Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:965 Strange Encounter At Fort Hood 2002

Episode Date: June 24, 2023

A listener writes "I'm originally from the Wasatch front in Northern Utah and grew up with Bigfoot stories, and a few interesting encounters as a kid. However I served 11 years in the US Army, as a infantryman/ranger. In August 2002 I had a strange encounter during guard duty. It behaved similar to a Bigfoot, however it didn't. I was an NCO, and was in charge of a 3 man guard detail guarding ammunition for a live fire range. The story is a long one, as it stalked us and encircled us all night. I do not believe it was a Bigfoot, and I have been researching what it could have been for over 20 years. I had already been to Afghanistan at this time, and this may have been one of the most frightening moments of my life, and I don't scare easily. However one of your episodes talks about a creature that was nearly cloaked, and I believe that's what it may have been." Spoke to the witness and he said "We were preparing to go to Iraq. We setup a AHA (Ammunition Holding Area). I was relieving this NCO and he said coyotes were circling him all night and he did not sleep all night. I thought it was strange. He went into describing what happen that night that he was at the AHA area. Its a long encounter but it was a strange night. The witness describes the forest going silent, no insects..nothing. We had stuff that was taken from our staging area. I walked into a cold spot. There was foot steps walking straight towards me. One of the infantryman kept saying "oh $h**, oh $h**" what ever it was went into the thicket. I stopped and a rock was thrown at me, a very large rock. I am thinking someone is messing with us. This thing circled us for 2 hours that night. I could not figure out what it was."

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. 911, what are you reporting? See you. Hello. 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 him now, sir?

Yes, I'm looking right in it. This is BMX Hall of Famer Gork from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and you are listening to the most killer podcast on the planet, Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you. We will be chatting with Matt. And Matt, a very strange encounter in Fort Hood back in 2002.

I'll kind of let Matt go into it. If you've had an encounter and he'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquashch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. And forgive my very long intro. I, about two weeks ago, I threw my back out. And I was telling the members, I was like, man, I am in agony. And I didn't really do a great job at explaining the injury.

You know, I basically said, hey, I was out pulling weeds and stood up, and I heard of pop, and I'm in agony. And it's just from an old injury. But the more I listen to that, more I'm like, man, I really sound like a delicate flower telling this and there's really nothing that can touch the pain when it comes. I think I found some muscle relaxers that were prescribed to me like five years ago. I think the expiration date expired, I don't know, four years ago, but it's not cheese. It's not meat. I mean, it's not going to kill you. But anyway, I'll give you the real Cliff Notes version of this, of what happened,

because if I just tell you the injury and really go into detail, I just sound like a dick. But, you know, growing up, I didn't have, we were poor. I wouldn't even say we were poor. We aspired to be poor. And I vividly remember as a boy, collector's calling. They would call nonstop. And this is back before, I think now they can't call you after 8 p.m. and they can't call you before 8 a.m.

Back then, I mean, they would call you up until midnight. They'd start calling you at 5 o'clock in the morning. And kids in school talking about they want this toy or they want that, you know, this new gadget. And I remember thinking, like, I just kind of want a pair of shoes that fit. You know, I'd like to have a coat in the wintertime. I mean, those were my aspirations. And a lot of that really impacted me later in life. And I didn't realize that really until the other day,

thinking about what happened on the day I was injured. And it's good advice for anyone in their 20s. Take care of your body when you're in your 20s. You're not indestructible. You will pay for it later in life. So fast forward, I get into middle school and I really want to finish school early because my parents wouldn't let me drop out. And the school thing really was a huge pain because it took up most of my day.

and they don't pay you to go to school. And I wanted to work. I wanted a job. And I remember I went into the school counselor and this is like middle school. And what do I need to do to graduate early? Just write it down for me, tell me exactly what I need to do and I'll do it. You know, he's like, oh, you want to go to college, huh? I'm like, no, I want a job.

I want to go work. I want to get paid. And he didn't understand where I was coming from. man, I guess, and I'll say going to a lot of details, no one else will understand either, but that's what I said. Anyway, I told my mom, and, you know, for some reason, I don't know if she told him or if he overheard this whole conversation, but, you know, my dad came to me and he said, I'll tell you what, son, if you graduate school early, I'll finance your first car.

I'll get you your first car. Now, obviously, I was going to have to pay it back, and probably with interest. but I was thrilled. And not so much for the car, I mean, this is probably the most my father had spoken to me ever. You know, I wouldn't describe our relationship as good or great. It was what it was. So fast forward, I ended up graduating school two years early. And it's not some big academic achievement or anything.

You know, I'm not a brainiac. I wanted to work. I just wanted it. School is an obstacle in my way. to get it out of my way. And true to his word, I'm out mowing the lawn, and my dad pulls up with this car. Now, it was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen them in my life.

You know, what does every 16-year-old want? A white station wagon, of course. But this wasn't just any white station wagon. I'm 99.9% sure through this underground illegal auction, My father purchased a car from some worn torn country that no longer existed. It was a six-speed manual and reverse was like a Soviet symbol. I mean, to this day, I've never seen a car like this ever anywhere. There were some issues with the hitting it licensed.

They had it as a Volkswagen. There was no part of this car that was a Volkswagen. I think what happens, they pulled spark plugs out of a Volkswagen and said, hey, let's just call this thing a Volkswagen. I'm not really sure how we got past the Department of Motor Vehicles, but we did. And the car had, you know, all of these amazing features, like the windshield wiper only worked on the driver's side, didn't work on the passenger side. Most of the symbols on the manual stick were from the former Soviet Union. and the gas gauge didn't work. You had to reset the odometer every time

to make sure you didn't run out of gas. If you got it above 60, you would think the thing was going to come apart. It would shake violently. I mean, I could go on on about this car. But anyway, I even got pulled over one time. I ran through a stop sign cop immediately pulls me over.

And normally they come marching up and they're like, hey, I need to see your license, registration, and insurance. And he just kind of walked up and he was like, it was like a spaceship had landed. He was just an amazement of this car. He didn't even ask me for my license. He was like, what kind of car is this? I didn't want to say, I think it's from the former Soviet Union.

So I said, uh, Volkswagen. He was like, no, this isn't a Volkswagen. Volkswagen, what? And I go, well, you know, I don't know. My dad got it for me. And he was like, yeah. I mean, he was just really in awe and not in a good way. Like I said, like some UFO just landed.

That was the expression on his face. And he was like, oh, just do you know, watch those stop signs. And then he kind of drove off with this confused look on his face. And to this day, I've never seen a car like this ever. So fast forward, I tried to go and get a job. Now I'm 16. Now what I didn't realize is they had these pesky child labor laws. to where if you were under 18, you couldn't work past like 17 hours a week.

And that sounded like a hobby to me. I wanted to work full time. Eventually I get hired by this shady carpet installer guy. Love him to death, but there was a lot of shady things. But he was good at training you. He was good at carpet installer. Business-wise, maybe not so much. I think I got paid cat in cash for the first.

two years, and which I, you know, was fantastic for me. And it wasn't until like the second year or a year and a half later. I actually got my first paycheck. And I'm like, what am I going to do with this? But it's one of those jobs. I really wish this woke generation could go do for a week. They'd last about 30 minutes, but I wish they would go do it for a week. In this environment, you're going to be berated. Nobody cares how you feel. And if you're complaining, you're not working. and he should be working. Don't walk anywhere. You should be running. I mean, it was a brutal,

brutal job. If you knew my background the way I grew up, I was perfectly primed for this type of work. Did not bother me one bit. You want to berate me? It makes me want to work harder. The one thing I never got berated for was my work ethic. The journeyman training me,

he would show you something one time. And then he expected you to be perfect at it. And if you weren't perfect at it, he was going to ride you nonstop. But I had a very, very strong work ethic. I was happy to have a job. You know, breaks, you know, think about your job today. You take a 15-minute break. You go down to the break room, Janice Furman Accounting's in there,

complaining about how their donuts that the company bought were stale and she's not happy. Breaks in this type of work and floor covering consists of you go drink out of your gallon jug water, which, by the way, you're going to drink the whole thing today, maybe two, so you don't die. And you better do it quickly. I don't think our lunch ever lasted more than seven minutes. You sat down, you ate as fast as you could, and you went back to work. And again, I was happy to have a job. So I wasn't going to complain about anything on this job.

It was so fun for me because every day it went in, my goal, only goal, was to outwork this guy and get so far ahead, he had no option but to show me how to, you know, seam carpet. He had no option, but show me how to kick in stairs. He had no option. He had to show me everything because I had gotten so far ahead, it drove him nuts to have me stand there and go, yeah, I'm not going to go out and wash the work van. And there's nothing to do in here. So, I mean, I just trying to do 150 miles an hour in a car that only did 100.

And I'm talking about my body, not the car my father got from the former Soviet Union. But so fast forward, I'm like 19, 20 years old. I go and get licensed, bonded, and insured. And I'm running my own company. Great floor covering guy, terrible businessman. I had this friend. I literally had known my entire life. We grew up together.

And he got into floor covering. He eventually started his own business. And so, you know, I'm 26 years old now. I've been in floor covering for 10 years. You know, if you're 26 and you're in floor covering, you're considered middle-aged. It's that hard on your body. And he called me one time.

I was on a job and I was working and he sound really frantic on the phone. He's like, hey, I hate to ask this, but could you come help me on this job? I'm two days behind. and I'll give you half the job if you'll just come help me catch up. I was like, oh, you know, we'll figure out money later. I'm not taking half the job. Just send me the address.

I go, when I get done here, I'll head that way. I finish up my job, and I head out there. And this was the biggest home I'd ever seen in my entire life. This was like 10 homes in one. I remember looking at this place going, why does this guy need so many rooms? Like you almost have to hire someone just to clean this place. Yeah, I've been in some big homes,

but this was the largest home I had ever been in. He had these two Muppets working for him. And one guy was 20, the other guy was 19. And these are both very big men. I think one guy was like 6'5, the other one was 6'2, big strong guys, but had the work ethic of a potato. Now, I can deal with a lot of things in life.

I can deal with someone who's arrogant. I can deal with someone who's ignorant. I can deal with dumb people. I can deal with a lot of different things. One thing at this point in my life anyway, and if I gave the full story, it would make way more sense. The one thing I did not respect and did not like was lack of work ethic. You don't know something.

It's not your fault. I got no problems. I'll sit down and teach you I do something. I can't fix your work ethic. I can't fix you not being lazy. And in this job, in this environment, no one else is going to put up with it either. These guys were slugs.

And I was probably a little bit harder on them than I should have been. But I rode these guys. I mean, and mind you, I'd already work nine hours. Been up since four. And now I'm here doing this. And if I'm going to work, you're going to work. So I'm up measuring the upstairs. and the master bedroom is like,

I mean, you could hold a concert in this master bedroom. I don't know how many people he planned on have him sleep in this master bedroom, but I could tell you you could fit a lot. And off to the left of the master bedroom, it went into this office, and off to the right of this master bedroom, it went into this huge bonus room.

I think he was going to turn it into a theater. I remember I was looking at this whole layout thinking, if I'd do this in one drop, I'll save us a ton of time, on seeming. And keep in mind, I'm not cutting corners here. If this was my home, this is the way I'd want to do it. Less seems the better. I'm measuring it out. Roll my tape measure out. Tape measure runs out. I mark the floor. Roll my tape measure out again. Mark the floor. You know, my tape measure ran out like eight times. And I was kind of calculated in my head trying to

think, okay, can I, if I, I can do it in one drop, but can I get it through the door? And, you know, I was like, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. If I can't get it through the door, then I'll just cut it up. And so I'm out there with these two Muppets, and we finally get to that cut. Now, I had brought in 80% of the carpet. I cut it, marked it. I mean, these guys were slugs. I finally got to the last roll, which it was big.

It was big, and it was heavy. I'm probably about 180 pounds at this point, and I can tell you, this role was probably two, maybe three times heavier than I was. And so I'm sitting there, I'm looking at the two Muppets, and I'm going to teach these guys a lesson, because I'm irritated at this point. So I look at him, and I say, hey, so who's going to take it up, guys? Which one of you guys are going to take it up? These guys looked at me like I said,

which one of you farted in church? Like, I asked him if they had farted in church. They had this blank look on their face. So the first Muppet goes, and he's trying to pick it up, and he's grunting, and he's groaning, and he's squealing like a pig, and he finally drops it, and he's like, ah, ah, uh, you know, just like he just got in running 10 miles. I gave him the golf clap and told him, I said, you know, floor covering may not be for you. You should go into acting. That was the greatest performance I'd ever seen. If Steven Spielberg were here, he'd hire you. and I look over at Muppet number two and I said, I guess it's up to you, big man.

So he goes to pick it up. Keep in mind, these guys are big guys, much bigger than I am. Anyway, Muppet number two goes over there and he does the same thing. You know, just, oh, I try to moan in and groaning and he finally drops it on the concrete. And I told him that was probably a better Oscar-winning performance

than Muppet number one. And I'm irritated. But if I don't explain the whole night, I really sound like a dick here. But there's a lot that went on. Trust me. So I go and I grab it. Throw it on my back. Like it owes me money.

Go charging into the home. Obviously, a lot of it was bravado and showing these guys like I could have brought in three of these by the time you guys both got done with your performances. And I go marching up the stairs. Well, when I get halfway up the stairs, I realize I can't stand up at all. There's no leverage on me getting up. this thing was so heavy, if I stood up at all, I was going to lose it. So my chin is almost touching.

