Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:928 Sending Hot Lead Down Range

Episode Date: February 18, 2023

Tommy writes "I am a retired lawman/judge still in my 50's and going strong, when you become a cop at 18 and get your 30 you get to retire early and then go enjoy life. I own a cattle ranch in Texas. One got real up & close to me in the Sabine National forest and I gave him a dose of hot lead as he followed me or skirted me down a logging road. He screamed and roared as he tore through the brush running the other direction, we tracked him for about 2 days and did not find him. I made the huge mistake of telling some of my co workers (other Law Enforcement Officers) about what I had seen and witnessed on my many trips into the woods. I was set to be promoted to Sgt Investigator and when the date passed for promotion I inquired as to what happened? I was informed that when I shared some of my BF encounters with others I became no longer credible and therefore not up to the standards of supervision. I shut my mouth and did not share any BF info with anyone for sometime except others close in the know…. I had enough of that treatment so I ran for office as the local Judge or Justice of The Peace. Needless to say I began keeping my BF hunts, outings or excursions to myself or just my tiny little group."

It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind and 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 that big. The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything moves like that in my life. They were screaming at each other in gibberish. It sounded like a language and they were chuntering away back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forward.

I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet that what I saw were bears. What are you reporting? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That's son of a bitch is about six years. Bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know. Do you see a bouncer? Yes, I'm looking right in he.

Uh-uh. Oh, this is Robert Lamberton, and you're listening to Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show planned for you. We're going to be chatting with Tommy tonight. I heard about Tommy over the years from several investigators and researchers, and everyone I spoke to said, man, you really need to talk to this guy.

And Tommy has a very impressive professional resume. He was a former police officer. He finished up his career in the judicial system. And growing up, Tommy's grandmother would tell him about these encounters they had around their property. And it just wasn't Tommy's grandmother. It was also his grandfather, his mom, and his dad. A lot of the family would talk about this falc monster when he lived out in Arkansas. And later in life, Tommy got involved with a group.

and the group's goal was to shoot one of these creatures, kill, harvest one of these creatures and, and bring it in and finally prove it. And it's kind of crazy talking to Tommy because, you know, I've heard about some of these incidences from other people who are there. And it's, I mean, it's spot on with what Tommy says happened. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com.

And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Tommy to the show. Tommy, thanks for being here. You bet, man. Yeah, and if you would, I really want to get into some of these encounters, even the time where you shot one of these creatures. But at the very beginning of all this happening in your life, tell me about kind of growing up, with your grandmother?

Well, I guess it all started when we were children. My grandmother was born in Falk, Arkansas, and grew up and got married in Falk, Arkansas. And my great-grandparents had a farm there, and they were farmers that lived out in the rural area. And so this creature or animal would come into the area, and come on to the farm and just really mess everything up in the perspective from the people that live there. My grandmother was a little girl. When things changed, when this ever spring or summertime when this creature either came through or was in the area, what happened is the livestock would start acting funny.

the cattle would not leave the barn area. They had, and the hunting dogs wouldn't leave the house, and they would just stay up on the porch and wine. My grandmother told me, and so she went out to sweep the porch, and all of the dogs were on the porch, and it was during a time when this creature was in the area, and those dogs would not get off that porch. So she went to whooping them with the broom to get them,

those dogs off the porch so she could sweep it. And so when she whipped those dogs off the porch with a broom, they just all crawled and went under the house or under the porch. They cleaned, went back in the house and was to do in something else. And her mother came back outside and all the dogs were on the porch. And of course, it was all dusty and dirty again. And my grandmother got in trouble for not sweeping the porch when she had just finished. She said, you could not drive the dogs away on account of this. animal. So I grew up. I grew up, you know, listening to her than, they all lived down there in East Texas. I grew up in Falk, but then she got married, moved to Texas and lived up there

in Northeast Texas. Then as grandkids, when we were there, I would, she would tell these stories and every time I saw her, tell me more, tell me more about this creature. And then the World Wide web became popular there in the 90s. And after the internet or the web, I guess, became common. Well, then we were able, you are able to research or meet other like-minded people that were also interested or had trouble with this animal, this creature. Yeah, I understand. So you kind of had a foundation from your grandmother, family on the property. Everyone kind of talking about this falch monster. And later in life, you had joined a group, and the group's goal was to basically shoot one of these creatures, bring it in, and prove it to the world. And we're going to go over

