Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:914 Lance Corporal Shoots Sasquatch

Episode Date: December 24, 2022

John writes "I served as a US Marine from 1999 – 2003. While I was in I was stationed at Kings Bay Naval Sub Base in southern Georgia. I was part of a CQB (close quarter battle) team and was a DM (designated marksman). As a DM I carried a M40A3 (308) and a M9 (9mm pistol). While serving at Kings Bay, I was called into my Platoon Commanders office prior to my team going to the LA (limited area). My Platoon Commander informed me that there were reports coming from lake D (a lake on base approximately 400 yards from the LA) of a wild animal being aggressive towards campers around the area. He asked me if I had a tree stand and ordered me to go to Lake D instead of the LA. He told me a DM from team 2 would take my spot in the LA. He said I was to locate, close, and destroy the animal and not to come back until I did. I ran back to my house and grabbed the necessary supplies, my hooch, tree stand, food, and water and headed to the north east side of Lake D. I had fished this lake several times and knew of a game trail closest to the LA that butted up to swamp land and the Saint Mary's river. I arrived around 0900hrs and set up camp.   Read the full report at https://sasquatchchronicles.com/upcoming-show-lance-corporal-shoots-sasquatch/

There's a Navy base right on the Georgia, Florida border, that houses some sensitive material, so I won't go into that. I get called into my platoon commander's office, and he told me, okay, well, we've had reports of animal being super aggressive over by this, it's called Lake D. It's a lake that's on base there. and so basically I need you to go destroy this you know I need you go kill this animal you didn't know what it was I thought maybe a bobcat maybe a mountain lion something like that as I leave the captain's office

gunny pulls me aside and says hey it's a chip or some shit I see this large really I mean I'm 6-6 and this thing was considerably bigger than me from my perspective It was about 40 yards away, start walking across the road there. Well, I know that I'm there to, like Gunney said, shoot a chimp or some shit.

This looked very much like what I was sent there to shoot. 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. 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 chuntering away, back and forward, back and forwards, back and forth. 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 now, sir? Jesus, come. Get somebody out here.

What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about 6'9. I don't know. Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right in. Uh-uh. Hi, this is Carol King from Music City and you're listening to Sasquatch Chronicles. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Thanks so much for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you. we're going to be chatting with John. And about 20 years ago, John was on a military base in Georgia, and he was sent out to kill this animal. You heard it there before the intro of the show, John talking about the experience. And I'll let John kind of go into it tonight. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email.

My email address is West 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. We're redoing the intro of the show. And so if you're a listener out there and you want to send me a clip, I'll plug it into the show. I know some people have sent me clips and I haven't had a chance to kind of redo the intro, but I plan on doing that between Christmas and New Year's.

So if you want to record yourself and send it to me, I'll plug it in the intro. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome John to the show. John, thanks for coming on. Thank you, Wes. And thank you so much for your service to the country, John. This happened to you, what, about 20 years ago? Yeah, yeah, it was 2001.

Well, if you would, just kind of start from the very beginning. What were you doing and walk us into what happened? there's a Navy base right on the Georgia Florida border that houses some sensitive material, so I won't go into that. But I was in the Marine Corps, and my job, I was part of a CQB team, a close quarter battle team. I was specifically a DM, a designated marksman. we would go down to an area that houses the sensitive material for four days and come out for four days essentially. There were three teams of us, three different platoons and three CQB teams. I was on CQB Team 3.

I was their DM. And just came off of four days off in 96, and we're about to go back down to this area where they house sensitive materials. and our job was to protect it. I got called into my platoon commander's office, and my platoon commander, he was a Mustang. He was an enlisted guy that went officer, really, really good man. He called me in, and I guess the notable difference

between a DM and your standard or regular CQB Marine or Marine, we didn't carry the normal, 556, we didn't carry the AR platform. We carried a 308. It's an M40A3 is what it is. It's a 308 bolt action that's

scoped. Really, our job was to sound stupid, but if you understood the job, it maybe doesn't sound so stupid, but the bulk of our job was to shoot out light bulbs at a very basic level. These magazines had lights

on the outside. We were, we were urban snipers. But we trained, you know, at 100, 150 yards. We didn't, we didn't do that real long range stuff. So I get called into my captain's office and he asked me, well, he doesn't ask me. He, uh, well, he asked me if I had a tree stand. He knew that I was a pretty avid hunter. And down there in southern Georgia, everybody hunts and tree stands. It's a real thick, foresty area. So I said, yeah, I do. And he told me, okay, well, we've had reports of animal being super aggressive over by the, it's called Lake D. It's a lake that's on base there.

And so basically I need you to go destroy this, you know, I need you to go kill this animal. Didn't know what it was. I thought maybe a bobcat, maybe a mountain lion, something like that. Well, my platoon sergeant, he was a gunnery sergeant. as I leave the captain's office, Gunny pulls me aside and says, hey, it's a, are we allowed to cuss on your show, Wes? Or is that?

Yeah, you can, John. The only thing I bleep out is the F word, but go ahead. Just to keep it in context, just because there's a few things that Gunny said that kind of makes sense, but he said it's a chip or some shit. So me being a good Lance Corporal, you know, being afraid, I don't, I didn't ask any questions. I just got my gear.

He told me to run home and get my, get my hooch, because I didn't need that, my tent, and get some more of my gear, and then come meet him and he would bring me to Lake D, which is what happened. So I get to Lake D, which is about 400 yards from the sensitive area. I get down there and it's very wooded. There's an asphalt path around about half of it. And I had fished like D several times, so really good bass fishing there. So I knew where there was a pretty prominent game trail, and I thought that was probably the best place to set up because I'm shooting blind.

I mean, it was a pretty good size lake. It's not huge. It's probably, I'm going to tell you, probably a four or five acre lake. It's not enormous by any stretch of the imagination. but I didn't know where to go or where to look or anything else. People camp all over the place there. So I set up in this little stand of woods, set my camp up there. I was about 40 yards from the shoreline of Lake D.

Directly, Lake D was directly to my east, to my west. There was an electrical station, had a bunch of transformers and stuff, had a fence going all the way around it. And, of course, the base itself had a. fence going all the way around it. So I set up there, set up my camp, and everything got there about 9 o'clock in the morning, set up my camp and everything and got ready for the evening, got my tree up in a tree stand. I noticed that there were two campers on the shore of Lake D, probably 150, 200 yards

from where I was. And so I wanted to get my tree stand pretty high in the tree just so I could, if I got a shot. I could use the ground or the water as a backdrop and I wouldn't risk, you know, an errant round flying in and hitting somebody. The tree that I was in originally, I'll call it tree number one, that tree had branches starting at about six, seven feet up the tree, and I wanted to be higher than that. So I took my tree stand. I went up, went up the tree, and it was, you know, it was getting pretty close to not having any shooting light. This was in the summers in May, so I'm going to tell you it was probably close to 8 o'clock in the evening.

I had my head lamp on, and I heard something hit the water, big splash, like when you throw a big boulder or something in the water, how it's like a void and a big splash. So I started looking over that direction. I was up in my tree stand. I started looking over in that direction and saw the top of a tree over there just swinging back and forth. These are pretty old growth trees. I mean, they're pretty substantial. Couldn't see anything. You know, it was, like I said, heavily wooded.

You couldn't see a darn thing. And then I saw a big old log, like a big old branch, come flying out of the forest there and hit the water. So I sat there and quieted down. You could hear the people that were camping over there on the side talking about the splash in the water. They thought it was a fish. You could hear them clear as day because there's no traffic really. I mean, there's no highway there or anything else. So I sat up on my tree stand for a while and came down.

I was pretty excited to have this duty. I'm an outdoor enthusiast. And so I brought my fishing pole and my tackle box and stuff with me. So I came down from the tree. I didn't have shooting light anymore. Went over to Lake D and Fish just for a little bit. And with intentions of getting up the next morning and getting in my tree stand. So I got up about 4.30, 4.45 the next morning just before shooting light.

Got up in my tree stand. I was sitting there until probably sometime. time around 7.38 o'clock in the morning. Came down, you know, animals aren't necessarily, especially in the heat of Georgia and the south. I mean, it's swampy. What I forgot to mention was that directly to the east of where I was runs into swamp land all the way to the coast. There's a big, there's a big inlet. And it's swamp all the way through, Ophafah Runs pretty close there and it all looks very much like that. So I came down from my tree stand and I thought I'd wander over and look at where this tree was shaking just to see what the heck was going on.

Went over there and I found a smaller game trail there, but it was, you can tell it was heavily used, beat down pretty good. And so I thought, well, that's where the, that's where the action was last night around, you know, around five, six o'clock. So I'm going to set up over there, leave my camp where it is, and set my tree stand over there on this other game trail, see if I see anything. So went back to my, to my campsite, ate a little bit, rested up for the day, didn't really have a whole lot to do. My captain told me not to bother coming back or calling or anything until I shot this

thing. So I just basically hung around. My gunny told me that as soon as I shot this thing to call him directly, I had a cell phone. The, the, our gunny was a, was a bachelor. He lived in the barracks still, which were two and a half, three miles from Lake Dee. It wasn't very far. So I went back over to the, to the tree, this other tree that I found, tree two that was by this other game trail and cut a few branches off and got my tree stand up nice and high there. As I was working on it, this Navy military policeman is driving by and obviously wondering what the hell I'm doing out there and camouflage and armed and everything else. So he stopped and started talking to me.

I kind of told him what the reports were and why I was there and he said he had heard the same thing. And he decided to go kick these campers out. It was a weekday. so the traffic was pretty light around Lake D anyway. So he was going to go kick these campers out, and there were two main gates coming into Lake D, so he was going to chain both of those clothes.

So he went and did all that while I was getting my tree stand set up. We got my tree stand set up. The campers aren't there anymore, so I'm not entirely worried about the backdrop, except for that the limited area, the sensitive area, is about 400 yards away. And, you know, the M40A3s, about a thousand-yard rifle, so you worry about it with a 308 round. You worry about

flying, you know, getting out of hand. You always know your target and what's beyond. That's something they've always, they instill in you. So I get my tree stand up, and I'm sitting up there, minding my own business, waiting to see if anything came by. Like I said, I was an avid hunter, so I had some dough urine, and I had that. that on me, just to kind of help mask the scent, I stunk to high heaven anyway because I'd been out there, this is now day number two in May in the South Georgia heat. So I'm sitting up on my tree stand and I hear something banging, a banging sound on this chain leak fence that went around this electrical station where the transformers were. I just hear banging on this,

And I, you know, thinking to myself, maybe it's maintenance guy, maybe he's got a key or who the heck knows. I didn't. It was to my six. And it was to my back. The electrical station was. And there was a lot of trees between me and that. So you couldn't really turn around and look anyway. I mean, all you're seeing as tree tops.

So I sat there. This banging went on and then it stopped. It was probably six or seven bangs on this fence, and it stopped, and I sat there and probably ten minutes went by, and where that asphalt road goes around that side of Lake B, right by tree number one where I was at the first time, I see this large, really, I mean, I'm six-six, and this thing was considerably bigger than me from my perspective. It was about 40 yards away, start walking across the road there. Well, I know that I'm there to, like Gunny said, shoot a chimp or some shit.

This looked very much like what I was sent there to shoot. So I brought the rifle, shoulder my rifle and waited for a good shot. It got across the road and knelt down on its right knee as if to pick something up. I don't know what it was doing. I didn't really give it a chance because as soon as it stopped and went to nail down, I took my first shot, hit it right behind the left shoulder. When I hit it behind the left shoulder, its left leg that was up in kind of a crouching position,

and lunged forward onto its left hand, and it let out, it wasn't a scream at all. It was more of like a really deep moan, like a, I must have taken it on the lung, and it was almost like a rattle. I've heard it before when I've shot deer at pretty close range. They make a simple, but it wasn't as deep. This was way deeper than any of that. Racked another round into my rifle and took a second shot, which hit him on the left side behind his left ear and the head.

he went face down at that point. I sat there for a minute and I got my cell phone out and powered it on. And I called Gunny and he asked me exactly where I was. And he told me not to move a muscle to stay right there. So me being a Lance Corporal and being a good Marine, I stayed right there. Was it, I don't know, maybe 10, 15 minutes later, I hear Humvees coming up the road. they stop, and again, it's probably 200 yards to the gate, to the main gate to Lake D from where I was.

But like I said, you can hear everything, you know, relatively clear. You can't make out exact verbiage, but you can hear gunny out there cussing and yelling because the gate wasn't supposed to be locked. They got through the gate somehow, and the first time V came up, and the platoon commander, my captain, and, Gunny were in the first Humvee, Gunny hopped out. I came down the tree, and I was standing next to the road when they pulled up, and Gunny hopped out and told me, great job.

The platoon commander walked over next to this thing was standing there, and by now it's dark. There's a Humvee down the road about 150 yards that blocked the road off coming into Lake D there and then a Humvee just whizzed past us like hitting to the LA. I don't know if they were blocking off another entrance or what they were doing. But Gunny told me good job and told me to we need to go get my stuff and I need to go back with him for a debriefing. We were walking over to tree number one to get all my gear and I had my headlamp on.

And so when we were walking by, I looked to the left where the captain and the stankton And the thing, the body was, which is very obvious when the headlamp turns, Gunny grabbed me by my shoulder and said, eyes forward. We walked over. I packed my stuff up, which wasn't a whole lot. Packed whatever I had up. While I was packing up, some people in a white car showed up. The way that the captain addressed them and was talking to them,

I have to believe that they were. people of significance. I don't know if they were NCIS or who the heck they were. Captain was talking to him. Gunny, I got all my stuff together. Gunny had me, I had my rifle slung, and Gunny was holding kind of me by my right arm, kind of hurrying me through this process

and marching me back to the Humvee. As I was walking back, one of the guys that was there with the captain just looked at me, he said nice shooting text and me and Gunny got in the Hummer went back to Gunny's office I had a bottle of water

and Gunny was made me retell the story step by step twice it was recorded they told me that I'd have to sign a statement and I said yeah no problem whatever you know you don't ask any questions you just do what they tell you so a couple weeks went by

and I never did get a statement or anything. Gunny told me to forget about the whole thing. And when I brought it up to him again, I said, hey, I never signed a statement or anything, guns. I don't know what you want me to do. He said, I told you to forget about that, not to worry about it. And so I didn't hear anything, didn't hear anything else about it. I did hear one of the guys that pulled up in the white car.

He was talking to the captain and the other guy. And I overheard him because we were from where tree one was to where the body was was only maybe 20 yards, maybe. I did hear him say, we're going to need a backhoe to pick this thing up or to lift this something along those lines. But I don't know what they ever did with the body. I went fishing again there with a civilian buddy of mine probably. Not even a week later, and we pulled off over there so I could see if my tree stand was still there because I never grabbed my tree stand. It wasn't there anymore. I don't know if somebody stole it or if they took it or what, but that's pretty much the long and short of the West.

I want to ask you, did you ever get any more information about this animal? I mean, were people in the military that were on the base or around the base, were they being hurt? You know, nobody ever told me. They just said that it was being aggressive towards campers. And a lot of people would camp around Lake D. And I don't know if aggressive was it was attacking anybody. I didn't hear anything with the exception of my orders were to go find an animal that was aggressive somewhere around Lake D. I got extremely, extremely lucky.

And, you know, the opposite side of Lake D is very, very wooded. The site that I was on was, there were some pretty clear areas there down to the water. And those game trails were the only reason I was on that side of the lake. And the swamp was right there to our back too, figuring if any animals are coming around there, especially aggressive animals that aren't used to human contact, they'd probably be coming from the swamp side. So I got, I got extra, I could have been out there for days. And I was specifically told not to come back until I killed it.

Yeah, that's a crazy account, man. I never served. So forgive some of my questions. I'm assuming in the military, you just, they give you what you need to know and go do it. They don't, they don't, they're not going to sit you down on like, read you a book. I mean, they're going to, that's my impression anyway, but did they give you any more information beyond a chimp or, you know, go find this primate? Gunny told me, he said it was a chimp or some shit. And then when he was driving me out to Lake D,

he gave me a brief. He said, you're basically looking for a monkey. You're basically looking for a tall, you know, a monkey, a chimp, a chimpanzee. and I thought maybe it was something that escaped from the Jacksonville Zoo or something. I had no idea. Yeah, and when you took the shot, you said you're what, about 40 yards? Yeah. Yeah, 40, 45 yards away. If you would, can you kind of describe what you saw?

Like I said, I mean, I'm 6'6, and this thing was, you know, at least, I'm going to tell you, six inches to a foot taller than me crossing the road the road was a single track road that security MPs would use to drive around Lake D there was a boat ramp on the south side of Lake D that a double track road came into but this was just a single track paved road this thing stepped it was it steps probably I'm going to tell you

three feet before the edge of the single track road it still stepped on the asphalt itself but it almost cleared that single track road plus that three feet and just a normal step it wasn't in a hurry it wasn't running

wasn't scared or skittish or anything else. It was starting to get dark at that time, but from the illumination that I had, which it was still shooting light. I mean, you could still make out everything and see everything. Like a brick, it looked to me, and maybe it was just a little darker, the hair just because of the time of night it was, or the evening. But it looked like a brick red color, real long hair. When we walked,

when we walked by it initially, you could smell it, but, you know, everything in South Georgia stinks. It all smells like a swamp. But this was like a concentrated swamp smell. I mean,

it smelled pretty terrible. So you could catch a little whiff of it. It had a super broad, its hands, when it was strut, when it was walking, and it had kind of a stride. It was moving its arms,

its hands were, its fingertips were down by its knees. And it was just striding across there. And then it stopped to, it looked like to me maybe pick something up, and went down to one knee for some reason. And when I went down to one knee is when I took the first shot and it lurched forward on its hand, and then I took the second shot and dropped it. Yeah, that's insane to send you out there

It makes me wonder maybe the guys up top didn't realize what it was until after you shot it. Yeah, I don't think Gunny really did. I think Gunny knew that it was something to kind of, you know, hush, hush, like probably shouldn't, probably shouldn't put it in the paper or anything. The captain definitely knew, you know, to be quiet about it. and whoever N-CIS or whoever those two guys in the white car were, they definitely, you know, they didn't let anybody else in there, West, while I was getting my stuff. And they had the Humvee blocking the road as a matter of fact.

And so I don't think they really thought that, I don't know that they really thought that I was even going to find anything. I mean, hindsight being 2020 and me being much older today. And having, you know, back then I thought I was 10-foot-toll and bulletproof, as most Marines do. I mean, hindsight being 2020, I wouldn't think that you would just send, if you thought that that's what it was, you wouldn't send one guy with a tree stand and a 308 out there. And like I said, I just got real lucky. I mean, I just got lucky that on the second night happened to walk 40 yards from me.

Yeah, that's crazy, man. I think if you were to shot and missed, I think you would have been in big trouble. It makes me wonder if you got the aggressive one. You know, I don't think they were run around alone. After you shot this thing, what did you think it was? Well, I shot it. And I honestly thought it was a, I thought it was a monkey or something. I shot it the second time when it finally fell on its face and it was just there dead.

It was motionless at that point. I know at that point when I sat after, you know, I got my phone out, I called Gunney, and he told me he started there. So I sat there. I was thinking about it. And I was like, yeah, this is 100% of Sasquatch. I mean, I've been to the zoo. I've seen chimps.

They're not anywhere near the size of this guy. I mean, they're not. They're not even a quarter of the size of this guy. And he was, you know, beefy, big, broad-shouldered and walking as natural on two legs. I mean, no hurry, no nothing like he owned the place. And so I knew, you know, once I sat there and thought about it, said to my tree stand, you know, I didn't, I wasn't a Sasquatch enthusiast or anything, but, you know, growing up in the, In the Rockies, you hear about them. And so I thought, well, shoot, this is, this is probably definitely a big foot.

So I'd find it down for my tree stand. I just waited for Gunny. And I stood right there. I didn't go over and poke at it or anything. Of course, it was, by that time, you know, we were at a shooting light then. But by the time Gunny got there and the headlights, you know, they had the, they had it pretty well illuminated. the captain pulled the Humvee right up and had the lights right on it. Yeah, a lot of people might ask, why do you run over and check out the body?

And, you know, I guess coming from being a former hunter, I can tell you, you know, that's a great way to get hurt or even killed. An injured animal will kill you quicker than a healthy animal. And that's why a lot of hunters wait for them to bleed out before they approach. But, you know, for someone who's not a hunter, maybe never served in the military, why didn't you walk over and check it out? A little bit of that. I've been hunting my whole life. So there was some of that.

My grandpa always taught me, you know, we'd shoot a deer or an elk or whatever, and it would fall. And then you'd sit there. And a lot of times, grandpa would sit there and have a cup of coffee. and it was seriously 10 minutes for Gunny got there. So it was a little bit of that, but it was a lot of me being a Lance Corporal and a Gunny and a captain who don't show a lot of interest in Lance Corporals, I think. And Gunny, I mean, you didn't mess with this guy. He was a hardened, hardened Marine. And so he told me to stay right there.

And I did. I just did what I was told. I stayed right there. Not that I don't think you would have known any different if I would have walked over there and looked at it, but I just did what I was told. I stayed right there and didn't move a muscle. And then when he got there, we walked within, I'm going to tell you, five to seven yards of it walking over to get my gear. And that's when I turned my head to kind of look at it. mostly I wanted to see

shop placement I mean because that's what we look for I knew where I hit it I knew where I was aiming and my 308 was dead nuts so I had I had no doubts in my mind

but walking by and turning my head and then gutty telling me eyes forward that that's that kind of confirmed it for me that it was something that maybe you weren't necessarily supposed to see or maybe you weren't necessarily supposed to, he certainly didn't want me over there messing with it.

And when those guys in the white car showed up, they weren't uber secretive, but they looked military, but they weren't dressed in any military uniforms. So I don't know if they're NCIS or who they were. Yeah, it's probably better that you didn't, John. And, you know, I've talked to so many soldiers, and I've had a lot of veterans on the show where they've had run-ins with these things on these military bases.

Fort Lewis is a great example. And, you know, they're out there doing these training exercises and, you know, where one team is a good team, one team's a bad guys. And you guys are shooting blanks at each other. And I've talked to a lot of soldiers that are like, they'll run into these things and go, you know, what am I going to do? I have blanks. I basically can make a bunch of noise. and that's about it. Yeah, I could see how, I could see how, especially if you were at ground level and you,

you weren't armed if all you had was blanks. And I mean, that thing after the fact, and sitting there after I called sitting there, I mean, you could see how intimidating this thing would be if you were anywhere on ground level face to face with this thing and not armed. I mean, I didn't have any second thoughts. I mean, I shot with my 308. It did the damage it was supposed to do, especially at 40 yards. But I don't know that if I was at ground level and, you know, it was any closer or

it knew that I was there, that I would have even taken that shot. Just because, I mean, it was really big. And I've heard stories of, you know, guys getting shot with a three-o-old, in their ball rounds. You know, these aren't hollow points. These aren't, these aren't, they don't mushroom worth of crap. They're just ball rounds. And so I don't know that I would have taken that. I don't know that it would have taken it down at a different angle or I just got super lucky.

I just, I was super lucky in my placement where my location. shot placement was perfect. Couldn't ask for a really better shot placement, except for that if I could have, you know, dropped them in one shot instead of two, that would have been, I guess, ideal, but, you know, he aimed small and miss small. You do, I did, I certainly didn't want to aim for his head. But like, like I've heard on your show before, he wasn't bobbing up and down. You know, you shoot a man-sized targets at 500 yards.

and purposefully, they'll move the target as if it were bobbing up and down. And so you time it so that you make that shot. But he wasn't moving up and down at all. Very smooth. You know, everyone's kind of heard of Bigfoot or Sasquatch, but when you see one in person, it's a whole different ballgame. And here you are, you know, you've put a bullet in this thing. And I want to ask you, did it affect you at all?

I don't think so. To me, it was just, I mean, it was just the job I had at the time. I mean, it's what I was supposed to do. I guess it affected me in that I know that they exist. I know, as a matter of fact, that they're real. I know because I killed one, and I got within five yards of it walking over to get my stuff. So I know that they're, I know that they exist. that they're real.

I don't know why there's not maybe more information on them. I don't know why it's secretive. If that would have been a bear, if that was a black bear or anything else, these guys in the white car wouldn't show up. I mean, no,

they might send you out there. They might say, hey, there's a bear that's acting super aggressive out here and go shoot it. When I was a police officer, we had a bear in the little town that I was a police officer in, and they had me go out and shoot this bear because it was being aggressive. Me and a game ward went out there, and, you know, we were on both sides of the river, and I ended up shooting us bear, and it wasn't treated the same way. And so I just, I guess I don't understand maybe except for that maybe it skews some sort of theological belief,

or something, maybe that's why it's secret. I don't know why it's secretive, bud. I really can't tell you. Yeah, I figured as much, John. I do believe that there is a cover-up going on. There's way too many encounters on these military bases for the government not to notice. I've talked to too many soldiers, especially at Fort Lewis, you know, where, you know, maybe someone got hurt during training. They had to run in with one of these sayings.

they had to go report to an Air Force guy, which is weird. I mean, I never served, so maybe I'm talking out of line. But, you know, if I'm in the Army, why do I have to go report to an Air Force guy? The military branches generally don't get along anyway from an outsider's point of view. Why would I have to go report to an Air Force guy? It's strange. After having this encounter, and I ask everyone on the show, John, what do you think Sasquatch is? But after this encounter, what do you think Sasquatch is?

What's kind of your opinion? And there's no wrong answer, of course. I can undoubtedly tell you at least the one that I encountered was flesh and blood mammal. It was, it fell just like any other animal would fall. It behaved when it was shot like any other animal would. or man or anything. I mean, it's completely, and I've heard that on your show before, Wes,

about, you know, orbs and, and all that other. I didn't get any of that. And I'm glad I was ignorant, I guess, at the time, just because I, like I said,

if I would have known then what I know now, I probably wouldn't be out there doing that. But, yeah, I mean, it's just flesh and blood. You could hear the, after that first shot, you could hear the kind of, I don't know what to call. The noise that it made was very pneumatic. It was air leaving its body, basically. I know that I took at least one lung out and probably his heart. and then when it fell forward, you know, that was just,

it probably would have died without that second shot, to be honest with you. Maybe, I don't know. But I had rewracked my gun, you know, my rifle so quickly that you're just trained to do that. You know, you fire around, you rewrack real quick, and I had already done that. And, you know, I just took the second shot, which definitely dropped it. But I would say, beyond a shot of a doubt, flesh and blood, mammals. Yeah, and I respect your answer, John. You know, we can only go off of our own experience with these sayings.

And, you know, it's hard to really tell what they are. But I respect your answer for sure. If you had the chance, would you want to see another one? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think so. where I live now, there's a lot of sightings just in this area. And I mean,

I can't say yeah, because, again, if I was at ground level with the thing, I probably and, you know, being older and fatter and slower now, I probably, I don't know how I would react. Back then, I was too dumb to know any better. I would like to see,

I would like to see one just a show, I would like to get evidence of one. I'd like to get, like, honest of goodness, not the, you know, the Patty film is very compelling, but it still leaves room for debate. I mean, I think if you get some real evidence and provide real evidence to skeptical people, I think then there would be, you know, more of a more of a, they're obviously endangered, whatever it is. There's not enough of them out there. But there might be more of a push to try to, you know, help say, do whatever.

Maybe, like I said, I think they're just a flesh and blood creature, flesh and blood mammal. And so that being the case, I would like to get evidence of one. I don't know that I necessarily want to see one up close. Yeah, I understand. It makes you wonder, though, why it's being covered up. You know, there is, and this is my opinion, of course, I think that who's ever running the show, they don't really care about encounters. They don't really care about what you talked about, what you saw. They don't really care.

I think what they care about is if the only time someone's going to show up is if, A, one, gets shot and there's evidence or B, someone gets hurt. And the way they tend to handle people, the public, is pretty harsh. I mean, it's very threatening, very, you didn't see that, you saw a bear, that sort of thing. And it makes me wonder why it's being covered up. The only thing I can go back to is what it is, and that's why they're covering it up. There certainly wasn't enough time to, like, fly in some, you know, covert people. I mean, these guys, you know, with a sensitive material that was there on that base,

NCIS had a had a big a big and I only keep saying that because we we had an incident prior to this incident where some some people blew the gate and NCIS got involved and they were driving the same well you know same white Ford tourists so that's why I got to believe it was it was it was it was it was it was then I mean, it was somebody that was, those guys got there, I mean, quick. Not as quick as Gunney and the captain, but pretty damn quick. I mean, within minutes of Gunny and Captain getting there, those guys were there. So they have to be guys that were, you know, working on the base or were on the base or something like that. I mean, but it's very hush-hush. I never signed a statement. I never had to, I mean, it was just never talked about again.

It was never talked about. Yeah. And that's the part that is definitely frustrating for sure. You know, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share this encounter. And, you know, two of the eyewitnesses that are probably my favorite to speak to are military, former military and hunters. Definitely hands down. I really appreciate you taking the time to come forward and share this encounter that happened to you over 20 years ago. Can I ask you one last question?

Being that I never served, I never took the opportunity to serve our country. And I highly admire people who did. Can I ask you, what was your best moments of serving? The camaraderie. I have a friend, my best friend from then. he and I have spent since we met I mean we grew up together

since since since we met in the Marine Corps that he actually works for me now and he's married and his kids are my kids and my kids are his kids and I have friends all over the United States that I served with

that when I got out I got into police work specifically hoping that I would find the same sort of camaraderie but you don't I think my, my, you make friends in those scenarios and those situations that, that are lifelong friends. They're not just, they're not buddies when things are good, you know, they're, they're, they're friends all the time. And their parents, I lost, I lost a few friends over in Iraq, and I'm still in touch with, with their parents and their siblings.

and, you know, it's a bond that I've never felt before or since with some of those guys that I worked with. I won't get teared up about it, but yeah, that's, that's, that's, to me, and I never had any intentions of joining the military. I don't come from a military family. I was a football player. and pretty much got dared to join the military by a girl that I was dating and her dad was a Marine. And so I said, you know what, I can do that. And so I did. I was shipping off the boot camp two weeks later. My mom was ready to break my legs.

Yeah, I think that's the answer most people give, you know, that brotherhood, that you're in situations, you know, that you're relying on each other. and I can see how you could build lifelong friendships with it. And I admire that a lot. And I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share it. And thank you for your service. And Merry Christmas to you, John. Hey, you too, man. I hope you have a great one.

And that's it for tonight. I want to remember if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. and if you get a chance to check out saskwatch chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone.