Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:552 Boy Scouts VS Sasquatch

Episode Date: June 21, 2019

A listener writes "My cousin and I were in a church sponsored scout troop in St. Louis, Missouri. We decided that we wanted to go to scout summer camp and since there weren't enough in our troop that wanted to go we hooked up with another troop in Hillsburo that was also with our church. We paid our fees and were taken south of St. Louis to Hillsburo and then that Monday morning we arrived at S-F Scout Ranch ( pronounced S bar F). Our troop was assigned a camp site and we went out and made ourselves at home. We followed a path for a couple of hundred yards out from the camp building and here and there there were paths that branched off to the various camp sites. Ours was one of the outlying camps and was at the end of the lake that was there. The lake was huge. It wasn't too wide you could canoe across it in a few minutes but seemed miles long. From out camp we could just see the lake through the trees. Paul and I were just a couple of inner city boys on our first scout camp. Tents were already set up in a circle around a table and fire pit. Our scout leader brought what he called a fly, a tarp supported with poles that we put up over the table to have a dry place to eat when it rains. There was a short pole on the table the went up to the center of the tart where there was a small hole for the pole to go in and it brought the tarp up to a point over the table. The camp supplied a plywood box with a padlock for us to put our food in that we picked up every day at the px. We never locked the padlock since there weren't any bears around but there were raccoons, skunks and other varmints. The first night I found out how heavy a sleeper Paul was. Normal midnight hijinkage with the new boys the others tried to tip my cot over from the out side of the tent. I heard them coming stealthy like and kept them from pushing mine over but Paul was already asleep and they dumped him over on the floor and ran laughing. Paul picked himself up and as he got back in the cot he asked what happened. This was all by flashlight since there was no electricity at the camp. The next day Paul didn't remember being knocked over and talking to me. Heavy sleeper. The third night is when the encounter happened. I, unlike Paul, am a light sleeper, now more than I was before that night. I was awakened by something late at night. Didn't know what it was and couldn't hear anything at first then I thought I heard something moving around the table. So I got out of the cot and put my left hand on the pole by the door of the tent and with my right I slowly pushed open the tent flap. At first I thought I saw someone at the table but in the moonlight and it being under the tarp I could quite tell what it was. At first I thought it was a bear, but I remember the camp people telling us there were no bear in the area. Suddenly there was a crack and a soft grunt and I could see, my eyes were adjusting to the moonlight, that it was a bigfoot and that it had pried open the food box from the side and bent it up off the hinge. Suddenly I was soo scared I couldn't move. I watched a sasquatch from about fifteen feet from the side over it's left shoulder as it was moving something white from the box to it's mouth. Bread… it was eating our bread. After watching for a while I realized I wasn't breathing and not wanting it to know I was there I slowly exhaled and took in a breath. Still frozen in place I watched it eat an entire loaf of bread and then start rummaging in the box for more. It found our donuts and ate those. And then suddenly there was a scream of BEAR from across the camp. The sasquatch was leaning over the table and as it had been eating it would straighten up some and it's head would disappear into the pointed center of the fly and I couldn't see it's head but when it was lower it would turn from side to side as it chewed. It was darker under the fly since it was out of the moonlight but I could see the profile. I could not see eyeshine and the eyes did not glow red. When the scream of BEAR rang out the sasquatch stood up straight and when it did it ripped the pegs out of the ground and the fly began to collapse around it's head. It let out a yell and swung it's arms around and the fly fell across the table. It turn away from the yell and it noticed me there. It paused for only and instance and then walked quickly towards me. I thought it was coming after me but it was really going between my tent and the next one over. It's foot got caught on the loose rope and peg from the collapsed fly and pulled it for a second and it seemed to turn that was and pulled it's leg out of the rope and then disappeared between the tents. I don't know what came over me but as it went by I stepped out of the tent and watched it disappear into the trees. Lights began appearing from all over the place as everybody but Paul had been awakened in our camp and the adjoining camps. The boy who yelled Bear said he just saw the dark shape since it was all he could see under the tarp outlined by the moonlight on my tent and then he ducked back into his tent. I tried to convince everyone that I could see what it was and that it was a bigfoot. Sasquatch wasn't really used then and in Missouri it's called Mo Mo the monster. The next morning there were no tracks since it was a heavy traveled area and I didn't really feel inclined to go searching for proof in the woods on my own. We had a canoe trip planned for that day and a campout on the other side of the lake. We went and during the night it began to rain and since there was the threat of lighting hitting the lake we hiked in the dark around that massive lake in the rain. The whole way I was searching the woods for the bigfoot. I could hardly sleep the rest of the week and couldn't wait for the camp to end. The sasquatch was big but not huge. I was able to walk under the fly without ducking down but our scout leader couldn't. He had to duck and little so it must have been just below 6 feet at the edge. The sasquatch was hunched under the tarp and it's head would disappear in the peak as it ate. When I stood up it was tall enough to collapse the tarp on itself so it must have been 7 feet tall or more. When it turned and walked past me I was looking up at it's face and it seemed to tower over the tent. I could feel each step as it went by and it looked big and thick. Lots more detail if your interested and I am willing to communicate more on the encounter."  

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? 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. 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. Apparently, that's the only Australian song I know.

Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show planned for you tonight. We'll be talking to Robert, and Robert comes to us from Australia. he grew up in the States, and when he was very young, he had an encounter with one of these creatures in a Boy Scout camp. It's a very fascinating account, and it's very interesting to hear the behavior of the creature coming in, trying to take food. 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, check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Robert to the show. Robert, thanks for coming on. Oh, no problem. Yeah, I appreciate you being here all the way from Australia. And I know when you grew up in the States, and I know you had an encounter in Missouri when you're very young,

if you would, would you take us back to that moment? Tell us what you were doing, and what did you see? Okay, so to sort of set the scene, I was about 14 years old. And I guess I was an average-sized kid. I wrestled in junior high about 126 pounds. So I was just an average-sized 14-year-old. My cousin and I grew up in St. Louis.

We were in the scouts, and we wanted to go to scout camp. And so we hooked up with the scout troop that was going to camp for the summer. It was a week-long scout camp. and we drove south from St. Louis to a town called Hillsborough and stayed the night with the scout leader that was going. And then the next morning we drove further south towards Cape Girardo in Fredericks Town, if I remember. And then we cut back from the south and went northwest a little bit towards Iron Mountain. and then got to S-Barr-F Scout Ranch,

parked the vehicles around the PX, the main buildings, and then we were shown on a map where our campsite was. And there was this huge lake, a big, beautiful lake. It wasn't very wide. You could canoe across it in just a few minutes, but it seemed like it was miles long. And from the PX and the main buildings, it was right on the edge of the lake.

and we followed the map and periodically along the path there were branches the paths that branched off into the various campsites and ours was further around the end of the lake and we went on the side trail into the camp and there was a picnic table in the middle of a clearing and a fire pit and the tents were already built they had a wooden base on it and they were the heavy, thick olive drab boy scout tents that a pole up either side of them, and then they were stretched out and pegged into the ground. Our scout leader made us tighten everything so that it was, the ropes would ring like a drum. They had two cots in it, so there were two of us in each tent, and I shared a tent with my cousin Paul, put a sleeping bag on the cot and my thing's in a box underneath the cot. Our scout leader, because in Missouri it rains quite a bit, he had brought what he called a fly. It was a tarp that had poles in each corner and then it had a pole in the middle that he apparently went to scout camp every year.

it was made to sit on the top of the picnic table and would poke up through the center of the tarp, and then the corners were pegged down with ropes, two ropes from each corner. And the picnic table sat in the middle, but there was some space on either side. So if you were sitting at the picnic table that was raining, you were completely out of the rain. It must have been 10 or so feet wide when you find. followed the path into the clearing where our campsite was, my tent was across from the main path on the other side of the picnic table in the fire pit with the back of my tent facing just the woods that went out into the ranch. It was a really heavy, heavily wooded area. It looks like

they chose campsites where there were small clans. clearings. So it was a natural just clearing where there weren't as many trees and then they set up these camps there. And they'd been using these camps for a long time. So it was really heavily traveled on. So the paths were really hard packed in the area around the main part of the camp was hard packed dirt. But from the edge of the tents back, it was grass and leaves and maybe 20 feet, 20 feet back from my tent, the woods started. So here we were in this, this clearing in the scout camp. That night there were some activities and we signed up for merit badge classes. Tuesday morning we started the marriage badge classes and had swimming and canoeing.

I remember being back at the campsite and I heard these funny noises and I asked, and I asked, my scout leader what they were and we listened for a while and I heard him and he goes I think those are water birds but now I know what they were it was a whoop who just this whooping sound but it sounded to a city kid you don't know what it sounds like either he didn't know what it was and was guessing or he knew what it was and was telling me something else but anyway he told me it was a a bird. It was a whoop. I don't remember any wood knocking or stones or anything like that.

Just I heard the whoops. The third day, we went through the same routine, classes, cooking over the fire, s'mores and donuts. And we had on the picnic table a wooden box that had two ropes on the side for handles. And in the morning we would go to the PX and we would pick up the food for the day and then the breakfast food for the next morning. So we'd have breakfast and we'd carry it and get our food and then carry it back to the camp and it would have our lunch and dinner and the next breakfast. So at the end of the night on the third night, so this was Wednesday night, we'd mess around in the camp and had a fire and it had burned down and it was late. and we didn't lock up the box, but it had a clasp on it, and the scout leader put a padlock through it, but he didn't lock it.

We were told there were no bears in the area, but we saw raccoons, and when we were on a hike, we smelled a skunk. So I knew there were skunks around there. There were squirrels and other varmints. So it was a good idea to at least put the padlock through the clasp. A raccoon could figure out how to open it if it was just hanging there. So it had bread and it had donuts. And I think it had graham crackers. We had s'mores.

So there might have been some chocolate and marshmallows in there. So I went to sleep. And that week at the camp, it was clear and then it rained on Tuesday. and then Wednesday it was clear, and it was a moonlit night. And for a kid growing up in St. Louis, with streetlights on every corner and halfway around down the block and that, moonlight doesn't make much difference. You don't see a lot of stars in the city. There's just too much light pollution.

But for me, it was amazing how clear the skies were and you could see stars and the moon was just brilliant. inside the tent it was just pitch dark i mean literally pitch dark and uh we went to bed i see now i'm starting to feel shivers while i'm talking about this and i went to bed and my cousin was just this incredibly heavy sleeper um we were new in the in the troop and the first night to just to kind of break us in they tried to dump our cots over and uh i i heard him coming and i kept my cop from the dumped over, but Paul was already asleep. And they dumped him on the floor. And he got himself back up and asked me, what happened? And climbed back in his bed. And I laughed at him and told him what had

happened to him. And he went right back to sleep the next day he didn't remember any of it. So there's this, my cousin's sleeping like a log. And I fall asleep. And it's pitch dark inside the tent. Everything quieted down. It's so quiet that if there's someone in an adjacent camp that's up sitting by their fire and talking, I could hear it in my tent. But everything had quieted it down and it was really late and I was asleep and I don't know what woke me up, but I suddenly found myself awake and I didn't know what it caused me to wake up. So I laid in my cot and then I heard a crack and a grunt. And I thought, there's something out there.

And so I stood up and I creeped over to the tent flap. And I grabbed the tent pole with my left hand and with my right hand. I slid my fingers in the gap and opened it up. So when I was looking out, I was looking straight across the camp towards a picnic table. And it was in the moonlight. And there was a dark feeling. figure. So I was in the pitch black of the tent. And now I'm looking out into the moonlight. And it took a minute or so for my eyes to adjust. And I saw this dark figure leaning over the picnic table. And it was darker underneath the tarp. And the moon was shining on the top of the tarp, but it was in shadow underneath. And as my eyes adjusted, at first I thought it was a bear. But I remember we were told there were no bears in the area.

And as my eyes adjusted more, it was way too big to be a bear. And a bear just looks like a big, it's got a canine feel to it. Its limbs are about the same length, and they're round and fat and furry. They have a bear look to him. And this was not a bear. And a few years before, this was in the 70s, this was about 1977, when I was a kid, I can remember my mother yelling at me once from the front room, come and watch Momo the Monster on TV.

So I ran in and watched the news. And what it was was the Patterson Gimlin film was being shown on the news. And they did an article or a news segment on this film. In Missouri, they call it Momo the Monster. So I'd seen what they call now Patty. So I was peering through this tent flap. And when my eyes adjusted, I could see it wasn't a bearer. And I was looking, it was at an angle to me so that I was looking sort of over its left shoulder.

And it had its arms. It had its left arm on the table. And from about its shoulder up. up, I couldn't see it because its shoulder up was inside the peak of the tarp and totally in shadow and I couldn't see it. But then I could sort of see as something white was being taken out of the box. Geez, I'm shaking. Something white was being taken out of the box and then lifted up higher into the peak. and then it leaned over and peered around.

And I remember thinking, I was so scared. I wasn't thinking. I was just so scared. I was so frozen that after a minute or so I realized I wasn't even breathing. And I was watching this Sasquatch eating the bread out of our body. on this table. And I didn't want to do a big exhale because I thought it would hear me

because it was just deathly quiet except that you could sort of hear the eating noise as it was shoving bread in its mouth. And so I carefully let the air out of my lungs. And then I didn't want to do a big exhale and then you stick your head up out of water while you're holding your breath.

I let the air out, and then I slowly inhaled. And as it was eating periodically, it would lower its shoulders and head down and peer from side to side. And because it was under the shadow of the tarp, I couldn't see any light on it, but I could see its profile on the tents that were across. and just I could just see it peering around.

And it must have, I don't know how long I watched it, but it was an entire loaf of bread. It ate that entire loaf of bread while I was watching. And then it rummaged around in the box. And it was supporting itself with its left hand on the table. So it was rummaging around in the box with its right hand. and its body was between me and the right, but I could hear it, hear that it was rum and geron. And then it started eating some more, so I think it found the donuts and was starting to eat those.

And I was frozen, and I didn't think about anything else, just watching it. I even had a camera. I didn't even think about getting the camera. It was an old Polaroid with a little flash cube setting on top. So I could have taken a flash, you know, a flash picture of it. But I was frozen in place. I didn't think about that camera. I didn't think about anything.

I was just mesmerized and just too scared to move. So it was eating some more. And then all of a sudden, someone yells, bear, bear in the camp. It startled me. And I remember jerking. And it startled the Sasquatch because when this yell broke out, bear in the camp, it stood up all the way. And when it stood up, it was taller than the tarp was over the picnic table. And it pulled up the pegs from one of the corners.

and it collapsed on it. And when that tarp collapsed on it, it started to yell. And at first the yell was muffled. So I'm thinking that it had a mouth full of donut. And once it cleared its mouth, the yell got louder and it threw the tarp off of itself. And then the yell stopped.

As soon as the tarp was off of it, it stopped yelling. And it turned around. And when it turned around, it was it was facing me directly. And I'm in the moonlight. The moon is just shining right on me. And so what it would have seen was one hand on the pole and one hand on that tin flap. In my face there, a white t-shirt and I had shorts on and then my skinny white legs. So it could see me.

But it, gosh, still shaking. I couldn't see a lot of detail on its face. I didn't see eyes shine. I didn't see glowing red eyes. Where its eyes were, it was just dark and shaded. It had a pointed head or a cone shape to its head. It looked like it had no neck. It looked like it was shoulders with just kind of a peaked bump on it in the middle of the shoulders where its head should be.

when it was leaning over the table and chewing when it was leaning over and peering around and chewing on what it was eating I could see that its jaws were really really big a big jaw the nose was kind of flat but I couldn't really see the eyes it was just too dark under there

and then and then it turned towards me and for just that an instant it was turned towards me and then it took a step and when it took a step its foot was caught on the rope that it got pulled loose or it was just around it and it kicked its right leg and got that rope off and then thump thump two steps and that 15 feet seemed to be covered. And it was between, and I thought it was coming towards me, but it wasn't. It was going between my tent and the next tent over. And two steps, and it was thump, and you could feel it. And it was to the edge of the tent. And a third step, and it was passed. And at that point,

I don't know what came over me. I stepped out of the tent really quickly and leaned over around the corner and watched it and it didn't even give it backward glance three or four more steps and the distance between the tent and the woods was covered and once it was in the woods i couldn't see it at all it was like stealthy disappeared it was just gone it was dark in the woods and it just blended in uh and bedlam broke out that yell even though it was muffled at the first at and at first, it was loud. It wasn't a scream. It was more of a frustrated, like the sauce watch going, what the hell is on me?

And it was flapping its arms, and then it threw off that tarp. And when it threw it towards the table, it pulled that rope over. But as soon as it was off, the yell stopped. But it woke everybody up. And everybody came out of their tents. and the scouts and the scout leader from the other camp came over our way with flashlights. And I don't know, maybe how long does it take a sauce squash to eat a loaf of bread and some donuts? That's how long it lasted.

Five, ten minutes. When it walked by the tent, it was so close. I couldn't have reached out and touched it. But as big as it was, it could have easily just stuck its arm out and touched me on the face as it went by. It was our scout leader could, he would duck down just a little bit as he got to the edge of that fly, that tarp. And I would think that he was an average-sized, you know, an American adult. So he would have been near six foot with the hat on and he ducked underneath him. then he could stand underneath it.

I could just walk under the thing. So it must have been, the edge of the tart must have been just below six feet. So it was leaning over on that table and it was supporting its weight because it was leaning over so much with its left hand. But I could see that left arm was long. And it looked disproportion to me. It seemed like the legs were shorter than a body. body that size should have had. And the arms seemed, the arms seemed like they were long enough for a body that size,

but the legs seemed like it had longer arms and it did legs. But when it walked by, it could have easily reached out and touched me. It was that big. And it seems like they're all shoulders. It was just wide. And I'm thinking when I got out as it was still passing my tent. and it seemed like it was a foot or two over my tent. So it had to have been seven to eight feet tall.

Yeah, being 14 and having something run past you like that and experiencing something like that. I feel for you, man. I'm curious, Robert, when it ran past you, did you smell anything? Was there any sort of odor as it went by? I don't remember a smell. It's just You know, people talk about the stink I know what a skunk smells like

And people talk about it's like a skunk times a thousand But I don't know if I was just so scared or what But no one else seemed to mention a smell either Yeah, I would say with most encounters, Robert The smell really doesn't get reported It's pretty hit and miss and it's random people do report a smell, but I would say most people don't. And he had a very unique opportunity.

I know it doesn't feel like it now, and it probably didn't feel like it then. But you had a very unique opportunity to watch this thing, come in, eat your food. Because it does get reported. I mean, miners, people who are out in the woods all the time, they'll call them campsite robbers. They'll say they'll come in, take your stuff in the middle of the night. And you got an opportunity to actually watch it, do it. I'm curious with the fear, was it seeing something unknown? Was it seeing something your mother had shown you on TV and now you're seeing it in real life?

Was it the size of this creature? What cause of fear to come over you, do you think? When you're a little 14-year-old kid and you're looking at something that big, it was, you know, if it's eight feet tall, I was around five foot. It's not quite twice as tall as I was. It was just so huge. And I don't know, I just felt, I mean, I was a city kid out in the woods for the, you know, I camped before with the scouts. But this is the farthest I'd gone out and the longest I'd camped.

you know you almost can't call scout camp camping yeah you're sleeping in a tent but it's not like you're roughing it in the wilderness you're going and picking up bread and donuts at the px and hot dogs and there was a store there you could send mail but for a kid growing up in st louis that was a big thing and it affected me it was it was it was it was it was frightening. It's this big monstrous-sized creature that comes out of the dark. And it wasn't something that I expected to see going to scout camp. That's not what I paid my money for. There's no merit badge on being terrified, but I would have certainly gotten it at that point. But I don't know.

I just, when I realized what it was, I would have been afraid if it was a bear. I did some hunting later when I was in high school and afterwards, and I got chased up a tree by a black bear. And that was scary in that I knew that I'd really get mauled if I got caught, if not killed. but this was a different type of terror. It was just, it's such an unknown thing. And people say, you know, they look, it's a hominid, it looks human. It didn't look human to me.

It had arms and legs, but then so do guerrillas. But guerrillas to me don't look like human. Don't look human. I watched a show recently of a man that was, staying with the African tribes. And they went out and it took them all day to catch a baboon and they brought it back and ate it. And he had trouble eating it because it had arms and legs like a person. But I looked at it.

If you're hungry, I mean, you do what you have to do to survive and that's what this tribe does. We have a Western, our Western culture kind of has ingrained a different set of values into us. But I don't know, just it was, it was terrifying. Yeah, I get what you're saying, Robert. I mean, even some of your grown men who think they're the biggest, baddest saying on the planet, they'll come across these sayings, and fear takes over. And I've seen grown men, I've talked to them, break down in tears, you know. Prior to giving you the resume on how big and bad they are,

all of a sudden now they're breaking down in tears, describing what they saw. So I completely get it. I'm curious, when it ran past you, did it run past you on two legs? It didn't even run. It was like, well, it was fast, but it was on its two legs. From the picnic table to my tent, it took two steps, two and a bit steps, and then it was there. And then another step and a half or so, and it was past my tent. And then three or four steps, and it was in the woods.

And I don't know what it did when it was in the woods. But as soon as it got in the dark of the trees, I lost it. It was gone. But it was on its hind legs. It was walking. I know they can get down on all fours and that they run at a tremendous speed when they're on all fours. But, oh, this was fast. And it was because they were long, hurried steps.

Yeah, I got you. I understand what you're saying. I'm curious, when you're watching it at the table and then when it ran past you, would you say it was more ape-like? Would you say it was more human-like? The way its head sat on its shoulders looked a lot like the way a gorilla set on its shoulders, head set on a gorilla's shoulders. There's like no neck.

The trapezius comes up and slopes up to the back of its head. And then from behind when I was seeing it, it was like all shoulders. shoulders and then you could see the peak of the head just off of it. And then the forehead sloped down and the face kind of went flat down from the forehead. The nose was out just a little bit, but it wasn't a pointed human type of nose. It looked flattened and wide. I couldn't see very well, see a lot of the features because it was so dark under that tarp. And it wasn't in the moonlight.

And then when it turned towards me, its back was to the moonlight. So I could see the moonlight shining on its shoulders and the tops of its arms and top of its head. But I couldn't see the face very well. But I know it could see me because I was in plain moonlight. And it wouldn't pass me like I was just in consequence. It paused long enough to look at me and kick that rope off and then thunk, thunk, thunk, it was past me. Then thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk it was in the woods.

And that's about how long it took. I was out of the tent and looking back as quick as I could because I don't know. I didn't want to lose sight of it. I was afraid it would be coming for me, and I wanted to keep my eyes on it. I don't know why, but I stepped out and looked. And by the time I got just the two or three feet out of the tent into the corner, it was past my tent. I guess the tent was seven to eight feet long. So two steps, and it was passed out easily.

And then it was into the woods and gone. Man, it was fast. Yeah, that would terrify me. I mean, you're seeing something unknown and someone shouts bear. It turns in your general direction and starts coming. I mean, that would terrify me. Absolutely, Robert. I would be terrified. And not even being 14, you know, being a grown man, I'd be terrified. So what happens next? Everyone shows up. Do you tell people that that wasn't a bear? Oh, yeah. I tried to. The only, there were only two of us that saw it. And the kid that saw it on the other side, he saw the dark, he saw the dark shape and immediately thought it was a bear and started screaming. you know, bear in the camp.

And then he said when the tarp collapsed, he ducked back in the tent and went for a flashlight. And so by the time he came back out, it was gone. Once it was discovered, the thing took off and within, you know, from the time we got the tarp off and was gone was a matter of 10 seconds. I don't know. but he was saying that he thought it was a bear and I was saying there was no way it was a bear it would have been a huge bear grizzly bear size to have stood up and knocked down that tarp and I was saying it was Bigfoot and I was laughed at and in the morning we looked at that box I mean they're in the dark with the flashlight we could see the

the padlock was still in the clasp. It had grabbed the side of the lid and it pulled it up and broke that plywood, leveraged it up and broke it where the clasp was in the middle of it. So it was reaching into this box. And the box was maybe three feet, three feet long. I heard the crack and just a soft grunt when it did that. So it broke that. And I pointed to that and said, how does a bear do that?

It's not clawed open. It's broken open. I saw bear tracks later on, and they can't help but leave claw marks when they walk because, you know, they've got these inch long or so claw sticking off their foot. And there were no tracks. Yeah, I mean, obviously it wasn't a bear. And even if it was a bear, you would think there would be more damage done. claw marks, bite marks of it.

A bear is going to get that box open, but there's going to be a lot of damage in the meantime while it's trying to get that box open. And it would have taken it longer. Yeah, you're right. It would have taken it. A lot of noise. A lot of noise.

Yeah. And it was really quick. It was like crack. And then I thought, oh, what the heck is that? And so that's why I looked out. That's what led me to look out and look at the picnic table. But I would have thought that a bear would have been growling and snuffling. This thing was stealthy.

I'm thinking the way I felt it walked as it walked back into the woods. I think what woke me up was as it was walking by the tent towards the picnic table. As it walked by the tent, I felt it. And I was, even when I was younger, I was a light sleeper. After that, I'm the light of sleeper you ever want to meet. It doesn't take, unless I'm exhausted under normal circumstances, I'm just awake at the drop of a hat. And afraid of the dark, I know what that means. Here I'm in my 50s now.

And I'm afraid of the dark now. Yeah, there's really no shame in that, Robert. I mean, after you have an encounter, it always stays with you. and it's always with you at some point in your life. So, I mean, I don't blame me for the way you feel. You know, I don't think most people could. I'm curious. Did the Scoutmasters ever say anything,

or did they just go with the Barrett story? He replaced the plywood on the box. And I don't even know. I kind of climbed up. I didn't like being ridiculed. I mean, what 14-year-old likes that? I just kind of did the, okay, whatever, you know, whatever, dude, you think it's a bear, it's a bear. But for me at the camp, the camp lost all its flavor after that.

I was having a really good time before that. And there were, you know, there were things that we did that I still had a lot of fun canoeing and those kind of things. But once the sun started to go down, it was. like my agitation increased. We had a canoe trip across the lake two nights later, and we were going to camp like two miles away on the other side of the lake, and we canoed across, and we set up, we set up our sleeping bags. We were going to sleep out on the open, and there was this open area, and they were going to talk about the stars, but it started raining. And because we didn't plan, They didn't plan on it raining.

We didn't bring any tents. So here you had sleeping bags. And we couldn't canoe back across the lake because there was some lightning. So we hiked around that lake. And it turned out to be like a 15-mile hike. And it took all night. And we were in this long line. And the whole time while it was raining and I'm carrying my backpack with that sleeping bag,

I was searching the woods with my eyes, just expecting that thing to be out there standing and watching me walking by. That Friday night, we had an order of the arrow tap out. One of the boys in our troop was selected for the order of the arrow, and he got tapped out. And he had to do an ordeal. And the ordeal I was told the next morning when I met up with him again when he came to the swimming class, is they took him out somewhere with this sleeping bag, and he had to sleep out there alone. And when he said that to me,

I didn't say anything, but I must have to look on my face like, you've got to be out of your mind to sleep alone out there. And he looked at me, he goes, was it like a punishment? Is that what you mean when you say a ordeal? No,

the order of an arrow is sort of an exclusive club inside the Boy Scouts. So you have to be a certain rank and have so many merit badges, and then you have to be voted on in your troop. And it's an honor. Not everybody gets to be in the order of the arrow. You wear a white sash with a red arrow on it on your scout uniform. Oh, I got you.

I got you. So part of the tap out ceremony is you have to go through an ordeal like a Native American, an Indian. And they took them out, and all the boys that had gotten tapped out, and they call it a tap out because they line this up along the river. and some of the camp counselors dressed up as Native Americans with war paint on and and headdresses and feathers and they ran up and down the line carrying torches and then they would stop in front of the boys and the boy that was to get tapped out would literally get he would strike him in the shoulder and tap him out of the line and someone would be behind him to catch him

and then he'd be taken off for the ordeal well he had to sleep out of out in the woods alone. And when he told that, I said, what was the ordeal? And he goes, I had to sleep out there alone. And they took me out someplace and left me. Then I had to find my way back. And I must have given them this look like you have to be out of your mind to sleep out there alone. And he looked at me.

He goes, it was only a bear. And I put my hand on his shoulder. And I said, bear or Bigfoot, whichever one, you had to sleep out there alone with it. And he gave me this look like he realized I was right. Even if it was a bear, there's a bear out there and he had to sleep alone with it. But I turn around laughing. But inside my mind, I was thinking if it was me, I'd have found a bush somewhere and crawled under that bush and cover myself with leaves or maybe found a tree to climb up. Now I know that climbing a tree, I would be more likely to run into a Sasquatch than hiding under a bush.

but I'm glad I wasn't a rank to be tapped out. And I never went to scout camp again after that. I camped again, but I never went to scout camp. I just wouldn't have been able to do it. Yeah. I was too afraid. Yeah, it is a terrifying encounter. I mean, for a young man, it's a terrifying encounter for a grown adult, to be honest with you.

I'm curious, what do you think that Sasquatch is, Robert? What's your opinion? It's not a demon. There were no UFOs around. When it walked, you could feel it. It was eating bread and donuts. I'm thinking that to me, it just looked like a, yeah. I want to say gorilla.

The way its shoulders and head was shaped was gorilla, guerrilla-like, the rest of the body, not so guerrilla-like. I mean, walked on its high and legs. Guerrillas can go up on its high-leaks for a little while, but then they're quadrupeds, they're true quadrupeds. They can't stay up for very long. This thing was standing up under that tarp and eating, and then when that tarp collapsed on it,

if it had gotten down on to all fours, it could have gotten out easily. It stood up and flapped its arms around. To me, they're an animal. And you think about, you know, they have, it's an animal that is evolved. The bigger the animal, the more easy it is to retain heat in the winter. Why are they so strong? Primates have multi-pinet muscles where we have.

single pinate or bipennate muscles. So their bicep doesn't look smooth like ours. A gorilla's is just a massive, gnarly mass of muscle. It's so they can turn over trees and get the insects underneath or that they can kill an animal with its bare hands and tear it apart and eat it. Evolution has made it so that it's stronger and bigger so it can survive in the environment And it's in. That's what it looked like to me.

It looked like a big, a big animal. Yeah, I understand what you're saying, Robert. I mean, I completely get what you're saying. One question I want to ask you, when the tarp fell on it and it was vocalizing, was it vocalizing like an animal? Yeah, it was a yell. And at first, it still had donut in its mouth. So you try to talk with your mouthful.

It sounds kind of muffled. That's what it sounded at first. but then when it cleared its mouth, I don't know if it spit it out or if it swallowed it or what, but then it was just kind of a growling snarl. Yeah, I got you. I understand what you're saying. It must have been terrified. You know, it got caught.

And a lot of these situations, generally speaking, the younger ones come in and do this. They'll come in and rob you in the middle of the night. And I realize what you saw was a monster, but even younger ones can be big like what you saw. it sounds like a juvenile that came in and it got caught. I think a lot of times in situations like this, people think it's a bear the next morning after they don't see anything, and a bear doesn't really make sense. And in your situation, a bear makes no sense.

There weren't any bears in the area. That's what they kept telling us. There's no bears here. You don't need to worry about your box too much, but put that lock on it so raccoons won't get in. Well, a padlock in it wouldn't have stopped it. Anyway, it broke the lid of the box off. You know, when it stood up to help myself sleep sometimes when this comes into my mind,

this past week while I've been thinking about this, when I started sending you emails, I sort of have to be able to sleep. I sort of have to make it into a comedy to get rid of some of the terror so I could sleep. and and I picture myself watching it and hearing it going like, you know, it came into the camp for a sandwich and some donuts and was helping itself to his food and, you know, and I picture my picture looking through going, oh, all they've got chocolate. Where's the, where's the, where's the Eclare's at? And then when it stood up, if a, if a Sasquatch could go, do.

that's what it did. Yeah, you're probably not far off, man. You're probably not far off. You know, it probably was standing there. I mean, I can picture it and that tarp comes down. And it's like son of us trying to get the tarp off. And obviously, it didn't really want to harm anyone. I mean, it could have mowed you down on its way out, but it didn't.

It just ran past you. It probably just wanted to leave at that point. And I didn't mean to cut you off. And I don't mean to laugh. I realize that in hindsight it might be kind of funny. I realize for you it probably isn't. And at that time when you're 14, it probably wasn't funny at all. Yeah, yeah.

To be able to make sense of it now, from its point of view, it probably went back to its family. And however they communicate, they probably laughed at him for getting caught. But it really did. It just seemed like that yell broke out and you know how you're looking for something under the table and someone says something and you jerk up and you hit your head under the table? Yeah. There's that, oh, I just hit my head kind of thing.

Well, that's what it did. It stood up and it was frustrated and threw that tarp off, turned around, and then its foot was caught in the rope and it had to kick the rope off before it could walk away. I mean, it was almost like a comedy of errors. The one thing after another for it didn't work. The box wouldn't open. He had to break it. I mean, it wasn't a simple heist. It couldn't just come in and get the bread and get out.

It is interesting, too, what it took. I mean, from your description, it wanted the sweets, you know. And you hear that a lot from people who have these things on their property or people who are feeding them. They'll talk about how they love the sweets. And, I mean, let's get real for a moment. Who doesn't? But it is interesting. It didn't take any meat or anything like that.

Yeah. Well, there were hot dogs. I think there were hot dogs in there. No, there weren't any hot dogs. We had a cooler with the hot dogs in it. But there was chocolate and, I mean, we had smoors. So there would have been gram crackers and marshmallows. And those bags were open.

So what I saw was something light colored going up. towards its face. Now, from the descriptions I've seen and heard on the internet, some of them have a lighter colored palm. So I might have been saying the lighter colored palm or a handful of bread, but it did eat that whole loaf of bread. And it ripped the bag open. It just pulled the bag apart and the bread spread out.

There were a few pieces of bread left in there. So it ripped that bag open. and the bread just kind of spread out in the box, and it was just picking it up and putting it in its mouth. So I don't know if I was seeing the white of its hand or if it was the white of the bread, but I definitely saw a lighter color going up towards the face. And most of the time, like I said,

the head was lost above the edge of the tarp. So I couldn't see much of it. But periodically it would lean over and peer one way and peer the other way. and it never, when it peered to its left, it looked towards the area where my tent was, but not all the way over its shoulder where I was. I sent you a couple of sketches that I made. Did you get those?

I haven't. I'll check. Was it in my email? Yeah, I did some attachments. Yeah, I'll check them out. I'll go in there and I'll post them underneath this show. So one question I want to ask you, Robert, being in Australia now, you live in Australia, and everyone's heard about the Yauis.

And I'm curious, do you hear reports of people running into the Yaui's the same way people run into Sasquatch in the United States? You hear about the Yowie, but one day at work in the break room, there's a television in our break room, And there was a movie called Throwback that was on there. And the movie Throwback is about a Yawi in the Outback. But you don't really hear a lot about Yawai. Do you say? No, my wife is saying no. She and I, I don't know, it's like an obsession with me.

I'm always reading it. We sit down together and listen to podcast. And if she gives me the option, I'll say, well, let's look something up on Sasquatch. And when we lived in Colorado, there's a, if you go up Pikes Peak, after you pay the fee at the Ranger Station, you go up about a mile, and there's a, there's a gravel area on the side of the road where there's a, where there's a restroom. and there's a sign there that says Bigfoot crossing. And in the 60s and 70s, there had been some sightings there of a Sasquatch crossing the road and walking up the hill. And one year, I got the family, and we drove a van up to there. And we parked at the Bigfoot crossing sign, and we tried to walk up that hill.

And it was steep. And we got to the top of the hill. there was a meadow. And as soon as I got to the top of that hill, I felt uneasy. And I thought, man, there could be one anywhere out there just watching us. And so the kids came up there with me. Cynthia was down the hill. And then we made our way back down.

But I find myself wanting to learn about them more. And we listened to one of your episodes of a family that their son was outside. The lady was talking. The son was outside, and he came in the house and said there was a big foot out in the yard. And it had been eating berries off the bush, and it started walking towards him. And then there were all kinds of activity and sightings around their house. And I asked my wife if she wanted to live in a house where this was going on. And she said no right away.

And then she asked me, and I went, you know what, I sort of do, but I sort of don't. I would have to have the blinds down all the time because I wouldn't want something looking in at me. I would probably go everywhere with the GoPro. I would like to see one under the conditions that it was like 100 yards away or 200 yards away and I'm looking at it through binoculars and it has no idea I'm there.

I don't want to be five feet away from one of them ever again. I'd like to see one of them again. see one again, but through binoculars. Yeah. I hear you. You have Memorial Day footage or whatever that you see on the internet where it's up a hill and it doesn't know you're there. Yeah, I think that's the encounter most people want, you know, far enough away, looking through binoculars, that sort of thing.

And your encounter, I mean, it was too close, too close for comfort. it's one of the situations where it's unpredictable. You don't know what's going to happen. Is it going to mow you down as it's coming towards you? Is it going to break your neck on the way out? You just don't know. You don't know what's going to happen. It could do it and you'd be at its mercy.

And there is PTSD with encounters like this. I was arguing with a Bigfoot researcher the other day. I said it's irrelevant whether an encounter is aggressive or not because you'll still have PTSD from it. You're seeing something that isn't supposed to exist, isn't supposed to exist, isn't supposed to be real. All of a sudden it's real and it's stealing stuff from your camp and you're watching it. So there's definitely going to be PTSD from this. And this happened 40 years ago. It still stays with you. I thought about this the other day. What stays with you? I know you've had an

encounter and I've had an encounter. We are among a select few people that know there's something stealthy and huge and immensely strong and sometimes aggressive that lives in the dark. They can see you like it's daylight for them at night and you can't see them. So when I get up in the middle night, we live in an old stone house and the bathroom is at the other side of the house. When I get up at night, I have to have the doors along the hallway closed because it just bothers me if the dark space is there. The light on the front of the house has to be on, and it comes through the light above. There's a window above the door, and it illuminates the hallway

so I could see where I'm going. When I get to the kitchen, I turn the light on and then walk through and go to the toilet. I just, the dark just unnerves me now because I know I've seen that there's something in it. There's something there. It may be over in North America now, and I'm over here in Australia, but boy, it's still with me. Yeah, I understand. I understand what you're saying, Robert. And it is a terrifying account. I mean, it really is a terrifying account. And being over in Australia, you guys do have them. I mean, you guys have the YOWEs. And I don't know much about the YOWEs, but it seems like every report I read of the YOWEs, they seem to be even more aggressive than what we have here in North America here in the States.

They seem to be more aggressive. But that's just my impression. I could be wrong on that. I'd almost have to have someone in Australia explain it to me better who knows more than I do. But regarding your account, Robert, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share what happened to you. Yeah, no problem. And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email.

My email address is Wes at saskwatraunicles.com. I'll be back on Sunday for the members. For everyone else, I will see you guys next time. An epiphany. 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

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