some of those experiences that you had out there. And the one I really want to talk to you about is when you shot this creature. But shooting the creature was later on down the road. You had several experiences prior to that happening. Is that correct? You're right. Yeah, it sure was. I had a couple opportunities, not several, I've had a couple opportunities to shoot it at these creatures. I was with a group of investigators that were in the Louisiana, northwest Louisiana, and you visited with some of them. And when I was out on a hunting trip with them, one night way down in the bottoms, I was up in the top of a tree and pulling an all-night ship,

we'd get up and hunt all night long, and creatures eat at a corn pile. I watched them for over two hours straight. Back then, the thermal units weren't as good a quality as they all today. The thermal worked great, but the batteries, you had to pop in batteries, and kind of hard you had learned to do that in the dark. But anyway, I had a thermal camera and had been watching this food plot from about 60 yards away. And just real quiet night and pick up your thermal and you'd scan and you try to, you know, rest a little bit, pick up the camera and scan.

And man, my camera lit up and I turned. And sure enough, there were bodies all squatted down around a corn pile. and I really couldn't make them out. I was thinking, what on earth? Now, you know, for anybody that's a hunter, you think you've got a corn pile around there, first thing you'll think, oh, I got some deer around the corn pile. Oh, any deer, got wild hog.

I don't have wild hog. I probably got some, you know, raccoons or something, you know, the kind of animals that just love to go to a corn feeder. But with the thermal imaging, you're watching the shape of the animal. And you're like, wait a minute. This is definitely not deer. that I'm looking at, and I know it's not a hog, and it's way too big to be a record. I started watching them, and I saw an arm stick out and go down into that corn pile,

and then that arm came back and went to the head, and then it hit me what it was. And there were two larger animals, and they were between, you know, maybe a little more than six foot tall, two young ones, and they were just never, And so as I was watching them, the way that they ate the corn is they don't go into the corn pile with their mouths or with their feet, but they pick up a stick and they reach in that corn pile and they drag and then they drop the stick and then pick up that kind of corn and eat it. And I watched them do this. Next day during the daylight hours, one pile these little trenches where they have. had been dragging kernels of corn out of the corn pile and night vision with me, but it wasn't a thermal imaging rifle scope.

It was just night vision, Generation 3, Night Vision. And so I zoomed in and tried to make out the animals, but it was a dark, dark night in the canopy of trees and no opening. And I could not make out the animals with Generation 3 rifle scope. Now, with thermal, I could see them brightest day. and I just had a thermal camera at the time. And since then, we've gotten multiple thermal raffle scopes. But at that time, in the first time, it was just a regular thermal camera for monitoring.

And so I was watching with a thermal camera, and then I would pick up the raffle and try to zoom in with a, just a Generation 3 night vision scope. And so I just, you know, put the raffle in the scope down, and I just watched these animals and just amazed at how quiet they were. At one point, one of the little ones jumped up on the back of one of the bigger ones, and then the bigger ones stood up and took a step across and then squatted back down and went back to dragging that corn out of the corn pile. Watching this go on, the two small ones, they were jumping around,

and I'm assuming that it was two little ones and maybe two females or two mothers. and so they just kind of ran. One point, one of the small ones, about 20 yards, and I'm watching him run, and they ran on all fours. But then stood up, then squatted back down, and then he sat down on his butt, his feet looking out, and I kind of chuckled and laugh because I'm watching him, and then as I looked up,

I noticed he wasn't underneath the canopy of trees. He was kind of in an open area where the sky, could break through. So then I thought maybe the raffle will work. So I grabbed the rifle and turned the scope on and booed a toddler in the crosshairs of my rifle scope. And I just kind of whispered to myself. I said, I got you, buddy.

But, you know, we kind of discussed this, you know, if we ever saw small and something like that, we're not going to try to, not going to shoot a, it's like shooting a child. We wouldn't do that. but I got to see him really well. I got to watch him. He was looking all around and he was holding his arms up and he was scratching all over like he had fleas. And I could see he was sitting with his feet sticking straight up. So it was kind of comical.

Yeah, I was muted out, Tommy, but I about fell out on my chair when he just said that. Six months ago or so, I spoke to a gentleman in Mississippi and he's a hunter and he had his deer feeder out there. And what ended up happening was he kept having to fill up the deer feeder like every three days. I mean, it was going so quick. And he didn't know what was eating his feed. And so he went out there and he wanted to find out he thought it was hogs or something. He describes almost identical to what you just said. He is a term, I asked him, I said, how did they sit down and just start eating it with their hands? And he said, no, they proportionate it with a stick. And I go, what do you mean in proportionate with the stick? It's basically just exactly

what you said is what he said. I mean, it's weird when you think about it. Like, why wouldn't it just sit down and use this big, filthy hands to eat from the deer feed? Why is it using a stick? It makes you wonder if it's leery or if they're smarter than what we think. It's very strange behavior, don't you think? I mean, to eat that way? To me, I just, I think it's similar. It's kind of similar to the instinct that the coyote has if you set steel traps around of the carcass of a dead cow or a dead pig or something and bury them, and then sit back and watch. I've watched that before, and for some reason, the coyotes, they know. For some reason, I don't know if they smell the steel or smell the iron, but they don't just come in.