I'm like in this weird position where my chin's almost touching the floor as I have this thing on my back. And I go up there and I get into the master bedroom and I go to set it down. Now the way you set it down, you'll watch carpet installers do this. They'll stand straight up. You know, it's vertical and then they'll drop it, lay it down. Well, I get into this room and I realize I can't stand up. It's too much weight. I can get it off my back, but not in the way I want to get it off my back, the way I should get it off my back.

But I didn't have any options at this point because it was too much weight. I just, I didn't have it. The strength stands straight up. And so I rolled it off the side of my back, which is the worst thing you can do. Because at this point now you are using your back. And it dropped, and it was, you know, bam, it's the ground. Well, when I rolled it off my back, I kind of went. with it. It was that much weight. And I remember laying on my back and I'm kind of looking at the

ceiling and you know when you see, I think it's like blood vessels, it's like stars. And I'm not in any pain at this point. Nothing hurts. And so I get up and I go to stand up and as I'm bending up, I get about 65% of the way there and I hear this pop. Not only a pop in my back, I heard it in my ears. My pain went from like zero to a thousand. And it wasn't like boo-hoo. I'm cheering up. I'm in pain.

It was like, I think I'm going to go throw up. I'm in so much pain. And it took me a while to get vertical. Because for some reason, I could not stand straight up. I couldn't get 100% vertical. About 85% of the way there is where it really, really hurt. And then I pushed. it to get all the way up. So I get all the way back up vertical and I go charging down the stairs.

And the Muppets are out there, you know, having a cigarette break after all that hard work they just did of trying to lift this thing. I guess they needed a cigarette break. Normally I would have there would have been some berating going on, but I was in so much pain that, you know, I told them you go up, you go up there, you do this, you go over here, you do this. And, you know, I basically was trying to get rid of them. So I go back behind the van and I throw up. And when I threw up, I had another hard time trying to stand straight back up. Because you know, when you throw up, you bend over.

You never thinking, ah, your days are numbered in this line of work. Your days are numbered. It took me about two weeks really to heal. But at least once a year, that injury comes back to haunt me. And it's always when I'm doing something very mundane. It's never, listen, I've been out chopping wood all day long. Back's fine. two weeks ago, I'm mowing the lawn.

I'm like, you know, I'm going to pull these weeds here, and I go to stand up, and I hear this pop. It's the exact same pop that happened to me back when I was 26 years old in that home. It's just as pain. I will say it's actually a little bit more painful now. The older I get, it seems like it's more painful. But it is a level of pain that is hard to describe. And it's so random. I've never really had a doctor look at it.

it doesn't bother me every day. But when it pops out of place, I'm telling you, it feels like someone taking a knife and they're stabbing a nerve and they're not taking the knife off the nerve. So I know for the next two weeks, I know I'm not going to sleep because it hurts to lay down and it hurts to sit down. And when you're in those positions, it takes a long time to get back up. And it's the exact same thing.

I try and stand straight up, get about 80% there. and I can't quite, you know, even now at this age, I struggle to get straight up. But, you know, I know it will go away in about two weeks. And it finally went away. I've slept more in the last two days than I have in the last two weeks and doing better. But to clarify, it wasn't just pulling weeds. So forgive me for the long intro. I wanted to run that by you.

I mean, one day I'll have to tell that full story because it's a lot of. funnier than what I just told, but basically that's what happened. If you're still listening at this point, God bless you. I want to welcome Matt to the show. Matt, thanks for coming on, ma'am. Hey, Wes, thanks. I appreciate it. Yeah, and I want to tell you, Matt, thank you for your service. And I mean that very sincerely. Never forget. I highly admire people who have served this country. and I know before we get to this encounter in Fort Hood back in 2002, you and I were chatting, and you'd mentioned growing up in Utah, there was a couple weird things that happened while growing up there. If you would, tell me about those incidences.

All right. Well, well, let's that. Thank you again. You're welcome. Those, yeah, the thank you comments are always kind of awkward for me. So I always say, hey, I take tips. My little humor, I'm like, well, it's a service industry, right? So, but yeah, so I'm a Rizzy from Utah.

I grew up in northern Utah on the Wattatchh Front. I'm sure a lot of your Utah listeners will, you know, know where I'm talking about. And outside of Ogden, and we grew up with Big Fish Stories. I mean, my step-grandfather had a scrapbook full of newspaper articles. about from the local newspaper on Bigfoot sidings through the area. And, you know, people go up camping or people go hiking or people go skiing. You know, everybody would come back and they'd say, oh, I saw something or, oh, we saw a track or we did this or we did that. So I have a Bigfoot with us was just kind of like, hey, you go to the woods, you go up to the mountains.

You're going to encounter Bigfoot. I personally never seen Bigfoot, though. Never. And we had a cabin up in the high Uintas. And we'd go, well, most kids would be going to like Disneyland and Disney World. And we'd go camping at the cabin. That's what we would do. It was a big section of area, sectioned off. And people would go up there and they'd have little cabins and everything.

And we'd go up there and spend our summers running through the Uintas, either on a three-wheelers or just hiking and go and exploring. And of course, this is during the 80s, so there was no internet, no Skinwalker Ranch at the time that we knew of or anything like that at all. And as kids, we'd be out there playing. And of course, you know, we'd come across the smell and would smell like a dead animal. And we'd be going, oh, there's a dead animal in the area. You know, we'd just kind of blow it off, not thinking anything about it. And then as an adult now, looking back, and after the internet and all the TV shows and watching and hearing the tree knocks and stuff, you know, we heard tree knocks all the time up there.

And we would blow it off as either somebody's working on something or a woodpecker. And one particular day looking back, I remember my stepbrother, we thought this was pretty cool. we heard what we thought was a woodpecker and my stepbrother picked up a stick and started whacking the tree the same rhythm that the woodpecker did and the woodpecker copied us and we thought that was a neatest thing for five minutes.

We were thinking birds because at the time there was no real internet. I mean if you wanted the research bigfoot you had to go to the library and look for books and even being in Utah, you know, it would be in the supernatural paranormal area. And Utah is a really highly religious state, especially back in the 80s it was. So you'd go to the paranormal section and try and check out books.

It would always get looked at kind of funny and strange. But, yeah, I mean, as a kid, even I'd read books on, like, Bigfoot. Because my dad would say, yeah, he's up there. The natives, they would always talk stories about it. It was just fascinating as a kid. my mom had an encounter with something. She will say is Bigfoot. Her and my stepdad went up there for their anniversary,

which was in March during the early 80s. And she was on a snowmobile. And my stepdad had had knee surgery. So he was walking, trying to do the physical therapy, stretching his knees out and stuff. And my mom raced up on top of his heel and sat up waiting for him to walk up. and she's sitting on the snowmobiler that was just idling. She looked down, saw some of the snowmobillers down, you know, below her on the other side of the hill.

And she looked behind her, saw my dad coming up and turned to her left. And there he was. And her first thought was, so in the snowmobillers that was standing down there. And she said, the more she looked at it, and she said, the snow was coming down pretty heavy. And she realized it was too big and too bulky to be a snowmobiler. So she turned around. She yelled my dad's name three times, turned back and look, and it was gone. My dad gets up to the top of the hill, and she puts them on, and they go back.

And my mom told me, she said, I didn't tell your dad until that night at the cabin, what I'd seen. And my dad was upset because he was like, why didn't you tell me then? We could have found tracks. I mean, that's just, I mean, how we grew up. But I'd say the first actual, I could say, strange encounter that I had, was in the summer in 93. And me and a high school buddy, I was getting ready to leave for a basic training.

And we decided we're going to go take a four-day backpacking trip up to the Southport Canyon. And my first night there, no problems at all. In our second night, we'd found this really neat little clearing off the trail on the other side of this stream. And it was probably about a good, I don't know, four foot stream, four or five foot stream, you had actually watched through it to get to the other side. And we thought this was the best place to set up a good little camp, you know, two 17-year-old kids,

chilling on out, built a little fire, cooked some hot dogs, and have a good time, and just sit there. And they got dark, we had their fire going, and we're just visiting, and all of a sudden, we heard sound like somebody walked through the stream. and we both looked right at each other and my first thought was Mountain Lion because, I mean, it's Utah and I was like, oh-oh. And he was like, yeah.

So we sat there and we got the fire built up, but we heard this thing, walk around the camp, our little campsite, probably two or three times, and then nothing. And at the time, there was no insects, there was nothing going on. And it's like the whole woods new than that area. there was a bigger predator.

Let me back up real quick as a kid, back up in the Uintas. So again, I was kids that go running around and playing in the woods. Well, my dad,

my stepdad had this horn. My dad would blow this horn for us to come back to the cabin when they wanted us for something or eat or some of those lines. And one afternoon,

again, me and my stepbrother out running around, heard what sounded like my dad blowing this horn and we were, Dad's calling us, go to the cabin, find out my mom and dad were off on the three-wheelers,

and we thought we were in trouble, so we sat there for an hour, went for them to come back. I mean, yeah, dad never called the horn at all. But looking back, again, there was no research to say that you could find our TV shows or internet

that say, oh, yeah, they make hoots and howls. So you obviously, knew about it growing up and, you know, it's kind of cool your folks were into it. But, you know, as you look back, you're like, you know, I've heard whoops. I've heard wood knocks. And you hear a lot of eyewitnesses say that where it's like, you know, you're looking back, you know, like that woodpecker incident. Woodpecker's not going to copy the knocking that you're doing. But I think it's kind of cool, especially, you know, in the 80s that you kind of had this knowledge base as much

as you could. And then I know in 2002 you were at Fort Hood, if you would walk me through this whole situation because a lot of strange things went on that night. Well, Fort Hood is one of the largest military installations that we have. It's got a huge training area. I mean, Ford O'1 is huge out there in California and the Mojave. That's a big, I mean, giant training area. But for just your basic, you know, conis, which is your state-sized due station, Fort Hood is ranked up.

There's one of the largest ones. And anybody's been stationed there will tell you they hate it. There's something about Fort Hood. Nobody likes being stationed there. But so I got stationed. I joined the Army 93 and had a chance to go around the world at this point. I already been to a couple of countries, been overseas. obviously this instant takes place during 2002.

9-11 had already happened. I worked with, I didn't think on the Turkey in Afghanistan, came back and was working with a regular line. I was an E5 sergeant at the time assigned to an infantry battalion. Straitly, well, mechanized infantry. And we didn't. know about Iraq, but we kind of had an idea about Iraq, if that makes any sense. Iraq can't have kicked off yet.

They weren't getting anything going. The rumor meal was flowing really, really strong. And it's where we've been to find out for a couple months after this that we were actually going to Iraq. So I'm not going to give the unit away, or I'm going to change some of the soldiers' names and some of the other NCO's names that involved in the incident on up there. Just, I mean, you know, you just don't walk around and start. telling these stories to your fellow soldiers and, you know, your fellow NCOs.

So, but it was August of 2002, and our unit was setting up an EIB site, which is an expert instrument badge. And it's a badge that every instrument has a chance to qualify and, you know, try and earn this four days of hard testing. It's on all the basics of what an instrument is supposed to be able to do. And it's a certified badge. And I had earned mine in Korea 98, 99. So I was considered cadre.

So we go out there and we set up our stations. Well, the same time, the unit was also doing a little mini gunnery, which is, you know, for the mechanized guys and the rallies so they can qualify on the brailleys for live fire and they can be certified for combat. I mean, every unit does this. I mean, we do it with our basic weapons systems, the M16s, the M4s and our 9 millimeters. The 203s, all of those, we, you know, all the time qualifying, same thing. You know, tankers do it. Everybody does it.

So it was nothing major. Did you go on out and, you know, go to the AHA? And AHA is AHA, and it stands for ammunition holding area. And I'm going to try and clean up some of the military abbreviations for some of the non-military listeners. And I was like, all right. And all it was, it's 24-hour duty, you're sitting out there, staring at a constant, a constant of wire-it-off section of land with a whole bunch of ammunition in it. That is it. The most boring detail, I mean, it's easy, boring detail.

You just sit there. So being the NCIC had two soldiers with me. Great. First day I get there, 24 hours later, no incidents, no nothing. nothing, you know, it was, yeah, just like a normal duty. Now, where this was at, and I'm going to detail here, this is a northern Fort Hood where they had it set up at, and it was at a range that I never even, I mean, there's so many ranges there at Fort Hood. It's ridiculous.

But it was on the northern Fort Hood end, and it was a good, about a 30, 30 plus minute drive, big drive out there to the site. And the word they set the ammunition up at was a good distance away. Why they didn't have a setup on the site there? I don't know. But it was just this own private, weird spot. You would drive up on the paved road.

We call those a hardball. And beside that, we have tank trails. And the tank trails are there for the track vehicles to follow the same road, but without tearing up the pavement. So tank trail runs parallel to the hardball. and then off of that, if you would head west, is where they set this little ammunition to hold an area up, this aha.

And it was about 400 meters down the road from the hardball. So it's a little distance away. Then I'm military, so I'm going to use meters through a lot of this. So I do apologize. But a meter is about, roughly about three feet for people that kind of have an idea. So the AHA set up 400 meters away. And as you come in, you've got some woods off to your right and then heavy woods off to your left. That takes this heavy wooded area that you get over there.

And then a little open area, which is pretty nice sized out. And then more thick woods. And they had apparently had an area set up to run a power. lines through so they cleared out what I call an alley. And I got like, you mean we're talking the other day about an alley through. So it looked like this straight line alley going through these woods. Where the ammunition setup was at, they had a camel net for earth that takes some shade under. And besides that was a heavy thicket.

And the thicket was probably only lengthwise, about seven, feet, maybe eight feet lengthwise, but it was heavy thick, I mean, thick, I mean, the only thing going to get in there is going to be a squirrel or a little rabbit. That's about it. And then the camel net, but there was a dirt mound hill that looked like they'd almost set up a berm or a fighting position. It was just right about four, between four and five and a half feet and height, but it kind of buried a little bit as it kind of went parallel to the little side tank trail there. And this hill will come and play later on in the story. But we could take our

PLVs, our personal own vehicles, and we could drive out there, and we'd park right there and we'd be good to go for 24 hours, and then our relief would show up the next morning, and that'd be the end of the day. You're done. You're off for the rest of the day. Well, I don't want to say

in the unit name because the FAA was set up completely incorrect. So when you're stationed away and you have ammunition and you're not with the unit and you're sitting there. You're supposed to have a radio, have batteries for the radio, and you're supposed to have a weapon with a minimum about five rams. I mean, you're actually guarding ammunition.

I mean, you're there to guard. That's the whole purpose of this. So the first day when I got there, realized there was no radio, no weapon. I was like, oh, so nobody cares. Great. I don't even brought it up when I came back in. I was like, y'all going to get a radio out there for anybody to get hurt or something?

or what are you going to do? You know, they're like, oh, no, don't worry about Sarn. You know, they'll be doing it in a couple of days. I was like, oh, all right. Then found out that I had to go do it again. And this is where it got interesting. So it was a Saturday morning. And when I arrived there, you know, like I said, you can sleep on this detail.

I mean, you can get rest. That's, yeah. And when I pulled up and got out of my truck and was looking at Sarnham, he looked, completely exhausted. I mean, he had bags under his eyes, looked tired. And the first thing I said was, did you not sleep last night? And it's like, no. They said, man, we had coyotes coming through here all night.

And I was like, really? And he goes, yeah. Well, my first thought was, well, we don't have any food here. The coyotes aren't really afraid of soldiers, but they're not going to come and harass us unless we've got food. it's an easy mail. Soldiers are messy out the field. And anybody who's been to the service knows this. I mean, we leave MRI wrappers behind.

I mean, yeah, I mean, soldiers are horrible about this. So I was like, really? He was like, yeah, he goes, I'm not going to lie, man. We end up sleeping the bed of my truck. And I was like, they're that bad. And he didn't go in any more detail. And he was like, yeah, I said, all right, man, you know, shoot, go home, get some rest. I'm done.

See you next week. And he was like, okay. And I took over the shift. Well, it was about mid-morning, and payday had just happened, and I didn't want to eat MREs. So the two guys, the soldiers that I had with me were from a different platoon. So they weren't directly under me under no circumstances. They just happened to draw the short stick for having the pull guard duty on a Saturday on your weekend. And so these two kids, I'll call them B and C, were with me.

And good kids. One was from Georgia, one was from Ohio. I remember that. One was kind of a stockier kid and one was a little scrunger kid. And they were about, you know, PFC. Yeah, I want to say they were both PFCs. So, I mean, they've been in the Army very long at all, you know, not even two years yet. So they're still young in the service.

And bored infantrymen out in the field or on guard duty is probably one of the most dangerous things in the world. It really is. These guys get crazy and creative and they turn into David Crockett real quick. Seriously, they make spears. They try to make bows and arrows. They're bored and they're telling stories. And soldiers talk about four basic things. is, you know, home, believe we're not the paranormal,

the Honda paranormal, religion, going out, and girls. That's pretty much what we talk about. Yeah. I've got a book. These two kids are shooting the shit, and I'm just reading my book. That's happy and content under the camouflage net. But again, hungry. Didn't want to eat any more or eat so.

I said, hey, which one, I can't. I can't leave the side. I'm the NCI see, so I can't leave, but I can send somebody else. I said, which one of you guys want to run down the post? I'll buy if he wants to go get some whoppers. And the one kid goes, oh, yeah, I saw it all go down there. That's great. You know, he brought a field of yet. They rode together. So, give him 10 bucks. And I said, go get some whoppers. Well, over an hour later, the kid comes back, but he has spent $10, all my $10 on Woppers. So we had $10 worth of Woppers. We had about $7. seven, eight whoppers with us.

I mean, seriously. And of course, if you guys can eat as well, but I was like, we're not going to eat all these whoppers. So we're sitting there, and it was about mid-afternoon, and they said,

hey, Sarn. Sam was talking about the coyotes last night. I said, yeah. And they were like, hey, can we, I don't know, set some trash for the coyotes?

And I paused for a minute. I was like, sure. I would love. to see you guys, Davy Crockett, a coyote. This would be great. So they take the leftover whoppers, and they send them on way about three leftover.

And they took them on out, and I'm watching them. And they're all excited, and they're all gung-hoes, setting up these woppers and doing these little traps in this little open area out past the ammunition site near the little alleyway there. So they come back. We're killing. I think everybody took a nap. I mean, it's hot.

August, Texas, so everybody kind of took a nap. And then nightfall hit. That's when it started to get interesting. So being in the summertime, it's late, and

the sun goes down late. I remember that much. Already after, it was after 8 o'clock, and it got dark. And I'm reading my book. I have a, we call them chemlights. Everybody else called them gold sticks. And I had a green chem light. sitting there and had a can of Pringles

beside me snacking on Pringles. I'm reading my book, my little flashlight, and these guys just kind of sitting there, just kind of visiting, still kind of getting ready to fall asleep. When all of a sudden, one of them goes, did you hear that? And I paused my book, and I said, hear what? And they said, hey, sir, it sounded like somebody

dropped up in a field canteen. If you've ever been in the service, you know the sound, the old plastic canteens, they're about half a little with water, they would drop on the ground, they would make a really distinct funk. And it's a unique sound, and sir, some of the listeners will know exactly what I'm talking about, somebody's prodding on their head, yes to it. But it makes a distinct thunk. So I'm sitting there, and I'm listening, and I hear a car go down. Now, remember the hardball was about 400 meters away from us, and it sounded like the car hits something. something and the sound echoed back. And I said,

what you guys heard. You guys heard that sound. And they were both adamant that that's not what they heard. No, no, sorry, that wasn't it at all. Some laying there for a few minutes. And then I realized at this point in time, since we were just talking about crickets, off to my left,

deep and further down to the training area, there was no crickets. Nothing. completely silent. I could hear the crickets to my right, but I couldn't hear anything to my left. I remember sitting there thinking, well, that's kind of odd, and I had my little flashlight, so I kind of sounded out there.

See nothing, it's a white open area. I mean, there was no moon up yet. There was star, but it's still nighttime. It's dark. I mean, you're out in the woods in Texas. I don't see nothing at all, and I thought some spider eye shine that's about it on the ground, and they don't have spiders.

but nothing. Then all of a sudden the sound picked up to the left and then it got quiet on the right. Now I'm thinking, all right, there's somebody out here. Something asked about here. I'm not thinking anything paranormal, not thinking anything supernatural, not thinking anything at all.

I'm in soldier mode. This is my job. So I'm thinking there's somebody out here. And about 15 minutes later, the sound changed again. I went from the right to the left. And I was like, okay, so now I'm looking going on. There's got, okay, maybe they did hear something.

In the back of my mind, I'm thinking that maybe they did hear something. And then that's when I heard a Humvee coming. And automatically shut it off in my head. They didn't pay no attention to it. The Humvee was coming in from the range. They were dropping off expelled brass and links, and they were picking up more ammunition out of the, uh, the awe. As the end of the IC, I had a sign and count all the,

empty boxes. They didn't have to count every single brass, but I count the boxes they were dropping off and the boxes they were picking up. And I set my, you know, chem light down, um, beside my can of pringles and my book and was over there talking to the driver when we got done counting. And my guards were helping unload the Humvee. And I happened to look over and I was like, I should have grabbed that chemlight. I looked over to the chemo net. And it was about good, maybe just 20 meters away, if that. And the camelight was gone. Absolutely gone.

My first thought was one of the guys picked it up. They're using it. So I'm looking at their pockets as they're going by because you would see it glowing because nobody was using a camelight, but you would see this camelite glow through our pockets at night. I mean, the fabric is thin. It's going to glow through it and it always does. You know, we can't hide it in your pockets.

And I'm like, ugh. And at that time, I want to say B came up to me, one of the soldiers, and said, hey, Sarn, where's the Camelike? He was asking to use it. And I said, I thought y'all had it. I was like, no, we don't have it. So I went to the driver and said, hey, getting Camelights we can use. He said, yeah, Sarnant, handed me a whole box of camlights. Yeah, that was that. But again, too, I don't keep looking on over there where the cams should be. I go, that's odd. And almost half expecting to see the Camelike kind of running off through the woods or down

around like something that came on in, like a coyote, and snatched the camlight took off. The Humby leaves, we go back over there. My can of Pringles is untouched, but the chemlet's gone. Book isn't messed with, nothing at all. And I'm standing there and I'm trying to figure out where this damn chemoite could have gone. And then that's when the crickets got quiet again. And this time, B and C noticed it. So for about 30 minutes, they would kind of alternate between left and right.

And then everything they sound would pick back up. Now, these guys are getting a little bit of jittery, and they're thinking, they've already asked me a few times. I'm like, no, there's somebody out here. This doesn't happen naturally. So they get a little nervous, and I say, I tell you guys, what we're going to do. We've got this whole box of camlights here. We've got about 12 camlights in this box. We're going to get creative.

We're going to go and mark the aha to give us a little bit more light out there. We can have lights on the ammunition. So if it is somebody out there, some good old Texas boys or somebody trying to mess with us, mess with us, we'll see them trying to get to the ammunition. So we're good. And instead, if anybody asks,

we'll just tell them we just put some balloon and we kind of let light an area on up in case the Humvee comes in, it doesn't see it, doesn't run it over. And they were like, okay, so we get up. And B and C are right behind me. I got my little flashlight and I get to the first picket of the aha sign, open up the chemlight, I crack it, I shake it, and I stick it up on top of the picket, walk along, heading to the east, get to the second picket, I stop, and I crack it, shake it on up, I put it up on top of the second picket, and all this right here is about to happen simultaneously.

As I turn the corner north, I stepped into a cold spot. it was so cold, I saw my breath in that little flashlight. Same time I'm stepping in this cold spot, off to our west, further down into the training area, I heard the thunk. And I mean, it was a distinct, loud thunk. And it didn't sound like it was very far away. And all this happened simultaneously. So I'm trying to step back down into this cold spot that's suddenly gone.

I'm looking to my left, which is to the west, and I'm bumping in these guys, so I feel this cold spot again. And they were like, did you hear that's the warrant? I said, yes, I heard it that time. There is somebody out here. Somebody's out here. I don't know. I'm thinking, kind of trying to anything I can come up with. Another unit's out there training because we have, we had two divisions there at four heard of the time.

There's another unit training. There's it know we're here. Does it know this? Does it know that? coming up with anything I can think of, but that cold spot. And I continue marking the pickets. So now we've got a little bit of light over there. It's not, they don't, the gold sticks don't put up a whole bunch of light, but it's just enough.

You could kind of see. And we go back to the cam on it. And I'm standing outside the camera on that this point in time. And I'm like, well, I'm going to break every noise light just put it on the planet. I'm just going to go ahead and smoke a cigarette. It's like what I'm going to do. I mean? So there's somebody out here.

They're going to see the cam lights. they're going to see me smoking, they're going to know something's up, and again, the crickets. But this time, we could hear it. Off to the left where the thunk came from, I'm shining the light, and you could hear something moving out there. And I started walking out towards it, and it would stop, and shine the light around, seeing nothing out there, and come back, same thing to the right. At this point in time, I know somebody's messing with us. somebody has to be out here and messing with us. I can hear him. I can't see him.

But I can hear somebody walking. It's an actual distinct two-step walk. Anybody who's hunted, anybody's been in the whizzen lot of time, anybody's been in the military a lot of time, has done any of this stuff that's going to know. You're going to know what two-steps sound like versus four steps. Very distinct, unique sound. So I pulled the guys away.

And I said, okay, we're going to move away from the camel net. We're going to get in between the ammunition area and the thicket, and we're in set up a little 360. And we're back to back. We're down on a low knee. All lights off, all everything off. And you just sit there and listen. That's exactly what you're supposed to do.

Because at this point in time, I already know that something's out here. Somebody's out here messing with us. So I move us away from the camel net, and I move us in between right there by the ammunition holding area. I got the thicket to my right, straight in front of me, four hundred meters away,

is a hard ball. I've got, I want to say B to my back left, and I've got C to my back right. So all three, you know, 3 and 60 degree coverage, security all around, and we're squire low. I mean, we're not just kind of standing there. I got us down to a low, one knee low position at the ready. And it gets quiet. Everything is quiet.

And then I hear the footsteps. And the footsteps, I mean, they're walking. straight towards me. And it's not a run. It's not a jog. It's almost like a slight little casual stroll as all it is. And I am hearing this thing walking straight towards me. And I got the skyline of the trees in front of me.

And I'm trying to get lower and lower and lowered to try and fill a wet, whatever this thing is that's walking up on me, so I can physically, see it as I'm trying to squat lower is when the kid behind me again started saying oh shit oh shit oh shit sorry and I kept trying to elbow him to shut him up and I mean don't give our position away as I'm getting squat and lower and lower and lower I'm almost at like you know a football player I mean ready to go I mean my legs are tensed on up I'm ready to spring into action to try and see this thing walking up no silhouette and by the sound of the footsteps it should be I mean, four feet, I mean, four feet in front of me should be right there.

At this point in time, my spotty sensor's tingling, and I got the flashlight in my hand. I click the flashlight on, we'll be ready to pounce. This is also, I'm in changing again. So next up the flashlight on, there's nothing there. Immediately between my right is, in the thicket, I hear it. So automatic combat census kick in. I know where it's at. I spring up with the light on.

I run to the edge of the thicket, and I run up on top of the hill. I can hear the two guys behind me. They're not moving that fast, but they're coming behind me. As soon as I get on top of the hill, this rock lands. And it's not like it had to be, I didn't see the rock, but you heard it. It couldn't be a baseball, could be a softball. I mean, it had to be basketball or bigger. It hit twice.

It went fump, thump, thump. I spun around and I went back down to heel At this point in time I'm on edge And my first thought was These two soldiers are messing with me And I got to the first kid

And I pulled up face to face And this is all going to be simultaneous again If we're face to face I can see the kid's got tears in his eyes His eyes are huge He is petrified Wes I mean he is literally scared to death and as I'm realizing this, I'm also speaking,

and I'm saying if this is you, mother effers, messing with me, I'm going to bury you both out here right now. As I'm realizing the same time, that's not them, he's crying. The thick woods behind me now, I heard like a log break,

a crumble. I mean, you've been out of the woods before. I mean, you know, almost like a half-front-a-log when somebody steps on it, makes that weird crumble sound.

And then I spun around again, I was like, there you are, I got you. I sprint in. I got maybe 15, maybe 20 feet in these woods with my little flashlight. And again, there's no sound. There's no crickets. There's no kid it is. There's nothing going on.

The woods were completely black. I don't know any other would describe it other than it was completely black. The only thing that I've got goosebumps again remembering it. Flashlight on, all I can see. is where the little pin lights at. And it was like, I stopped. I mean, my whole body came to a complete stop. And it was like everything was in my insides were saying,

you need to leave. This is no, nope, nope, nope, no, no, no, no, not welcome. I need something's here. And I remember slowly trying to back out and looking behind me to make sure I didn't trip over anything. And as I backed out of the woods, I stood there. I'm standing on this little, no, tank trail that we drove in on. And I just felt defeated.

At this point, I have no idea what's going on. Something's out here messing with this. My soldiers are freaking out. My responsibility here is, I mean, is in jeopardy. I have no weapon. I have no radio. I have nothing to do. I just felt completely defeated for whatever reason.

And I've, I mean, I've been in combat. But at this point in time standing, I'll never forget. I remember holding a flashlight down to the ground. and just there into woods and I happened to look over to my right

and I saw my pickup and I thought I have an idea so I walk over to my truck start my truck up I kick on my lights and I lit that whole area up in my headlights

in my truck and I remember standing there going I felt I mean it was almost like just having those lights on alone was almost like oh

you know what I mean it's crazy so I realized I had the lights on for maybe 45 seconds and it clicks into my head again, the military, the discipline, everything clicks into my head. No, turn the lights off, maintain noise and light discipline. You don't need to draw any more attention.

I'm thinking real world stuff here, nothing paranormal again. It's where this night, like I said, my brain was jumping back and forth between the real world. This is what we're supposed to be doing. We're soldiers. We're disciplined this. Okay, there's something haunting us and stalking us. So I turned my headlights off. And this is 2002.

The movie Fasten Fures came out and everybody was doing the neon thing and had little neon lights everywhere. And I was a victim of stupidity as well. So I had neons on my hood where my windshield wiper fluid would come out at. So I reached on over and I turned those switches on and they were blue and I kind of let the area up a little bit because again it's all black. I mean, it's dark. So just even those neon lights lit it up. And I went, all right, I got some light behind me. so I'm covered.

I can see what's behind me now. And if I have to, I'll see the jumpstart in the morning from the guy relieving me. I walked back over to the camonet. B and C at this point in time, we're almost hugging each other. And they're asking, sorry, can we leave? Can we leave? Can we leave? Can we leave? Can we leave? Can we just go? Can we just go? I say, guys, we can't. I'm sorry.

I mean, general orders, basic soldier stuff. You know, I'll guard everything limits my post. I only put my post on property relief. We can't leave, guys. This is our job. what we have to do. And I lit up another cigarette. And I turned my head a look right there at my truck in the front knee on length, like something to walk in the front of it on the driver's side. And my first thought was, oh, I've got you. Drop a cigarette. And I was there in a matter of two seconds flat. I was right there. It's a truck. Nothing was there. Nothing was running.

nothing was crawling. I mean, nothing that was under the vehicle. I'm searching everywhere with this flashlight. Nothing. I would have heard somebody running either into the woods or down the trail. Anywhere. Nothing. And I remember, I was like, well, what's the point of this?

So I turned the neons off and I walked back over. These two kids are even more scared now. I'm taking my cigarette. I remember smoking it and just feeling just complete defeat. And I sat outside the camel net on the ground, watching the aha, and hearing his thing, start moving around again. It was dead, silent all around us. There was no crickets to left or right. There was no crickets behind us.

It was completely and utterly silent. And it did this for about the next two hours. No other noises, no other rocks being thrown, nothing. And just sitting there. And all we were doing was just, I mean, talking. Well, we didn't know what else to do. We weren't silent. I can't remember our conversation.

I just remember for the next 10 hours, I just sitting there feeling defeated. And then the moon came up. And it wasn't a full moon, but the moon finally popped up and we got a lot more loomed and lit the whole area up. And as soon as that moon came up and lit everything on up, it seemed to be like night and day. All of a sudden, the night came back to life. you can hear, you know, all the bugs are coming back in. Everything was chirping. Everything was going great.

And it was absolutely like a completely different whole entire vibe and feel to the area. And I just still remember thinking to myself going, it's still here. It has to be. There's no, there's no way. And we sat like that again until the time came up. So then started coming on up, sky started lighting on up. And it was almost like a sense of relief. It was almost like, huh, in your brain this point in time,

it's trying to rationalize, man, there's people out here that had been other unit out here training. They were just messing with us. They were doing this. They were doing that. Coyotes. Oh, man, I bet it was coyotes. Sun comes up, and I looked at B and C, and I said,

you guys know what? I'm going to bet we had coyotes in here last night, and that was what was messing with us. How a coyote was going to throw a rock, I had no idea. But my point in time in the morning, it was a coyote. So I say, I tell you what? But go check your traps. I'm willing to bet there's no whoppers out there.

Being to see walk on over to the first one, they start jumping up and down and yelling my name. So I get up and walk on over, expecting to see the wapper gone, and I'm kind of all feeling cocky and sure of myself that I know what's going on. I know everything. Wes, that wopper was still there completely untouched.

As was the second one, as was the third one. Nothing came in that night to eat those woppers. nothing. It was absolutely horrifying. My relief showed up and he made the same comment. I said, man,

talking you all right. I was like, yeah, we didn't sleep last night. He told him, I said, the unit kept coming in and dropping off ammunition and stuff. And it was like, oh, okay. Like, yeah, I wasn't using my coyote excuse.

I was like, yeah. And he's like, oh, okay. I said, so maybe they won't be bothering you too much today. And he goes, okay. I go home. and I walked in the door, my ex-wife was there, and said I'd have been back from a deployment with her already. And she said, when I walked in the door, the look on my face looked like I just came back from Afghanistan.

I was pale. She said my eye of her wild. And I looked completely disheveled to her she was asking. She was, were you on guard duty? I mean, it's like, yeah, I'm not special forces or anything, but yeah. And she was like, what happened? I was like, you're not going to believe me. And, you know, I got poured a cup of coffee and we went outside and I, you know, let up a cigarette and I said, okay, I'll tell you.

They kind of gave her the rundown of everything. She said, let them and she goes, that's crazy. She goes, who wouldn't mess with you? I was like, I don't know. Well, we had plans with one of my peers to go and barbecue grill out that night. And, you know, I took a nap that day and this thing still. you know, waiting on me what this could have been. And I get over to my partner's place and I'll call him Sam.

And I get over there. Me and Sam were at the grill and he hands me a beer. And he goes, do you want to talk about it? And I was like, talking about what? And he goes, what is on your mind? And I've really, I've never seen you this way ever. What is wrong? Did y'all get a fight?

Y'all get divorced? I mean, I mean, thinking something was wrong between my ex. I was like, Sam, man, I'm not, you're not going to believe this. I actually told him the story. and love Sam to death. Sam, if I says, hey, Sam, man, there's UFOs coming to attack us. Sam's your really going to go. All right, lock and love, let's go get them.

I mean, not questioning anything. And Sam looked at me and he goes, do you want to go back out there, don't you? I said, yeah, the Ranger and me is going nuts. So I want to go, what was this thing? And I said, now I know it's there. I'm going to be more prepared for it. And he goes, let's go. So we jumped in my truck, and we drove all the way back out there.

And yeah, the guy that were leaving that morning, you know, we come driving on down, he's standing there and I turned, you know, turned my headlights and everything off. And looked at me and he goes, what the hell are you doing here? I was like, oh, man, I can't remember. I kept up lame excuse. I thought, I left something out there. I'm going to try and look for it. We had flashlights, so we're pretending to look for this thing. And that while being there, though, it didn't have any of the characteristics to the night before.

Everything sounded normal. nature was being normal. There was no ominous feeling. Yeah, the mood was enough yet. It was still dark as it can be. But it felt normal. I mean, whatever this thing was at night, I don't know whether it's messed with Sergeant M or not.

Because I tried to talk to Saran M about it. And again, we don't talk about these things. And, you know, a few days later, at the unit stuff, I'd pull them aside. And I said, hey, do you remember that, you know, the morning relieves you and he said, yeah, coyotes that night. And he goes, yeah, yeah, man, all night long.

He said, did you see him? He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, we saw him. Are you sure? Because I had some stuff that, you know, my night. And he goes, oh, yeah, coyotes, man. I was like, okay, that was it. But again, we don't talk about these things. We know, it's one of those things like, all right, you know, Sergeant M is nuts.

You know, I'm nuts. We're all nuts. I mean, yeah, it's crazy. It's a scary night. It's a crazy night. You know, some of the most bizarre encounters I hear come from military bases, guys out there doing exactly what you guys were doing. And it's strange. You know, a lot of the behavior during that night makes me think Sasquatch. But then you walked into that cold spot in the air. And, you know, you hear that like in paranormal encounters. You know, I mean, you're seeing your breath when you walk into this all of a sudden. it's ice cold and, um, but again, that doesn't really shock me. There are a lot of times when people are being paced out of the woods, I'll ask him, did you see it? And this thing's been pacing them right next to them all the way out, kind of escorting

them out. And nine times out of ten, people will go, no, I never saw it. I should have seen it, but I never saw it. And what a weird night. I mean, you're turning on your flashlight and it's like, it should be right there. And it's not. I mean, I wish I had a great answer for you and being like, oh, yeah, here's what happened. But, yeah, what a creepy night, man.

You know, I ask everyone on the show, Matt, what do you think Sasquatch is? And I'm very curious about your opinion. What do you think that these creatures are? All right. So this is where I'm kind of torn at because I'm the biggest skeptic and believer, if that makes sense. I'm almost kind of, I believe in it, but I need the evidence of it. I think Bigfoot in all monsees is its own separate creature. I don't think it's a missing link.

I don't think it's an ape. I don't think it's that at all. I think it's his own separate creature that over time, just like everything else, has slowly evolved to its environment. There's too many cases of them, you know, the Yeti out there. You know what I mean? Every continent has a big,

foot. They have something similar. Every ancient civilization, I mean, culture talks about Bigfoot in one way shape or another. I think these things, just like we, as mankind has done, has evolved. You know, we've got different races of mankind. You know, same thing with the Bigfoot. For example, I see the southern Bigfoot sort of a little bit more violent than the ones up north and out west. Maybe it's the heat that drives them nuts. I don't know. But it's this own separate entity. I don't think that it's, I think it's a flesh and blood creature. It has to be. There's too many cases, too many stories, too much stuff of a flesh and blood creature is going to poop. A flesh and blood creature is going to bleed. It's going to.

That flesh and blood creature is going to breed. It's going to have little ones. I think it's that absolutely 100% real thing that exists. Why haven't we, I mean, why don't we have more evidence of it or the physical evidence of it or anything else that? That part, I'm not, I'm not a scientist to answer that one, but possibly maybe they do bury their dead. And if you think about it, they're not going to take cadaver dogs all the way up into the middle of Norseville, you know, in the Rocky Mountains with a cadaver dog

trying to find a dead body. You're not going to. And we all know what happens to dead animals out in the woods. Dead animal dies, it gets disagreed pretty quickly. Nature has a way of handling itself. Or maybe, you know, they do bury their dead. But when they bury it, maybe they buried under an 800-pound boulder. We're not going to look under an 800-pound boulder.

I think they're smart. I don't think they're like, you know, writing novels. But I think they're smart, and I think they're conniving. Every end, our dogs are, I mean, people's pets, how many stories of pets have you heard that the dog can go do this and do this? But not every dog can do that. But I think that Bigfoot can. They're intelligent enough to stay away from us.

But at the same time, too, though, I think they're like giant kids. If you think about the way they act, they're like kids. Even the adults, they're curious. They throw temper tantrum. Yeah, and you could be right, Matt. You definitely could be right. I mean, you bring up a lot of great arguments, and I do think that they're physical. I just think that there's something else going on here, but you definitely bring up a lot of great points.

And that's why I love that question, because there really is no wrong answer. And I know we're going to do a part two with some other incidences that happened, you know, out personally and also when you were in the military, and I can't wait to have you back for part two. But I really appreciate you taking the time, Matt, to come on and share this encounter that happened. I mean, terrifying encounter. Thank you so much for your time.

Nice, Wes. I appreciate you, buddy. 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, check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com. You can become a member and get additional shows. Have a great weekend, everyone.