking stuff. And he was, I said, you sure it was a gorilla? And he goes, well, it looked like a gorilla. And they made eye contact and it didn't leave. It kept grabbing stuff out of the bag. And then it dropped the bag on the ground and then walked off with, you know, like you said, produce and not really canned goods, but just food that they.

had in there, just walked off with it. How high up was that bear hang? Let's see, the bag itself was probably, I'd say 16 feet up off the ground. It was up there. Yeah, that's really far up there. And so it's something had to untied it and actually taking the food out. That's fascinating. Well, yeah, I mean, you really have to, bears honestly aren't that bad about getting into food. is really raccoons that that's why it was up so high because those raccoons will they'll climb down the rope and get into your bag but they'll knock it off from up top and the rope will still be in there still be in the tree hanging down you know or they'll like just slip the bag through the knot or hang on it until something comes untied or you know but this thing had been untied from the base

of the tree and lowered the way you would take it down which i thought was interesting what did your friend think that you're with? He's never talked about it a whole lot. You know, I'm not really sure, because I didn't know what to think either. I still thought that I thought it was kind of a Blair Witch situation. There was some hillbillies out in the bush just messing with us. And I guess that's kind of what I guess I had him convinced on that too. I didn't know what else I think.

Nothing else really made any sense. Does it worry you at all going out there? I mean, and having these experiences, you know, with this thing in North Carolina and the thing that happened in Minnesota, I know just from talking to you briefly, you're an outdoors guy. Does it worry at all going out there, especially at night? Because, I mean, now that you know that they're real? Yeah, you always have it in the back of your mind.

But, I mean, it definitely makes me more vigilant. Even when I drive at night on the country road, I'm always looking, you know. It just really makes you aware when you know they're out there and what they can do. I've dealt with bears. I hear a lot of people say that, like, they've been in the woods for however long, and they've only ever seen a bear once. I've seen a ton of bears. I don't know what it is about me, but bears seem to find me.

You know, bears are one thing. I can deal with bears. But, yeah, having that kind of weird just thing in the back of your mind, like, you know, because you don't have a frame of reference for it at all, so it's hard to. Yeah, I think it's the unpredictability of it. You know, a bear is pretty predictable on what it's going to do. Yeah. And you can, yeah.

And you can kind of adjust. on your behavior based on a bear just because they are predictable. You know, like here in Washington State, I've said it a million times, but here in Washington State, man, they're skittish. They will, I've seen bears run. And you don't even really have to do anything. If they sense that you're in the area, they are gone. They want nothing to do with you.

Oh, yeah, I've seen, yeah, because we have black bears where I am too. And it's, I mean, they're, um, as well as back home in North Carolina, and I've only ever had one black bear charged me. And I hit it in the face with the canoe paddle and it took off. So, I mean, they're not, yeah, they're just kind of like big dogs almost. Yeah, kind of. And for them to walk, I mean, for this thing to walk up and basically stand over the top of you while you're in your hammock, that's pretty ballsy, man.

That's a very ballsy behavior. You know, a bear might stumble over there if it, I don't even know if a bear would come up to you like that in a hammock, unless it didn't realize you were there. Well, actually, it has happened. I had, it was probably two or three months back. I was camped here in Colorado and I woke up with three bears around my hammock. I mean, one was so close I could have reached out and kissed a good night. No kidding, huh?

Yeah. Black bears? I mean, was it black bears? Yeah, they were cinnamon colored, but they're black bears. But I mean, you know, it's, but they're obvious. It was obviously it was a bear because I heard it. I knew it before I opened my eyes because I heard the sniffing. And I just knew it was a bear because I've heard bears sniff around before.

And it just, I was like, yep, we got a bear. And then that's one of my eyes and saw the other two. And what did they do? Did they leave? Did they leave? Yeah, they just sniffed through camp and checked out the back of the truck and then they left. But yeah, you know, they're obvious. It was obvious they were there.

This thing, when it was standing next to my hammock, it was silent other than its breathing alone. But, I mean, yeah. I wanted to ask you about the breathing. How would you describe that breathing? So I've actually heard a couple of people. And I think you guys actually described it too, like with the where you can hear the inhale and the exhale. Yeah. Yeah, kind of the,

just like it was very congested sounding breathing, but it was just, you know, you could hear it in and out. Kind of a constant sound. Did it remind you of like a sick bear, like a sick animal? A little bit, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it did.

It sounded like, yeah, just something with bad chest congestion, really. Yeah, and I had a scream. I wish I could play it at the moment. I don't have it loaded up. But there's a scream I wanted you to listen to and see if it was close. The scream that you heard, was it, how would you describe it?

I know, like for me when I was in Texas and I heard the thing screaming at us, I mean, I said like a demonic scream. I mean, it sounded, it sounded, it sounded like a pissed off woman, kind of, I guess. Maybe that's a bad way to describe it. How would you describe the scream that you heard, though? It kind of had, almost like you said, kind of a, almost like a demonic. quality because it had such low tones in it. But I think part of that description comes from being able to feel it a little bit too. Because that just kind of, I don't know, it doesn't sit right.

But in terms of like the rest of the sound, it was almost kind of that, you hear people talk about that blend of like a lion and an elephant and maybe like a little bit of wild boar actually in there. I mean, it just was so many weird sounds kind of rolled into one, but nothing I'd ever heard before specifically. Yeah, it did have a bit of a lion's roar type quality to it. But it also was not one consistent, like one of those nice long notes that you hear sometimes in recordings. It was kind of all over the place to scream. I know, like in Texas, what, so if you hear like, let's say there's a woman that just screams, it's one note.

It's one constant. You know, when we as human scream, it's pretty much a constant note. And I don't know if you experience this, but when I was in Texas and I heard it screaming, it was like 10 different notes all in one, but it was one big scream. But it was like up and down, up and down, really high, really low, up and down. You know, that's a terrible way to describe it. I don't know if that makes sense. No, but I know what you mean because that's, yeah, that's exactly what I experienced too.

It was, yeah, it had, it was like listening to almost like multiple people. pitches maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Strange, strange sound. Yeah, not like a, you know, like when a cougar, even a cougar screams, it's one note.

And that'll, you know, cougars make weird noises, but they have one note when they scream. And when this thing screamed, like I said, it was like multiple notes. It was the same sound, but it was multiple notes. I don't know if that makes any sense or not. Yeah, it definitely does make sense. To somebody who's heard it, it totally makes sense. And do you think that it was screaming at you?

because it was irritated you guys were there? I mean, is that what your impression of the scream was? Maybe so. I mean, yeah, I'm not really sure because I feel like we were on that island all day. I don't know. It just seemed like if there was something on the island, we would have known that it was there fairly soon after we got there. You could walk from one end of the island to the other in five minutes.

I mean, it was tiny. And the boys had already gone out and explored. the whole thing. So it just, it does seem like it followed us there. Maybe not the same one from the hammock experience, but maybe another one followed us there and was continuing to try to us away and on down the river. So, uh, yeah. When you're talking about North Carolina too, um, and hearing that, that popping sound, you know, sometimes, um, hunters and I've had different hunters explain it to me and they said it sounds like gunshots, but it's not a gunshot. And it's that really strong.

The branches, in order to make a sound like that with wood, you have to have a pretty thick piece of wood that you're going to snap in order to get that pop sound. And the strength you have to have to do that, I don't think there's a person out there that could do that. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, I've broken some, you know, make that loud pop, but once it pops, it's enough to throw you off your feet, like you'll almost go flying backwards. when it finally gives.

But that's, yeah, it's exactly like that. I mean, they were just, they're big. And it was, you know, it takes me, if I was going to break one of those off, and I'd have to work on it for a minute. It was pretty constant. I mean, one would snap, and then another one would snap. And then here another one, you know, kind of off on the opposite direction because we were camped in a round clearing.

And so it was like, you know, you'd hear one at 12 o'clock, and you'd hear one at six o'clock. And it was just coming from all directions that it sounded like. it's hard to really tell being in the mountains. Sound can be funny, but it sounded like we were surrounded. Yeah, and you probably were. And it's interesting that they came in for the food as soon as you left. You know, it's like the old saying they're campsite robbers, you know.

They come in and take your stuff. I mean, you hear old reports like that, although you can read them online of where old miners will be out. And these things will come in and rob them, take their stuff. I think even Albert Otzman talked about that, about them. going to... I was actually, I was just listening to his story on astonishing legends yesterday. Yeah, and he talked about that. In his own encounter, he talked about how I think, man, I even did a show on it.

I think before he was actually taken a couple nights in a row, something had gone through his bag and was taking food. It was taking different things that he had packed for the trip. Right. But hadn't taken the bag. It actually just opened the bag. It was like, yeah. prunes, I think. It was like a bag of prunes and some flour.

Yeah, I think you're right. It was prunes and it was flour and it was something else. I forget what they call it. It's an old, I want to say taft. That's not right, though. But it's like a hard bread and it was taken that. It took a bunch of stuff. So it's definitely a behavior that's been reported for a long, long time that they will come in. And thank God, you know, if you're in an area, I would hope they would come through and just take your stuff and leave you alone. You know what I mean? I'd probably let them have it. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I appreciate it, man. I appreciate you taking the time to come on the show. It was an awesome encounter. I mean, kind of a terrifying encounter. I don't blame me for, like I said, did you guys go out on the night stroll down the river because of the screaming and you were just trying to get out of there? Or was that? Basically, yeah, that was kind of my plan was to give them a day because, you know, the night after the screams, we didn't really sleep much at all. We were up by the fire to almost three in the morning already. And then we maybe got an eye.

hour. And so I just wanted to give them kind of a change up the schedule and give them a day to sleep. And then it would be our last night anyway. And so, you know, we'd sleep during the day and be awake through the night and moving. And they really like that idea. So that was the whole reason for doing that. Well, I appreciate you sharing it, man. I appreciate you taking the time to come on and share it. I really enjoyed talking with you. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'll be sure to let you guys know if I have anything happened here in Toronto. Yeah, please do. Please do.

And I'll be down in Colorado probably in a couple of months. We'll have to a cup. I'll buy your beer. Very cool, man. That's awesome. All right, brother. Well, thanks again. That's take it easy, Wes.

And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. I will be back on Sunday for the members. Until next time, everyone, have a great night. Being across the country faster than the coronavirus and wagering week is your end. 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.