They come in and with their paws, and I've seen them just. dig and turn traps over. So maybe this animal is just, or to me is, you know, how do you say king of the jungle here in America? Because they are smart. And so I guess they do not want to, you know, take a chance of just reaching into free food that someone left out in the woods thinking that there may be something wrong, something voodoo about that free corn.

Yeah, you know, in a lot of states, you can't shoot deer near a deer feeder. I'm sure there's some guys that do, but in a lot of states, you can't do that. I mean, it's a pretty hefty fine, and it makes me wonder, maybe they're seeing that the deer aren't harmed when they come up and eat it, so they're going to eat it. But to go to the extent of using a stick to kind of separate it and proportionate, you know, Again, I was shocked when he said that because the first time I heard that, I was like, that makes no sense. Why would they do that? And he was like, I don't know.

They proportionate it with the stick, though, before they eat it. I mean, it's like they're hilarious hell. It's just, it's hard to recall everything that happened, you know, when you're, I guess, like you and I are chatting right now. But I will, you know, just, I will never forget that, just watching that animal and then, you know, running the crosshairs of that, of that. of that night scope all around him and I just, you know, whispering to myself. I said, I got you. So I had to let him get up and walk away and he went back to his mom. And so, and they stayed there.

And then up until, I said, I watched them for over two hours and the batteries went dead in my thermal. And so I'm rasseling around in the dark, you know, way, way up in the top of a tree with climbing stand. And so when you're wrestling around in the dark, trying to be quiet and trying to change batteries and a camera. It took a while to get it done, but I finally got it done. And when I powered up the thermoscope, again, they were gone. I never heard them approach. And there's four of them. I never heard them approach. And I never heard them depart that quiet. And I said, I was maybe 50 yards, 50, 60 yards away. Yeah, I wanted to ask you, I know you're watching them through a thermal, and it's basically a heat signature that's in.

in a humanoid form. But what a cool opportunity to be in an elevated position watching this. And, you know, I don't know if it was your first time actually seeing them or not. But, I mean, what was kind of going through your mind as you sat up in that tree watching all this go on? You almost go into shock. Like, what am I looking at? And you turn and hid behind the camouflaged canopy that I had. and the buck fever sits in and the buck fever don't have anything on monkey fever.

I'll tell you that right now. And almost a temporary paralysis, you know, for a few seconds where he's like, that's how big a shock it was to you. But then after you watch them for a while and then, you know, the shock fades away. And then your mind just goes wild as to, you know, what am I looking at? you know, what if I were to take this rifle and, you know, and, you know, shoot one of these animals? You know, if you shoot something like this or a small one, even one of the adults, I just kind of felt like the others will grab it and haul it away. Or next thing you know, you're going to be, you're going to be fighting for your life and shooting everything. If they come up that tree, look after you.

Yeah, I think you're right, Tommy. I think it would have been either option A or option B. Neither one of those are good. You know, I'm all for harvesting one. And if it ever does, you ever do make it to the public eye with it without being destroyed in the process, you know, professionally, personally, everything else. I'm rooting for people, you know, who are in the position that you're in. And I'm wondering, when you were watching them through the thermal and you were kind of seeing how they were interacting, seeing how they were eating, What you think Sasquatch is or not, put all that aside for a moment.

Did you get the feeling like you were watching more human-like behavior, or did you get the feeling like you were watching a bunch of non-human primates eating? The Texas version of Jane Goodall, watching some hs. So that's what animals to me, not human and just animals. And the way they squatted, you know, the way they moved. just human never popped into my mind nothing like that

just in my thoughts and my beliefs of course you know I don't have one I don't have one I hadn't seen

one up close you know but I believe it's all animal I think it's something the good Lord put on this earth and we've yet to

decide or discover what it is so I know I know that people have shot them but it all tends to get walked away.

Yeah, I understand. I was thinking, you know, the whole situation, did it seem kind of human-like, you know, like a family coming to sit down? But I guess you could say the same thing about the non-human, the great apes. I mean, they kind of do the same thing. When that little one stepped out in the opening and he were looking through the scope, was there anything about its appearance or is anything that kind of stays with you to this day as far as what you saw because that was separate from the thermal.

You're looking through a night vision scope at this point and it's in the opening. No, just sitting, you know, sitting in the living room. He just ran away from mom and I guess he was kind of feeling his oats and getting far away and he just kind of sat down. I just, I found like I said, I thought it was kind of neat the way he was scratching. He was scratching his arms and scratching his head and scratching his chest. And I just thought, huh, maybe these animals have fleas. Maybe he sat down in ants.

I don't know, but he was scratching himself all over. He was holding his arm up in the air. And I could see his hand and fingers. And he was just scratching up and down his arm. So that's what I was thinking, you know, maybe this little fella doesn't got an ant pile. Yeah, I was thinking. flees too, as you were describing it, but maybe it sat on the fire ants out there you guys have in Texas.

Maybe it sat on a fire ant mound. I guess we will never know. Has there ever been a time in this area? And we can talk about this same area because I know a lot went on here. But was there ever a time out there that you were shocked or surprised by their behavior? This one still blows my mind. So this is probably several months or a year later. We're back down in that same area of Louisiana.

We have a climbing stand and we would pick a good bullpine. And during the daylight hours, we'd run a climb and stand up as high as we could. If there was any size limbs, we would carry a chainsaw or a hatchet, and we would remove the limbs so that we can get up higher. Get up as high as you can where you can still see all. around the area, but yet not too high up where the trees or the canopy starts to block your view. So we were in this one spot down on the creek, and they called it down in the bottoms, and maybe two or three hundred yards from the area where I saw those four.

And I just remember when the guys, you know, dropped me off in the truck and got me in the stand and I got set. I go in, when I go in and hunt, I go in in the evening during the daylight hour. A couple of guys will go one direction and a couple of guys will go another direction. And it kind of creates a diversion where these animals, if they're close by, these animals will hopefully follow the guys walking. And that's just kind of a diversion to get anything that's in the area. Get them away from me and whoever's helping me when I go up for the night.

I go up to hunt for the night. Anyway, I get all set and I go up. I'm maybe 50, 60 feet up. I'm way at the top of this tree. And then the guys that are helping me, they all jump in their vehicles, four-wheelers, and they get out of there, and it's still daytime. And you just, you get prepared and you get real still. And you just, you don't move.

You don't move, and you just breathe and just take note of your service. surroundings and I immediately I noticed I was it dead silent because we were you know we were all down here making noise and it stayed that way night it got dark and then it just you know 10 o'clock at night midnight one two in the morning silence and I always see wildlife always see deer I always you know see coyote and coon you see everything you know from way up from your perch way up in the top of this tree I don't know if you're a bow hunter, but for all those people that listen, there comes a time when you're on the top of a tree when Mother Nature calls, you just can't hold it any longer and you feel like you're going to burst. And sometimes it's like, nah, the heck with it. And you have to stand up in your stand at the top of a tree.

And sometimes you have to relieve yourself. So when you're in the woods and it is dead silent, you know exactly us men, we know exactly. when you are relieving yourself in the forest, when you are relieving yourself in the woods, when liquid hits on all the dry, the dry leaves and underbrush. So that wasn't my case, but along about 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning, oh, my gosh, it's going to rain. I might get my gear out and cover my equipment. And I glanced up, and the sky is clear through the canopy of trees.

what the heck is going on? Why? So I start, I look, I started looking around and I noticed the rain is just to my right, about 75 yards, 60, 75 yards away in one spot. And I thought, what on earth is going on? I look up, be raining. And so at that goggles and at Generation 3 scope, but I didn't have any thermal with me.

at that time. It's just one of those nights where, you know, something was wrong. I didn't have any thermal imaging. And so it went on for about 20, 30 seconds, just, you know, what I thought was rain. And then the sun came up and the guys showed up down there in the bottoms and they came and I come down out of the stand and went, went on back up to the camp. And I was telling them, I said, did y'all get any rain last night? And they're like, no, it wasn't raining. clear skies, and then it hit me. Remember I told you it was so quiet. The reason it was quiet is I'm about 98% sure that one of these animals shot up a tree when we got down there,

and that's why it was so dead still and dead quiet. And when we got down there, I went up a tree, 60, 70 yards away from him. I went up the tree as also, and I was just as high as he was. And I believe an animal relieved him. you know, and from the top of a tree. And I never knew it. And it finally hit me after I was already out of the woods what was happening. Yeah, I've had a lot of reports from eyewitnesses where they'll pee on people's tents.

And it's like 50-50. Sometimes they'll see a shadow of what appears to be a very, very large man outside of their tent. And in a lot of situations, they don't see anything, but they're like it was it was like someone was peeing on my tent. makes you wonder if they're up in the trees, as you describe. You know, it's reported that they chatter. I'm sure you've heard the Sierra sounds. Or they'll do these clicks. You know, people will talk about they'll click with their mouth, you know, back and forth.

Have you ever heard the chatter when you were out there? And you're like, what are they saying? It's kind of like somebody, you hear somebody playing a football game or something in the other room, and you can't really understand what they're saying. And what happened out there, the actually. my very first encounter wasn't a sighting, but it was an animal walked up on me, the owner of the property, had me sitting over a clear-cut hay meadow area sitting in this tripod stand. And so this was one of my first nights to be down in that part of Louisiana in that area.

And so they dropped me off in the truck, you know, a bunch of the other guys did. And they said, how long did I want to stay and hunt? I said, well, I'm going to stay all night. You know, if I need y'all to come get me out of the woods, I'll call you. And so I sat up and got ready, you know, just to spend the night out in the woods. And then about midnight, and I heard somebody walking. These guys, I told these guys, don't come get me unless I call you. I didn't call anybody.

They had two-way radios and cell phones. I'm like, I didn't call anybody. And then I realized somebody's walking out. here and they don't have a flashlight and then as it got closer I could hear the steps getting heavier and heavier the animal didn't have a clue was where I was where I was at this tripod stand was set up between some some new growth sapling so the trees were real full about 12 feet up and so I was hitting well and so this animal was walking up from behind me and getting closer and closer and I'm like, so I reach over and I grab my raffle and I take my raffle.

I clicked it off safety. I turned my thermal on and I start to turn and I'm leaning and this animal's getting closer and closer. I'm not seeing it. The brush, the underbrush is so thick. So, and I just, I keep turning and the animal keeps on coming and I'm like, got to light at my screen sooner or later. And I leaned way back in that chair, all you heard,

was it squeaked real loud and the animal just I wouldn't move in yeah I got one hand on my thermal camera I got one hand on my rifle with that vision and I'm like what's next and the animal changed directions and trotted away to my left now instead of walking and we all know what it sounds like when when you're walking in the woods or trotting in the woods a biped and so now in this tripod stand, one leg is on one side of a barbed wire fence, and two legs are on this side of the barbed wire fence. They put it right on the fence line. And so I live here on the ranch,

and so building fence is a daily thing around here. And so that animal's walking. I could tell that he's going. He's got to be getting close to this fence. And all of a sudden, I hear the bobwire stretch. You hear the barbed wire. The bobwire was pulling through the fence. steeples. So apparently this animal put his hand or something and went right over the top of that

barbed wire fence. And as soon as he crossed that fence, he started clicking, loud clicking. And a really, really loud clicking. And I thought, what on earth is who is he talking to? And then, man, another one answered he, he's to my left. And another one answered him to my right, probably no more than 20 or 30 yards in the brush. So they started clicking to each other. The one on the left started clicking, the one on the right started answering him. So my head, I'm turning to the left, I'm turning to the right,

turning to the left, turn it to the right. I don't know which one's going to come out, but they're not coming out in the opening. They're going straight through the brush, going away from me. And they communicated with each other for, man, it's long, I guess, until they got so far away, couldn't hear them anymore. And they just the, like you said,

that night wasn't a chatter. It was just clicking and clicking loud. So that's when I knew that they do click. Yeah, eyewitnesses report that clicking. It kind of reminds me of if you've ever seen like the African tribe, I think it's Azuluz that have a click. And when they talk, they do this clicking as they talk.

And that's how a lot of eyewitnesses report it. I almost wonder if that doesn't get reported as much as when they actually vocalize, you know, like the Sierra sounds that chatter that they do, because that will get your attention pretty quick. Maybe a lot of people aren't paying attention to the clicking, but at night in that situation, I would have been paying close attention like you were, man. I was going to ask you, I already kind of know the answer to this because I know you guys are in Louisiana, Texas, kind of that area right there. Were you guys on private property, or was this on, in the national forest, like public land? Yeah, and, you know, out there on that

private land, I tend to ask people if they've ever seen the lights and people report seeing these balls of light in the forest. And I don't know if it's related to Sasquatch or not, but I take note because it comes up a lot. But while you were out on this private property, did you guys ever see the lights out there? You know, hear people talk about that, but I, we've never seen any the lights. I haven't seen them here in Texas or Louisiana or the Oklahoma area. No, just, you know, just the animals and the noises they make, but never seen any strange globes or or lights. Never have. Now, I do, I do remember when we had a hunt down there in that area, And believe it or not, helicopters started circling in the dark.

And we have no idea what they were looking for, but they were right over the area where myself and three or four other hunters were at. And they circled for, and I don't know, it's all hidden in the tops of trees, but they had some sort of night operation. Yeah, that's strange. And I would imagine very unnerving being out there. at night watching that unfold. And I know the group that used to be a part of, the end goal was to collect a specimen,

which is a really nice way of saying, kill one and bring it in. And I'm not opposed to that. You know, as long as it's morally, I think when you shoot something just to kill something, I can have a moral. My morals get in the way of that. And maybe my scale that I'm using is corrupted. But so I'm not against it. And I know there's other groups out there doing it.

The North American WoodApe Conservancy Group is down there in Area X, and they're trying to accomplish the same goal. Can I ask you, though, why is it so hard to kill one of these things and bring it in? What are some of the obstacles that you had to overcome just trying to shoot one and bring it in? I mean, you know, these things are huge. it doesn't seem like that hard of a goal, but it's one of those situations where I understand it's easier said than done. But why do you think it's so hard to bring one in? It's a blessing just to be able to lay eyes on an animal.

And first of all, you've got to get in the woods. Second of all, you've got to be in the woods normally at dark around here. I've never had an accidental sighting where I'm just going about my day and, hey, you know, there's a fix foot or a softwatch in the road. or crossing the road, I've never had that. All of the incidences that I've had is I went in the woods with that intention, the intention of filing. I do, I think the animal is flesh and blood. I believe that he can be taken down.

I think that there are a lot of men who have intentions of doing that. And when an opportunity arises and they see the massiveness or the size, or they feel that rush or that fear come over them, they just don't do it. Yeah, it's still frustrating, though. It's, you know, they've been down there at Area X for over 10 years, I think, down there doing that, and I could be wrong on that. And they always have an excuse as far as why they always end up empty-handed.

And I'm not breaking those guys' balls by any means. I admire what they do, and I'm rooting for them. want them to shoot one. I absolutely want it brought to light. And so don't take any of that as me giving those guys a hard time because I do respect what they do. And I do admire what they do. And I realize it's very simple to say, go in and kill one and bring it in. It's just strange to me that everyone always comes up empty. And, you know, if I would have, if I asked you, Tommy, hey, go get me a deer, go get me a hog. You'd probably be back within the hour with one.

With these things, though, it's like people shoot them, and then they just kind of, they can't find it. Or it's always something that comes up, and so it's frustrating. Because, you know, your hunters down here, mountain lions are very plentiful. And that's, you know, that's for a hunter, that's quite the trophy, you know, to have a mountain line on the list of animals that you bag. The few times that I've, you know, had an opportunity to see the Black Panther or the mountain line,

it just, you don't have much of an opportunity to grab a firearm and take a shot. By the time your mind says, hey, there's a mountain light cutting across the Sendero where I'm hunting. And by the time your brain says, hey, grab a rifle, he's gone. they make an appearance and they're gone. And I kind of feel like these animals the same way. I think they are, and they know that if hunters are in the woods, they're probably in the wood to take game, deer, or hog, and they know to stay away from them.

And if they are sighted, it's normally, like I said, just a glimpse or glance at just the animal's moving. It seems like at night you have a little bit more of an opportunity. I had that, you know, over here. in deep east Texas, what we were doing down there is we were on private land, between private land and then national forest, we would bring, walk down the forest roads and don't bring the whole pack, just bring one. And the dog will go out and hunt as you walk down the forest road.

The dog's going to run out and start trying to come back to you and come back to you. but the dog sees and hears and smells so much greater than we did. And then next thing you know, when that dog is tripping you because he's trying to get up underneath your feet, something's going on. The animal's close by. And so this one night here a few years back there in East Texas, he went walking and just him and his dog. And he was gone for some time. And so I kind of went, you know, looking for.

and had my thermal cameras out, and I saw him coming down the forest road. He was probably a good quarter mile away, and man, he was just, I could see his dog, his dog was underneath his feet, and I thought, well, maybe one of these animals is in the way. And so I watched him, and he walked all the way up to me. He said, man, I've had one, I've had one on my tail skirted me out of these woods for the last. I said, you're back here at camp. I said, well, let me go for a walk and let's just see what happens and see if he'll pick up on me. And we kind of swap some gear around.

And one of the toys that we use is on our rifles is with our thermal imaging rifle scopes, we tap into the scope has video out. We tap into gaming goggles because trying to watch or look through scopes with the rifle up to your shoulder that it'll wear you out pretty quick pretty fast. And so we use a strap to go across the shoulder and hold our firearm up with the thermoscope, with the video output going to the goggles. So then you train yourself to walk and wherever you want to see, you aim your gun. And there's a crosshair in the goggles that you're wearing.

And as you walk, we practice shooting. And so wherever you're walking, you're aiming your gun. and so I went and started walking, and I didn't walk for 10 minutes, and I heard the footprints. I heard the footsteps. He was on my tail, and he was following me. And so, and I've heard this many times on, I guess, the people that you talk to, I just call it skirting you out of the woods, following you. And this time I was walking away.

I was walking, you know, away from camp getting deeper, and he was right. He was staying right with me. And every now and then you could tell they would hit some brush or something, and they would get real loud. So I'm walking on this forest service road, and I came into an area with some heavy cane. And, you know, the cane just kind of lit up my scope, and I thought, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to hide from this animal, and I'm going to wait. And so I got behind this cane, and I squatted down. I just, I didn't move. And I got real still, and he couldn't, the animal couldn't see me anymore. I'm sure he probably should send me, but he could not see me. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited.

And then he started walking again. And he walked a little further, walk a little further, and then he just stopped and waited. And I guess it's been quite some time. So I came up real slow. And I walked past the cane. I started scanning the area. And I still didn't see him, but the underbrush were still pretty thick. And I went another 15 or 20 feet.

And as I do a big pine trees with no underbrush. And it sounded like it was the exact same area that this, about the same depth that this, that this creature was walking. So anyway, I, and I just kind of knelt down and I aimed my rifle, rat between those trees. I'm not going to move. I believe this animal. I think he's going to cross. If he passes through those trees, I'm going to get a good look at him.

And I waited, and he started walking again, and then he stood still, and you just got to wait them out. And then sometimes I've heard that they could just sit for hours and hours, but I guess this fellow didn't wait a little bit longer. And, man, he went to walking again, and all of a sudden, my RICO scope just lit up the thermal imaging shows. the heat white and my rifle scope lit up. And next thing you know, the heat, this animal screams like a dang African lion just screams and roars,

tearing through the brush, going the other way. You sound like a bulldozer going through the brush. And he just screamed at one time, and you could hear him running and just tearing everything up. for a long, long way. And out camping with, they heard me shoot, and they come flying up there on four-wheelers and pick up down this logging road. And we gathered up and tried to track him. And the sun gun got to.

There was about, oh, maybe 100 yards away from where I shard. There was a big, wide creek. And I heard, and I told him I heard a splash. and this animal jumped and landed in that creek and come out the other side. And we tried tracking at night. It just wasn't any good. So the next day we tracked. And I bet we went a mile into those woods and, you know, following the broken brush and all the traces that this animal was leaving behind.

We did not find blood or hair. Did not. I don't know why. I'm shooting a very large caliber gun. but I don't even not know why the animals screamed and roared so loud, but we tracked him for about two days back and forth, back and forth, and, you know, of the path that he took, and we did not find him. Yeah, a little scary, man.

I don't know if I would have the balls to go start tracking it like you guys did. I mean, during the day I probably would have, but it's weird not finding blood, you know, especially at that range with that rifle. and obviously it reacted to being shot. This area that you guys are at, what's kind of the theory behind it? Do you think there's like a family group in this area? Because it sounds like there's multiple of them. I know you're in Washington, but deep east Texas,

there are a lot of little hotspots around here. And I truly believe I've heard you and some of your guests speaking about it. I don't think they're ever just one. When there's one, there's going to be another one, kind of like copperhead snakes. I tell you, I don't believe that just, I think it would be kind of rare. You're just going to find they're going to be right there within a few minutes. Yeah, I agree.

Where there's one, there's usually another one. And they tend to have a little bit of a revenge streak just from eyewitness testimony. So, you know, I can imagine it would be, it'd be very dangerous what you're doing, depending on how they react. Not too far. I believe we might have been in, I can't think of the name, but there was a wildlife management area. And this lady, this lady had these animals coming on to her place and killing her dogs and killing her chickens. And she got a hold of us. And we went and started visiting her farm.

We set up, you set up camp, and it was pretty quiet. and then one was watching him and he kept staring at something and he kept staring at and I'm like man what are you watching at and he goes you ain't going to believe this but he handed me the binoculars and I looked at you know a little soft squatch you I want about three a half three and a half maybe four foot tall and he was watching us watch him that's this was broad daylight and he my buddy would have been watching him for about 20 or 30 minutes and and grabbed the rifle scope and was able to put a scope on this one in this cane break. And the cane break started kind of separating.

And I don't know what happened, but this little fella went flying through the air. I think his mama grabbed him and sucked him up, and they disappeared in the brush. And we're both like, oh, man, that was too bad. We didn't have some sort of video watching that because that was kind of neat. The little man got in trouble. His mother sucked him up and yanked him out. Yeah, and how far away from you was this thing? Maybe 80 yards.

It's pretty close, really. And it reminds me of an encounter in Texas. I'll bore you with it after the show. But the guys actually got a picture of it. It was a tiny one. When you were looking at this thing, was there anything that still stays with you? Was there any details that really stick in your mind? It's just like a shaggy brown, almost like the color of pine needles,

but I think the time is supposed to be green. But it blends in so well. You know, to me, I think it's more closely to the resemblance of a great ape, except the great apes tend to be black. The ones that I had seen, them weren't black. They were a dark brown that just blended in with the environment. And if they weren't moving, you didn't see them. When they moved is what catches your eyes, especially if you get a little bit colorblind like me.

It's the movement that gives them away. Yeah, you're right. The movement gives them away. For something so large, you think it'd stick out like a sore thumb. But I can't tell you how many eyewitnesses I've talked to. where they go, I was looking at this weird tree, and then this tree stood up and it walked off. So, I mean, they do tend to blend in with their environment, as strange as that sounds. And I know we're talking about several years and several incidences in some of these areas.

And I know that there is legitimate activity in these areas. A few of these areas I've been to. And I know there's so much more that we could talk about. I'd like to do a part two with you, Tommy. I want to ask you, you know, I think that there is a government cover up with this. We can argue about why, but it's so strange to me that no one can catch up with this thing. Normally I ask people, do you think, you know, what do you think Sasquatch is? And I know your feelings on it, Tommy.

Your feelings are it's a non-human primate out there running around like a gorilla or something like that. But what's weird is if it was nothing more than a gorilla or just a non-human primate, no one can bring one in, you know, which makes me think, I already think there is a cover up and I could give a whole presentation on why I feel this way. But what are your thoughts as far as do you think it's being suppressed or do you think that it's just we haven't caught up with them? It's being suppressed. And I can say, I hear your guest. I hear other people and, you know, forest rangers and park rangers and government employees. And, you know, the suits and ties showing up when other people, you know, have, I guess, serious contact with this animal. And, you know, and they're in their hole that you saw a bear instead of, you know, I've been in the woods my whole life.

I know what a bear is. I didn't see no dang bear. I know what I saw. and Harry of the Henderson's out here running around. But there's no doubt it's being suppressed. I believe that the government has its reasons for suppressing it. I don't know, to stop hysteria amongst the population or the people or if they made it public with all the millions and millions of guns in the country,

would everybody take to the woods and start shooting everything that moved? you know, trying to get to the animal. I don't know what their exact reason is. We're suppressing it, but without a doubt, our government is suppressing this information. Yeah, I guess in my opinion, I don't know that there would be mass hysteria. And let's say that there was. Let's say everyone was grabbing their guns and running out to the woods and they were going to blast one. Well, you can fix that overnight and make it a felony to shoot one,

and it'll take away anyone's ambition to go out and kill one. what I mean. I want to break any laws, talk to several of the game wardens about it, and they just look at you like you crazy and say, well, you can't protect something that don't exist. So it's not protected in Texas. I hear there's some counties up there in Washington that has taken some action trying to protect the animal in some of the counties. But so far, every warden or lawman that I know around here said, you know, can't

protect something that doesn't exist. Yeah, you're talking about Skamania County in Washington. I don't know how much that would hold up in court if someone actually shot one in Skamania County. I just don't think it would actually hold up in court. I could be wrong. Yeah. I'd be a little bit leery about trying to harvest or acquire one on public land because then they just say, hey, you know, it belongs to us. You shot it on public land.

If you shoot on private lands, they're restored. Yeah, that's a good point. It's a really good point. I guess if you shoot one of the National Forest, you might be in deeper trouble than you might think, but that's if they allow it to come out. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on, Tommy. I mean, the incident with them using the sticks in the deer feed and kind of pulling it out, it really blew my mind because I'd heard that privately. I haven't really said anything to anyone about that. And for you to repeat, basically what I heard from a guy talking about the same situation and describe it in the same way, it really blows my mind.

I sat there like I said, I sat and watched them do it and thought, why are they doing that? They are, you know, they are not going to stick their hand in the middle of that food pile, of that food plot of corn. They stick a stick in there. So I guess going back to watching the Great Age, when they use a stick to go down and. and get termites out of a mound. They're using tools. Yeah, it's a really cool detail, man. I can't think enough for taking the time to come on.

It was a pleasure chatting with you. Yes, sir. Any time. And that's it for tonight, everyone to remember if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone.