Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:778 Military Encounters | What Is A Box Witch?

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

Tonight we will be chatting with Nick who is currently serving in the United States military. He is going to share with us his experience while training at Fort Polk. Nick said "It was a strange night and I wasn't the only person to experience this thing, whatever it is. I have also seen the lights on Fort Polk. There is a term that is used among solders and we call it the box witch." The term has nothing to do with a witch but Nick will explain why they call it that. Nick said I've started a side project of collecting Soldiers stories, specifically what they've experienced with "not normal." It's on Instagram @Tales_From_The_Gridsquare."  

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 moved like that in my life. What's what? 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. What's going on, what do you report? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know. Do you see a mouse, sir? Yes, I'm looking right here.

Uh-oh. Hey, this is Dan from Cougan, New York, and you're listening to the best podcast in all the land, Sosflotch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you. We're going to be chatting with Nick,

and Nick is actually an active duty member in the United States military. And he'll be sharing with us a very strange experience he had out there at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and he wasn't the only one to experience it. And what's cool about Nick is Nick actually started an Instagram account. And if you're on Instagram, go and check them out. Nick is under Tales from the Grid Square.

And what Nick does is he's got access to these soldiers. And soldiers will send them in different experiences that have happened to them, very strange, odd encounters that they've had, whether they're veterans or active duty. And Nick posts it up on Instagram. so he'll be sharing some of those with us tonight. And again, if you're on Instagram, check them out. Tales from the Grid Square.

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 Nick to the show. Nick, thanks for coming on. Thank you, Wes. Thanks for having me. Yeah, Nick. I'm honored to have you on and, you know, without guys like you as a nation were nothing.

So thank you so much for your service. I know a lot of bizarre encounters are sent to you and you post them up on Instagram. And there was an experience that you had out there at Fort Polk, Louisiana. If you would, tell us about it. Yeah, sure thing, Wes. So just put out this, so I'm in the Army. I won't say, my ranker name or anything like that. And I guess since I said that, I have to add that. My views and expressions don't reflect the United States military or the Army or anything like that. These are just my own. But I have to say that for legal reasons. But going forward, so, okay, so Fort Polk, people who are not familiar, anyone in the military will know the infamous Fort Polk,

but it is a military base out in Louisiana, Leesville, Louisiana, to be precise. And it covers a huge, like, huge footprint of land. And it is set aside because it is the home of what is known as JRTC, the Joint Readiness Training Center. And so that is basically where the Army sends some of its divisions to train as if they were going to fight in like a real war or whatever war we're training for. So if you're in light infantry division, so if that's 82nd, 10th Mountain Division, any division that does involve tanks or vehicles, wheel vehicles, they go there to train. So I was part of a big logistics unit that was supporting the whole operation, and we were sent into the box, which is known as like that that's what we call the training area is the box. And so that is a huge, like I said, huge chunk of land. There's some parts that are like deep, deep, deep in there that you'll not see any civilians, pitch black, no ambient light.

It gets pretty remote in some places. So there was one period where it's very early in the exercise. So we just started, we've gone live. It was late at night. So I had just finished coming back from like a sink that we do every night in the battalion. And I was going back to my sleep area. And so where I was was along the C wire, which is like, think of concert. It's concertina wire.

So it's like barbed wire, but more beefed up to, I guess, create more of an obstacle. And people are, we're sleeping along the C wire. and I decided to be that guy that I want to sleep away from everyone for privacy. So I'm a little off further down the line, and I'm pretty much at the end of the sea wire where it opens up into, like, thick forest. And so just to kind of orientate you to the terrain, so when I sit down in my tent and I look out, there is a really thick brush. You really can't see, but about 10, 15 feet in, it kind of drops into a,

like a ravine of some type, like, I guess, like a little ravine. So, like, you could really walk in there, like, in about 10, 15 feet, like, disappear. Really hard to see. So anyways, I'm coming back. It's late at night. There's not a lot of ambient lights cloudy that night, so it's pretty much pitch black. I have MVGs, but they don't really do much because, you know, MVGs will, they will amplify the ambient light. So I'm walking back, find a way back to my tent.

And I sit down in my tent, I turn on my red light, and then I start taking off my boots, getting ready for bed. all of a sudden, a pine cone lands at my feet. I look down, of course, it takes me by surprise because it's, you know, quiet, it's pitch black, and I'm thinking like, oh, that's weird. But I'm sleeping underneath a pine cone tree, so I don't think anything of it. It's just like it fell. So I'll go back to do my business, and another one lanes at my feet. And I was like, oh, that's weird. I mean, this pine cone tree must be really dropping these things.

And I get this feeling to look up, and as I look up, a pine cone comes flying out of the woods. and smacks me right in the face, like hits me right, like, dead center. And so now I'm like, okay, somebody is messing with me. So I turn off my light, and I should, I'll pause right here to mention. So at JRTC, there are American soldiers who play, like, the bad guy, right? Where nickname for them is Geronimo. That's like the nickname for the bad guys out there, or the G-man, quote-unquote. So sometimes they go and they will, like, probe your defenses and try to, like, infiltrate you

or do stuff to mess with you. So I'm thinking like, oh, is this about to happen? So I turn off my light and I wait and another pine cone comes flying out of the woods. And so I'm thinking like, okay, this is somebody messing with me or somebody like really, really trying to like push me here. So I turn on my MVGs and I'll put it up to my eye. And of course, because there's no ambient light, I can't see anything because the woods are so thick. You know, it's really hard to pick up anything. I use the IR strobe that is on the MVGs and turn it and it kind of shoots out.

you know, we can't see it in the naked eye, but on the MBGs looks like a bright flashlight. And I don't see anything. Don't even see like, you know, any eyeshine of an animal, nothing like that. But what I do see is another pine cone come flying out of the darkness and land right on my tent. And I'm just sitting there like, okay, this is not good. So I put my MVGs up, zip up my tent, I get down. And I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the inevitable, like, they're going to come through the wire and come drag me into the woods.

the Geronimo that is, but nothing happens. And what instead happens is pine cones keep raining on my tent for about, I would say maybe like two, three minutes, like just bouncing off my tent. And occasionally there's rocks, like really small ones. And it's just my tent. And I'm just like, what is going on? Like, now I am officially freaked out. Like somebody is maybe messing with me or I'm about to get jumped by G-Man.

And then it stops. And kind of think nothing of it. Go to sleep. I wake up the next morning and I go talk to our security element and our, S2, who was our intelligence officer. And I kind of tell him, like, hey, I just want to let you know. Something weird happened last night. And I had, like, pine cones and rocks thrown at my tent.

And I really couldn't see who it was. I don't know if it was someone messing with me, but it was beyond the C-wire in the wood line. So it was either if someone, if one of the soldiers was pranking us, they really were stupid and went beyond the C-wire, or if it was Geronimo, they were probing us. And he was like, you know, you're not the only one to say that. Pretty much everyone on that line of C-wire, where we were, further down for me had pine cones and rocks thrown at them all night, including like the Battalion

XO, who was like, yeah, there's people like throwing like bigger rocks at him, like kind of like heavier ones. And nobody got hurt luckily. And we just kind of like laughed it off as a joke and thinking it was Geronimo kind of probing us for whatever reason throwing rocks because they had been known to do that. But then the OCs, so OCs are other army personnel, think of them as like graders. So they're there to grade you on how you perform. They look at us like, we're crazy, and they're like, what are you talking about? Like, we did not have anyone here last night to come and mess with you and probe your defenses because they would have been here right now. We would have been talking about how you didn't respond. So that didn't happen. It must have been somebody

playing a prank. And we all just like kind of laugh it off as a joke. But I was just like, I was still very strange because it never happened again. So where it does get weird, and so fast forward, we're, uh, We're all, we're done. This, I'm back at home. I, you know, my neighbor was also at JRTC with me. And he was in another unit, but we were co-located. So we were at no more the farthest, like 30 minutes away from each other because we

directly supported each other. And so I was, we were drinking beers like one night. And I told him, like, hey, did anything happen? Weird happened to you? And he looked at me and he was like, what do you mean by weird? And so I told him the pine cone story and the, like, little rock. like little rocks thing throwing at me too. And he was just like, wait, that happened to you is also?

And I looked at him like, what do you mean this happened to you as well? And he told me. So his story kind of like puts, this is where it puts the weirdness on it more. And so when I had the pine cones staring at me, he was, his unit was no more than like 800 meters up the road. And so where he was, his unit basically bordered the same ravine on the far opposite side. not really so opposite, but basically he bordered like that same ravine and he slept on the seawire and he slept far away from everyone else and he had the same thing happen to him.

He said, yeah, I was sitting there and pine cones and rocks started coming from the woodline landing on my tent. And I didn't think, I thought that was the weirdest thing because I've been to JRTC before and I've never had Geronimo or anyone do that. And I know for a fact no soldiers should walk past the seawire because they could get in serious trouble. So he then proceeds to tell me that even more weird stuff happened to him. He went to another location called Geronimo DZ, which is way deep at the farthest ends of the training area. It's basically like a gigantic open field. It's called the DZ is drop zone.

So it's basically a huge open field that they use for aerosols or like paratroopers dropping in. So he told me that, again, they were out there. They set themselves up in the woodline. He decided again to be separate like me from everyone else for privacy, and he slept away from the sleep area long, but the seawire. But where he slept, the seawire ended because there was like, I guess, like a nice, another ravine that went deep in from what I remember him telling me. And so he said, though, when he was at this location, this is where it gets weird,

is he started seeing like at twilight hours, like dusk and dawn, you know what I mean? Yeah. He started seeing black shadows moving. deep in the wood line, like, moving like trying to stay out of sight. And he described them as, it looked like a large humanoid figure. And he said while they were there,

and they were there for about 72 hours, he started seeing them more and more and more in the woodline. And not only did he see them, but other people would see them too. We do this thing called like stand to, stand down, and it's basically everybody gets out on the perimeter at dawn or dusk, because statistically that has been like the time somebody will attack is during those hours

because they're transitional periods. He said when he was out online, the soldiers farther down from him who were also out online, started yelling like, oh, whoa, did you see that thing in the wood? What is that? It's huge. Like seeing the same shadow he saw running in the woods away from them. Where it gets weirder, too, is he said he started hearing weird noises at night. And he means he calls that he called them shrieks, yowls.

just weird grunts, weird noises. Now, this guy, he is a good old boy from, like, West Virginia, lived in, like, the deep woods his whole life. He says, like, I know what cats sound like. I know what deer sound like. I know what all sorts of animals sound like. And what I was hearing was none of those. Like, I could not explain what I was hearing, but it was freaking and it was weird. But he said the last night they were there. And this is the part where kind of shook him up was he said that as he was sleeping in his tent, something, came up, he woke up like feeling like he was watched. And he said something had come up to his tent and it looked like it was leaning down. And he could hear like breathing or sniffing or something like that. And he said that it was a huge shadow that basically cast darkness over him because there was a full moon that night. And he was just sitting there unmoving like, what is going on? And he said like it was the longest like few seconds of his life. But eventually the thing stood up, turned around and like walked away. And like then that following morning, they left that area and he didn't really see anything else over there.

Yeah, it's strange. It reminds me of almost every encounter I've heard from Fort Lewis here in Washington State or even the Yakima Training Center. Very, very similar encounters. And I might have missed it there in the beginning, Nick. When you talk about C-Wire, is that like a perimeter you guys can't leave? Is that what you mean when he say C-Wire? No, so it's actually, so C-Wire is called, concertina wire and it's literally like barbed wire you know how barbed wire comes in the big spools oh i see what

you mean yeah so it's very similar to barb wire but instead of uh you know the little little barbs that really kind of are uncomfortable they don't really hurt you they have like hooks so like you can get caught up on these things and it's meant to slow you down and prevent people from walking through because if you try to run through seawire you're going to get caught up and cut up you know it's it's a very good obstacle so uh that's what i mean by seawire was what what were we along. Yeah, I definitely understand what you mean. I wanted to ask you, we were talking earlier about the box witch. Is that something that, what is a box witch? And is that something that happened to you out there in Louisiana?

So yes. So funny other thing. So after this, we had finished talking, I started doing some research, like very amateur stuff. And I want to make myself sound smarter than I really am. but I started looking around and asking people through actually on Instagram. So I'll back up. Instagram has, of course, all sorts of pages and whatever, but there's, you know, there are no mean pages, what we call them. And they're basically, if you can think of any niche in the military, there's an Instagram page for it making jokes or posting things that are like specific to that niche.

It's kind of hilarious. But there were guys that were stationed at Fort Polk. and I had asked them, hey, like, does weird stuff happen there? And I told them my story. And so what they informed me was, so they don't believe in it, the person I spoke with, but they do say, like, weird stuff does happen there. And it's kind of colloquially known. The nickname for it is the box witch.

So, like, that's box witch. It's kind of a funny name, but I guess it's like an all-encompassing term for the weird stuff that happens there. So not only possibly Sasquatch, because I did look up Bigfoot Field Research Organization, just typing in Sasquatch Fort Polk. And there's a couple reports that came up, I think most recent being like 2006 or something like that, of people seeing, like, literally, like what we describe as a Sasquatch running around Leesville, Louisiana. So that's where I got thinking, like, maybe there's something more to this. So I started asking around, and I found that there are some really weird things that happen in the box.

Not only possible potential Sasquatch sightings, other cryptid sightings like the White Walkers, potentially Dogman, Orbs. Like I saw it warbs out there, which I can explain in a second. Weird weathered patterns. Like this one guy said that he was standing out there with his buddies in literally a block of ice, like the size of a, like a boulder, felt. from the sky. And he said, like, bear in mind, like, this is dusk, right? It's nighttime. We can't see anything above us, but like, like planes or anything. But there's no clouds. And this block of ice just came out of nowhere. Other weird weather phenomenon that just occur out of nowhere. And just, of course, hauntings and ghosts and just other weird stuff. And they kind of like

wrap it all up into this term known as the box witch. And they're like, oh, you ran into the box switch. You had an experience, you, the box switch got you or something like that. Yeah, that's fascinating, especially the, you know, coming up with the whole box witch to kind of encompass everything. You guys should have used an acronym. You guys use an acronym for everything. The block of ice is weird. Having a, on a clear day, have a block of ice ball from the sky. Yeah. And so what's even funnier is the Army has several other big training sites like JRTC. So there's a national training center, NTC, in Fort Irwin, California, and Joint Mission. Readiness Center, J.M.R.C. in Hohenfels. I think I got that acronym right. In Hohenfelds, Germany. And each one of those places has their own variation of a box wicks legend because just weird stuff happens out there. It's kind of a cool set of keywords to search for Box Witch. I'm going to have to kind of look into that. Tell me about the lights. So you saw the lights out there at Fort Polk. Tell me about that. So I saw the, I guess I'll describe them as Orbs, right? I saw them the same time.

time I had the little pine cone experience, same block of time. It was probably maybe four to five days later in a completely different location. It was actually in the area of Pisan Ridge, which I've had a map I pointed out, but it's basically north of

where I was before, farther off, kind of more out in the sticks, very, very like deserted place, off-pose, kind of like its own big training area. So we were out there continuing our rotation training and I saw something that I can only describe as an orb. And I had known what they were the phenomena of people seeing orbs,

but I personally had never seen one before in my life. And to put it in perspective, we're sitting at basically an abandoned farm site. Big wide open fields, there's an old hauled-out farmhouse and, like, horse stables, and, like, a watering hole. And at the watering hole, there's a couple, like, trees that dot around it. Like, you could tell if they had planted, like, a grove a long time ago,

probably predating before the army bought the land and they moved out. But again, we were sitting there at dusk. It was, we were standing down. So we were, if sun had just gone down, we were waiting for the all clear. And so one thing I want to point out is there's fireflies around us. So I've seen fireflies in a long time. And I was like looking at them and like, you know, they give off that like yellowish green light. And so I suddenly get my eye gets caught to something.

And I look over to the watering hole, which is about. a good 300 meters away. And it's on like pretty much flat territory. And I noticed like this red light moving through the trees. And I'm like, what is that? I think I first I thought it was a drone, right? Because they use like little quadcopter drones there. And they're pretty obvious like red and green lights like sit side by size.

You can see them from like mile off. And they make a lot of noise like a quadcopter does. And I'm sitting there and I can't hear anything but the people like moving around next to me because they were dead quiet. And I'm like, what is that thing? And I see this bright. It's literally like a bright red ball of light moving through the trees. And it leaves like a tail, I guess, as I can best describe it. It doesn't look like it's a machine.

It doesn't look manmade. It looks like almost organic. It's pretty big. Even from a distance, it was bigger than the fireflies around me. And as I was watching this, I see another one pop up and it's green, like neon-ish green. And I'm watching these things. They're just floating through the trees. leaving in and out.

It seems like they're just kind of doing their own thing over there. And closer to me, there's another tree line of where I guess they had planted an orchard and it was like the leftovers of that orchard and some dead trees. And this one was much closer. This was like maybe 100 meters, 150 meters. And I see a blue one. Same thing. Bright blue ball of light floating through.

And I like nudged the guy next to me. And I look over there. I'm like, dude, do you see that? Like, what is that? He's like, those are probably fireflies. And I'm like, dude, look again. Those are not fireflies. He looks again and he's like, yeah, I'm not too sure what those are because I see blue, green, and like a red light.

Like, what is that? And I'm like, dude, I don't even know. So we watch these things flitter around and then they give us the all clear and we have to go and conduct some duties so I, you know, don't get to stay there and look at them. But when I glanced over my shoulder, they were still floating around in a distance kind of doing their own thing. Very, like, surreal kind of weirdness. Yeah, I know what you mean. I've seen them, too. they're very odd. It's very, very strange. And I know at 300 yards, what is that just under

a thousand feet? I don't know if that's accurate or not. It's my American education, so blame them. But, I mean, you're at a close distance, but it's not right next to you. How big do you think they were? I would say my best estimate was when I saw the one closer was the size of a fist, maybe like a grapefruit or a little smaller than a grapefruit, but that's what it looked like to me. But what was weird was it was like the light was hazy, if that makes sense. It wasn't like bright, like a man-made light. Yeah, most eyewitnesses describe them as being kind of a soft light. Yeah, yeah, that's the right word for it.

It was very surreal and it wasn't like, it was more like, hey, what is that? But I didn't feel like it was threatening or anything like that. It looked like they were just going about their business, doing whatever they were doing out there. Did you ever tell anyone about that on the base? Or do you guys even report stuff like that? So I didn't really mention it to anyone because people would just think guys was crazy. The dude kind of like brushed it off is it's like just a play of the light or whatever. I didn't think it was. I thought it was weird enough that it kind of made me stop and really consider like what is that.

I know everyone else was so tired and exhausted. I think that they were just like not even really paying attention to it. In terms of like talking, I haven't talked to enough people yet to like get that. I'm still trying from the page trying to get people to submit some more stories. So I haven't really gotten too much orb stuff. Yeah, the balls of light are very strange. And until you see one, it's kind of hard to explain to someone. And, you know, it's a real soft light. It's not bright. They're not solid, but they are. And it's like this weird self-generating light flying around.

And they're strange. And they've been reported throughout history. I mean, even Christopher Columbus talked about seeing one out on the Santa Maria. He put it in the ship's log, called everyone up to come look at this weird light flying around. What's your take on the lights, Nick? I'm curious. What's your opinion? What do you think that they are?

You know, I personally, I think that there's some type of spirits or something. And I'm a very spiritual guy. And I believe in like an afterlife. And, you know, I believe that there is a spiritual world around as we don't really understand. And from other prior experiences I've had in my life, I do believe that there's some type of spirit. Yeah. If you ask most Native Americans, they'll tell you it's a spirit and to stay far, far away from them. I mean, some Native Americans will give you a different story. But I think the general consensus, among them is that it's bad and stay away from it. And, you know, even in World War II, the pilots would see those balls of light. They called them food fighters, and they were terrified of them. And I would imagine they were scared of a mid-air collision. I do think from what I witnessed it, that there is a intelligence there.

Because the way they were moving around through the treaties was like, it was like they were obviously avoiding them. But, like, we, they would weave it out of a tree of, like, I was walking and the tree trunks were in front of me, and I was just kind of, like, brush up against it and walk around, like, the other one. It was, it looked like there was an intelligence to it. Like, you know, they were, like, moving around looking at stuff, I guess. I'm just why I can describe it. Yeah, it gets reported a lot.

It actually gets reported a lot. For a while there, I was getting more balls of light experiences than I was Bigfoot experiences. And it makes me wonder what's really going on here. And before we get into some of the encounters that have been sent to you via your Instagram, tales from the Grid Square, I want to ask you, Nick, what do you think Sasquatch is? Obviously, there's no wrong answer, but I'm very curious on your opinion. So, you know, I kind of agree with your last, I guess, was the last episode with Jack. And I think it is some type of animal or relicominated.

I think a lot of the phenomena that people see with Sasquash that kind of like lends credence to like maybe something not an animal. I think it's maybe a separate phenomena. But I think these are like, these are an animal a lot like the lowland gorilla. I'm sorry, the highland gorilla. You know, people forget the highland gorilla was discovered fairly recently. And, you know, people thought they were a myth in that area. Like there are these great apes living in the mountains. Like you're crazy.

And, you know, but they were animals. that knew how to live in that environment, knew how to use that terrain to their advantage, and knew to avoid humans. And if you look at just some other weird tidbits in history, like, you know, the legends of giants and stuff in America, or how some, I can't remember the Native tribe off the top of my head. But there are some Native tribes that talk about, like, coming here and fighting a race of giants that, you know, eight people.

They traded with them and they were peaceful, but eventually, you know, the peace deteriorated, and they fought against each other before driving them away, I think it's like maybe some type of relic hominid. And I have to agree with Jack, I believe that people are aware of them, but it is such a small population to come out and say that there is an endangered relic hominid or great ape living in our backyard would pretty much upend the entire forestry industry we have going.

And I think it would cause a lot of problems for, you know, our society. I don't think it's like one of those things we're quite ready for. I think we'll be eventually, we'll get disclosure, but I think it's something that is best kept secret right now for ours and their protection. Yeah, and you could be right, Nick. It's strange to me that this creature's actually seen all over the world, yet no one can catch up with it. Let's assume it's a hominid. I was reading about hominid and hominins the other day, but we know a hominid is a type of priming. And it's a In taxonomy, a family is a group that includes one or more genus or closely related species. And I think all scientists agree that we human beings are hominids.

It could also be a hominin. But there's kind of a problem with that theory. We know a hominin includes an extant genera, homo, and pan, and excludes the genus of gorilla. Last week I read that on Google. I have no clue what any of it means, but if you say it with confidence, and you don't mess up any of the words, it makes you sound smart. I'm just breaking your balls, man. But a serious question, what's your opinion on the fact that it's seen all over the world? In North America, it's the Sasquatch.

Russia has the Alma's. On the India and China border, they call it the Yeti. The Barmanu in Iran. Australia calls it the Yawi. in other areas of China, they also call it the urine. You have the rock apes in Vietnam. And so I kind of question sometimes, especially here in the United States, you get these really cocky Bigfoot researchers that'll go, well, it's a rare animal.

I'm not so sure about that. But on a serious question, Nick, do you think that the countries I mentioned have the same concerns with their lumber industry? Yeah, you know, that's interesting because, I think the kind of same belief I have about Sasquash maybe applies to them and that they're also Relicomonids because, you know, we weren't just the only version, I guess, of human to walk the earth. There were many more. And, you know, if anything I've learned about humans is there is the innate capacity to survive no matter what cost. And so I think that maybe Relicomonids could have survived in small communities all over the world or small groups. And, you know, I don't really know about, I can't really speak so much about Australia. It might be like the same thing here with maybe it would upend some of their industries.

And I don't know about China. Maybe in China they have more of a different perspective on it or in Russia. Because I know Russia has a different perspective on what we would consider the paranormal. It's more ingrained, I think, in their culture than ours. Yeah, I hear you. It's just strange to me that, you know, all of these different countries, different cultures, different languages were separated by oceans, yet they have a name that describes the creature that we have in North America. They just call it something different. And even like with the Native Americans,

with all the different Native American tribes, they all have a name for Sasquatch. They call it, you know, whatever it is in their language. But if you listen to a lot of their descriptions, they're describing Sasquatch. And so, you know, it's strange. It's also strange, you know, in almost every Native American tribe and almost every culture in the world, they also have a flood story. They also have a giant story. It's weird. You know, maybe we all did speak one language at one time, and when we separated, we took events that happened in our life and we tell it through, you know, different generations. Noah has, it goes by many different names, depending on what country you're in. They all have a Noah,

and flood story. It's just weird. It makes me think our history, we have amnesia for our history or things that have happened in the past. You know what I mean? Exactly. I agree with you.

I think that when you start talking about legends and everybody is having the same variation of legend, there is some truth in that. You can't say it's a legend anymore. If two very different cultures who have never had any contact with each other, For example, what the last interview talked about, you know, these people in Afghanistan who have no, had no outside connection to technology or culture like us describing the exact same thing we would refer to as Bigfoot. There's some truth in the matter of the legend.

Yeah, it kind of makes me stop and take pause sometimes in life, Nick. I know you're younger than I am, but, you know, when I was growing up, scientists told us that the earth was not flooded. that's complete BS. You need to stay away from that Bible that the earth absolutely was not flooded at one time. There have been floods, but not a flood over the earth. And they changed their opinion on that based on evidence. Now they say, yeah, the earth was flooded at one time. And all of these researchers, I try to take shots at researchers. You know, it's in the Bigfoot world. It's batting practice. But a lot of them, they'll hold on to the argument of all of the Native Americans have a story about Sasquatch, and they've been talking

about Sasquatch for ages. Therefore, it must be, it's true. And that's one of the arguments they hold on to. Well, the Native Americans also talk about a flood, and they also talk about one man and his family that survived it. By the way, they also talk about giants, not Sasquatch. It kind of sounds like they're talking about the Nephilim, but every tribe talks about these giants. And so you can't really pick and choose, you know, if you're going to use that argument, you can't pick and choose from it. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think that is, I think a lot of people will discount that as legend because it would be an uncomfortable truth, I guess, or an uncomfortable to maybe sit here in question that maybe legend and myth

has more truth in it than we give it credits to, or credits to, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's a good point, Nick. It's definitely a good point. And I didn't mean to get off on a tangent there. But what I'd like to do is talk about this Instagram that you have that you started. And for the audience, go out there. If you're on Instagram, follow Nick, Tales from the Grid Square, and Nick post experiences from soldiers. Nick, do you have a couple you want to share with us tonight? Oh, I sure do, Wes. Actually, the first one I'll share here, let me just bring them up on my iPad. So this is the first one I'll share.

And so this story is very fascinating and I'll read it. And I won't go into too much right now, but anyone who deals with this kind of like fringe idea of thinking or, you know, the idea of, you know, Neflim will instantly recognize. And what I thought was kind of a goofy conspiracy theory when I read this story, now it gives it much more credence. And so the background is I originally got the story secondhand from basically a friend, the friend of the guy who told me the story. The dude was kind of private and he got back from the war.

And he was kind of like hesitant to share his story. And so eventually I was able to get in contact with him directly. And I was like, I'll keep you anonymous. That's the whole point of this page is you have stories that you would like to share. But you don't want, if you don't want them to be anonymous, like they'll be anonymous. Like, I won't put your name to it. It's just literally like, me. country and date or like year, you know. So I keep it very vague to keep it very like not

personal identifiable information unless you want it that way. So he eventually sent me the story. I'll read the story here. I'll like to get your opinion on this one. All right. I was deployed as an infantry team leader with the army in the Kunar province of Afghanistan from 2008 to 2009. One night we set up in an observation patrol to overlook a village that we suspected IEDs were coming out of due to its successful IED recovery a few weeks prior. My LT gave me the new thermal imaging system known as the recon three that none of us were familiar with and told me to figure it out and learn what I can to pass along to the others. I started to mess around the recon three to see its capabilities and was surprised by the clarity of the images and the clarity of the zoom on it.

I spent most of the time messing with the different functionalities and watching the village. I started to look across the valley to see what else I could see, and then let me to look along a spur we set up, we set in on, and saw a very large heat signature at the top of one of these false peaks. I did everything I could to keep a clear image as I could, suspecting that this was a group of Talibian huddled together around the light as they tend to do in the mountains when all of a sudden this heat signature stood up as one being. The trees in that area grew to be about 10 to 12 feet tall, and this thing was at least as tall, if not more elevated, than the trees around it.

It started taking steps parallel to my position and was covering ground quickly with ease. its stride was slow and relaxed, yet it moved with incredible speed, that led me to believe that this creature must have been gigantic. It very quickly traversed the landscape, and I lost sight of it along a neighboring spur. I did not believe what I initially saw, assuming that I imagined it as if I've never seen anything like that before in my life. I didn't tell many people about this, and, well, even deployed or in the army. I kept it to myself, thinking that I couldn't have seen what I saw. But then, in 2010, after I got out of the army, I was listening to a coast-to-coast radio story. and I heard the story about a C-130 pilot came in to take in, talking about transporting a very similar-looking creature.

The memory came flooding back to me, and it made me consider to other things I saw during my time in the service. The C-130 pilot had discussed that the creature in detail, instead it had fire orange hair, and it reminded me of a tradition the locals would do, but would not speak of where or why they would dye their hair this orange color, and specifically dye their goats this same color as well. It seemed like that every once in a while they would do this, and then all of a sudden the orange goats would all be gone, and the orange out of their hair would be gone as well. I didn't put two and two together,

assuming that it was a weird cultural thing that I didn't understand. But now it makes me wonder if these creatures were, these were some types of gestures to the creature, or to a Nephlem, or if the goats were sacrificed to it. I am a Christian in the Bible briefly discussed as a Nephlin, a.k.a. the men of renown. I think that is what I saw. I think that is an ancient race of giants that are descendants of fallen angels,

or it could just be like a Sasquatch-like creature. I'm not sure. Of course, I only saw it on thermals, but it didn't appear to be hairy of what you'd expect to Sasquatch. It just literally looked like a huge naked man. Yeah, it's fascinating. I've actually talked to a lot of soldiers who have had bizarre experiences out there in Afghanistan.

I remember one soldier told me that he was talking to the locals for a translator, and they told him not to go up to the mountain. And basically, what they were saying, how it got translated was there's just a giants up there and they'll eat you, which sounds, you know, crazy, but maybe not so crazy. We even have that here in North America. Sarah Wanamaka at the Lovelock Caves, the Cedica. They were these giants, and they were here, and Sarah says they were here before the Native Americans even showed up, and she bizarrely describes the red hair, and these giants that

would eat people. out at Mount St. Helens, good luck trying to get a Native American to go on top of Mount St. Helens, and they have in their history that there's giants up there and they'll eat you. And for the longest time, I always thought they were talking about Sasquatch. I'm convinced they were never talking about Sasquatch. They were talking about what Sarah Wanamukkah at the Love Lock Caves was talking about. They were experiencing the same thing. The red hair part is fascinating.

I don't think, you know, traditional Christians out there that read their Bible, I don't think that the red hair is ever mentioned in the Bible. I could be wrong. It's leaving my mind for a moment. I can't think of when they were mentioned with red hair. But in other text that you read, again, going back to what we were just talking about, in other cultures, Noah goes by a different name depending on what country you're in, they do talk about him having a red hair. And there was something about his appearance. When he was born, his father, Lamek, was pissed. He thought his wife had slept with a fallen angel. There was something about Noah's appearance that tripped Lamek out. And again, that goes through many different cultures. I won't bore you with that. But it's weird.

It's really weird. What are your thoughts, Nick? You know, I think that there, I do believe at one point maybe there were giants. something my brother and I had a little fascination with and we looked into. And, you know, in the United States, sometimes they're written off as hoax, but I don't think they're necessarily all hoax, was that they had, again, I'm familiar with that story about the tribes fighting these red-headed giants that ate people. But I'm also familiar with there's the conspiracy that the Substonian had found these skeletons of giants in the United, North America as we were settling it. and destroyed them because it had basically challenged the status quo of the status in the scientific world. But these skeletons existed and were real. So I think that there is, and every culture has a story of giants, you know, and you, you know, and just I think that there is some credence for that.

But when I had that story told to me, it basically, it was probably my favorite story because if you're familiar with that coast-to-coast interview, I don't know if you are, Wes. Yeah, the Kandahar giant. Yeah, the Giant of Kandahar. And, you know, to people in the military, it sounds like a very laughable thing because I don't think we could keep that secret, in my opinion. But now hearing his story, it kind of maybe makes it put some more credence to that. Maybe it's not a conspiracy. Maybe they did kill a giant out in Afghanistan and took it back.

Yeah, I get that. I think things are only covered up for so long. think eventually the truth comes out. I know in WikiLeaks, they sent, they did an email dump back in 2018, and we dug up Nimrod, by the way. I won't bore you with that story, but we did dig up Nimrod. But in the email, and I think Hillary was the secretary of the state at the time, in the email, they wanted to know where Nimrod, Nimrod's body was, and they also wanted to know where the buried Nephilim were. What a bizarre email. to send Hillary Clinton, what's going on here? Why are they mentioning Nimrod and the Nephilim,

if it's some folklore written by this book that men wrote and claimed that it comes from God? Why are they using this verbiage? It makes me wonder on a lot of things. I think the truth eventually comes out. As far as a giant being in Afghanistan, it wouldn't shock me one bit. you know, that's a whole other country out there. You know, Alexander the Great couldn't conquer it because of the landscape. It wouldn't shock me one bit, you know, finding a giant out there. Oh, yeah. Afghanistan is so remote.

And some of those places have, you know, like we heard in the last interview, I've never, encountered places. And talking to people from Afghanistan, they said you could go in those mountains and like run into places that you never knew existed. places that are very habitable because they're so hidden. Yeah, and Jack went into that on that Sasquatch and Afghanistan show. And like I said, it wouldn't shock me one bit. Let me ask you, do you have another experience to share with us?

Maybe a strange one. Okay, so here's, I'll do a different one right here. So this is, this one's a little bit more of a haunting, but I like this story as well. Okay. So one story my dad tells me is when he was a pilot flying NC1, 30s in some place in Africa, I believe the Kalahari Desert, but he was flying low-level, clear night, and good moonlight. They're very low, and he's looking through his MVGs, and they see some type of figure on the ground that looks like he's waving at the airplane.

So he goes over it a couple times, and on the third time, the guy just straight up disappears in front of them. Keep in mind, this is over the Savannah, no humans for around 500 miles in any direction. Everybody in the cockpit saw it saw it. They flow over the same place, a few more nights and never saw anything like it again. However, the real spooky thing is, when they were seeing this figure, the two loadmasters in the back came coming over the intercom as if they were talking to someone besides themselves, hey man, how did you get in here? Where did you come from? And when the flight engineer went back to see what was going on, there was only the two loadmasters, but were extremely shaken up by whatever was in the back with them. When they landed, the loadmasters

said that they saw a dark figure on the ramp. And when they took off their envisers, to see better. So the ramp on the C-130 is like a cargo plane. And so it's like the ramp is extended when they're flying. So the guys are in the back looking out the back. So this figure appeared on the ramp. And when they took off their MVGs to get a better look, this figure started walking towards them and disappeared right when the flight engineer

came down from the cockpit ladder. Needless to say, it definitely messed them up bad. Yeah, that would definitely mess me up. Did they ever, God, I'd love to sit down with those guys. Did they ever describe what it looked like, you know, what this person looked like? No, they said it just looked like, like, I guess, it's a shadow of a man. That's what they described it as. But I think that's, I think that would mess me up pretty bad, too, to see a guy just suddenly appear on the ramp of a plane.

Who knows? I don't, I'm not too familiar with the legends and myths of Africa, but maybe there's some credence that maybe it's a gin. I don't know, which I know is not an African legend is more like in his life. Islamic one, but I don't know, maybe there's something to do that. Yeah, that would definitely spook me. I know that you have one called Dust Devils, and it made me think of, I did a show one time. This guy, he had an encounter with, he saw this weird entity. I won't go into the encounter, but it was creating this weird dust devil on this farm.

And I'm kind of curious about the soldier that sent you the story about the dust devils. Will you tell us about that one? All right. So this one I called Dust Devils. I had a fobbit platoon in Afghanistan. Two of my soldiers in one section were a 42-year-old Korean specialist who formerly served in the Rock Army, Republic of Korea, and a 38-year-old specialist from Ghana. Both had immigrated to the U.S. and had it successful enough lives that didn't deem enlisting necessary. We had come to find out that each had a reason to enlist that can only be summarized as a divine intervention.

They were great soldiers, hard workers, never complained about anything dumb, unlike some of my younger guys. And both being ESL's English second language, they were hilariously making fun of each other in English all the time. The Korean specialist had left his family as a successful businessman in Washington to join the army because God had told him so. Anyway, one time, a 107 shell, a 107 rocket bounced off the roof of a hut and went flipping through the air making this cool noise. Everybody heard it, but he was the only one to see it, and it was coming in his exact direction. It landed about 30 meters in front of him, and then bounced again to a clamshell about 200 meters away, where it finally exploded, saving his life. So anyways, they were on night shift together, and I stopped by around 2 a.m. to check on him.

The African dude tells me that there's something evil outside. The Korean tells me he hears screams. Together, they both try to describe a dust devil. Okay, pretty normal. It's a pretty normal sight in Afghanistan. And there's probably some wind howling between the main containers, and it's what they hear screams. But then I hear a scream come from over our barriers, which is where we were against the perimeter and the road. The screams did not sound human. No real enunciation was words they make out, just

screams. So I jump up on the barrier to see tens of dozens of dust devils out in the open desert. Mind you, it's night, and our fuel of vision is really limited by only the perimeter lights. There is a guard tower next to us shining a searchlight, and everywhere it pointed, there were more and more of these little vortices. Other guard towers were illuminating the same thing, just dust devils all around us. These suckers were swarming in the open desert. 20 yards between each one,

definitely had an end-of-time feels to it. As for the screams, that side of the base had no village within earshot, not enough vegetation for the shepherds. Only seen a couple camels out there, and from time to time, in my head, I rode it off as some wild cats fighting. Made me sleep better that way, I guess.

The intel officer later told, me that it may have been a trap set for the QRF, quick reaction force, and a sandstorm had blown in to prevent any of us from leaving the wire. That one's cool, creepy. Yeah, that's really creepy. That's really creepy. I think there is a spiritual side to this world that we just can't see at the moment. But every once in a while, I think that we get glimpses of it. And for the audience, again, go check out Nick's Instagram, Tales from the Grid Square. And you can read all of these accounts What else you got there, Nick? Here's another one.

Wes is more long that I think your listeners would like. Sasquot's siding at the Yakima Training Center in California, or Washington State, I'm sorry. So I think this is a Bigfoot sighting. Yakima Training Center, 2017. We're setting up a troop assembly area. It's late at night and my driver's on security and swears he sees a dude running around from the crow system. And the crow system is a, think of a turret with a machine gun and it has like a camera, and night vision and thermal,

and you sit inside a truck and use literally a joystick to move this thing around. So he sees this dude running around on the crow system. This is the middle of nowhere in Washington with no one around us for miles. He gets a closer look and it's fuzzy, but clearly something walking around on two legs like a human. I go outside to pee and I hear this god-awful yowl in the distance.

And I run back into the truck. My driver or my gunner who is sitting on the crow system, says that this thing, when it, we heard the scream, stopped and turned and looked at us, looked right at me specifically. And needless to say, I didn't get out of the truck that night. Yeah. And there's no government cover up. The government doesn't know anything about Sasquatch.

They don't care. Isn't that what they, is not what some of these cocky researchers say? Yet they, they seem to be, these creatures seem to be running around on their bases and no one's really doing doing anything about it. And I don't think that you can just walk. on to a base without the military knowing that you're there. I mean, I realize, you know, the Yakima Training Center in Fort Lewis aren't Area 51, but maybe you can answer this question for me. Can a civilian just walk on to a military base without anyone knowing? Maybe it's kind of

a dumb question that you can't answer. Actually, I can't because I have a funny story about that. So the base itself is usually separated from the training area. And so when you have the main, we call it like a main post or like, you know, it has names for it. But that's usually the area that's fenced in, has gates. Like it's a controlled in and out. But when you get out to some of these training areas, some of these training areas are so huge. We do not have the manpower to simply like set up guard post or listening posts or anything like that. So it's actually quite possible to sneak into some of these places.

So when I was stationed at Fort Drum, it was actually pretty common knowledge that people went and squatted out in the training area. And you would occasionally come across signs of human life out there of way out in the back 40, which the back 40 is a term the most people use to refer to like the sticks of the training. Like you're so far back out there, like you have no cell phone reception. And it was very common to go back there and find like, you know, obviously there was a fire here. There's some food wrappers. like, oh, there's some human shit from where somebody had used the restroom. And one time at Fort Drum, I didn't find much information on this, which is true or not, but there was a return to the earth type commune slash cult that had made their way into the

training area, and we're living there off the grid for a couple months. And no one knew they were back there until one day they got the bright idea, probably after smoking something, to stand in the middle of the main tank trail that goes into the train. area and try to block it off to protect the environment. And, like, apparently these people had got arrested and, you know, I think they got jail time for trespassing. But they had been living in this training area for the longest time and no one knew they were there until they revealed themselves.

You can just walk on in some places. It's literally a sign that says, no trespassing, government property, and you can continue. It's probably best I never served in the military. They would have court-martialed me. You know, we got hippies on the property, you know, religious cult. Today we're doing artillery training, boys. But for the audience, check out Nick's Instagram. Again, it's Tales from the Grid Square.

Let's do one more, Nick. Okay. So this story is called the Back 40 Dogman encounter. All right. So I'm stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The training area we have is called the Back 40. thousands of acres of rangers and training sites. My story takes place in the back 40 near a makeshift town called Cassidy.

It's located in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest and thick underbrush, and at the time it was mid-July, so everything is in full bloom. My company is conducting a two-week field problem in this area, and after we had secured this town, my platoon was tasked with pooling a blocking position, about 100 meters into the woodline from this town. So this is like day 12 of a two-week field training problem, and I'm located on the far right of our blocking position with my squad. I'm a squad leader of my infantry platoon, and we dig into our position.

I'm located 10 to 15 meters from my soldiers with my back against a tree. Darkness is setting in, and the back 40, and the guys are tired, and the team leaders are doing their checks to make sure guys are awake and not falling asleep on the line. Hours go by, but I didn't really keep track of the time, so I had to guess it was around midnight, no moon this night. The only thing you could see to our rear was the town of Cassidy. My alpha team leader is laying with his team on the line, and we're pulling a 50-50 security detail, meaning one man is asleep and the other one's pulling security.

My bravo team leader is sleeping next to me. Our platoon radio man, RTO, was walking back and forth behind us, behind the squad leaders checking on all others on this line. So about every 20 to 30 minutes, I hear him walking by eventually, and he comes to me and says, hey, Sergeant, you good on your radio batteries? And I'm like, yeah, I'm good, dude. So being used to hearing him walking by every so often,

I'm not really paying attention. But then I hear something, not even close to thinking about it. I ignore it. And then it gets closer and closer and a lot slower in movement. I look over my shoulder and say, what the fuck are you doing? And that's when I see whatever it was, mid-crouch pose about 20 meters from me making low, subtle growling noises, like a wolf or a dog. I froze and felt the hair on the back of my neck stand-up, and my heart started to race. Whatever this was stood at least five feet tall, crouched. And it was sinking lower and lower to the ground, looking like it was about to pounce.

Paralyzed with confusion and fear, I watched for another 10 to 12 seconds. I then reached to grab my E-Tool, not taking my eyes off this thing, what I'm looking at. I then quickly flipped down my PSQ 20s, night vision, and as I did, this creature ran

in a diagonal line from me to the, from me fast. And when I say fast, he was booking it at this low stance. I flipped my 20s to thermal, and I saw the outline of this thing running. Everyone around me heard this thing crashing through the woods, and it ran too fast to be a man

or too big to be a deer standing up. Later on night, another squad leader told me he heard these loud, deep, sniffing noises near our position. His soldiers kept saying that they smelled what appeared to resemble a wet dog smell. Before dawn is when we all started to hear the loud, guttural sounds of something after the coyotes were done howling. They were prominent in this area, and you always hear them. Except after this howl or loud noise, they all instantly stopped. I had always heard stories and never believed it as well from others in my platoon. after this encounter we all agreed we were not alone that night and something is lurking out there

what i saw was canine by the look of it it wasn't a bear it was dark but i don't want to speculate and give a false tail but his face was elongated like a snout from what i could see i grew up playing in the woods and camping and hunting and i've never seen or felt that way ever began that's really fascinating and you know the dog man for the longest time i really thought the dogman what people must be misidentifying this thing but I've talked to so many people that have run into it. I don't think people are misidentifying it. I don't know what the hell the dog man is,

but I don't think people are misidentifying it by any means. You know, and even the wildlife biologist, I don't know if you heard that show or not, Nick. These creatures seem to be physical. The wildlife biologist, Matt, I think it was, what, 769. I might be wrong on that, but he shot. it. Oh, that story was so fascinating, Wes. So I listened to it and, you know, what I found really interesting was people talk all the time, like, oh, I shot Bigfoot with a 7mm or a 308

and it did nothing. And I always count that up to like, I think you were probably terrified and you missed your shot. But this guy, he hit it with a 45 round and it reacted. You know, and I read it and I'm like, 45 round is not like, you know, it is, it is not a, it is not a week round. There's a lot, there's some good mass flying with that bullet. And, but it hit the thing and it reacted to getting hit. And it was like, to me, it sounded like the creature was like, what just happened to me? What is this? Like, it didn't realize they got shot. Just kind of like a very human reaction there. Yeah, that was bizarre. I have heard this one theory on the numerous, numerous, like, Reddits, I guess, or 4chan or whatever I got on that. Somebody had said that,

It was on a green text. That's what it was. Somebody had talked about seeing something that they thought was dog man, but with, they got a better look at it. It looked like a, it looked like Bigfoot in every single way, except for the snout,

the face was more like a baboon, which I thought was weird. So I was like, huh, maybe it's really not a wolf. Maybe it is actually like some species of Sasquash that looks like a baboon. I don't even know.

Yeah, I used to think that too. There is another creature that people do run into It's very rare. It's more like a Sasquatch, but smaller. That's kind of how eyewitnesses report it. The one thing that's different about this particular creature is it has more of a head of a baboon. And the witnesses report it being more aggressive. But, you know, out of all the witnesses I've talked to, I've maybe spoke to 20 people that have run into that particular creature. The dog man, I really think is something separate. And I used, I was,

start to drill down on my questions with people because I was like, there's no way it's an upright canine running around on two legs. That's a weird, you know, Sasquatch is weird enough, but this is even weirder. But people are very consistent on what they tell you. I think the dog man is very much how witnesses describe it, an upright running around canine. What it is, who knows. Hopefully one day the truth will come out and we'll all have an understanding as far as what's going on in this world, man. But Nick, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show. I hope people go and check out your Instagram, Tales from the Grid Square, and follow Nick

on that on his Instagram. I'm following you now, Nick, on Tales from the Grid Square. And I've actually gone through and read some of the encounters. And it is fascinating. You sit there and you get a bunch of new encounters, especially from military guys, stuff you normally don't get to hear about. but I really do appreciate your time, Nick. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on

and share what happened to you and also share the soldiers' experiences. I think it's important to work what you're doing, ma'am. No, thank you, Wes. Thank you so much for bringing me on. I've really been a huge fan of your show. I love what you do. I definitely say I take a lot of inspiration

from what you're doing, especially you give people a voice to tell stories that they otherwise wouldn't tell for fear of, you know, being labeled the gloony or stories that they're even too terrified to think about. Appreciate it, Nick. And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email.

My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. If you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone.