The Confessionals - 448: Tennessee White Bigfoot

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

In Episode 448: Tennessee White Bigfoot, Casey shares his bigfoot experiences. Have you ever imagined what it would be like to find yourself out in the woods at night, running into a giant monster that should not exist? Casey and his family had that very experience. When he was a young kid in East Tennessee, Casey and his entire family had a very clear encounter with bigfoot one night. Though they all witnessed the creature from different vantage points, they all agree on what they saw. Later in life, Casey moved to Oregon and dove into researching the topic of bigfoot and tells us about what they've uncovered out west.Also, you can join The Confessionals on "The Spirits Are Inn" tour when we visit the Shanley Hotel in New York on JULY 1-2, 2022 as we have a two-day and one-night haunted adventure! Contact Creed and Jen at Educated Wanderer to reserve your spot today!Email: [e-mail]: 973-513-9001Website: educatedwanderer.comGet your tickets to the 1st Annual Dogman/Cryptid Conference: https://bit.ly/3MXCnnuBecome a member for AD FREE listening and EXTRA shows: theconfessionalspodcast.com/join SPONSORS GET Cerebral: getcerebral.com/tony GET SIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionals GET Hello Fresh: hellofresh.com/confessionals16 Promo Code: "confessionals16" for 16 FREE MEALS!!! Get Emergency Food Supplies: www.preparewiththeconfessionals.com Get Beard Oil: bit.ly/2FbOhN5 CONNECT WITH US Website: www.theconfessionalspodcast.com Email: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/the-newsletter SOCIAL MEDIA Subscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaI TikTok: @theconfessionals Discord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7h Show Instagram: theconfessionalspodcast Tony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficial Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcas Twitter: @TConfessionals Tony's Twitter: @tony_merkelOUTRO MUSIC:Joel ThomasSpotify: https://spoti.fi/3rfKp2LApple: https://apple.co/372JpbiYouTube: https://youtu.be/UWJXf7s3L5I

Merkel Media's here This was all circulating around the base that a giant had to kill but no one was supposed to talk about it I saw three long, boning fingers reach up underneath the door curl up to grab it and then disappear

When he came over to me Dude he slithered over to me And this giant comes out of the cave And they're all frozen And he starts running and firing at this giant. Well, the giant moves. He's got a spear in one hand, and he's running really fast. And spears, Dan, holds him up like this. Somebody else, shoot him in the face, shoot him in the face. They basically decapitated.

Feel something pulling at my leg. And I look over, and there are two small gray entities. And they're literally, I'm getting pulled off the bed. I reached my hand into this bush, and I touch air. Couldn't breathe, and it couldn't move. because I know I'm seeing a monster. Welcome to the show, everybody. You're listening to The Confessionals. I'm your host, Tony Merkel. Thanks for being here.

If you have a crazy wild experience, you want to share with me on the show, go ahead and shoot me an email. My email address is The Confessionals at the Confessionalspodcast.com. That's The Confessionals at the Confessionalspodcast.com. Or go to the website, the Confessionalspodcast.com. Hit the contact section. You can reach me that way as well.

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Also go ahead and check out Prepare with theconfessionals.com. That's Prepare with the Confessionals.com. Get yourself emergency supply food and survival gear. The food will last up to 25 years on the shelf and the way things are going, you might need it sooner. So go ahead and check it out, prepare with the confessionals.com. We're heading to the Shanley Hotel. It is the Confessionals on tour, my friends. The spirits are in tour is what we're calling it, and we're going to the Shanley Hotel.

We are taking a bus trip up there, July 1st through the 2nd. It is a bus tour with me exclusively. It's basically flipping the model in the head instead of me going to a far off land where 200 people come out and I speak for an hour. The people come to me and you spend 24 hours with me on a haunted bus trip up to New York to stay at the Shanley Hotel overnight. Plus a lot of great stuff on the way up and the way back. And if you want to get access to this tour, you got to hit up Creed or Jen at Educated Wanderer. You can email them at Travel Group Tours at AOL.com. You can call them at 973-513-9-001.

Check out their website, Educatedwanderer.com. if you want to get access to the spirits are in tour. Tickets are limited, so hop on it today if you're interested. Also, go ahead and check out the Paranormal Roundtable Presents First Annual Dog Man slash Cryptid Conference in Paris, Tennessee on August 13th. I will be a speaker there. It is hosted by Ken Gearhart. The speakers are Josh Turner, Steve Stockton, Barton, Nunley, Jody Cook, Nick Redfern,

Coonbo Baker. there's a lot of great speakers at this event. And if you want to get exclusive access to everybody there, you're going to want to get your tickets. Link is in the description of this episode. Don't miss out on this very first annual dogman slash cryptic conference in Paris, Tennessee on August 13th. I will be there and so many better people will be there as well.

All right, friends, let's get to this week's show. We have Casey coming on and Casey talks about Bigfoot today in Oregon, but we start out in Tennessee when he was a kid. He and his family, everybody had different vantage points of what they saw, but everybody saw a white bigfoot in Tennessee. It was a multiple incursion encounter. It happened in Tennessee right where I live. He said it was at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains and I can see the foothills of the Smoky Mountains from my house. So there's a white bigfoot roaming around these woods here. I dig it. Let's get to Casey right now. All right, today we got Casey on the show. Casey, what's going on, man? Oh, not too much,

not too much. How's it going in your neck of the woods? My neck of the woods is going just fine, my man, just going fine. But you're over there in Oregon, and you were telling me, Oregon, right? Not Washington. Oregon. Yeah. Yeah, but you said you're getting ready for the, uh, was it seven months of just rain. One month of gray and rain. Oh, man. That sounds like it sucks, but. Yeah, it's good for a little bit. You get mushrooms, but then after a while there's just, it's just hard to push out and go do anything, man. Yeah. So.

I understand that. Now, you're originally from Tennessee. And that's what kind of we're going to start off with is your Bigfoot encounter you had in Tennessee. But before we get into that, was it a hard transition for you to go from Tennessee to Oregon? Not really. I went to, I went from Tennessee to Seattle first. and I lived in Seattle for about 2000 to just like a few years ago. So it wasn't too bad.

It was kind of really my scene. It was nice. And then just Oregon's so close and right there. It's just like, you know, very easy to go down, go hang out, just run around. So it was nice. It was nice. How old were you and you moved out there? I was 20.

Okay. So you weren't a kid or anything. You were an adult. And it was a nice transition for you, huh? Yeah, pretty much. Not a kid depending on how you look at it. Yeah. But I just asked that because I'm actually considering the opposite where I'm thinking about going from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to eastern Tennessee.

That's a good area, man. I got a lot of people, a lot of family live up there. It's nice. Yeah. And it is really nice. It's a lot less people. I'd like to just, I would like to start living around less people. and more rural, but also if I can hit like the Knoxville area,

you still got, you know, people around and Kentucky's not too far, so I can go bag a dog man anytime I want, you know, things like that. Yeah, and it's easy to get around there too. So it's not, it looks like long distances, but it's like straightaways. So it's like super, super easy. Yeah, I learned when I was in Kentucky being shown around by Kyle, the term a country mile is very real. He's just like, oh, it's just down the road.

And when like 45 minutes later we get there and like, dude, you said it was just down the road. Yeah. Yeah. It's just down the road. It's like, yeah, it is down the road. He's like, his timing was like, oh, it's just three minutes away. And then we get there like 30 minutes later and like you forgot to zero, bro. You forgot to zero.

But he was so much fun. I love that guy. I feel like I gained a. a good friend on that trip. Actually, gained a lot of good friends because my whole team, we bonded big time. So listen, we're not going to get into that conversation right now. Let's get into some Bigfoot talk. From what I understand, you had a Bigfoot encounter in Tennessee, but it wasn't just you.

It was like your family, right? Yes, correct. It was the whole family. Yeah, like six kids and four adults, like all my cousins and my aunt and uncle and stuff. Wow. Well, all right. Well, all right. Well, take us away.

What were you guys doing and what happened? Cool. So yeah, it was just, we were going out one night, and I'll preface this because I just got this information recently that it was an area where it was known in the area is just like a spot where there's like a super back road kind of on the other side of one of the major lakes in the area. And it was like a little one lane road that cut through and went into some cattle farm and cattle area. and there was a little pull-off there, this creek. But everyone just pulled off down there and went party or whatever and hang out. But there was also a folklore, I guess, of going down into that area. And you'd go in, you'd turn off your car, turn off your lights, and sit there,

and a pair of glowing red eyes would appear just there and scare and run off. That's what my dad and my stepmom who grew up in the area, that's what they told us. and this night, and they'd always take us there to scare us and stuff, because in the South, everything's haunted, everything's got a big story. And it is to a degree, but it's also a lot of, you know, a lot of the moonshiner's and illicit activities that go on there, you know, hey, that holler's haunted, don't go off in there, you know what I mean, sort of folklore stuff. So anyways, bringing it back, you know, after scaring us a bunch, you know, throughout the times,

We decided to go out there. We're going to have a little bonfire, roast some hot dogs and marshmallows and just hang out. They were just essentially showing us that this was just a hang out spot, whatever. You know, this is just a cool spot. We're going to chill. And as I said, it was, you know, my six, or my five, my sister and four cousins. So there's six of us. And then my aunt and uncle and stepmom and dad.

And nights going on. It's cool. We get there about sons going down, get the fire. going doing the food and the whole time we kept smelling this really really strong odor that would just get strong and then fade away and we're like okay it's the south no big deal skunk or something because it kind of what it smelled like was skunk wet dog and then just like rotting corpse or just rotting something it's just bad but that's like those three smells comp like together and um so we just thought, oh, skunks can nearby, whatever, not that uncommon, fades off, gets strong,

fades off. And then after a while, my dad said, my dad said he saw something out of the corner of his eye, kind of where the bridge and Little Creek was. And so he gets the shotgun out because it's the south. He's got the shotty. And he, you know, okay, someone was trying to mess with us or whatever. And he just kind of sits it in the back of the truck. And actually, I went back this past summer and was talking to my sister. And she kind of told this part of it, too, that I didn't remember. She said that my cousin, my two cousins, kind of went off by the creek where my dad said he saw it, saw somebody. And they were, I remember, or she said, she remembered them coming back and saying, oh, we threw rocks at it. We threw rocks at them. We chased them off.

And I was like, I think I was like 10 or 11. And I just thought, oh, you guys are full of crap. You're just trying to be macho dudes. Oh, we took care of that problem, you know. And so, you know, I wasn't paying much attention. And so we were sitting there. And we're kind of calming down. And my sister goes to sit next to my dad.

And she puts her hand right on top of this lantern, the old school gas lanterns. You know, they get real hot on top. And she put her hand on it and just burnt the crum. rap out of it and screams so loud and just shrieks because she's like nine at this point. So she's like a little kid, you know, too. And she screamed so loud. So we all immediately start taking care of her, you know, all of this kind of disarms us. We're chill.

We're chilling again. And then a few minutes later, well, I mean, the time wise, I don't know, but just a few moments later, that smell is back again. But this time, it's like eye watering strong. Like literally, it's. whatever this skunky wet dog smell is right on top of us, you know. And all we really have, we've got some A lantern and then just some flashlights, but really it's just the firelight that's illuminating everything.

And so from just outside of the tree line from where we pulled in, we hear this crazy sound that just scared the bejesus out of all of us. We all ran for the truck. And then we had to, my dad and uncle were like, we can't leave the fire. We got to put it out. So they put the fire out using the soda and all that stuff. And so we started driving off. Like, holy crap, that was scary.

We don't know what that was, but that was weird. And it was just kind of like a screechy howl kind of sound. Like, I hate to even try to impersonate it. but basically it was like a he-y-ow-kind of sound, but really, really, really loud and super close. And so we're driving off, you know, after all that happened, we drive off. And we're kind of like calming the back of the truck. And I'm in the, my back is against the back of the truck facing, or I'm, my back is facing the front of the truck. So I'm looking behind us as we're driving away.

And I always did this thing as a kid when we were driving on country roads is just a gooky, off and click a flashlight on and off, not in a strobe pattern, but just kind of click it on, click it off, click it off. And we're driving away and all of a sudden my dad punches the car or he punches the truck, like hits the gas and we're like, oh, whoa. And we thought he was just kind of messing with us like, hold on guys sort of thing. And which he always did. But we always just thought it was that.

But at that same moment when he hit the gas and we kind of jumped, I have. happened to click my flashlight and boom, I hit this massively tall bipedal creature that was, I say, we say it was white, but thinking back on it as an adult, it could have easily have been a grayish color, but I think it was white. And it was, because also in pitch black, when you hit something with a light and it's like colored, it pops, you know what I mean? Like, whoop. And you're like, oh, holy crap.

So I know what I saw, absolutely. and it was so close to the back of the truck. Like, I feel like if it had taken a step sooner, we possibly would have hit it or if I'd have looked done this number and looked to the left, I probably would have gotten like face full of, you know, Sasquatch fur or whatever. But so anyways,

I click on my flashlight and there it is crossing the road, man, just right there at the back of the truck. And I remember that it's, that it's hips. were even with the tailgate, like its top of his hip pelvis was even with the tailgate as it took a step across the road. And I got my light on it. And in one step, it took a one lane road. Like, and I saw it's, I saw a complete side view of it.

And it swinging arms, walking two feet, man, just taking it was like one side of the road. Its first step was middle of the road. It's, you know, completing. the step was on the other side. All of us got quiet as a dormouse, dude. And we kept driving off. And I remember, so after you, how do you come out of this little area? It goes up to the cattle farm and there's like streetlights, but it's a big cattle farm.

There's not much there. It's just that. It's just the cows and stuff. And so that's where my dad stopped. And I remember him checking on all of us, but I kind of. remember also looking up and seeing him like kind of, you know, hands on his knees kind of been over at the front of the truck, kind of I couldn't hear what was being said,

but him and my, him and my uncle were talking. And I think it just really warped, warped him seeing it because coming around the bend, I sent you the video too and for that, but like coming around the bend, um, they had the clearest view of anyone ever of seeing it because their lights

had to have hit it and it was right there on the side of the road. And for years after, my dad will not talk about it other than to say he saw two of them. And I think he said one was either up in the tree or on the cliffside or something is what he said. And he thought it was going to jump down in the truck and get us. And that's why he punched it. That's why, that's what he said. But as for the rest of us, we just saw the one. And we joked for years that we saw a Yeti.

We saw a Yeti in Tennessee, y'all. And it was like a family story. But yeah, I clearly see it, man. Saivi, it was crazy. It sounds like it. I mean, obviously by what you just said, we saw, like, I'm assuming it wasn't something that you guys expected or even thought was possible in Tennessee. No, not at all.

And I remember the adult saying we saw a Bigfoot. So clearly they kind of knew or had knowledge of. something like but just because it was white is why we referred to it as the Yeti. Right. And that's that's something that like I'm more, I think out of all the encounters, I get more fascinated by the white ones just because it's just another level of like, what the heck, you know? I mean, it's like how the heck has something white and this big hide out here? Yeah. Yeah. It's. It's, but, you know, I have, how do I say, sorry, what I'm about to say,

I'm saying without knowing what the final production is for Legion of Legends dogman Kentucky, okay? So I don't know if this is even going to make the film. So if it doesn't make the film, then this is news to everybody once they hear this. If it does make the film, then people will know what I'm talking about. I, when I was in Kentucky, it's just a very brief split second. I was turning my head scoping behind me before I climbed up on a tree to take my trail cams down.

And I thought I saw something big, gray, like a light, medium light gray, conical head, walking up the hillside behind these big brushes. Like all I saw was like the head. And as I was turning my head, I saw it like my head was coming back around to the tree. I was about to climb. And I just saw it real split second. And I jerked my head back and I looked and I didn't see anything there. I'm like, holy crap.

I called my guys over them. I'm just like, guys, I don't know if I actually saw what I think I saw because there's nothing there now. And Joel, he went out back there and he climbed up around the hill and stuff looking. Didn't see anything. but it was the same exact location that we had some serious bizarre experiences the day or two before. I'm talking like big giant trees just shaking violently, crazy stuff. Holy world. But I say all that to say the white Bigfoot, the gray, like the light gray bigfoot,

it just, it fascinates me because I'm just like, how is that possible, you know? But then it kind of gives you this, makes me at least go into the idea and thought, process of, well, maybe these things have abilities that we can't fathom right now, you know? Good. And I'll say, too, it was huge, man, because that, that's like I've been around, you know, like steer and cattle and horses, you know, I've seen like pretty big animals, but whatever this thing was was massive. And I measured it as an adult because I remember the hip placement. And I'm at, I'm six two. And I'll, uh, I'll, kind of measured myself against the truck.

I'm about two feet short of putting my hips where I saw the hips on that one. So that would put it at eight feet. So the tailgate, when you say about how the hips were level with the tailgate, you're talking about the top of the tailgate closed. Yes, because all those kids were in the back. So it was closed. And I wish I could remember the make and model of the truck. It's like your normal kind of bigger style of truck, not like the,

big super duties or whatever, but just like your normal, normal big pickup truck. Yeah, I mean, you're probably, yeah, I, I mean, eight feet makes sense to me. Just because, I mean, I'm thinking with my, with my truck, I'm six feet tall. And if I stood at the back tailgate, if I went up two feet, my hips would be about even with the tailgate. And so, yeah, it makes sense about eight feet tall. That's huge, man. Was it big and bulky or was it more lanky?

I saw the side view, but from what I saw, it didn't look like chubby. It looked like I saw, it had huge arms because they were swaying like how our sway when we walk. And I saw it definitely had hair or fur or whatever you want to call it. But I mean, I just saw its arm swinging and taking the step. And I just perfect side view. Like, but I mean, it was huge. I will say it was massively wide. At looking side view, like I'm looking.

you know, like it was huge. So your dad saw two, and I think you said your uncle was up in the front too? Yes. Okay. So all the adults were in the front. So they all saw it perfectly. And did they all see two or was it just your dad that saw two? No, they all saw it.

Oh, yes, he only saw, he says, he's the only one that says he saw two of them. But they all also also only saw the one, the one giant one. I think they were because that's what they were all keyed in on. But with him driving, man. Yeah, so, I mean, let me just make sure I have this scene right. Your dad and uncle are in the front seats. Your dad's driving. The ladies are in the back seat, but you kids are in the bed of the truck.

Correct. And so you're outside when this happens. Yes. Yes. Wow. Wow. I mean, I like, like, shoot, dude. that's scary.

That is scary. And to top it off, just that it was at that random moment of me clicking my flashlight of just all the times for it to be like, you know, I'm just like, burp-per-bur. I did not expect that.

Now, so do you think that your dad, so he saw two, and maybe something, one in the tree, he got the sense that this could have been a threatening situation, and that's why he gunned it? Probably more, I think he was just being a dad.

Sure. Just kind of being mindful of the truckloaded kids he's got back there and just kind of having to be like and also driving the truck. That's kind of what I think it was. Not necessarily, I mean, I guess, yeah, that would be feeling threatened. But I think he was just trying to be more mindful in the parent sense, rather than being like, oh, no, something's going to happen. But I don't know.

I can't get a word out of him. Well, I mean, so we have the situation that happened back, you know, at the camp. And do you think that, one, do you think that that was the same creatures? Oh, for sure. So they could have been following you then? Yes, because the story. So there's another part of the story because we went out in the following day. We went right back to the spot parked and decided we're going to go hike and see what's up and see if anyone was back here messing around or see what was going on.

Should I just go into that? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Okay, cool. So the following day, we go back and, you know, we're all kind of a little nervous and like, oh, man, what's going to happen? Same spot. We pull in, park. And, you know, we had the full intent of just hiking back and seeing where it goes. And so my dad, I remember my dad and uncle and cousin.

I don't know if my cousins went. We were all with the same group, but I don't remember who went down to the river with him. But it was definitely my dad and uncle. And they went to the river where he thought he saw something. And I remember him saying, both of them saying, oh, yeah, we see footprints down here. Somebody was definitely down here. And I'm like kicking myself in the butt as an adult because I'm like, man, I should have gone down there and looked. but again because going back I thought my cousins were just bullcraping so I put no substance into somebody was over there at all

so but they said they saw footprints and we started to go on and hike back and as we start going back there's kind of a trail but not really it's super overgrown so we start to follow that but like right after right outside of the area where we were there's like an area where it's got several large burns. And then you kind of climb up on the berm and look down. And there's a huge like, I think it was about a five or six foot ditch just there. And it looked like maybe a backhoe was used and cut out these big three ditches

to keep people from driving back off in there. But the berms were from the soil from that. So we hop on, we are hopping across and we look down. and there's a deer that has been, that's just down in one of these ditches. And I remember its head being twisted all the way around, like fully all the way around. And it's there. My sister said she remembered it having chew marks out of it.

She said it looked like it had been eaten on. But I just remember its head being turned around. And again, I was a kid. I was like, oh, that deer ate it. You know, he missed the jump. Must not have seen that. But now as an adult, I'm like, deer don't act that way. You know, they don't go head first off into a ditch.

They might break a leg or something, but they're not going head first. And then the chew marks was weird too because normally if something kills a deer, it's going to drag it off or whatever. But I remember seeing that. And I just remember thinking now as an adult putting it together, I think we were just kind of in between it and the, the fridge, like maybe they had stashed that deer there. They were coming back to eat it, and now they've got this family with a fire sitting in front of it, and they're kind of hungry.

So, and I feel like my sister's scream kind of helped us in a way, really, because I feel like maybe instead of it scaring us in a more threatening manner, it heard the scream and was like, oh, oh, this is weird. Or, you know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? Like, it kind of ran, I don't know, this is all my opinion based on that experience, but I think that that's, and then instead it made the noise of that little howl. And years later, my cousin sent me a message on Facebook and said, hey, all it said was, what does this sound like to you? And it was a clip. And I click on it and it was a game cam video. And I think we call them wildcats back home, but we have like small wildcats.

Mountain lion are starting to come back in that area, but not very prevalent. But we do have kind of wild cats in that area. But it was the game cam footage that he sent me was of this wildcat. It was a wildcat mating call, I think, or a wildcat scream. And man, as soon as I heard that, that sent me goosebumps because I was like, holy cow, where did you get that? That sounds very, very similar to the sound that we heard that it made. And I think it was trying to be like, there's a mountain line over here. You guys need to get. Hey, guys, I think there might be a mountain line over here. You might want to take care of that or maybe just get up on out of here now. It's time to go home.

Yeah, we're hungry. Get away from the fridge. Like, oh, man. That's a good. crazy. And so, and yeah, and my cousin's working on my dad getting some more info out of him. He said, because I know he saw the face. And he told him that it had hair all over its face except around its eyes. So I know, I know he saw it. But I know when he came around the bend, it was right there on the side of the road. And, you know, no light. So we were driving with the brights on, on this little tiny one lane road, man. So 100% we saw it. Five petal, eight foot tall.

Just taking over, staking a stroll through the woods. You know, listen, it's really fascinating to hear this story because there are so many different characters in the story and different perspectives, visually perspective of this experience. And it was so cool if I could have had you,

your dad and other relatives, all together sharing this because you all saw something different, you know, like you all had your own perspective vantage point of what happened. And it would be really cool to hear the family's experience individually, but also collectively, you know, like dad's talking and, you know, I was driving down the road and I saw this and I swore, my floor, whatever, and all of a sudden we switched to Connor, or I said your last name, I'm sorry. It's all good. It's all good. I switched a case and he's like, you know, if I would have leaned one way, I would have had a

face full of fur and, you know, just, it would be so cool. Like I, I would have fun, you know, putting something like that together. That would be fun, though, because I've asked them and my dad, my dad just touched down. He doesn't say anything other than he saw two of them. My sister, she said she doesn't like to talk about it because it freaks her out. But she, you know, I kind of went over it with her and my other cousin were kind of the only ones that talk about it. Because everyone else says, I don't know what I saw. And I'm like, it doesn't matter. Just say what you saw.

I'm not judging. Just what did you see? It's all I want to know. Yeah. Yeah. And so everyone's kind of shut down. But I'm moving back soon. So I plan on talking to everybody again.

Kind of just like, let me ask once and I'll ask only once, but you got to say it. Yeah. And make sure you have it recorded. Absolutely. Absolutely. But yeah, so you're moving back soon. Why are you moving back? Just various reasons.

Just got a lot of family back there. I'll be closer to getting my kid and stuff like that. I don't know. And also, I don't know. It sounds weird, but it just seems like, you know, Tennessee and that area is just, it's calling me home. I don't know. This sounds weird to say it. Not at all.

I feel like we all try to get away from where we grew up. And then it's find ourselves right back. but definitely, you know, way she goes. I hear you. I hear you. I'm in a similar boat where I grew up in a very rural area, and I've lived in the Philly area for since I was 17. I graduated high school and I moved down here.

And now, you know, 36 and I feel like the rural life is calling me home, you know. And that's why I'm looking at Eastern Tennessee because I want to be in a more rural area, but also an area that kind of the general population holds similar values as I do. And also, I would like to save money on taxes. So Tennessee, listen, I have, like, for about a year and a half now, I've been doing my homework on different states in this country that I would want to move to. The criteria is less people, rural living, a little bit more concerned. conservative mindset and no state income taxes. And so when you do the no state income taxes, it whittles down the list a lot. Yeah, it's drastically. And so then I'm looking at like,

Tennessee, South Dakota, Texas, and Florida were my states. Wife said no to South Dakota because of the snow. I say no to Florida because the heat and humidity, giant snakes, bugs, Alligators. Texas, the heat. No. No. It's like I don't, like I don't want to drive 14 hours to get out of my state. And so.

Yeah. But so like I think we landed on Tennessee because we really like the smoking mountains, the beautiful, that's a beautiful state. And again, like seriously, it's close to Kentucky. So I got two, I'll be living in a weird state and I'll be having a weird state right next door. Yeah, dude. All that.

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simply safe.com slash confessions to get this great deal. Not only are you getting a free camera, but you're getting 20% off your interactive monitoring. I'm doing it and you should too. Go to simply safe.com slash confessionals. Let's fast forward. Let's not change subjects. You're in the Pacific Northwest and you, is it you or your friends or both do your own kind of like research on on these things um we both kind of it just kind of happened to fall into place um i did another friend's uh podcast like i was telling you and we kind of forged a friendship uh he started doing independent research from his own experience but we lived close had some commonalities and we're like oh cool man let's hang out and uh his spot kind of got shut down from

the fires from the previous year where they just weren't allowing access in and I was kind of showing them how to forage and whatnot. So it's like, hey, let's go check this spot out. It's my mushroom spot. But we've also had some weirdness happen. And that ended up being our main spot. And yeah, just kind of unofficially landed into being a researcher, just because I'm out in the woods a lot.

We've had stuff happen. And I'm like, dude, I think I think I'm a researcher now. So what kind of things have you had happen since you've been kind of hung up? entering down on this spot and... Oh, cool. So it's a major mushroom spot. It's on Mount Hood. Feel safe saying that because, you know, good luck finding anywhere on Mount Hood or any

mountain, even if you know it. And so it's a good honeyhole for us for Morels and Puccineas. And I'll start out with this because I'll start from the beginning on this, in this particular area. My best friend and his now wife, when they first started. dating, I think about five or six years ago. He said it was either the first time or one of the first few times they went up to this area, hunting for chinis, and which we call the Cheney Highway, it's just this area that's between us, you know, just a nickname. And he said they straight up heard

monkey chatter. Like, full on sounded like they were at the zoo monkeys screaming and chattering, just going crazy. And they both believe in it, but they didn't think, that was like Bigfoot was the last thing in their mind because it sounded so much like a monkey. They were just like, oh, that was weird. Oh, well, kept mushroom, you know, kept foraging. And that's all that kind of happened.

And so, you know, this has still been a honeyhole for us. Last year, I came, let's see, I was in Seattle for a while during the whole lockdown. And I came to Portland. I came here. And then we went up to, it was mushroom season. So we decided to go,

or it was morel season. So we decided to go up and check the spot. I had a glorious hall, by the way. It was awesome. Found some great, great, like tons of moreals, huge moreals. It was awesome.

And this one particular time, so it's usually, it's me, him, his wife, and their dogs. and so we kind of our plan is usually we kind of go out we you know take turns with the dogs but we kind of spread out come back spread out and come back and you know that's that's just our method and we were in this one area and his wife Heidi had came back and she had found a like a like a nil a um

I keep calling him elk but it's a mule deer it's a mule deer shed that she had found and so we were kind of talking about that. And I was like, oh, cool. And it's like, yeah, I found some mushrooms over here, blah, blah, blah. And she's probably about 10 or 15 yards away from me. And suddenly we just hear this kind of come off to, you know, off to our side there. And we're like, oh, well, Ray found some because that's my best friend. And we usually have little markers, you know, we don't yell or anything, but we'll make a little sound or something to notify, you know, for close. And I was So I thought it was him. And I was like, oh, Ray found some over there.

That's cool. And then 20 yards behind me, I hear, uh, that wasn't me, you guys. And I'm like, okay, but we all heard this. We all heard it, right? And we're like, yeah, we heard it. Like, okay. Well, that was weird. So we're on the mushrooms.

Let's just keep going. We just kept going. And so that was really weird. I also found a footprint up there in that same area, which we call the Cheney Highway. It was the big print that I sent you a text of. That was the first print I found so much so that I was a fortune of living close to the NABC, the North American Bigfoot Center. I want to plug that.

It's a great, great museum. Cliff, Melissa, and Connor are amazing people. They're really cool, very informative, lots of killer evidence. And so he actually went up to go cast it with my friends. And I think they found it was kind of inconclusive because I even, I'm a believer, but I still call any track a possible track, you know, just to be fair. And, you know, I'm not a master tracker by any means. So I just kind of'm like, oh, I just happen to be looking for mushrooms.

And I'm like, oh, that looks weird. that kind of looks like a footprint. And, you know, I'm 6-2, and given the time of year, I'm somewhere between, you know, 190 and 200 pounds. And I was like, whatever made that footprint was bigger than me and barefoot. And there's no way even your biggest hippie person would be in that area, barefoot running around. And if they did, they were larger than me.

And so we found that. And that was cool. That was just some weirdness up there. Flash forward to this year where me and my buddy Tyler, who's got Bigfoot and the citizen scientist podcast, we went up there and started doing heavy research and founding also tons of weird prints. More conclusively that we all experienced that we have was tons of chatter and callbacks. there's a spot called we refer to as lookout point all these names are just relevant to us you know and if I have a good fortune of you coming out and we go out there I'll show you and then you'll know

it's just like a nickname to you know tell your buddy hell hey it's this spot we're like oh yeah yeah so we're at lookout point and we started doing oh the first time we went out with another guy so we went out and we're like man this is a beautiful spot you're looking out over southern Washington and Idaho and you look to the left and you can see clearly Mount Adams and Mount Rainier the peak of Mount Hood is directly behind us it's like gorgeous gorgeous area man so you know he's sitting there taking it in anyway and we're like well this looks like a good spot let's do

some calls and so Tyler rares up and he does he does an amazing Ohio Hal that he does and every time he does that, we get something back. It's like so wild. So he did it this one time, and we were hearing, we heard a whoop come back this first time. And he was about, Tyler was about 15 yards from us, because you're like on the side of a road, but man, it's about a 45 or 40 degree incline. Like, it's gnarly. So he was down there a bit.

So he actually did not hear the whoop that me and our other buddy heard. But he was hearing chatter. Like just it sounded like you're on the outside of a conversation. Like if you were coming up and you can, you know, and you're like on the out, you know it's a conversation, but you got no idea what's going on. That's what he's hearing. And he's hearing whistles and all this. And so the other guy.

I, he does something. He was doing some boulder rolling, like rolling boulders down the hill, which something Tyler and I hadn't done before. And then our buddy does, he does his call that he does. And a few seconds, it was like a second or two later, he gets a response. That's his exact call that he yelled out. And it was so much so that it disheartened us immediately because we were like, oh, well, that was a person down there messing with us, obviously. So clear and yelling back, we were like, okay, we were like, well, damn it. Now we can't take anything into consideration because, you know, we have to discount everything we just experienced because we were certain there was a person down there.

And then the more we started kind of thinking about it and rationalizing it, we're like, there's no way that could be a person. There's no campground down there. It's a 40 degree incline going down there. It's a massive grove of trees. We were calling them, from the lookout point, you look down and there's like a clearing, but then there's a grove of trees that start. And we were calling them the short trees and tall trees.

But the short trees were about, because I hiked down there the following day, which I'll get into that in a second. I hiked down. The short trees were about 12 to 15 foot trees, and the tall trees were just towering above that. So these aren't small trees by any stretch and so densely packed that even if a person was down there, there's no way it would be that loud.

There's no way it could cut through all of that for us to hear it that loud. And there's no way it would have been that resounding, and that long sustaining, you know, coming up. And so he was like, no, there's a campground down there, blah, blah, blah. So the next day I was, hadn't, didn't have anything going on. I went out by myself, hiking around, again, looking for mushrooms. Don't advise it.

Even if you do, don't push on. Don't push your luck. I've been lost in the woods. It sucked. It was terrible. Don't push it. So anyways, I'm out there by my husband. myself with my dog and I'm hiking around in the same, a Cheney Highway area.

And I'm not having much luck, but I'm in this one little area. And these are like, I've noticed from the previous year, there's tons and tons of down trees. So the terrain looks different. I'm having to jump four and five feet up onto these massive down trees just to get around. And I'm like, okay, well, this is more work than it's worth. let me figure out how to get out of here. And so I kind of jumped down, I kind of jumped down in between trees.

I'm looking around. And I happen to look down. And that's where I saw that small footprint that I sent you, the small print. And I was like, huh, that's really weird. And you can see it's very deep in there. So from where I was standing, to me, because I started looking around for other ones.

And to me, it looked like something maybe had jumped off of one of those logs, jumped down off, hit that little ground spot, and sprung back up onto the other logs. The only thing I could figure. And I was like, oh, that was really weird. And again, I don't, at the time, I don't have plastered on me anything to cast it, you know, and Cliff scolds me for that. He doesn't scold me.

He's always like, carry plaster, dude, and cast everything. So, but later that day, I'm kind of getting ready to leave. It's probably about three in the afternoon. I'd been up there all day. I've got a few hours of light. I actually got a lot of hours of light left, but I'm wanting to kind of, you know, get ahead of it, not get up, not get stuck up there. And so I'm like, go to lookout point.

And I'm like, I'm just going to hike down there just to see, just to see where, how far it goes. I got enough time. I can do it. So I start hiking down. And I quickly realized, like, I'm like, almost eat it and sandbag it right out of the start because it was so steep that I just lost my footing and it was like, whoa, okay. So I started switchbacking, coming back down the hill.

And I stopped to kind of look at the grove of trees to say, to be like, oh, where am I going to punch in at? Let's find the best spot, path at the least resistance, you know. And I'm kind of standing there. And suddenly I just hear this, but like so loud. And it's right in front of me, right in this grove of trees. And I'm like, well, that was certainly weird. And I look, my dog's at high alert. Her ears are up, tails up. She's staring right at where I heard it.

And I'm like, okay, well, she heard it too. So I definitely, that was something. I love crows and ravens. I know what they sound like. Definitely wasn't that. It didn't do a repeat call. I didn't hear any sounds. No bird flew off.

I didn't hear anything running off. just heard that scream, just that quick little monkey scream. I was like, okay. And so I'm looking at my dog and she doesn't, she's not growling or being weird. So I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to push on and just try to, you know, just to see, because I'm trying to see if like, okay, if it was a campground, cool.

We can, we can just, we can say, okay, yeah, there was this campground there. Now we know about this spot, blah, blah, blah. So I started hiking in. and I realize that like, like, I'm not like a woodsman by any stretch, but I'm preseasoned being out in the woods and being hiking and all that. And plus since my incident of being lost, I'm very hyper aware of direction and try to be on it as much as possible.

And so I'm hiking in and the short trees are like I was saying, about 15, you know, 12 to 15 foot trees, but they're so dense that I'm having a hard time kind of walking through them. And I keep pushing on. I keep pushing on. And I get through it. And then I just realized I'm like, okay, I could keep pushing on, but this is going to get dangerous. I don't really want to do this.

So I stopped and turned back and went back up the hill. But after doing that and exploring in that small area that I was at, I'm like, dude, there's no way a person was down here yelling back at us. you know and you know we're up at 7,000 feet it was a quick incline drop you know i was man i was huffing and puffing coming back up there for sure so i was like there no one would just run down there just to you know just for giggles you know they wouldn't just run down there and be like oh let's go check it i'm like this is some serious business man you know um and then we since went back another time we went back because this is pretty wild too and this will tie up the

the organ situation but my buddy was like we were calling it research camp and he says hey man I need to go up and I want to cast this track that I found it looks possible it's like a 15 inch track it's pretty crazy he showed me pictures totally looked like it and it's right behind our camp we're like dude let's go check it out and he goes all right but I've seen seen bear scat everywhere and you know i kind of don't want to go up by myself i'm like cool man i'll leave the dog and you know we'll go up there and um and um so we went up there and you know was of course packing you know packing you know packing the 40 and you know we were all armed and not not scared of saskatch by any means it's i i'm armed because of you know the cats

everything else uh you know other than big foot yeah um but um just a good idea to have it anyway but so you know we're all like kind of hiking we go check it out we get the cat get the track cast um hike back and as we're coming back out of the woods we notice that one of the logs we had all walked across to go in had been split vertically like popped open and set off to the side and it scared us because we all had seen the bear poop so we were like holy cow there's been a bear right behind us. There's a bear in this area right now. So, you know, I pulled, you know, pulled my gun, racked it, told our other buddy who had his gun to him like, bro, stop what you're doing, come back to us. You know, there's a bear here for sure. And, and then, but then again,

we kind of were thinking about it. We're like, man, that's not something bears do. Bear's shred logs. They don't just kind of pop open a log and set it off to the side, you know? And so that was kind of weird. And so as we're leaving, we go again to go stop at lookout point because, you know, it's like I said, it's a gorgeous spot, especially when the sun's going down or anything. So we're like, let's just go there. We'll do some calls, whatever, and check it out. So Tyler's doing some calls. We're checking it out and, you know, losing light, but there's some light there. I can't really see definitively of what things are because there's a small clearing in front of the grove of trees. And we're kind of just standing there doing the calls.

And Tyler is down the way from me. And I go to look to say something to him and I see something out of the corner of my eye move where this tree was, where I'm looking at where I was just looking. And I'm like, did I just see that? You know, kind of keying in. I'm like, huh, that was weird. And then I kind of see it move again. I'm like, okay, there's no wind, but I definitely just saw something move. And I'm just frozen staring down in this place, just staring, just staring, just

staring, and Tyler comes up and he's kind of like looking down there in the same area. And he goes, holy shit, dude, I just saw somebody. I just saw something move by that tree. And I said, yeah, dude, that's where I'm looking. That's where I just saw it. And he goes, no, no, no, no, which tree are you looking at? at the same time we both pointed to the same tree. I was like, that one right there.

He goes, yeah, dude. So he was seeing it kind of peek out from behind, I think, and coming and popping around. And I think what the first movement that I saw that caught my eye was, I was telling my buddy this the other day, I'd be like, you remember playing hide and go seek and you're in a good spot, but you think the person that's it saw you. But you kind of want to move and you don't know, but you're like, I'm going to. to just sidestep it to see, you know, just in case. And I think that's what happened. Because if it hadn't moved, I think I thought I was looking at the tree. I thought I was looking at the trunk of the tree. And then it just moved. And I was like, did I just see that? Or what's

going on here? And Tyler saw it. And as I'm sitting there, I just become frozen. I'm just stiff in place and I'm staring and the whole right side of my head starts tingling and going down my neck and down my back it just starts tingling like that, you know, like when your foot falls asleep kind of. And I have tears just streaming down my face, dude, just pouring out. And I'm not sad or I'm not, you know, like sniffle crying, but my eyes are just watering. And Tyler's like, bro, what's going on? And I was like, dude, I don't know. I can't really move, but something is there watching us right now. And I've never had that feeling before.

I've heard people talk about it. But I was just like, I have no doubt in my mind. Something is down there at that tree watching us right now. I'm 100% of it, dude. And his friend Ben has got some binoculars. And, you know, it's going dark, but he's still looking. So he comes up to where we're looking and he's sitting down and he's staring with the binoculars. And I'm like, well, what do you see, man?

And he goes, he's silent for a minute. He says, I don't know. Like, well, that's not an answer, man. What did you see? And he goes, well, I just saw a black mask just disappeared. And we're like, what? He goes, well, I just don't know how to say it. And I'm like, well, just say what you saw, man.

And he goes, okay, well, I saw this big dark mask that was dark in front of that tree. And we're like, which tree? And he points right to the tree where we were seeing the where Tyler and I pointed at, same tree. And he was well down from us. So there's no way he heard or saw it. He was looking at it with the binoculars that's something else. And he's like, that tree right there. We're like, oh, my God, dude, that's the tree.

And he said he saw just this black mask. kind of big black circle mass in front of the tree, and it just kind of faded out and disappeared. And that's the TED talk about the Oregon situation. So when he says it just faded out, disappeared, I mean, are we talking like metaphysically type stuff? Or are we talking about like it just walked into the tree line backwards? He said metaphysically. And he's not, he's not really a skeptic and he's not really a believer. He just said it was like a dark shadow in front of the tree and then it just kind of faded out and wasn't there anymore. I love stories like this. I do. I just do. Like it just,

yeah, you hear stories like this and it really gives you the sense that there's more to this topic. Man, there's so much. Yeah. And I can, you know, I like seeing it physically, I know it's a physical being. But other than that, like I was telling you in our first phone thing, man, it's like having all this other, like even though I saw it, having all this other stuff happen, like blows my mind even more. It's like more mind-blowing to me to have all this other stuff happen. Because I feel like with the seeing it, at least I can put a physical thing to what's happening. You know what I mean? I can be like, oh, well, that's causing that. Okay. Everything else, you're just like, what the hell was that, dude? Yeah.

You know, you're like, what is going on? So do you think that, I mean, you're, you said you do research. So have you thought about your experience in Tennessee versus your experience in Oregon? Let's just say this last experience you just shared. Because multiple witnesses and one of the people said they saw just fade away. Do you think that what you experienced in Tennessee, had the ability of what you experienced in Oregon, or do you think that Bigfoot,

there's different types of Bigfoot that can do different things? That's a good question, man. I kind of feel like, if anything, they've got to be similar to deer in that, you know, like where I grew up, we have white-tailed deer. You get up into higher mountain ranges, you have mule deer, you know, and you've got those, the black-tail deer. You've got all these, they're all deer, or even dogs, you know,

dogs. It's like they're all dogs, but they're all different too, you know. Yeah, because I think the stunk ape, it's got like three or four toes, I believe, and its track, like its track looks totally different, you know, kind of more suited for swampy area. And also just in the general descriptor from all the reports, you know what I mean? Like the one I saw was huge. It had the whiteish, grayish hair, it had shaggy hair. It was definitely longish hair. You know, I mean, if it did, I mean, it would, I also know that I remember watching something on Nat Geo or one of those types of channels where they were saying that polar bears don't show up on thermals because they're, well, not in the way of how we think because it shows, they show the same ambient temp as what's around them because their hair follicles are hollow and it helps keep them warm. but it also helps them kind of block out. It helps keep heat in.

I mean, they explained it in a way, but I just remember thinking that that was kind of wild. And it showed them hitting them with a thermal. And you could see the bear, obviously, but it wasn't like hitting on us in a thermal. You know what I mean?

Like you could see the outline, but it wasn't just like radiant popping. That's interesting. I never heard that before. That is interesting. Yeah, I don't know, man. this topic gets weird and weirder to the years that I, the more years that I do this, this show. And I don't know if I've ever, I'm sure I have, but it's, it's interesting to

have somebody like you on where you share your first encounter and by all accounts. I mean, it's, was just a physical creature that was out there, a scary monster, but then later in life you have an experience where the thing did, you know, a little more than just be physical and present. Even down to the way you reacted with the crying, I mean, that, it seems like it affected you in a way, but it wasn't like you said, you weren't sad. I'm assuming you weren't scared. No, not at it. I was frozen. I definitely was frozen, but not of my own accord. And I'm not like you know, I'm vegan now, but I grew up hunting and fishing and doing all that and spending lots of times in the woods. So I'm no stranger to having like a crazy experience and getting

scared in the woods. But I know that me being frozen was not of my own. That wasn't me. And the tingley was weird. And just the water, the water works now. It's like, dude, I'm not controlling this. This is just, I can't explain it. I can only explain what I'm feeling right now. And after hearing it so many times, I'm like, it's got to be, that feeling of being watched has got to be something left over from our primitive days of being primitive people and having to look out for, you know, whatever thing was trying to eat us or just trying to hunt to get your own food, you know, hunt or be hunted. I feel like that's kind of those types of feelings. I feel like when people get scared and stuff like that, I think it's kind of unlocking something

in our primitive self that we as humans haven't experienced in so many years. So it's kind of shocking and we don't know how to process it because it's been thousands of years before we've had to even think about that, you know. You know, one thing that you just said that I really, I really have a hard time wrapping my head around and identifying with you on this vegan. I know. get it. Come on. No, I, I, I, uh, my dad and mom do vegan diets and stuff and I'm just like, I like my beef.

Hey man. That's, you know, if you hunt and stuff, that's cool. I even make primitive, one of my hobbies is making primitive tools and weapons. That's cool. Boos and arrows. So it's kind of funny that I do that. And I grew up hunting and fishing. But, you know, hey, I'll be 42 in February and people still think I'm in my 30s. Man, shoot, dude. We just talked about it the other night. I mean, I was talking on the phone and I said, how old are you? And you said, 40, 41, something like that.

And I was like, you sound like you're 25, man. I was like, you sound young. Not that 40 is old. I mean, especially since I'm 36. I'm getting close to 40. It ain't old. I remember when I was younger, a competitive basketball player, I was like 25 and I would go.

I was in all these different leagues. And I remember this one place had, it was like a rec league, it wasn't anything serious. Okay. And this one place had other leagues and the one was 35 to whatever age. And I was like, man, I cannot wait until I'm 35 because I'm going to murder these dudes. And now I'm 36 and not even play basketball anymore. And I'm like, the thought of actually working out to get in shape to even compete is like, Uh, no, I'm good.

You know? I totally misjudged that one. That's awesome. Well, that's the show, everybody. I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you did enjoy it, please share the show with your friends. I don't care where or how you share the show. Just share the show if you enjoyed it because that's the best thing you can do to help the show grow. Thanks a lot to everybody for tuning in this week.

And until next week, stay safe. Take care. And remember the truth was such a free. But first, they'll piss you off. Bye.