Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:696 Fishing Trip From Hell

Episode Date: October 4, 2020

The witness is a veteran and has agreed to come on the show. Chris writes "Wes, I recently discovered your podcast and have been listening and enjoying it. For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in Bigfoot/Sasquatch and believe enough evidence has been found to prove their existence. On to my possible encounter. In June of 2006, my fishing buddy and I were on Lake Ouachita (pronounced wosh-i-taw) in Arkansas. We hit the water around 1900 that evening, launching from the Joplin recreation area boat ramp. The breeze was calm and the moon was bright, a perfect night for fishing. Around 2200, we had been fishing the perimeter on one of the many islands on the lake. This particular island has a nice long inlet on one side that has a finger protruding just off center and we always catch some nice fish there. This evening was no exception. After landing my second bass, there was a loud splash from a decent sized rock being tossed in the water. I looked back to my buddy giving him the WTF look only to notice he was giving me the same look. As we were about to say something to each other, there was another splash in front of the boat. Now we knew that neither one of us had done this as a joke on the other as we were facing each other when the second and third splash occurred. We exchanged a few words while scanning the bank looking for who was throwing these rocks when the fourth splash was made to our left and very close to the boat. I remember my buddy saying "oh shit" and pointing to the crest of the island shortly after that splash. My eyes followed to where he was pointing, and standing next to a large pine tree was a hulking figure. While neither of us could make out any details, we knew it was massive. As stated earlier, the moon was bright and almost full that night, and what we were looking at was standing in the shadows of the tree it was beside. There was low, deep growl unlike anything I have ever heard before. This thing grabbed the branch it was standing behind, tore it from the tree, and began walking to our right, down the ridge towards the front of the boat carrying this limb.

The last question I want to ask you about the military, what was your favorite memory, your best memory of serving? My best memory of serving. Wow, that's a tough one. I served with a lot of really good men and women. My most fondest moment was the day our drill instructors called us Marines. It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in. the window of the deer blind. It either heard me or smelled me,

and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up, and 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 chumtering away back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forwards. I know what a bear looks like, and there is no way on this planet, but what I saw were bears. What's going on, what are you reporting? Jesus, put 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-uh. Hi, I'm James Wafer from Liverpool, UK, and I'm listening to Real Life Diabolical Accounts on Saskatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show planned for you tonight. We're going to be chatting with Chris. And Chris is actually a veteran. He served our country, and he had a fishing trip from hell out there in Arkansas.

And it happened back in 2006, all like Chris tell the story. We're also going to be chatting with John. Josh, and Josh comes to us from British Columbia, and Josh runs the British Columbia Sasquatch Society Facebook group. So if you're on Facebook, you want to join a group, check out the British Columbia Sasquatch Society. Josh had a really bizarre orb encounter. You know, in the Bigfoot world, I think we call them balls of light.

In the ghost world, they call them orbs. And I really think we're talking about two different things, at least appearance-wise. It's a very bizarre account. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Chris to the show.

Chris, thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you coming on, Chris. And I know you were a veteran and you served our country. Thank you so much for your service. And you and I were talking before we went on the air, and you were talking about a nonprofit that you run for veterans. Tell us a little bit about it. What's the name of it?

And give us a little bit of info on it. Our nonprofit is Higher Pigs Incorporated. We take veterans and their families out on outdoor adventures, help the veteran and the family reconnect, after deployments, just all different types of outdoor things, a little bit of overlanding. going to the lake, camping, swimming, hiking, horseback riding, fishing, that kind of stuff. So it's a lot of fun. Everybody seems to really enjoy it. Yeah, I love the idea. And, you know, I have kind of a soft spot for veterans.

If someone wanted to donate to higher peaks or wanted to get in contact with you, how would they go about doing that? we are working on our website as you know 2020 has been a difficult year so our fundraising has been hampered this year we do have a Facebook and an Instagram account under Higher Peaks Inc so the it's you can donate I know we have one on the Facebook page I'm not real sure on the Instagram I'm not very social media literate What got you into doing this nonprofit? Was it just your own experience or what was your passion behind wanting to do this? Like most combat veterans, I spent my time in the Marine Corps in the infantry, regular infantry. I'm not known special forces, high-speed, low-drag stuff.

Post-traumatic stress, I had no idea how much that combat had affected me, which affects the family. I discovered after I got home after my time in the Marine Corps and everything and I went down my path with it. And I discovered off-roading in general. And that's what really helped me and spurred me on and deal with my issues. And then my wife, unfortunately, there's where I'm from. I mean, and if where I grew up at, let me rephrase, and I apologize for this. I'm, I'm from a very small town. There are 27 people in my graduating class.

Somehow I managed to graduate 35th. I'm no genius at math, but that doesn't add up. Anyway, we don't even have a stop sign to this day in my hometown. So there's not a lot of resources for the family. And my wife had to navigate all this herself. and so what we started doing is we'd get a veteran and we'd take I started taking a veteran out and introducing them to off-road and a little bit of camping. And it was kind of like through that discussion,

we realized that, you know, hey, the family needs help itself. And because my kids grew up in this environment and I wasn't physically abusive to my family, but I was kind of not kind of I was verbally abusive to my family and so the and all this has helped me and so it's introducing veterans to this and because of what my wife and my children have been through we incorporated the families my wife has a wealth of knowledge to help the spouse no matter whether it be a male or a female spouse which our children are older now so most of the kids that we did. with or younger and it's been great. We've had companies like Snowmaster USA help us out with a fridge freezer.

So whenever we're out camping in some remote areas, we can have some ice cream for the kids whenever it's hot. Another company called Red Arc USA out of Australia gave us a vehicle management system. So whenever we are running that Red Arc refrigerator, I mean, that Snowmaster Refrigerator, we're not draining our battery and our vehicle will still start. So we've had a lot of good responses, AccuRides, send us some slides to help mount the refrigerator and some other stuff and make it easier to access via the rear of the pickup that we use and everything. So, I mean, it's been great with that. And then a friend of mine, Jeff, actually started the nonprofit.

And his big thing has always been to include families. And so what my wife and I were doing kind of helped Jeff. And I met Jeff through helping him with the nonprofit. And I apologize if I'm rambling on. I hope you can edit all this stuff. No, no, no, I'm not going to edit anything. It's you've earned it. You've earned it.

Jeff is a, Jeff started its nonprofit. And I met Jeff through helping them. They were having a ride up in Hot Springs, Arkansas. uh, he had a group up and I, I contacted Jeff. I said, Hey, man, you know, I'm a vet. You know, the, I say you're bringing these people up here. You all do the outdoor thing.

Uh, man, I've, I'm in this off road club and we're over here at the Haws Springs off road park. Uh, how many seats do you need? And we'll take these people four wheeling. And Jeff was like, oh, man, that's great. Yeah, I need X amount of seats. And so I contacted my, my guys and the club that I was part of and everything.

And I was like, hey, man, you know, we got to, which we have a lot of veterans in our club. And while I'm not part of the club anymore, I just am busy. But the Arkansas crawlers, great group of people. And so, and they came out. We had plenty of open seats for everybody. And it just, it was just everybody had a blast.

Did some, you know, just some mild four wheelings off, spent the day off road. And everybody loved it. Had an awesome time. We had a big, had a big supper afterwards, just really enjoyed it. And so that was my introduction to Jeff. And one day I was headed to a friend of mine's house.

And what my wife and I were doing was working. And we're paying for this out of pocket. And I'm not trying to get any accolades or anything like that. We're just fortunate where we could do this. And so I was like, it's time for us to do something. and there's no way I want to start a business and I don't want to make money off of this or anything like that by no means and everything. And to be honest, you know, I just had a conversation with God and I'm not trying to project religion on anybody. I have my beliefs and everything.

And I just had a conversation with God. And I was on my way to a friend's house one day. It was actually the next day. and it was like called Jeff just straight up out of the blue. And so I called Jeff and I'm like, hey, man, what's going on? You know, what's up with higher peaks? You know where you're at. I know things have been kind of silent.

You haven't really, you know, been on the map, so to speak. And he's like, man, it's funny you called because, you know, a few years ago, his position with the company that he works for had changed. And then some people that were with the nonprofit, you know, life has. happens and people grow with their day jobs and everything. And so it just kind of set a little stagnant for a couple of years. And I was like, you know, Jeff, well, this is what I've been doing. And, you know, my wife and I, we've been taking a family.

We've been going out, you know, on average once a month, taking a family camping for three or four days, you know, a veteran or family. Just, you know, and having a really good success with this and everything. So and Jeff was like, man, it's funny you should call, you know, and talk about this and everything because we're ready to ramp back up. And I need a few key people and man, I need you to help me. And I'm like, dude, I'm all aboard. I'm all aboard. So last year we took a family to, as our first, my first official outing with Higher Peaks as a team member, we took a family up to rendezvous in the Ozark. arcs and Cass Arkansas and had a blast.

It is an overland type event. We have three families that were taken this year. And again, unfortunately due to COVID, this has been the only event that we've been able to keep going this year. And so we haven't, a lot of our other events kind of fell through because places where we wanted to go were closed and limited and everything. And it's understandable.

It just kind of sucked and everything. Yeah, I think it's super cool. I think it's really, really cool what you're doing. You know, being a veteran yourself, you guys talk to each other, and it's kind of like a brotherhood. And the fact, you know, the woods can be a place of peace. And so I think what you're doing is very cool. I hope people go donate higher peaks.

I'll include a link if you want to go check out. this nonprofit organization, and they're helping veterans. I mean, who doesn't want to help a vet? But I know that's not while you're on the show, Chris. I know we just kind of mentioned it in the beginning, and I wanted to know more about it. But you actually had an encounter back in 2006. You were fishing, and you and I were talking about this encounter the other day.

I was telling you that this is a very typical behavior of these things towards fishermen. But I'll let you tell the story. If you would, just kind of start from the beginning. Tell us what you were doing. doing and walk us into what happened? I grew up in Royal Arkansas, hanging around to Saline River bottoms and the Washington River bottoms, hunting, fishing, full wheeling, general hell raising, as I told you in our email.

And I'm actually from Poland, Arkansas. If there's any country music fans, you check out the video from Justin Moore, Smalltown USA. That's my town. That's where I was from. So no stoplight to this day. still. But no, we were, I'm a big outdoorsman. I love being in the woods. I love being on the water. I don't have to be hunting. I don't have to be fishing. Just being out in nature. I just been 17 years in Marine Corps infantry.

So I was home on leave in June of 2006. And I'd met a friend. I'm going to leave his name out of this because I haven't talked to him before. I did all this and he still hadn't responded to me yet. So I'll leave his name out. But he decided we became friends. We met through a mutual friend and he knew I enjoyed fishing. So he'd take me fishing whenever I was home. So this night, we go out to Lake Walshitaul, and we typically like to launch at the Joplin Rec area.

It's beautiful. So we run up and we launched around seven in the evening. Not too long before day break, and we do a lot of bass fishing at night here because of the extreme heat that we typically have during our summers. And so we were fishing around this island and had been fishing for a while doing good with this particular island. Has a little inlet or cut out or in it where you can get a couple of boats up in there. It's large enough. And it has this finger that comes out and there's generally some really good fish hanging out there. you know nothing massive you know some nice three to five pound bass which were sport fishermen

catch and release nothing gets anybody who wants to catch them and clean them and cook them and eat them and everything uh by all means do that but so we were up there and i was actually on the front of the boat on the troller motor this night and um there was a splash and you know the you know the Kroplunk that a rock makes whenever it hits water. If you spend any time around water, throwing rocks in it, and skipping rocks and throwing rocks and stuff, there's a Knappunk, a definitive sound. So if one happened, and I was like, you know, what the hell?

I looked back at my friend and he, you know, to see, you know, if he had done something, he's looking at me, you know, with the same look, you know, what's going on. And then there was a second and a third splash that happened while we were just kind of looking at each other. And we were like, okay. And they're pretty good splashes and they were pretty close to the boat. Then there was a, I believe a fourth splash.

And we were looking, scanning the shoreline. It was a beautiful night. I don't remember if it was a full moon, but you could see fairly well. The sky was lit up pretty good and everything. And there's no artificial light where we're at. so we're scanning the shoreline and looking and everything and all of a sudden my buddy's like oh shit he's pointing toward the ridge of this island so i follow him and standing up on this ridge and the shadows was an extremely large creature being um could not make out any details of the creature because where it was standing at it there was a low growl it was maybe 70 to 80 feet from us and uh everything and we're just kind of like holy crap of course i'm pretty good under pressure but you never expect anything like that to

happen and i grew up believing in bigfoot i've never seen one never had any real experience or encounters until this point in my life. So about the time that I'm hitting the 24 volt button on the trolling motor to start backing us out of there, I hollered my buddy and like get the big motor and look back there and he's in sync with me, firing it up. And as soon as he drops the boat in reverse and starts backing us out of there, I'm pulling troller motor up. And during all of this that's going on,

there was a branch that we didn't know it's time but it was we could see the branch in front of you know or by the creature didn't know if it was in front of her behind it but it ripped this branch down and it covered got down there to within probably 25 30 feet of us on the shoreline moved quicker than anything I've ever seen and so it was just like holy cow it threw the it threw the branch at you, Chris? No, it didn't know. It just carried the branch down there with it. Oh, I got you.

I got you. It just carried the branch down there with it. And I think had we not been backing out and got the big motor up, the branch was long enough. Had we not started backing up, it probably would have got me off the front of the boat. And had it had it swung it, it probably could knock me off the front of the boat. So we get back to. out and he drops the boat forward, pins the gas, and we're gone.

So thankfully, that 225 Yamaha, I love Yamaha engines because of this night. That Yamaha never missed the lick. It fired first lick and we were gone. So we got a couple of miles from the island, shut the boat down, and just kind of sat there in disbelief at, you know, holy crap did we just see this did this just really happen you've seen that right and you know just a million questions

going through your mind and just kind of looking each other like you know that happened you know and I mean it was it was very surreal very surreal yeah pretty damn scary there was a there wasn't any odor that we could smell. We didn't have, we didn't really think about grabbing a flashlight. And trying to shine a flashlight, we were fishing whenever all this happened.

And I mean, and it was just get out of there. Yeah, you know, probably a good thing that you did. You know, it's weird, Chris, you and I were talking the other night, and I was telling you, with fishermen, you get this behavior all the time. You generally don't see them do this so much with hunters. And I kind of think it's because hunters are armed. maybe they know what a gun is, maybe they don't, who knows. But with fishermen, they generally will throw rocks at them.

Let me ask you, when you looked back, so you're kind of seeing an outline at this point, is it manlike? Is that kind of what you're seeing as a manlike? It was on two legs, definitely standing upright. It was manlike. Now, we could not make out any details because this thing stayed in the shadows. Like I said, it was, you know, we had some natural starlight, moonlight, and could see across the water well, but we couldn't see any real details of this being, other than the fact that it was huge. I mean, I'm a big guy at the time.

I mean, I'm six foot one still. I haven't shrunk any yet. But at's time, you know, I was 220, 225 pounds, you know, pretty fit. and everything. And I mean, and this thing moved unlike anything I've ever seen. And I grew up in the woods hunting. We do have black bear in Arkansas. I'm bigger than most black bear that we have.

So there's no way it was a black bear. My buddy is from West Virginia. Originally, he grew up hunting black bear. And he's like, that wasn't a bear. That was not a bear. black bears don't get that big yeah and black bears don't pick up rocks and throw them at you then snap a branch off like a weapon and come for you you know what i mean uh yeah yeah no they they don't did you ever go back did you guys ever go back we did we set out we we stayed uh we decided to stay

fishing uh we obviously we kind of set for a few hours and discussing our options and everything uh that's time didn't have we did not have a gun with us and uh everything it's just like you know we're fishing who needs a gun whenever you're fishing so we're like do we report it you know what do we do here and it's like well let's fish until sun up and we're going back over there at sunrise so we stayed well away from the banks uh not even enough that we were far enough off the banks that we weren't really fishing anymore and just kind of stayed out there all night and after daylight we went back to the island and we circled the island three times in the boat maybe four and because you can see all the way around the island as you're driving

around it and by the way for the record this island is about a third of a mile from the mainland so they have to be able to swim to get out there the water is way too deep and everything so I mean, they're obviously, they know how to swim. So they're a soft spot. We were in a fiberglass boat, so we looked for a soft spot to land the boat. Most of these islands are red clay and shell rock. So we beached the boat, and as we were disembarking, sorry, but forgive me H if you hear this. No, it's okay.

I'll bleep it out so that they won't hear his name. So he grabbed the fish ruler and as we were getting off the boat and everything. So just in case we've seen some tracks, of course, this is 2006 and most of us didn't have smartphones at the time. I don't even think my cell phone had a camera on it. At the time, I was still rocking a flip phone and he was rocking one of the key of bricks. So he didn't have a camera either. but the ground was pretty hard and we couldn't really see anything. The branch was still there, so we measured this branch.

This branch was almost 11 inches in circumference that it ripped off the tree. And if you, for anybody who's listening who may not know anything about pine tree, whenever you rip a branch off a pine tree, a lot of times you get runners that come down the side of the tree whenever it's forcibly removed. so it had another three or four feet that was sticking down there. But this thing was almost 11 inches across in diameter that it ripped off and was pushing, you know, better than 20 feet. It was partially in the water where it left it.

So we walked up to the tree. I could obviously see where it had removed it. And as I said earlier, I'm 6'1. And this branch, I could walk underneath where this branch, being not by much. So we're guessing from what we've seen that this thing was eight to eight and a half feet tall. And it was massive. I mean,

it was it was freaking huge. Yeah. Do you think, do you think if you guys wouldn't have left it meant you harm or do you think it was more or less kind of a bluff, a warning to make you want to leave? I think it just wanted us to leave, honestly. And we've, um,

and I have discussed it. Unfortunately, the long after I retired, his job, he had to move away and got to transfer and moved away. So we didn't get to see each other much after I got home for good. But we still keep in touch.

And it's something that whenever, you know, he's back this way and we get together, you know, I mean, it does come up and, you know, and we talk about it. And honestly, in the back of my mind, what I like to think, is that maybe it had a young one and just didn't want us to, you know, it didn't know our intent,

which our intent wasn't even to get off the boat. And by any means, you know, we were there to fish and have fun and enjoy, you know, just being in the outdoors and everything. And so, I mean, that's kind of, kind of what I think. I haven't really met anybody who has had any similar experience as far as. as running into one. I've met several people who have heard things and, you know, the things you can't explain happen. And I've had some, some different instances in the woods and stuff that, you know, could have been,

but there's no proof. And, you know, I'm not going looking. Like I said earlier, I believe in Bigfoot. I believe in Bigfoot for pretty much my entire life. I'm fascinated by the subject, but I am no sort of researcher. I have never been on a quest to find and prove that Bigfoot is real because I believe Bigfoot, you know, I believe Bigfoot, you know, that they are real. Having that experience definitely cemented that for me. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of reports in Arkansas. I mean, there's a ton of reports in Arkansas. And generally, they are kind of aggressive, kind of what you ran into. I mean, it didn't hurt you, of course, but they're generally not very friendly encounters, especially through Arkansas. And there's also kind of some weird creatures out there. I've heard some bizarre cryptids out there in Arkansas.

And you know, you get the salt of the earth type people. I mean that in a very respectful way. Just roll down to earth people out there. They'll, you know, and they're out there in the country. And they'll tell you, hey, I saw this. And they'll tell you everything about it. And I'm kind of left scratch in my head. But what's weird is I've never come across someone who said I saw this.

And no one else has ever seen that before. someone has always seen what they've seen out there, you know? I had an interesting conversation many years ago with my father-in-law. He is a great man. I love him very dearly, and I'm very, very thankful for my in-laws. So there is an old, it's called the Camden, Maine. An old railroad tram runs through some of the family property. And we were sitting there and we were talking.

And I love, and I love to hear him tell stories. I love it whenever he tells stories. It's awesome. He grew up in a completely different error than my family did. You know, my father and my mom, my dad, my mom and dad completely different. It's not error, but life way, way out where they had to pump the sunshine in out of the boonies. and everything. And, but anyway, we were talking,

and it's like, you know, you just think back to the railroad days and how remote some of these areas are that the railroad went through. And sometimes, you know, there's going to be derailments. There's going to be train wrecks and stuff. What were they hauling and what could have escaped over these timeframes? And, you know, way, way back when and everything. everything. And it's, it's an interesting thing to think about and to kind of explore. And because I have looked into the Camden, Maine. And there, you know, there were some instances in everything where,

you know, some livestock and some. What's the cap? What's the cabinet in Maine? What it's a, it's a defunct railroad line. Oh, I got you. That's the actual railroad. And yeah, it's an actual railroad. It's an old railroad line. And that runs from Malvern, Arkansas to Camden, Arkansas. And so just Malvern is my hometown, and it just poem's part of it and everything. So, I mean, it's just an old railroad line. But it's interesting to think about some things, you know, the circus animals, stuff like that, you know, and that could have gotten out to the wild somewhere where they're, you know, not there. natural habitat. So it's a very interesting topic that he brought up. And so it's, so I'm sure he has seen some things over the, over the years. And he hadn't really gotten into it much other than that, you know, if you're ever in the woods at night, you better have a gun and build a big fire.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of those old timers, that's how they are. You know, they'll, they'll give you a warning. They'll give you advice. but generally they won't go into too many details as far as what they've seen. I want to ask you, Chris, what do you think Sasquatch is? What's your opinion?

And obviously, you know there's no wrong answer. Yeah. I think I agree with most of the Native American and the First Nations from Canada on what they are. You know, they are a being. I think they're ancient. they are flesh and blood and I do agree that there are you know

a few different species type you know within their own species but I don't think they're humans I don't think they're animals I'm not really sure what they are other than their own designation and whatever that may be

and honestly I'm very surprised that based on how many encounters people have had some of the evidence that has been collected over the years, no matter how controversial some of the people want to make it to be, that people still doubt. And, you know, I've just found podcasts. Podcasts are kind of new to me. Like I said, I'm not very technologically proficient, as I was telling you the other day whenever we talked. you know, I've been listening to yours. I've been listening to another one and everything. And I actually found your podcast through the other podcast. And so it was just, it was really neat.

And but listening to the stories, you know, people tell their stories and everything. And you look back at the, at the Native American culture. And over time, there's such a long record of these creatures. How can people doubt? and sometimes I think that the community itself is its own worst enemy. Yeah, that's just unfortunate. Yeah, you're right. There is definitely a long history of it.

I mean, Daniel Boone even talked about shooting one. He called it a Yahoo. But if you read his description on what he shot, sounds like he shot Bigfoot. That's what it sounds like. Yeah. I mean, I hope I never have another experience. Like I said, I don't go looking for them by any means.

whatsoever. I'm not going to be run out of the woods, but shortly after that, because I did love to fish, and I was stationed in North Carolina, a lot of beautiful lakes and stuff up there to fish and everything. I did buy a shotgun to put in a boat. So I never went fishing without a gun either. I don't blame you. I don't blame you. I want to ask you, you know, I want to ask you one, or two questions about the military. Before we get to that, you know, you bring up it was on an island and how it had to have swam there. And that might sound crazy to some people, probably not to my normal people who listen to my show.

But there's reports of them swimming across Columbia River. That's a pretty big swim, and that's a very strong current taking it to the ocean. And you hear about them out in the Puget Sound too as well. I've had reports where people thought it was a guy out there swimming in the middle of the Puget Sound, and it wasn't. So they definitely do swim. The two questions I want to ask you, where were you deployed at?

I have been around this great big world of ours twice. The only continents I have never stepped foot on Australia, Greenland, Iceland, and Antarctica. I have been a lot of beautiful places and some places I hope to never visit again. Yeah, I hear you. The last question I want to ask you about the military, what was your first? favorite memory, your best memory of serving? My best memory of serving. Wow, that's a tough one. I served with a lot of really good men and women. My most fondest moment was the day our drill instructors called us Marines. And for those that know, it's boot camp is.

is not a joke, of course. It has changed drastically over the years, and people before us were, oh, my gosh, you're not really, you know, you didn't go through this, this, and this. And, you know, the people after us didn't go through what we went through. However, 13 weeks with three different drill instructors and a hundred other guys, you know, I mean, it's a, it's just something. and not taking away anything from the guys, guys and gals in any of the other branches by any means. It's just whenever you're officially called a Marine for the first time, it's awesome.

And that's probably, it's a huge thing. You know, we had, I'm going to say, I think five or six people just from our platoon in boot camp that washed out. make it. And so it, uh, it's not an easy thing by any means. And so that's probably my biggest thing, you know, my, yeah, it's a huge accomplishment. It's a huge accomplishment. It's a huge honor to be called a Marine. You know, it's that old saying that, you know, if we ever get attacked, thank God we have the Marines, you know, thank God for the Marines. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. That's very cool. That was your fondest memory. And I, I can't even imagine.

what you go through to eventually be called. I'm sure you recalled everything else in the book before they called your brain. Oh, Lord. I've been called quite a few things over the years. And so, it, uh, man, boot camp was, uh, what was tough whenever I went through. It really wasn't a joke by any means. I played football, played baseball. And so, and, but the thing, the, the biggest thing that nobody ever tells you about,

whenever you're going through boot camp is the solitude that you feel whenever you know because you know I grew up in a very loving household mom and dad were good night love you every night good night love you every morning you know the and so you're just it it's even though you're surrounded by a hundred other people it's still very lonely and it's a it's a it's a big, huge adjustment for someone, you know, I can't speak for everyone,

but for me, that was a huge adjustment, not having, you know, to be able to talk to my mom or dad, my girlfriend, who became my wife, and,

you know, just to be able to see them and, you know, talk to them anytime I wanted. So, I mean, it was different.

And for 13 weeks, it was pretty brutal. But it, you know, earning that Eagle, Globe and Anchor and being called a Marine was was my goal and I did it and I got to the Marine Corps. I enjoyed it and decided to make a, you know, decided to stay and make a career out of it. And so, and it was good.

So it allows me to do what I do now, which is, you know, help other veterans. Fortunately, I, because of my situation, I don't have to have a job, a regular job and work. and everything. And then through my experiences, you know, able to help others. And at the same time that I, and not to sound so, I'm sort of, I'm looking for self-righteous or anything like that. No, I don't think so at the time, at the time, or self-serving, I guess. But at the time that we're helping these other veterans, you know, it's helping me.

And, you know, helping others, you know, helps me deal and cope. and, you know, and everything. And the great outdoors has just been phenomenal for my path to help me heal. Because post-traumatic, you know, the one thing I'd like to stress is you don't have to be a combat veteran to come to one of our events. It doesn't matter when you served. We have actually had veterans who served completely during peacetime, never left the U.S. and come, you know, and come to one of our events and everything. So please audience don't think that, you know, it has to be that way.

And for any veterans, any other veterans that may be listening, you know, it's not that way. Our events are open to any veteran, no matter when they served, it doesn't have to be, you know, and you don't have to be a combat-related vet or, you know, and everything to come to one of our events. So it just really helped me heal, you know, post-traumatic stress is something you never get over. You learn how to manage it or it learns how to manage you. The great outdoors have really helped me to manage mine. And, I mean, my wife, if you ever get, you know, if we get a chance to meet, you make my wife, meet my kids. They'll tell you today I am a 100% different person than I was.

and once I sought treatment, fortunately, the VA has been a great thing for me. Very, very blessed in that aspect that I have a wonderful team there that helps me and everything. And just, you know, the discovering, rediscovering the outdoors and off-roading just really just, everything just kind of set me on the path and, you know, to be where I am today. Yeah. And it's just been a great trip. Yeah, God bless you, Chris. I mean, honestly, God bless you. And, you know, you go from a badass Marine, even though most Marines won't say they're

badasses. Those are people who are badasses don't say they're badasses. And Marines are badasses. But, you know, you go from that to this larger than life figure of, I know you don't see yourself that way, but I'll say it, with higher peaks helping veterans out. You know, veterans are a lot like cops in a certain way to where a veteran will talk to another veteran. A cop will talk to another cop. If you're not a vet or not a cop, they're not going to, because you don't understand where they're coming from.

You haven't lived that life, you know. And I think what you're doing, especially with going outdoors and finding peace, you've probably helped more people than you realize, man. I just respect you so much. And I thank you so much for taking the time to come. on and talk about higher peaks and talk about your encounter too as well. Thank you. And so for anybody who is listening, as I mentioned earlier in the broadcast that next month, the 15th through the 18th, I believe, of October, we will be at the rendezvous in the Ozarks

in Castle, Arkansas at Virgin Venture Center. We will have some banners up, come by and see us. We will be going out on trail rides and stuff like that. feel free to come by, join us, hang out. Absolutely. Thanks so much, Chris. All right, I appreciate it, Wes. Thank you.

Well, next up on the show, I want to welcome Josh. Josh, thanks for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having you. Yeah, and I'm really fascinated by this orb encounter that you had. I know you sent me the email about this account, and then you and I spoke about it, and I'm just fascinated by it. So we'll get to the Orb story in a moment,

but I know that you run the British Columbia Sasquatch Society on Facebook for anyone out there. Go check them out. British Columbia Sasquatch Society. Josh, why did you originally start this group? Well, it's kind of a funny story. The way that this group started was basically back in 2015. I was working at the place that I work currently.

My boss and current friend, he told me about his mother. She had a Sasquatch encounter in Rebel Stoke, British Columbia. and I was kind of like taken back by that. I was like, oh, that's really, that's really interesting. So he kind of told me the encounter and really, really, really fascinating. And I kind of just took it in. Didn't really think anything much of it other than I thought it was really interesting. Fast forward about a week or two later, I'm doing a bike ride up to Callahan Lake,

which is just south of Whistler, Bruce Columbia. And I do a bike ride up to the lake, beautiful bike ride, come back down to the bottom of the lake, excuse me, the bottom of the trail. and I'm just packing up my bike and I'm trying to put my bike on the car, get ready. Well, this guy starts coming down the road from where I came from, and he's on his motorcycle, like his dirt bike, and he's coming down the road, and he stops. And for whatever reason, intensive person is, he stops, and he says, hey, what are you doing? Are you biking?

I was like, well, yeah, I'm biking. He's like, oh, did you know that I made all the trails around here? He was like, oh, no way, I didn't know that. And then he continued to go into, well, I'm up here because I'm actually looking for Sasquatch. And I went, really? And he said, yeah, I'm up here. I'm looking for Sasquatch. That's why I'm up here. I've seen him.

I have all this photo evidence. And he showed me all this forward evidence on his phone, whether it was tracks or whatever it was that he had in his phone. And I'm looking at these things. And I'm like, you've got to be, you know, this thing. This is interesting. You know, I'm fascinated by this. So fast forward in other couple of things. of weeks.

That's what another couple of weeks. I'm hiking a trail called the Rainbow Lake Trail, and I'm going up the trail. And by this point, I'm like really getting into it, like figuring, like trying to figure out what people are seeing, why they're seeing, like, you know, what is this thing in the woods? So I'm walking through the trail. Like, I'm actually at this point walking up to Rainbow Lake with my eyes open, seeing if I can see anything.

And it was very early in the morning. It was probably 6 o'clock in the morning, 6.30 in the morning. And I'm hiking up this trail. And all I hear is, whoop. I'm like, hang on. Did I just hear that? Did I just hear that? So I'm continuing walking up the trail.

Another, whoop, like, you know, the whoops. I'm like, no way. No way did I just hear that. So me being silly, I did that back. And then all of a sudden, there was movement just down, just down, up the trail, just a little bit. But like off the trail a little bit. So I walk up the trail very slowly, like sneaking, kind of sneaking up there. Sure enough, it was just two humans trying to find Bigfoot.

Oh, I got to. So I ran into these two other guys, right? And I'm like, how many people are out here in this general area looking for Sasquatch? How many people are doing the same thing, the general same interest? And then that just, that kind of just kept happening to me. You know what I mean? So then I started realizing that there's an actual like society of Sasquatch people looking for Sasquatch. And there's an actual, like aside from the mainstream society, you know what I mean?

There's people that are doing this stuff and not posting anything. They're just doing it for own personal business. So there's literally a lot of people out there that a lot of people do not know who they are. So what I decided to do is I decided to make a Facebook page to try and try and connect everybody in British Columbia and around the surrounding areas to to kind of come forward and just be like, hey, this is a, this is a safe place to post about Sasquatch. It's hard to keep it a safe place, obviously. But that was the original intent. So from there, it just snowballed.

It literally just snowballed. It just became what it is today. Yeah, I think it's very cool what you created, Josh. I know it is hard to keep the peace sometimes in those groups. British Columbia, Sasquatch Society, check it out on Facebook. And I know that the group has grown, Josh. You do post some pretty cool content. is there one encounter either a witness that's shared with you or a property that you went out to investigate?

Is there one that kind of comes to mind that really stands out? Well, there's a couple of counters that stick out in my mind. The one encounter that was just north of Williams Lake, we were kind of chatting about it yesterday, just north of Williams Lake, she had to eat it. There was a family that was having experiences on their property, rocks being thrown, vocals at night, different things like that. So she was getting a little bit frightened because they were getting kind of close to the property, banging on the house, that kind of thing.

They too have kids, so the kids were freaking out. So she had contacted me, and she was wondering if there's anything we could do. And we had sent a person over there. It wasn't me and myself, but we had sent a person over there. And I guess what the person found, which happened to be a BFRO investigator, She went there and she found beds. She found tree structure. She found weird hieroglyphic paintings.

I'm not sure what to think about that, to be honest. She found all kinds of different things that were happening. She even found a tree structure that was basically like a blind. You know how hunters have like a deer blind? It was kind of like that. But I guess what she said was when you go into it, you can actually see the house, like the back of the house. So chances are this thing was hiding behind the deer blind and staring at the house. So however, she ended up going there.

She did all the documentation. Basically told the lady, look, do you want these on here or do you not? Because they're here, there's evidence that they're here, there's footprints, there's you name it, right? She said she did not want them on there. So basically what she did is she put up a whole bunch of trail cams, a whole bunch of floodlights. She contacted me about a month later and said, look, I don't seem to be having a problem with them anymore. So that one, that one to me was very interesting. I thought the deer blind was really, really interesting how they built a deer blind to kind of like, or not a deer blind, but you know, like for lack of a better term, a Sasquatch blind.

You know, I thought, I thought that was really interesting. Another one that happened last winter right here in Mount Curry, the new site of Mount Curry. There was a lady that was sitting by the table. She was having dinner with her family. And then she was done having dinner with her family. And she went into, let me back up, let me back up. So the new Mount Curry site is an all-Aboriginal site, our Native American site.

It's like the newer site of the old site. And it's very, very popular. It's probably, well, I wouldn't say very popular. It's probably 2,000 people, probably about as much as where I live. And the lady owned a house, like a two-story house with a base. basement. The house was backed up against the forest. So

the backyard was probably about 15 feet, and then it's literally just wall of forest for days. There's big mountains right behind there. There's just nothing. It's just forest. And so, however, back to this, she was having dinner with her family. She

got done having dinner with a family, and it was late at night. Probably, he was in the wintertime, but not I wouldn't say late at night, probably like, 7, 8 o'clock, I think she said. Anyway, she got done eating dinner. She went to her kitchen. She was doing her dishes. Now, her two-story house with the basement, when you walk in the front door, there's a stairwell that goes up, and then it leads to the second floor. And the second floor is where the kitchen and the bedrooms and the bathrooms are. Now, the kitchen is at the back of the house, and the sink is right below the window of the kitchen. Excuse me, the window of

the, right above the sink. That's what it's. And, One night, she was done dinner. She was having, she was cleaning up her dishes and she looked outside her window and staring back at her directly at the same height that she was in her house at her staring back at her. Two red egg-sized glowing eyes. That's pretty creepy, man. The glowing red eyes. Did you get an idea how tall the thing was if she was looking at the eyes? The second floor had to have been a good 15 feet in the air.

but my guess is that it had to have been either in the tree because when I went back there to look for tracks and stuff like that, like a week later, there was really not much of an incline for the thing to be that high, but there was a little bit of like hill. I don't know if that makes sense. So I'm not sure if it was like standing directly. There's no way it could have been 15 feet tall. But my guess is it was in a tree and it was staring at her. That's my guess. Yeah, the glowing red eyes, the, You know, it's just something that I'm not sure what to make of it. You hear it with so many witnesses that, you know, the eyes were glowing. And I can't imagine looking out a window and seeing two of them looking back at me. You know, with going back to your first encounter that you shared, I had something similar like that happened to me on the Brown's property. We went out there. We found this.

It looked like a blind. And it would have taken like five of me to put this thing together. I didn't even know if five of me could put it together. But anyway, we found this weird structure on their property. And when I got inside of it, I realized I could watch the house all day long. You would never see me. And it seemed like the only purpose of building it. It's just creepy, man.

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what was described. I don't know. I don't know. It must just be something they do, I guess. It's just to watch the house. It's very creepy. I mean, other encounters where, you know, Sasquatch comes up to windows and looks at kids and stuff.

And all that's just, you know, it's just creepy. Yeah, it is. This whole subject is creepy. Before we get to your ball of light encounter or orb encounter, I'm curious, Josh. Have you ever had your own personal encounter with the creature? I haven't had a personal encounter. However, I will tell you, I will tell you this. I'm pretty sure I saw a silhouette of one, and I'll get into that right now. Back in 2016, I started dating my current wife now. and we were camping out at Birkenhead Lake. Birkenhead Lake is probably about 45 minutes north of where I live. It's kind of a popular spot in the summertime, but we were there in the fall. Like we were there just before it was closing, and nobody was there.

There was probably one other person on the other side of the campground. And I remember being there late at night. We were just sitting around the campfire doing our thing. I went up and I had to take a pee. I had to relieve myself. So I went up and went over to the side of the bush. And in the side of the bush, on the other side of the camp site, there's a raging river. But inside of the bush where I was taking a piss, I could see from the campfire light,

what it looked like the upper torso with the head and, you know, that chronicle, the chronicle head? And then it had like the shoulders that come down and they're very, very big. But it was just a black silhouette of it, and it didn't move. It was completely still. It was probably massive. It had to have been massive. If it was one, I don't know for sure. But it had to have been massive because when I shine my light in there, I could see the silhouette of it, but I didn't have a very good flashlight.

It had to have been four feet across at the top where the shoulders kind of meet. the head was probably the size of, I don't know, a larger size basketball or something. Like, you know, it was just, I couldn't see any facial features. All I could see was a black silhouette. And so I called my wife over her. I'm like, hey, what do you think of this? You see what I'm seeing. And she saw it, but she's not, like, she's not particular on, like, she's not really

into what I'm into as much. She kind of rolls her eyes a little bit, but we can get into that later. So that's what I saw. And it didn't move. And I thought that was really strange. And so we kind of just continued out the night, not really thinking of anything. And the next morning I went back to the same spot, which was very close to where the campsite was. And I went in there.

And there was clearly like no possible way that there was a silhouette of like trees. You know how you go back? You think you find something. You go back and you double check to see if there's like, you know, Yeah, like peridolia or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Just to see if there actually was something there or not. And sure enough, there was nothing that showed that there was no, like a silhouette of anything.

It was just, it was just plain old, plain old woods. It was forest. So I don't know whether that was one or not, but if it was one, it was probably within 75 feet. Would you ever want to run into one? Yeah, I think so. At a safe distance, to be honest. It would be, I know, listening to so many different accounts and so many different encounters, I think I would be less scared to run into one after hearing and looking into the subject for quite some time.

95% of the time you're going to get one that just looks at you and kind of goes, oh, crap, you know. I got caught. Yeah, it's going to turn around and walk away. So that being said, I wouldn't mind having one of those just to kind of, like I definitely know they're real, 100% they're real. I mean, listening to your show, like I said yesterday, listening to your show, all they have to do is, you know, start from zero, go to the very last episode. And even one of those eyewitnesses were telling the truth, Sasquatch was real, you know. So, yeah, one of these days, one of these days, it's only a matter of time, I'm sure. I've been in the woods quite often.

Yeah, I hear you. Be careful what you wish for. You know, after talking to all these eyewitnesses and investigating this for so long, I'm kind of curious, Josh. What do you think that these creatures actually are? To be honest, I'm a bit torn because a part of me, it's like, it's biological. It's, you know, it's behavior. years are human-like. And then you get the other side of the thing, like the woo, you know,

you hear about cloaking, you hear about all the difference on the side. So to me, if I had to put it in a category, Wes, I would probably say not a relic hominid, but sort of, sort of a relic hominid that kind of just branched off to like a long time ago. Like I think they're very, very old. I think they're a species of us that's kind of branched off a long time ago that has just been adapting and living in the woods, like living in the forests of North America and around the world. And I think over time, throughout the thousands of years that they have been here, they have developed different adaptations to their environments. And over the thousands of years, I think they've just adjusted in a way that their bodies have just changed so dramatically that we just don't recognize them. Others in the fact that they walk on two legs. They have hands.

They have, you know, thumbs. You know what I mean? Some of them look like a regular guy, you know, like a regular human. But then again, you know, you hear about the orbs, like you know, and then you hear about, like I said, you hear about the cloaking. You hear about all that other stuff. So when you think about the relic hominid side, there's always that other side to them. That's very, very strange too. And then you have the ape-looking ones.

And then you're just, you know, I don't know. I'm just going to, I have no idea. It's so hard to come up with an answer because there's so many different weird aspects to it. You know, just what I always say, and there's been many times where I thought just when I had it figured out, I get thrown a, you know, a curveball and I have no idea what I, everything I thought I believe just went out the window. it's one of those sayings and you know with eyewitnesses a lot of times if you hear uh dr bendernoggi used always tell me if you hear one person say it no one else is saying it you can throw it away uh if you hear something strange and you're hearing it from multiple

people uh maybe maybe give it some time you know let kind of look into it find out what's going on you know like the orbs the orbs is a great example you had something like that happened on around your property uh if you would kind of tell us about about that. What were you doing and what did you see? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I did. Well, it was back in August of 2019. So this happened at two hours north of Vancouver Bridge Columbia in a little place where I live. And I live in a house that is currently, sorry, I live in a rental suite that is underneath a house that is on top of a plateau. Okay. And that being said, the rental suite is underneath the house. However, there is a hill at the back of the house. So basically, the rental suite that I'm living in, it has a nice patio. When you go outside the back patio, you can look over the valley. You know, it's not like your typical basement suite where you, you know, you're in the basement. You know what I mean? And it was a typical day, man. I was just,

You know, my wife was at work. I was at home by myself. I was standing in the kitchen. And my daughter, she was watching TV. And to paint a picture here. So to get to our suite, we go down the left-hand side of the house, which is about 10 or 12 stairs, whatever. You go in the door, and right there, if you look to your left, is the patio door. And then to the left of that is a window at the side of the house. The suite is probably about 70 to 7.7. 45 feet above the ground. Okay, so I'm looking down towards the forest. The kitchen is actually right there, and the living room is right there. It's all kind of like in one little space.

It's not a very big place. So I'm standing in the kitchen, and I'm watching my daughter watch her show. And I'm not really thinking about much. I'm just kind of neandering. When it is the corner of my peripheral vision on my left eye, as I'm looking out the patio door, I can see something moving around in the woods down there. Now, we have bears, we have coyotes.

Sometimes the kids play around there when it's like not too brushy. However, this was August, and, you know, the forest is lush. So I'm standing in my kitchen. The window on the left-hand side of the house is facing basically the neighbors as well as facing the forest, which is very lush in the back of it. very, very little residential. You're talking about rainforest remorse,

like temperate rainforests from us. I'm standing in the kitchen, and I'm looking out the back patio, and to my left, in my left peripheral vision, I see something moving around in the woods. I'm like, oh, what is that? And I'm thinking to myself,

it could be bears, it could be coyote, because we have those around here. And then as I was just kind of standing there, looking in the forest, I can see something moving around in the forest. And I'm like, okay. And it was bright. Not bright.

but it was moving around in the forest. So I'm staring at it and I'm staring at it. And then all of a sudden, I don't know how I'll describe it, the softball size orb comes out of the bush, above the bank, about five to six feet high, turns to its left, which would have been my, or sorry, turns to its right, which would have been my left because I'm staring at it from the left,

goes about 10 feet. And as I'm watching it, West, As I'm watching it go this way. Like, like it was following something. I don't know what it, or it was just like searching. So I'm watching it go. I walk to the window. So I'm like, what am I looking at right now?

As I'm walking to the window, West, and this is the most weirdest thing, I'm walking to the window. And it was like it stopped and saw me. And it flashed me. Like, it was like a laser beam in my eyes five times and then just disappeared. I know it's a hard question to answer, but what do you think it was? At first, I'm not going to lie, at first I did think it was an orb because of how long I've been looking into the Sasquatch subject and you hear a lot of that stuff. However, I didn't expect to see it. You know what I mean?

Especially while I'm standing. I mean, this is broad daylight at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. And I'm seeing this thing come out of the woods. and I don't know. Let me describe it for you. It came out of the woods. It was about a softball size red orb. Okay, it was red.

And it's like it's like it wasn't shining any light west. It was like a glow, you know glow sticks, the glow sticks I, you know, you take to like, it was almost like that. It was like it was, you could tell it had color and it was like a light, like an orb, like a light, but it wasn't shining. The only time I ever got the shining was when it flashed at me, and that's it, and then disappeared. I still, I have no idea what to think about it. I don't know what the orbs are. I've been trying to listen to the Bridgewater Triangle episode was really good with the Taipei Wangas and the, you know, the little people and the conversations about that. I wouldn't talk to the local natives around my area.

And they basically said the same thing that you said yesterday. They said that the red world, they said that the red one is a cursed orb, excuse me, a cursed soul that is trapped to roam the forests because of something they did bad in their life. I don't know. And that's what they said about the red ones. I don't know about the other ones. I have no idea. Yeah, it's strange. I think every Native American I've ever spoke to about the lights, they really have nothing good to say about.

the lights. But it's a bizarre light. I mean, it's, it's not really like a spotlight. It's, it's kind of a pretty light, but it's really hard to explain. It's almost like the light is being illuminated from within. Exactly. That's exactly it. Like, it's so hard to, like when people, like you said, when people vision like an orb, like, you know, it's a bright light, right? But yeah, these things are definitely not like that. They're, they're very, like you said, they're very, very, warm and comforting looking light. I guess that's the best way to describe it. But very strange.

Very, very strange. Yeah, very strange. I mean, and you know, you said it kind of looked at you. And, you know, for most people, it's hard to articulate that because you're looking at a ball of light. How do you know it took notice of you? And people say that to me because my comment to when I saw one, it seemed like the more me and my brother took interest in it, it took interest in us.

I can't tell you why. I can't tell you. It's not like it said hi or it was just more or less a feeling. Is that kind of your experience? Yes, absolutely. Like as soon as I started, it was weird. As soon as I started walking towards that window that's on the left hand side of my house as I was looking at the orb. As soon as I started doing that and I started like squinting like, what am I looking at? That's when it went. It was almost like I freaked it out. Like it was like, oh crap, I got caught. somebody saw me, I don't know how they would have seen me, like that thing would have seen me from the window because it's not a direct view. It's, you know what I mean? So it was almost like it felt me and it felt my presence and it knew where I was. And then it turned to me and it flashed in my, like I said, it flashed in my eyes five times. And I blinked a little bit because I was like, I could see this flashing in my eyes. And then when I, when I, after the flashing was done, it just vanished. It was gone. Yeah, spooky stuff, man. It's real spooky. And I think more people probably run into those balls of light than they actually have run into Sasquatch. I know your group is called British Columbia Sasquatch Society. Josh, if someone wanted to contact you, how would they go about doing that? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. They can get a contact with me through email, which is the B.C. Sasquatch Society at gmail.com. There we go. So if you're in the area, definitely contact

Josh. And check out the Facebook page, British Columbia Sasquatch Society. Josh, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the air and share what happened to you. I really appreciate having it. Thanks, Josh. And that's it for tonight. Everyone, remember if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatchfranchicles.com. If you get a chance, check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com. You can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone.