Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:643 Let The Stealer Steal No More

Episode Date: April 5, 2020

James writes "I had on my uncle small farm in Ozark County, Missouri. This happened during the summer of 2017. My uncle owns and operates a small beef cattle farm where he has cows, chickens, and goats. I was visiting my family that live in the area because I live in Kentucky now. We was talking and he was telling me about how some of his chickens a had been pulled out of there pens and disappeared over the last couple weeks. We both agreed there may be a coyote or two getting into his chicken pin. I like varmint hunting so I agreed to spend a couple nights out there and see if I bag the coyote for him. I had brought my .300 AAC AR build to shoot with some of my family. It was equipped with a day and night sight because I mainly use it for coyote and smaller game hunting. Well one the second night I was posted up in the top of his barn that has a small opening on the second floor that faced the wood line. I was scanning the woodline with the night setting when I noticed something moving some small trees about 150 yards to my left. So i focused on it. As I watched this 7 and half 8 foot tall creature stepped out. It was covered in dark hair. The moon was almost full so I had alot of illumination to help my night sight. At first I seemed like someone in a ghillie suit. But I quickly realized it wasn't as it cover the halfway to the chicken coops in just a few steps. I yelled out stop or I'm going to fire. The thing stops and I can see it stare directly up at me and bare its teeth. It let's out this ungodly roar and barrels toward me. I quickly switched my weapon to fire and open up on it at about 75 ft.   I empty my first mag and was reloading my second when it slammed the side of the barn shaking it. It aimed down and emptied another half a mag directly down on it. It looked up at my yelled and again and made a beeline straight back into the woods. My heart was pounding. I have done 2 combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and this rattled me to my bones. I waited till morning to climb down and make my way back to uncle's house. I told him what I saw and what I did. We went back and couldn't find blood but found some partial tracks. We ended up calling our family friend who was a Missouri Conservation Officer and he came out. I told him my story and with a serious face and tone he told me dont tell anyone and hed handle it. Well there's my story."   Al in Connecticut writes "Hey Wes, I had a short encounter, I know what I saw and I am a huge skeptic...WAS." Spoke to Al and he owns a farm in Connecticut. He said after weeks of animals coming up missing he saw what was taking his animals. Al said "It was so strange I had doors to the cages and whatever was taking the animals had hands because it had to open the doors. Early one morning I went out to find several doors open and I felt like I was being watched. I was saw what I thought was a tree stump. Something wasn't right, I picked up a stick and threw it at it and this thing stood up and took off running on two legs. It was huge."

It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind. It either heard me or smelt me, and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up. That shocked me. They don't make people that big. The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything move like that in my life. They were screaming at each other in gibberish. It sounded like a language and they were chuntering away back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forwards.

I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet of what I saw were bears. Magid, what are you reporting? Jesus, quick. 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 here. Uh-oh.

This is Marlene from Louisiana. We're listening to Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show planned for you tonight. We're going to be talking to James. And James hadn't encountered down there in Missouri on his uncle's property. His uncle asked him he was missing a bunch of chickens and figured it was a coyote.

So James went out there to take care of the problem. But he didn't run into a coyote. And he ended up shooting one of these creatures. It's a very terrifying account. And then we're going to be chatting with Al. And Al comes to us from Connecticut. And he had an encounter many years ago on his family farm. Same thing. A lot of missing rabbits, a lot of weird things going on and around the property. And one morning he did see the creature.

If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance, check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com. you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome James to the show. James thanks for coming on. No problem, Wes.

Yeah, I really appreciate you being here, and I know you had quite the encounter in Missouri. If you would, take us back to that moment. Kind of tell us what you were doing and walk us into what happened. What did you see? All right. Well, I'm originally from right now I live in Kentucky, but I'm originally from Southern Missouri.

This was back in the summer of 2017. I went to go, went home to visit my family, and I happened to be visiting with my uncle, and he was telling me that he has having some chicken stolen out of his chicken tube. We kind of both agreed. It may have been, you know, a coyote, a fox, something along those lines,

That's kind of common in that part of the bird. Me, I'm a gunsmith by trade, and I like to go varma hunting, so I brought a couple of my firearms with me to go shooting with family. So I had a 300 AAC blackout silence with the day-night scope with me, and I was like, hey, I got a couple nights. Why don't I sit up in your barn by your chicken coop, and I'll see if I can get this coyote taken care of for you? Well, the first night, I get up there, the first night, gets set up.

Nothing really happens, just nice quiet night. Well, the second night comes around. I get up there about 10 o'clock. Get set up in this big window that's on the backside of the barn, facing the wood lines so I could watch for this coyote. A couple hours go by, it's about between 1230 to 1.30 in the morning. I'm skating in the wood line with my night vision scope and happen to see these eight, nine foot pines

kind of shaking and moving off the corner of my eyes. So I pull my scope around and start focusing on it. I'm like, okay, what's making this, you know, these solid pines move? Because I'm sitting there watching it, all of a sudden this creature steps out in between these pines. I'm after measurements

next day and everything I'd say he was between 6 to 7 to 7 2 and my first assumption looking at this guy

because like I said I was looking for a night vision scope I looked at it and looked like somebody wearing a gilly suit that's my first assumption being in an max military

that was the person popped in my mind who's like why is this dude walking out wearing a gilly suit So I'm watching him for a second And it's from the woodline to where the chicken coop was was I'd say $175.

Kind of off the woodline. He covered half that distance in five, six seconds. And what was like you only took like maybe six, seven steps to cover that distance. I'm like, what the heck's going on here? So I'm laying down with my weapon on my bi-pot. and I yell out, hey, stop or I'm going to open fire.

This thing comes sliding to a stop, looks at me, and that's when I realized it wasn't a human being. And it bears its teeth at me. It starts with this low growl that I could hear from, it was about 90 yards from me, 80, 90 yards from me. And I can feel this low rumble ground, and it turns into this. really loud screech, scream. And the thing turns and starts spreading towards the bar and that I'm in. And my first reaction is fight or flight, and I go into fight mode. So I start dropping, starts shooting on it with my 300 blackout AAC silence.

And the time it takes him to cover three quarters of that distance, I go through 30 rounds out of my max. the first magazine I had. And so, you know, I, I, I, pretty much mag dumped on this thing, putting as many rounds on target as I could, because this thing's charging at me. So as I'm dropping that bag and trying to load my second mag, it slams into the side of this solid oak barn and shakes the entire barn.

I stand up, because I was waiting in the prone, I stand up to lean out the window to shoot. And I was literally shooting directly down on this thing. I fired another eight to ten rounds directly. My gun to where it was, was between six to eight feet. It's, you know, I was up in this barn and I was shooting directly down on it. I shot, like I said, eight to ten rounds.

And finally, it looks up, it looks up at me, roars, slam the fist into the barn again, and starts running back towards the woodline. And, well, so I'm a combat veteran. I've been in multiple firefights in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I was more scared during this than I was ever during any of those firefights. And so I'm sitting there, I'm like, it's, you know, 1.32 in the morning. and I'm like, I need to get out of here. And then I realize it's a quarter of a mile from the barn to my uncle, the closest place, which is my uncle's house.

But I'm like, it's the middle of the night. If this thing decides to come out, if it covered, you know, that distance and that fast, if I just leave this barn, there's no way I can outrun it. I dumped a mag and a half into this thing and it's still it. I felt like I was shooting out of it with a BB gun. That's how I. felt. I'm thinking whenever

is right below me, I may hit something softer. And that's why when it decided to take off, because, like I said, I dumped a mag and a half into this thing, and it felt like I was shooting with a BB gun. So I waited until the next morning. And once the sun came up and I could see

a good distance in the daylight, I decided I'd start making my way back down to my uncle's house. And as I'm walking, I'm making about a couple of hundred yards down the road, down his little road, farm road. And my uncle pulls up on his four wheel. He's like, hey, did you get it last night? I'm like, I got something, but it wasn't a coyote and it wasn't a fox or anything. And I start telling him what it happened when I saw.

He's like, let's call Jim, see what he says. Well, Jim is a conservation agent for the state of Missouri in our area. He's been doing the job at that point, 25, 26 years. He's been around a while. So we go back to my uncle's house and we call Jim. And while we're waiting on him to get there, we go back to the barn and start looking around and see if we could find blood or tracks or see what we could find. We didn't find any blood, but we found some tracks, partial tracks in the ground. some were the best one I could find.

I laid my hand down and it just, it was like a hill print and I have a pretty large hand. It's six, seven inches. My hand barely fit in that hill. So Jim gets there and I start telling Jim what I saw. And he's, we're all looking around. He's like, after I tell him what happened, he looks at me. He's like in a very serious tone.

He's like, James, you didn't see this. This never happened. Don't ever tell anybody about it. Look at my uncle, you don't tell anybody about it. This never happened. You don't want what's coming if somebody finds out you did this. That the wrong people find out you did this. And I look at him like, okay, what's, he's like, don't ask questions.

Just this never happened. And that was pretty much the end of that. I'm kind of curious, did anything else happen on your uncle's property? I mean, did it ever come back or did he have any more problems? For the rest of summer, he, like I was talking to him, because like I said, I was only there for a couple more days before I had to come, come back to home in Kentucky and work, go back to work. But from what he's told me, he started hearing he's heard a few howls on the back end of his property. he's heard a couple tree knocks. Like I've been there, I went back there last summer.

We heard a few. The only thing we really heard was what I thought were tree knocks, but it's kind of hard to decipher, but nothing really came and trying to mess with his animals anymore. But I tend not to venture too far into those woods anymore, though. Yeah, I don't blame you. For the audience listening, can you kind of describe what you saw? So it's about 6-8-7-2.

Can you kind of... Like I said, when I first case stepped out, I thought it was the way the hair and everything flowed. I thought it was somebody wearing a gilly suit because at first I thought it was just a really tall guy because unfortunately in that part of Southern Missouri mess labs and pop, you know, middle of the woods, pop fields and stuff are kind of common. So I thought, my first thought in my head that came into my head during all this was,

this guy's just been coming and ripping over the chicken wire fence and stealing his chickens out and taking him up to wherever he's cooking his meth or whatever and eating him. So he's just wearing the gillet suit to kind of hide himself. Well, when it started, when it was, my first indication that it was a human was how fast he covered that distance. And when he ran, I think it's like the hair was matted, and dirty and like it had like the stuff to hang down

was kind of been clumpy and when it looked at me that's when I kind of got a decent look at its face but most of the most of my side most of the close up view I had was through a night vision scope so I can't give you color or anything

because everything was green but it had kind of a humans like if you took a guerrillas face and put a human's nose on it that would be the best way to explain it. Its lips kind of, when it growl, when it went to growl at me, its lips came up. Like if you've watched the nature documentaries on guerrillas, when they start getting aggressive,

how they kind of bring their lips up and bear their teeth, that's exactly what it did. It's like, it didn't have huge canines that I could see, but I had big enough to kind of like, if this thing bit me, it's going to hurt. Yeah. And the other detail in your account is it hitting the barn. You know, there's so many accounts where people will say, you know, something came up in the middle of night. You know, and there's other things going on besides it hitting the house.

But people will say it was like a truck hit the side of the house. You know, it was a lot of this thing never heard and they felt the hit. And you got a chance to actually see it hit the barn, you know, out of frustration. It hit the barn with such force. like this is a you know 200 foot hay barn made out of a solid oak two by eights it's a big

strong barn because my uncle built it the last and it was enough that when it first hit I don't know when at first hit I don't know if it's slammed its entire body into it or what but when it first hit it was enough to kind of rock me

while I was trying to reload this second magazine and when it hit slammed it the second time it was enough I felt the vibration through my feet through my body. It was enough to kind of, I don't know if you ever experienced an earthquake, a small earthquake where you just get that vibration through your body. But that's kind of how I felt. It was you got that small, you got that vibration that just kind of shook your entire body.

Do you think you actually hit the creature as you were firing? I think I hit it a few times because like I said, I dropped the first magazine was, you know, I dropped 30 rounds on. this and it as it was charging towards me so i know i least hit it i mean like i said i was mag dumping so i wasn't being entirely accurate but the show the size of this thing i know i hit the chances of me hitting it were pretty high because just the generalized size of this thing then i know that's kind of what i'm thinking i made it was when i when i was shooting directly down on it. I'm thinking that's what made it change its mind was I maybe hit

either something soft in its shoulders, found a weak spot there, or you know, I just hit it enough right there to make it, okay, this isn't going to be something easy. I need to get the heck out of here. Because my first, my fear during that time is this thing's either going to break the door down and come in and try and run up the stairs or it's going to start climbing up to get into this window to get to me. Because all I had was that 300 blackout. And like I said, But I was getting worried because I just dumped an entire mag and a half in this thing.

And it just didn't seem affected. But I'm thinking maybe during that, when I was shooting directly down on it, that maybe I hit something weak in its face or in its shoulder region that I actually, I got it to rethink what it was doing. When it ran off, did it run off on two legs or did it take off on four? I started off on two, then it kind of dropped down and was running on, running on, as it got closer to the wood line, it kind of dropped down and started running on all fours. Let me ask you, what do you think set it off? Do you think you just scared it by yelling at it and it was fight or flight and decided to fight? Or what, what, me?

I'm, my, more I think on it, I got, it's, it comes between that and it was mad that I caught it trying to get to its easy food source. because, you know, my, this is a big chicken pen. My uncle had like, I think, 30 to 40 chickens in it. So all he had to do was rip open their wire a little bit, reach his arm in there, and he could grab a chicken and take off with it, because I think that's what had been happening, was it was just, oh, I got an easy food source here. I can just go in here and grab this, grab a chicken and take it off in the woods and eat it. I'm thinking, so, I mean, it's either I'd call it.

it and it got scared and was like, I'm going to fight this guy. Or, you know, it was just mad that I caught it in the act and it, you know, it lost its easy food source. I hear you. And you could be right on that. Definitely. It's amazing to see the different personalities with these things. You know, sometimes they'll just run.

And other times they will absolutely stand their ground and fight. And you're right. Thank God I didn't kick that door in and come for you. What do you think that they are, James? Kind of what's your opinion about what Sasquatch is? I think it's like a somewhere between a human and an ape. I know it's flesh and blood. I've seen this thing from eight feet growing up at me.

I've shot at it. Like I said, I put rounds in it. I heard the thump of the rounds hitting the body. So it's, to me, it's something real. It's an animal of some sort that we just haven't discovered. scientifically yet, but I know it exists. I've seen it. I've shot it. I've heard the roar, and it's real. It's there. Thank God I didn't come back and, you know, harass your uncle and you, a lot of times when people shoot, shoot these things or shoot at these things, they seem to have like

a weird revenge streak in them. DeRilla come back and make you pay for that. But obviously, you don't go in those woods anymore. Do you ever go out of hunting or camping anymore after seeing this thing? I still go hunting and camping, but honestly, I don't go out, I don't go out in the woods, I don't go out in the woods without anything smaller than my 338. Everybody makes fun of me because, oh, you don't need something that big for these woods. I'm like, if you've seen what I've seen and shot up, what I've internally, I say this internally, I'm like, if you've seen what I, I've seen and shot out of what I shot. And if a 300 blackout AAC won't take it out,

at least I have a decent chance of knocking this thing down, which is 338. Yeah, and this was a pretty recent encounter too, wasn't it, James? Didn't it happen just a couple years ago? Yeah, it was in the summer of 2017. It was in June of 2017. Yeah, so pretty recent, really. I mean, just the last couple of years.

Does it still bother you? I mean, did you have any sort of, I know you've been in the military and you do other things that are risky. But did this bother you? I mean, does this kind of haunt you at all running into this thing? Honestly, West, it does just from the fact that I put, I put 40, at least 40 to 45 rounds into this thing. And it didn't. And from a 300 blackout AAC, if I've shot,

If I shot anything else, I've taken coyotes down with this gun. I've taken raccoons down. I've even shot a deer with it once, and it's taking it down. And I hit it, like I said, anywhere from 40 to 45 times with this, this 300 blackout AAC, and it didn't seem like it phased it until maybe, like I said, maybe I hit something when it was close, and it rethought what it was doing. But it's harder to go into the woods now.

Like, it's not something like I get a little bit of anxiety going into the woods because it's like I've looked up reports about in Kentucky and areas I hunt in and everything. And I'm like, so it gets to the point where instead of being going into the woods is a fun thing for me, an enjoyable thing for me. It's more of a, I got to plan this out. Let me look up and see what kind of reports are in this area. Do I need to bring, do I need to bring something else besides just my hunting rifle?

It becomes like it ends up in me, I have to tactically plan if I'm going to go into these woods or not. Yeah, I get where you're coming from on that. It's so bizarre, though, not finding blood, isn't it? Do I think that's odd that there's no blood? I do But in the same aspect With as much hair And matted hair

As this thing had I'm thinking maybe if I did hit it Like we didn't go into the wood line to see if maybe We just looked around the grass area And stayed out of the woods Because I'm like My uncle's like Let's go in the woodline and see if we can find any hair or anything

I'm like I'm not going in there I'm not So I'm thinking maybe If there was any blood or anything It may have been up in the wood line, but as much hair matted hair and everything it had, I'm thinking the hair kept it from dropping until there was just too much of it. If I did find something vital and hit it. I hear you. It's an amazing account, man, and thank God that you made it through it.

But with that thing coming at me, I probably would have started firing too. I don't think I would have done anything different than you did. I would have been hoping and praying with every bullet I shot that it went away, you know what I mean? And they do move the way you're talking about. in a blink of an eye, they can be on top of you, move a couple hundred yards in no time. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, that's what really, that right there was exactly what threw me off that this thing wasn't a human being. Was how it covered half to do. Because like I said, it was about 175 yards to the chicken coop from where it came out of the woodline.

And it covered half that distance and six, seven steps. And it felt like five or six seconds. It wasn't just, it wasn't like a slow, steady. movement. It was like, I'm going to sprout out here, grab me a chicken, and run. And like I said, it covered that distance so quickly. And it was like, okay, that's the first thing that was like, okay, no human being in the world that I know of can cover a distance like that unless you're, you know, the only time I've seen something ever come close to move them with that speed was, you know, watching the football combines when you have

the running back, just do a dead sprint, 40-yard dead sprint. And this, thing made the fastest running back that I've watched look like he was running slower than it slower than molasses yeah they definitely move like that well you have to keep me up to date let me know if your uncle has anything else going on that property do you have any plans to go back to the property i plan on going back this summer and maybe like after doing some more research and everything into different techniques i plan on going back and maybe doing some wood knocks and see if I can see if there are still some in the area because I'm what because I kind of the last couple summers like I said you we've gotten a few calls and what we think are wood knocks but

the area is such a small community we don't really put it out too much because my uncle still lives there and he doesn't want to be the old kook I guess would be the best way to say it so we kind of we haven't really invited any like researchers or anything because that just kind of brings a eyeball to your property. So I'm going to, after doing some research and everything, I'm going to go back this summer and see what I can work up. I hear you. We'll be safe doing that.

And I really appreciate coming on, James, and sharing it. Thank you so much for taking the time. No problem. Well, I want to welcome to the show. Al, Al, thanks for coming on. Hi, thank you for having me, Wes. Yeah, I really appreciate you being here. And I know you had an encounter several years ago out there in Connecticut.

If you would, just kind of start from the beginning and walk us into what happened. Sure. You know, this happened, started off around 1999. I was about 17, 16 at the time. What brought to it is I live on about 5.5. acres in Connecticut. We've always had, you know, animals such as rabbits, chickens, goats growing up that we took care of. You know, a lot of people around here, it's from like a farming community, you know, and my property is bordered by hundreds of acres of forest on one side and across the

street as well. We used to be a cow pasture. And, you know, I only have neighbors on one side. you know, acres away. So we would get to feed the animals all the time. My grandmother would take care of them. And then during, you know, the winter months, I would take care of the animals. You know, I had an older brother, but he wasn't into that stuff. I was. So about when I really, you know, was paying attention and taking care of the animals,

taking care of the animals that I could remember, I would be feeding the animals. They were all lined up the cages. five acres away and I feed the rabbits every morning or every night during the cold weather and then I started noticing one winter that the rabbit hutches would be open. I'd go down there. I'd have missing rabbits, five rabbits one night. Then a few weeks ago by, I had two rabbits another night, two rabbits another night. And I'm like, what's going on? Because the cages are, the locks are made where you, you know, throw the lock through the loop, so you'd have to, like, open it. And, you know, I'm like, maybe raccoons are crafty, you know what I mean? So I added a lock with a key, but I left the key in there. So all you had to do was, like, turn the key, and the lock would come off because I'm thinking, you know, what's going to be able to open the lock?

So, you know, time went on. More animals came up missing. I had chickens that were missing. you know, and I'm like, you know, what could this be? I know I live near a forest, but I never really saw tons of wildlife from my forest. I grew up always, you know, dirt biking and, you know, doing stuff with the neighborhood kids. So I've seen bears, I've seen coyotes, I've seen fox, I've seen all these animals. I know what they look like, but they're not really, you know, around here.

So, and I would go down there and I never find, like, uh, ever. of what happened. So, you know, several months go by, 30 animals have gone missing. And then we start, you know, you start coming up with crazy hypothesis like somebody stealing them. But why would somebody want to steal rabbits? You know, it's just stuff you try to convince yourself because you can't come up with anything that really makes any sense. Then, you know, then the summer comes by and, you know, more chickens come up. missing but there weren't feathers you know no one ever thought to look for like footprints because

you know I'm not like uh Columbo I'm not going to have a magnifying glass looking for footprints but you know I'm looking for feathers I'm looking for bones usually I've had raccoons I've had other animals take the chickens or feathers and stuff like that but it seemed like these cages were open so we always thought somebody was like you know you just start to thinking somebody taking them, but there's nobody around. So fall comes and the next winter approach is 2000. And, you know, that winter was exceptionally worse than the winter before. So it got cold earlier. And, you know, I'd take care of them before I went to school in the morning and whatnot. And around December, it started happening again. You know, we had about 30 cages lined up.

And, you know, I'd go down there and there'd be one cage with the door open and a rabbit missing and then four cages down. Another door opened and a rabbit missing. And I'm like, you know, this is getting crazy. And, you know, I tell my parents, I tell my grandmother and they're like, oh, you know, it's raccoons or you're not, you're leaving the doors open. I'm like, yeah, but this is just crazy. If you leave a door open and they jump out, you know, they smell where they live. and you always see them roaming around and you're able to catch them, you know. A couple more weeks go by and we're in December.

Christmas goes by and I wake up in the middle of the night because my bedroom is facing the back end of the property. And I hear screaming and I recognize that scream because it's, you know, when you kill a rabbit, they actually scream like a, you know, like a loud streak. or squeal, I should say. So I'm like, all right, I know something's happening now. So, you know, it's cold. So I get my clothes on and, you know, I didn't, I wasn't just going to jump out and look. I get dressed.

And I, you know, by the time I make it down there, maybe 20 minutes goes by and walking down to the, you know, property to go, look. And I noticed a couple touches are open and the rabbits are missing, but there's no evidence. So I'm like, this is getting ridiculous now. I heard it. You know, if they get scared, they also shriek. And, you know, the chickens were coming up missing here and there, but nothing crazy. They don't free range, you know, so it's less, you know, occasion of an animal taking them. So maybe another week went by or so, and we actually had an early snowfall.

And I went to go feed the animals that morning. before I had to go to school. So it was about 6.37 in the morning. And there was like at least, I think we had a, I want to say I didn't go to school until the afternoon because we had some kind of delay. So I had a nice chunk of time to get everything done early because we had a shovel and whatnot. So I, you know, got dressed up with layers of clothes and jackets and all that stuff.

I went to go get the feet for the animals. And, you know, I had everything over my arm. is carrying it to where I had to go feed the animals. And, you know, I start making my way towards the end of the property, a few acres down. And I'm walking towards the edge of the property where the tree line kind of is. Just, you know, that's how I walk down there. And, you know, as I'm walking, I'm carrying all this stuff. I, you know, I'm making a bunch of noise, but I feel like I keep hearing other noises,

like coming from like either the side or the back. So, you know, I would take like 10 steps and I would stop and then the noise would stop just two seconds after I would stop. And I'm like, is it me making all that rustling noise? Because I have all these layers of clothes on and, you know, the feed bucket hanging from my elbow and the bag hanging from my other arm. So, you know, I'm trying to like readjust myself. I pick up everything. I start walking again. And I hear like, you know, a couple twigs breaking.

And I'm like, all right, I'm like, whatever. You know, I look around, I don't see anything. So I start walking again. And I hear the noise again as I'm walking. And I stop real quick. And, you know, I look over to where the woods are. And I don't see anything. I'm thinking I'll see like maybe an owl or, you know, something just because it's snowed.

So there's, you know, snowfall on the leaves, on the pine trees, on the, you know, everywhere. So, you know, some snow is melting. so you hear all the noises of nature. So I just shrug it off. So at this point, I made it, you know, towards where all the hutches are and the barn. And I noticed because of the fresh snow that there's all footsteps going up and down where the rabbit hutches are, going off into the where the woods are to where the tree line is. So I put everything down and I'm just like, all right, what's going on here?

And I noticed two doors were open to two of the hutches and the rabbits were missing. I see the holes where the feet are. And it kind of looks like, you know, when we walk into the snow, we pick up our feet and we like step far out. Then we pick up our other foot. Yeah. And we stepped far out. So it looked like a person was walking. But when they lifted up their foot, the tip of their shoe or whatever was dragging across the top of the snow.

Because at this point, the snow is probably like a foot around that. give or take a minute or two, you know, and I'm like, what? This is just weird. And you could, there's all. And I didn't know what it could be because my foot made a nice size hole in the snow because of the snow, you know, like when you put your foot down, it makes a bigger crease around it. And, you know, it might have been snowing while these prints were made. So there were just holes and there were maybe like three,

three, four feet between each print, you know? And I know animals make prints. I see them in the snow. And I'm like, who I saw, I'm thinking, I like, is somebody coming here? You just start, because I never thought of anything else. You know, like I, you know, I grew up in the 80s and 90s. We didn't have internet. You know, anything that I saw was on TV or some kind of special or, you know, something like that.

So I, you know, you know, crypt things. in the forefront of my mind. I'm just trying to rationalize. So I'm going around the hutches. I'm looking at the footprints. I'm looking in the hutch. And I'm like, you know, I don't see any animal print stuff from the rabbits jumping out. And I'm like, all right, I know I didn't leave this stuff open.

So I'm kind of like looking where the prints are going. And as I'm doing this, I just get like this weird feeling. I'm like, is this person still around? And I start freaking myself out. So as I'm, you know, inspecting all the hutches, which go like, I don't know, 20 yards down at this point because we had a bunch of that. I kept feeling like somebody was there. I don't know if you ever had that feeling where you just like some, you know someone's staring at you or you know someone's watching you or. Yeah, of course.

I think we've all felt that. Yeah. Or maybe like talking about you when you're like in a public place. Like you. So I kept like, you know, looking over my shirt. shoulder and like stopping what I was doing. And like, you know, at this point I put down all my food and all that stuff for the animals and I'm inspecting everything. And like, you know, I would hear like, just normal noises and I would like look around because I started freaking myself out. And I'm like,

all right, you know, like shake it off. You know what I mean? You're overreacting. You're just like acting weird. So, you know, like I let the chickens out. And then I'm like, you know, what could this be? So I start coming around the side of the barn, and I'm just looking at all the footprints. And as I'm coming around, swinging around the barn, the tree line is on the other side. I'm like following them around to where the tree line is. And I'm just like, what could this be? And I'm like, I haven't seen a bear around here. And this doesn't look like bear prints.

Like, I don't know. So I start looking into the woods where the tree line is. And it's real thick. There's pine trees, maple trees, like piles of old leaves from fall covered by snow. You know, even in the brightest day, if you go in 20 feet, it's dark in there. So I'm like, I'm looking around and I kind of don't see anything. So I kind of squat down. And, you know, there's a bunch of trees, you know, thick round trees, pine trees.

and I see something like I didn't know if it was like a tree next to another tree or you know it just it looked it didn't look right you know snow was heavy on all the leaves and you know it was covering everywhere so I'm looking at this thing it looks like say like you see a big round tree trunk and like either right behind it or next to it another big round tree trunk is growing and this is about 20. 25 yards in, not even. And I'm like, what the hell is that? I'm like, is that like an animal or a bear? I'm like, but why, you know, it's just, I know what a bear is. I've seen a bear before, you know, it's not bad. It's just, it was going straight up. And I noticed like, like a light going through, you know, like maybe the arm or something.

So I take the stick and I like kind of just take it. hand, I throw it like a spear, you know, through the leaves, you know what I mean, just to throw something there to see if something would move. And as I did that, whatever it was took off running in the opposite direction. And I mean, I'd never been so scared. I started running left as soon as I saw it start turning around to run. I start turning left along the property line. And I knew it went the other way, but I hear it crashing, branches breaking, crashing through the forest, and I'm like, what the hell is that? And then I stop at that point, and I'm trying to look in there, and I just make out, like, light and dark, you know, as lights passing through the tree branches

and whatever, you know, whatever it was disappeared, but I could still hear the noise for only about maybe 15 seconds, which seems like an eternity at that time of it crashing through the forest. But when I was looking at this thing, it matched a huge tree trunk. And when I threw the stick at it, it's almost like when something starts to move and you kind of like hunker down and start turning around. And the hair or whatever it was, like bounced up and down. Like you could see it move. and then I just saw two legs and an arm because the top part of it was in the tree part, like from the shoulders up at that point.

So when I threw the stick, like it was in the tree, and snow came down when it started to move. Like I, you know, I scared it and I don't know if it was holding onto a brand and it like, you know, moved the branch and snow came falling down and it started running. and I never been so scared in my life because nobody's in those woods. There's no hunters. Nobody should be there. It's all like, you know, private property or town property and stuff like that. It's just no, there's nobody that would have been there at that time of day.

And it's just, it was the craziest. It scared me so bad that I didn't want to go feed the animals anymore. And I, you know, I tell my older brother, I tell my parents, And they're trying to say, oh, it was, you know, a fox or maybe a coyote or you don't know what you saw. I'm like, I'm telling you, I know what I saw. I'm not an idiot. I grew up in the country. I'm like, this thing is either, you know, the only thing I couldn't say it was either a person wearing a monkey suit or, you know, at that point, I was like, you know, or something crazy.

And my brother was like, yeah, you saw Bigfoot. And I'm like, that's all I could say I saw, you know? And, you know, he actually went out and got like a book out of library about it at that time because, you know, it wasn't, you know, you don't, it was the internet wasn't that great then. And we were looking through it. I'm like, this is what I saw. So we went down to where I showed him where it was. And my brother's about six to. And I made him go into the part of where it was.

And where this thing's shoulders was is where it, you know, it touched the first branch where my brother's head was. So it must have been like a good seven feet to like three feet wide. And when it started moving, it was just like, like a natural animalistic motion. Like it hung, you know, it moved. You know what I mean? Fast. And it just scared. the hell out of me. Like, scared the hell out of me. And like, those two seconds when I saw it move was

was all I needed to see what it was. Yeah, that's scary, man. I don't know that I'd want to go out and feed those, feed those animals. And you hear about that a lot where people will have these things on their property and they'll break open the cages or open cages, stuff you would need hands for to take animals. And did you ever have anything else that happened on that property or was that kind of the end of it. Well, like I said, when the animals started coming up missing, I started rigging these things where I would put the locks on cages. So either I would set the lock that night. So if somebody else went to go feed them, they would just have to pop it open because it was already set on the number. And then the other ones had a key in it. Just the key

stuck into the bottom already. So all you had to do was open it. And you know, you don't think an animal would be able to open something like that. But years before that, I never heard anything crazy because, you know, you don't go that far into there because it's so thick. I mean, we made little trails in the front, you know, when I was younger. Then I asked my father if anything ever happened because he goes mushroom hunting in the fall. and, you know, after like thinking about this, you know, my dad was were Italian-American. He's like a foreign guy, very few words. And, you know, I didn't really bring up that situation with him that many times,

but me and my brother talk about it. But I asked my dad, I go, when you were ever mushroom hunting in there, I go, did you ever see anything or, you know, hear anything? And I don't know if you got that email I sent you, Wes. I sent you another email because I ended up asking my father. And he was like, no. And then he's like, well, you know, he's like, you know, while mushroom hunting, sometimes I thought there was other guys in there because I thought I would hear two guys having a conversation like back and forth, you know, like me and you talking and then I answer whatnot. And he goes, I would like stand up and try to listen to where it was coming from.

and he knows that nobody lives there for about 100 acres and he would go a little bit deeper in and nobody would be there. So he just shrugged it off as like animals or he was just hearing things. You know what I mean? And besides that, a few years

after my brother comes in visits and he walks to dog and he came home a couple times after walking the dog And he's like, what are all those, that noise that comes? Do you ever hear that noise that comes from the woods over there? And I'm like, you know, there's coyotes really far out. I don't see them, but, you know, I hear them sometimes at sundown.

You know what I mean? Like when they start barking at sun or getting at sundown. But they're, you know, they're far out. And he goes, no, he goes, this is like something else. It sounds like something's being murdered out there or like, you know, something vicious. And I'm like, I don't know. I never heard it until one night I was. coming home and it was

way after sundown. And I had my window down on the driver's side. And as I'm driving by, I heard it from inside my car. I mean, it just sounded like somebody screaming. It wasn't a vixen call from a fox.

It wasn't a coyote. It wasn't a mountain whatever, Puma Mountain Leopard or whatever it's called. Yeah. It just sounded like something ferocious or like something was being murdered, you know? And after all this happened that winter, because I didn't want to go feed them, you know, we raised the animals for me as well. We ended up

calling a lot of the animals. So we scaled down to like maybe just a few five breeding stock from like 45. And we ended up moving all the cages up to the right, you know, behind the house more. only like a half acre out instead of five. And we moved everything closer to the house. And since we did that, you know, nothing has really happened. Plus, we have the lights, the motion lights outside and stuff like that. Just, you know, naturally, you know. Yeah.

So they haven't been taking any more animals or anything? No. No. I mean, we don't have nearly as many as we used to. but we also have on our property tons of fruit trees. We have pear trees, cherry trees, grapes. We used to have a huge garden at the end of the property. And you know, you don't know, you start thinking about things after you experience that.

And you start thinking like, could this have been that? Could the missing chickens have been that? You know, you just, you know, like we have three huge pear trees and we actually eat them. And, you know, sometimes my dad told me this, too, like, he'd get mad at us. Or he'd be like, did you guys have your friends come over and pick all the pairs? And we're like, no, what are you talking about? Like, what do you think it was funny? And we're like, maybe the squirrels ate him.

He's like, no, he's like, you know, because he would pick like three or four buckets of pairs of the trees. And he's like, I go out there wanting to pick them the next day and they're like all gone. You know what I mean? I don't know. Like, you know, that could be anything. But then you start thinking, like, what's that? something, you know, coming out and eating them or, you know, because we have all these things on the property. And you hear that, too, Al, a lot where people have fruit trees.

And same thing. They'll go out like they want to pick them and they're all gone. They're all wiped out. I had a lady who had blackberry bushes on her property. And she was like, they were beautiful. They were all ready to go. And the next day she came out and they were all gone. You know, birds are going to eat blackberry.

You know, animals are going to eat that stuff, but not all of it overnight. You know what I mean? It's not going to vanish overnight. Exactly. And that's what would be like the alarming thing is that, you know, you go out there and buckets and buckets would be missing. And you're like, you know, how many squirrels could have came and ate that? Or, you know, these pairs are so small that a bird can eat them. You know what I mean?

Like one bird would have to pack out one for, you know, fairly long to consume one. And you're just, so he would be like, you know, did you give him away? And I'm like, no. Like, I don't know. We don't go out there. You know what I mean? And the same thing with like the peaches and stuff like that. But that's all seasonally, seasonly, you know?

So, you know, and our neighbors are so far that, you know, I don't ask other people if they've had experiences because we're the ones that have the forest, you know, the tree line and the forest behind our property. They don't really as much as us. And, you know, I do know out in that forest. Connecticut's known for its rock wall structures where, I don't know, in the 1600s or 1700s, this is all Indian and English settlers. They had built rock walls for their properties and for their animals. So when you go far out into any forest in Connecticut, you see these rock wall structures, odd caves, man-made, caves. So there's a lot of places for, you know, any kind of wildlife to hide. And, you know, I'm not, I don't go out there and look for any kind of these structures people talk about.

Because, you know, you can account anything to anything. And for me, being a skeptic before, unless I see it, I don't really believe it. You know, because anything can make an X or, you know, it was just real, it was just real scary seeing something on two feet. Because even if it was a person, what are they doing there? You know, there's no reason for that person to be there. I know this happened several years ago. Did it pretty much stop after that? I mean, obviously, the per trees and weird stuff like that, but has it, is it stuff

still going on on your property or has it died off? The screaming is still heard when I, you know, hear it. Like if I'm out at that time or, you know, driving by or taking. taking the animal for a walk, you know, the dog, but it's not every night. You'll catch it just like on, you know, maybe like every few weeks, but it's at a certain time. It's not at when the sun goes down and the coyotes are yelling, and it's not yelling while other coyotes. It's just that, it's just that by itself, but it's so far deep that you can't just like, take your phone and record the noise from the street, you'd have to go.

And if you tried that, you wouldn't probably hear anything, you know. It's different when you try to record something, but then you actually hear it with your ears, you know. But I still do hear that crazy screaming noise, you know, here and there. But like I said, we moved all the animals closer to the house. So, you know, that would leave. it would make it really hard for something to walk that close to the house with all the lights that go on and whatnot, you know. Yeah, I agree. It's still creepy, though, that, you know, and I love one a skeptic.

I know you were skeptical. You told me that the other day. I was very skeptical even after I saw it, but, you know, you see what you see with your eyes. And, you know, I saw what I saw. You know what I mean? And it definitely had two legs and arms. but the top part was in above the trees. And when it started, it turned around and ran, I ran, you know, as well.

Yeah. And, you know, luckily it didn't come at me, you know, but it was at least three and a half feet wide. But it was so hugged up to the tree that it kind of like freaks you out because you start understanding that whatever it is has mastered its surroundings. just like we mastered our world, you know what I mean? That it, whatever it is, adapts and knows how to, you know, go about and do its thing without being known and seen. Yeah, no doubt.

Well, let me ask you this, Al. What do you think that they are? What is your opinion as far as what Sasquatch is? You know, I've, I don't, I've just recently, I said in the past year, I was reminded about this experience. just from seeing a documentary on TV. So, you know, I kind of, I remembered my experience, but then I kind of, you know, started looking into it on YouTube and online and looking up all, you know, different so-called evidence and clips and tons of theories from Jacanipithecus Blackie to the Nephlin to it could be from alien. and you know everyone makes great arguments that it could be from each and you know I'm a professional

and a person of science so I like to hear facts and they all have good you know facts to support each case but from what I see it's alive and if it was taking these animals that means it needs sustenance. So I'm thinking if it was something magical or that can jump through portals and whatnot, you don't think it would need to eat as well. You know what I mean? Yeah, I get exactly. I mean, yeah. So I'm thinking it has to be more on this plane. So I go more towards the flesh and blood theory because I only can go from what I see. So I know that it was taking the animals. I saw it physical. thing. I saw it run. It didn't like fly and, you know, disappear. And if it could have, I'm sure it would have.

You know what I mean? It wouldn't have been so loud crashing through the forest. And I just think that it's something that we can either eradicate or whatever. You know, I think it is able to be harmed and whatnot. As far as we're originated from, I mean, I couldn't tell you that. I don't know if it's something that was here that evolved and lived alongside humans just, you know, tucked away or something that was put here or some kind of abomination of some sort that I don't know. But I do know it is physical and it does need food and it is, you know, flesh and blood and something that is around. That's a fair answer, Al. I mean, we can.

can only make an assessment off our own observations, you know what I mean? And you're right. They do eat. They do crap. People do find hair. Beyond that, there's some weird things that go on with Sasquatch, I think. But I understand exactly where you're coming from. And I think it's a fair answer. You're right. If it's stealing your rabbits, obviously it's eating them. I don't think it has a pet rabbit collection out in the woods, you know. I don't think it's making a rabbit fur coat somewhere. Right, exactly. And there weren't any bones or anything.

You're like, you know, I kind of like looked closer to see if it was an animal eating them. If I would find bones or fur, because you do find that stuff. You know, when they eat, when the fox eater or coyote or whatever, they kind of tear it apart and you find bits and pieces. And I found nothing. It's just, you know, it's just. strange and I like I said I understand like when these things happen you know then we didn't have I don't have a phone I didn't have a phone as an extension of my body in 2000 like you know people have now constantly filming everything they're doing and you know so we didn't have that and I wasn't going to

you know sit out there and start stalking this thing afterwards with video cameras and become obsessed I just you know I just kind of moved the problem away from it and, you know, mine in my business. And I can understand, like, you know, when these things happen, this, whatever it is, is not going to sit there like it's a photo shoot. You know what I mean, and pose for you. So I do understand why some pictures can be blurry because you're trying to take a picture of it as it's running away or doing whatever it's doing.

It's not going to sit there and, you know, pose for you. I think you're smart moving everything away so that kind of take away the temptation of it coming. and it kind of takes away the problem. It's smart, man. Very smart. And it's a fascinating account, too. It almost makes me wonder if you caught it in the act like it was going. Well, I guess you did because you saw where there was two rabbits missing and it walked back into the forest.

And you must have just caught it in the act as you were out there. You know what I mean? Well, there was nothing. It was nothing in its hands. And, you know, it must have happened, you know, with, because I went, like I said, I ended up going. down there earlier in the morning, like around 6.37. So whatever these things are, you know, I don't think they're out there as much during the day because, you know, you could do a lot more. If it observes us and sees our movements and kind of adapts to us, then it knows when to make

its move. You know what I mean? So, yeah, we're usually sleeping. And we're predictable. Humans are very predictable on what they're going to do. Unfortunately, we're. Very predictable. Yeah. Every morning like clockwork were out there at the same time. Right. And in the winter at that time, it's still kind of dark, like dusk out. It's still like a little dark out.

It wasn't, you know, it wasn't like pure sun like it is in the middle of summer at that time. I think at that point it might have either just did it or did it and was still wanting maybe to go back for more or just was lurking in the area. And like I said, I felt like something was like, like, you know, watching me as I was going down there as well. I don't know if whatever it was just got curious or started getting more courageous or was planning to do something else. I don't know. Yeah, well, I'm glad that you're able to have, you know, an encounter that wasn't really aggressive and it was quick just to kind of open your eyes and let you know that it's out

there. And it was smart moving everything. And, you know, if anything else happens on that property, let me know. But I really appreciate you coming on, Al. Thank you so much for taking the time I enjoyed hearing your encounter. And thank God it's not really going on. They're always kind of in the area. I mean, even people who put up trail cams and do everything they can to back them off their homes, most people will tell you they're still in the area, but it prevents them from coming up.

And I think you coming up to a home, and I think you took that away of it coming, you know, because it'd be insane to walk up to home, have all the lights go on. usually they're not going to do that from what I hear from most witnesses anyway. And I have enough property. I have enough property where I don't need all those, you know, I don't need to have it all full to the edges and stuff like that. So, you know, and like as far as footsteps and stuff like that, like, you know, we cut our grass and run the tractor. So our soil where there isn't a garden is pretty compacted. You know what I mean?

It's not like fertile soil where something would sink in as it's running across. You know what I mean? And like the only time I saw, you know, evidence was in the snow. Then that's what started alerting me that day, you know. Yeah, I hear you. Well, be safe. Be safe out there, man. And thank you again for coming on.

Thanks, Wes. No problem. Thank you. And that's it for tonight. Everyone to remember if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sassad. Squatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone. Keeping across the country faster than the coronavirus and wagering week is your antidote. I'm Tom Barton, and I'm a veteran sports analyst and respected sports handicapper who will help build ESPN's brand.

I've been recognized and awarded by Pro Football Weekly and Gaming Today magazine as the honest handicapper. Let the other guys give you the same old boring sports. 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 SportsGuard Network's Wagering Week help your bottom line.