Ep:81 Dogman In The Swamp

And right in the middle of the channel. It's a dog. It was
in the water, But what in the world is a dog doing out here?
It didn't seem right. It was a German shepherd looking ahead, but
it was dark, almost black. But what made me really do a double
take was its ears. It just had the longest, pointiest ears I've ever
seen. I was like, what is going on here? It just goes
rope on me, like it doesn't even glance at me. It was just
like I'm not even there, and it swims across to the far side.
It gets up into the tree line. I hear these popping noises, but
it was kind of gathering itself, and then it stood up on two legs,
and that's when it really took from not being a dog to something else.
And I'd had no idea what I was looking at. I would It
wasn't abnormally broad, but it had shoulders, and then it reached up with
its right arm and kind of steadied itself on one of the trees to its
right, and then I noticed those weren't paws, those more like hands.
It turned its shoulders about three quarters of the way and just looked at me
for about four or five seconds and I'm looking at it, it's looking at
me, and that's when I started getting that funny feeling in my head of
my stomach. What am I looking at it? And I'm still not really
terrified. I'm not even really scared. I just had no basis on what
to gage what I'm looking at compared to something else, and then it just
turned its head forward and then just starts walking off like a person. I'd
like to welcome Chris to Bigfoot Crossroads. Chris reached out to me fairly recently
and wanted to talk to me about an encounter he had in the swamps of
Louisiana. And after talking to him a while on the phone the other day,
I had to have me on the show Man. So welcome. Well,
thank you, Matt. I really appreciate it. It's great to be
here. And this is something that I didn't really start talking about until,
you know, I only spoke about it with my wife, and I'm not
I really didn't start telling other people until a couple of years ago. And
whether they believe me or not, I don't give a shit or part of
my friend, but it's just something that happened to me and it is what
it is. So nineteen eighty nine, I was just finishing all sophomore year
in college at LSU and decided to take a summer and work instead of do
summer school and ball and all that stuff. And there was an outfitter that
I was working for, and I really enjoyed the outdoors, like to fish.
I'm not a hunter, but I do fish quite a bit and still
do. So we what happened was my boss decided, you know, we
had canoes and all that stuff, and decided to take our rental canoes,
which I think we're either ten or twelve we had and they were nice.
Probably was owner or something, and went he had there was a local photographer
who's fairly well known with his outdoor shots, and decided, what would you
would be a good idea to take people down into the swamps and teach him
how to shoot wildlife. I'm scenery and stuff. That's a great idea.
We went down to pick the place that he liked called Bell River, Louisiana,
and it's a very small town mainly I don't think it's gotten more than
a thousand or two people living there, and it is a Cajun town.
You know, people speak French day to day, and you know, it's
just like you see on TV and movies. Is this uh like the southern
part of this date? Yes? Oh yeah, okay, So in Baton
Rouge, we're about ninety miles from the Gulf Giver. Take sixty to ninety
and so Bell River is about forty miles south of Baton Rouge. And then
you're basically part of the Chaffela Spillway system, the Chaffela River and and and
depending on what time of year, the wooded part of the swamp, which
is most of it or all of it really, it can vary from almost
dry too, you know, three or four feet even here. But at
this time it was probably late May, I would say early June, so
the water was going down from the winter floods and stuff. And are you
know the runoff And so Bell River puts on the inter Coastal Highway. If
you go to Google Maps, you can look at it and you'll see the
Intercoastal that runs across south that part of South Louisiana all the way to Texas.
I think I'm pretty sure it goes all the way to Beaumont, at
least I know it goes to Lake Charles. But so what they did during
the eighteen hundreds, especially the eighteen hundreds earlier part the twentieth century, they
were cypess trees were heavy, heavy demand for you know, building homes and
furniture, and still is. It's you know, one of the better woods
to work with and build with. It's a very sturdy, hard, you
know, hardwood, and it grows in the water literally, And so they
would cut these canals or you know buys well, I'll buy you, I
guess is a natural thing. But these were channels about one hundred feet wide
when they would be hauling this stuff out. And so those channels are criss
crossing all over the place. And like I say, you can see it
quite clearly on Google Maps. So I'm talking about you know, anywhere from
ninety two hundred feet wide and h then the rest is just woods. And
these were like dug out so they could like float the logs around exactly.
Okay, they would dredge them, so the boats and stuff, and you
know, because the stuff, you know, it doesn't float. I mean,
it's not like super buoyant. But you know, they would haul a
whole bunch of these things chain together, you know, so you had to
have some deep water. So that's why they dredge those. Well, then
they would cut in in these in between channels, like h cuts in between
these parallel channels going out to you know, one to navigate from place to
place in between channels, but to dump all the dredgings, which were mainly
h oyster shells basically, you know, fossilized oyster shells, you know,
white, it's like you see on the driveway. So we found one of
these shell islands which was about sixty seventy feet long, thirty feet wide,
you know, enough room to tie up the canoes. And I stayed out
there. And this is five miles out. We were five miles from the
landing. So one guy stayed at the landing to ferry people out in the
mornings, and I stayed at with the canoes. So the first night we
get there, it's getting you know, three four o'clock, and I'm set
up. And as it gets a little later, the maybe six o'clock,
the sun is just starting to go down below the trees or at the tree
level, so it wasn't beaten down sun. It was plenty of light.
And I've got my fire set up, I got a tent set up,
I've got food. I have a cold nineteen eleven side arm, because they
did say, you know, alligators do come up, not at night,
but during the day to send themselves, you know, being cold blooded,
and they do sit up there, but their mouths open and try to eat
themselves up. Well to worry about that. But I'm sitting down enjoying.
It's beautiful and just you know, the usual sounds that you hear out in
the woods and swamping, some things that you know at the time. Let's
see, in twenty I've probably lived in Louisiana for five years, moving here
from Colorado, so you know, big difference in not only culture, but
the outdoors completely different. Yeah, different, wildlife everything, yeah right,
wildlife, everything's different. But the one thing that does a lot of the
trees down here are coniferous, you know, you get the pine trees,
you know, like a panhandle Florida all the way through Louisiana into Texas.
So I'm sitting down and I'm just starting to get the fire going good.
I was gonna make something to eat, and I'm just enjoying it. Really,
they left you out here by yourself. You're completely alone out here.
Of course they did. You know, at the time, I didn't think
anything of it, But now I look back on like you were an idiot,
just not from anything besides monsters. There's just so many things that were
wrong with that. I mean, because that was before they even had those
you know, the good walking talkings that use. Yeah, so I guess
I could have shot up a flare or something. But but so something catches
my eye to my left and let's see, my left would have been basically
east, and it was in the water, and this little age cut in
front of me was not the normal one hundred of the foot wide of the
like the other channels, but it was probably about fifty sixty feet and right
in the middle of the channel. It's a dog. And that's was my
first immediate Well that's a dog. And then I was like, well,
what in the world is a dog doing out here? I mean, I
mean, it was just it didn't seem right. I mean, you're in
the middle of the swamp and here's a dog swimming around and alligator infested waters
basically, yeah, and going from one place to another. It wasn't like
he was in distress. Or anything. He has somewhere to go. And
it was a German shepherd looking head, but it was dark, almost black
really. But what made it made me really do a double take was its
ears. It just had the longest, pointiest ears I've ever seen. I
was like, well, that just what is going on here? That just
not seem right. That's what struck me the most was the ears. I
could see the end of it, the tail, and it was a big
dog what it looked like to me, maybe five feet on that should have
been Blinker number two, going, well, that's kind of big, but
it's hard to judge something that's in the water, like yeah, So it
just goes a rope on me, like it doesn't even glance at me.
It's like I'm not even there. And I was like, well, that's
just the damnest thing. And it swims across to the far side, which
to the tree line on the other side of the channel, which would be
from me maybe one hundred feet one hundred and ten feet, and it starts
it gets up into the tree line just right in there, just kind of
steps up. You can see, but the water and I wasn't sure how
deep the water was in the woods at all, so but it was obviously
deep enough to just come up where I could see daylight under its belly,
so it was up there, so I still, that's no way to gauge
how big the thing was. So then I start hearing all noises amplified,
you know, and dead quiet situations like that, and they're not dead quiet,
but you know, you can hear. And I hear these popping noises,
and I assumed it was stepping on sticks and stuff like that, but
it was kind of gathering itself, and then it stood up on two legs,
and that's when it really took from not being a dog to something else.
And I had no idea what I was looking at. I would It
wasn't abnormally broad, but it definitely had shoulders, not like a dog's,
you know, rounded shoulders, but it had shoulder And then it reached up
with one arm, its right arm, and kind of steadied itself on one
of the trees to its right. And then I noticed those weren't paws.
Those were more like hands. And I couldn't see him really super detailed from
but they were definitely hands and looked like claws at the end, not like
dog claws, but like, I really got a good look at the raccoon
about a year ago, and I was like, damn, that's kind of
what those hands look like. Raccoon hands articulated and than and you know,
nimble. And as it kind of gathered itself up, it was still facing
away from me. Then it turned around and looked at me. And it
didn't to turn its head all the way. It kind of I don't think
it could. It turned its shoulders about three quarters way and just looked at
me for about four or five seconds. And I'm looking at it. It's
looking at me, and that's when I started getting that funny feeling in my
pit of my stomach. What am I looking at? And I'm still not
really terrified. I'm not even really scared. I just had no basis on
what to gauge what I'm looking at compared to something else. It's a really
strange big dog. So it he I don't know what it was, if
boy or girl, but looked at me and then it just turned its head
forward and then just starts walking off like a person. It didn't walk funny,
like disappointed or anything, just very kind of at ease. It did
grab a few trees, because you know, it's God only knows what's it's
like underneath there, but you know, and so I have no idea what
it's feet looked like, if they were paused, or if they were like
its hands. I really don't know, now, you know, I think
about it would have been interesting to see. So he goes marching off and
I can hear it long after I couldn't see it, and just splashing away,
and then it just that was the last I ever saw of it.
Well, needless to say, after a good thirty minutes of thinking about this,
that's when I started getting scared. And then it starts getting dark,
and needless to say, I did not go to sleep that night. I
stayed up all night sitting by the fire, kept that going good, and
had that gun right there on my lap. If that thing, you know,
if it would have wanted to kill me, it would have got me.
No, there's nothing I could have done. It could have snuck up
on me in a thousand different ways, from different directions, and I think
when it was stomping away, it really out of its way. And as
this conjecture too, let me hear it, you know, made it quite
a bit of noise, but when it was in the water, it was
completely silent, absolutely silent when splashing or nothing like that. So I didn't
say a thing to anybody. I never saw it again, but I did
the next morning when we everybody was there. I was just getting loose and
was paddling around and I went to where it was. I knew exactly how
where it was because there was a pretty distinctive branch by its head that it
came just under. The paddles were three feet, so I stuck it down
on the water and then measured it up another way. I would say it
was seven maybe seven and a half feet tall tops. I've never been a
dog owner, boys had cats, but I don't know how tall dogs can
get, even the big ones. I'm sure the big, big, big
dogs can get pretty big, but I didn't say anything. Throughout the nineties,
then the Internet comes along, and I don't think it was until the
mid two thousands or early, you know, two thousand and five to two
thousand. Somewhere along there. I started listening to podcasts because I've always had
a lifelong interest in big foot. There was plenty of that to listen to,
but I'd never heard of a dog man. So that's what I've come
to figure out it had to have been. But when I would listen to
these stories online or read about them, or hear them, hear the stories,
this wasn't one of these nine ten eleven twelve foot tall, hulking monsters.
This was just a really big NBA BA basketball player, you know,
ranging not horribly muscular, but you could definitely seek tone. It was in
good condition. It was very dark, have no idea what the color of
the eyes were. And I hear a lot of stories where people say they
get this overwhelming sense of dread and doom and terror. None of that.
I think this thing just lived down there, whatever it was. How many
there are down there, don't know. But so I had an occasion to
go down that way fishing quite a bit, and oh maybe about twelve thirteen
years ago, it was in that area around Pure Part or something. I've
started asking around anybody ever talked about seeing big dogs out in the swamp?
And you mean and it took a few times, would have got to say
it to where I can understand what he was saying. He was saying,
oh, a rug rule a rue garu, okay, rue Guru, and
I think that's the Louisiana version of the Loop Guru, which the French version
of Werewolf or the when people the cagents came down from Nova Scotia. I
think they had brought that down and you know, things get louisiana ized and
so it's the rug So that's basically all I knew about that animal. And
they were you know, young that day out there, they out there and
like when you and I were talking, Yeah, they'll freely admit to that.
There's there are big foot sidings in Louisiana, in South Louisiana, mainly
North Louisiana is where most of the big foot stuff I hear about comes around,
you know, on border Texas, Kasachi National Forest, Fort Polk that
huge, you know, big tracts of government land. And but as far
as the dog been and Rugaru, that's what I'm pretty sure I saw.
It has to have been. But it just wasn't what you normally hear about
on when people talk about their encounters with these things that are huge and immense,
you know, creatures. It just it was big, but it wasn't
you know, that big. And I am firmly convinced that this thing could
go in on all fours into a town at night and nobody would blent bat
and eye except well, that's a big dog. And then there's things out
there that the fishermen and trappers won't even talk about. They don't it's even
bad luck to talk about them. And as far as I've you know,
there's vampiric type creatures that, you know, like not like interview with a
vampire and rice type, but weird creatures, you know, just stuff down
there, and right, you know, Louisiana's got such a long history and
not good, not all of it's good. But yeah, it's just an
interesting state and an interesting culture, and I love living here. That's why
I've stayed. But I'd prefer not to run across anything like that ever.
Yeah, uh, if you don't mind, I'd kind of like to throw
some questions at you, uh, mainly about just you know, what this
thing looked like. You know, I had asked you if it had to
tell and uh, you said yes. But it wasn't like a bushey teller
or anything. Well it wasn't because it didn't get out of the water.
It was still wet, and it didn't shake itself. Off like a dog.
It just got up and it was just dripping wet. Normally from animals,
most animals that you would think when getting they get out of water,
they shake off or they like to. At least this didn't. It did
have a tail, and when its enormous maybe three feet you know, in
proportion for its body, I guess it should have been a little longer.
But I don't know how much time they spent. You know, aren't tails
used for balance mainly when they're running and yeah, balance and signaling other pack
mates and things like that. I think, at least in the dog world.
Well, I don't know what else is I mean, it was day
definitely a cat, yeah, yeah, of that line. And then the
legs as much as you could see what we're going to call the leg they
definitely had hawks. They well for a dog, it had pretty big sighs.
I mean, well way too big. Actually. I did notice that,
like I say, it wasn't narrow like a dog. It did have
somewhat of a V shape, but not overly pronounced, you know, from
the shoulders down to the waist. But the hips weren't enclosed or encapsulated like
you would think of a dog, a dog having it was a little whider
at the hips, did have fairly large thighs, but it did have the
hawks. I did notice that that was what that was, probably, besides
the head, the only thing that made it resemble a dog. And you
said the head shape was very German shepherd like except for the ears. Except
for the ears. Yeah, the ears were I don't know why my mind
goes back to this animal when I think of the ear, But you know,
like a lynx, as I was really pointing curved ears. These ears
weren't curved in like that, but that's what it reminds me of. That
pointy were they like? Could you tell if they were like tufted like a
lynx, like a piece of hair coming off the ends of them or anything
that was too far away for me to see. Now, they were pointy,
but I couldn't tell if they were tought, I know what you're talking
about. Whenever it was swimming, what was the closest it was to you?
Would you guess? Fifteen feet? Oh? Wow? Yeah? And
it, like I said, it made really little noise at all. Actually,
but if it hadn't caught my eye, I probably wouldn't have seen it.
Until it passed me so very comfortable in the water, extremely and it
wasn't like I've had, you know, my wife would ask me, what
was it pressed stroking? Alright, you're talking like it's half man half dog,
and I was like, no, it at all. It was,
but you know, the waters are so dark, almost black. I did
not see anything off to the side. It was not breaststroking, I promise
you. It was dog paddling, and so you really only see the head
and the very back end. Yeah, very German shepherd almost almost black,
but not quite. But no other markings. It wouldn't, you know,
like I had streaks of the yellowish or anything like that in it. Right,
And whenever it turned back and kind of looked towards you, did you
notice any like eyeshine or anything like that. No, And if it if
it was, no, No, I just thought it was just dark eyes
from what I could see from that far away. Besides, the source of
light would have been to its you know, back when it was looking at
me, I would be looking into the sun. If there was any sun
shining, like I said, it was, you know, still bright out,
but not there's no sunlight. It was that that far down. Yeah,
So no eyeshine, no blowing or anything like that. That would be
interesting. Now. I did have a flashlight at night and I'd be scanning
and there's all kind of crap out there that has eyeshine, and I think
it was that, and I'm like, oh God, I just had to
unscrew that. I just stopped doing that, because you know, there's all
kinds of stuff out in the swamps that people just don't think about. But
there are larger animals in the trees. There, birds, there's you know,
big you know, like birds of prey, and that's when you start
noticing all the other wildlife. You're like, crap, if there's dat's down
here. I mean, you're usually thinking gator. That's the only thing you're
thinking. And you really see those anyway, they're pretty good at staying low.
And of those, you're only seeing their eyes. So did you ever
run across anybody else that had seen one of these things? Never? Now,
when I did ask these people years later about it, you don't just
asking about it. Have you ever seen one? No? My daddy did,
though, and my brother has, or from what I gathered, they're
not a problem as far as you know, killing people are even bothering people.
He did say that, you say, he said it was like something
to do with juju, kind of like luck. It's not the best of
luck to have seen one, but it's not gonna come back and kill you.
Now. They did say that they will go into people's camps and if
they have livestock, like small light like chickens. A lot of people keep
chickens and stuff like that, they will get those. And depending on the
season and how high the water is, you know, like like I said
it, in the wintertime, it's probably going to be dry, and there's
a lot of deer. There's not It's not like these things not gonna have
anything to eat at all. I mean, there's just plenty to eating swamps
and and then the neighboring towns. I didn't I haven't read or even heard
of people seeing these things in towns, but I'm sure it happens people in
the swamps in these towns. Even further south, you know, in Morgan
City and all that, they will they tend not to talk about stuff like
that out in the open. It's really the New Orleans touristy stuff we were
talking about that you know, they'll try to drum up. Yeah, but
no one goes looking for him. I don't think you could. I mean,
like what you're saying, just thinking for myself. If I heard a
noise at night, or just happened to be looking out my window or driving
down the road or something, and I saw what you're describing on all fours,
I would just write it off as large dog and just keep on going.
I wouldn't think twice about it, you know, exactly, unless I
saw it stand up or got a good look that, you know, had
shoulders. That might change things. But at nighttime, people aren't even going
to think about that. Now that's you bring up an interesting thing there.
I never really got a good look at it when it was on all fours,
so I didn't, you know, because one the angle was wrong because
it was more with its but right looking at me. But I really it
would have been interesting to see what it looked like profile was on all fours,
if like was are the shoulders hire or the black hire? You know?
Then I don't know. I mean, even whenever it comes to like
you know, bigfoot sightings. For instance, if you've got someone you know,
ninety eight percent of the population at least, if they're out camping with
their family or something and they see something large and covered in dark hair out
in the woods at night, they're just going to assume it's a bear and
not even like process that it might be a foot. Right, that's what's
going to pop into their head, right, Uh, It's always going to
default to the most likely thing, which in the woods a bear the faults.
Yeah, and I think that's probably what would happen in this scenario.
Now. It's something that I do find interesting about this Over the years,
you talking to other people from the area and then talking about you know,
the rugaru. You know, the folklore of that is basically a werewolf type
creature that implies like shape shifting and stuff. But right now, I don't
think that's the case. Yeah, they didn't. They never in English,
they would never say werewolf because I've always taken it the term werewolf, like
you said, implies shape shifting from man to beasts. I'd get the feeling
just the way the thing looked. That That's how it is all the time.
Yeah. Now, I've heard urban legends in New Orleans, and that
being some of the not so strange ones of them. They're being what do
they call it? Is it something opassy. There's a term for going from
man to wolf and I cannot remember the term. It's a very specific term
something opathy, you know, employing, you know, supernatural. And I
was telling you about if you go do east of Baton Rouge towards Lake ponta
train on the north shore just pass that, you got the Honey Island swamp
and there's they called the Honey Island Swamp Monster. And and you could remember
the name of the person out there, Harland somebody, Harlan Ford, and
I think his daughter still is out there. But he had that really good
I looked like super eight film of one going across walking that was definitely not
attainted because it didn't have the snow, but you know, walking just as
ease because that's just water. And you know, you know how harder it
is to walk in water, even halfway up here, and those things is
walking through it like it's nothing. And when they say the the island swamp
monster, implying that there's one, you know, there's not just one right
right, and and all along the Gulf coast from Louisiana then you go to
Mississippi to Alabama, to the Panhanda of Florida. It's pretty well known for
big Foot really, and but I just don't hear a whole lot about these
dog creatures or what you know, the arugaru or whatever they want to call
it, and they're part of the woods. But it just does not it
did not look like what I had heard later description of of these giants menacing,
you know, very aggressive beasts or you know, the beast of lbl
and what have you are. I think it's in your your neck of the
woods, I've heard. Is it Brown Springs? Yeah, Brown Springs.
There's a choctaw uh lusiphilia and it basically translates to long evil being. But
it's basically, you know, a dog man type creature, very aggressive,
very evil, that sort of thing. Well, you know, back before
they discovered the Lowland guerrilla there, if they were seeing these things, you
know, from the time of the settlers in the United States, they always
referred to them as wildman because they didn't have They couldn't say it was a
guerrilla type creature because they didn't know what a guerrilla was. And it wasn't
until you know, when did they discover the mid eighteen hundred you know,
eighteen fifties on when they started, you know, getting you know, verified
reports of these things and actual you know specimens. Okay, well, this
is almost looks like a man, doesn't it, But you know it's man
ish. So I think these things have been around just as long as Big
Foot has. But I guess I don't know. I mean, but I
know they have in Cajun tradition, and that goes back quite a ways.
Yeah, I think the orangutang as we call them, I know other people
are rangotan and everything else, but I think that I believe that even translates
to like old man of the forest or man of the forest or something like
that, right, And they spend primarily all their time in the trees.
There was a really good picture of a lady in Florida, South Florida that
took a picture something rooting around in the back of her yard and look like
it was buy some bushes and it was on two feet and it kind of
looked like a orangutang, but much more robust. But god knows what people,
you know, those zoos down there and things can get loose. But
this lady said this thing was eight feet tall, but it did look like
an orangutang. And there's so many different ways that the big foot can look.
Some look remarkably human, and others look very well neander, tall,
but even dark, you know, more ancient than that. Someone look completely
prehistoric. So it just it's so interesting to me. Like we were talking
about on the phone yesterday, you know it, we may not be dealing
with, you know, one or two things. There might be different things
that we're dealing with that are kind of getting lumped together as one, you
know, And it could be the same way with these creatures, these upright
canines. You might have seen something that's entirely different than like, you know,
the Beast of Bray Road or uh, something you might run across,
you know, up north. But I think that your story and your encounter
is very compelling, especially to someone like myself. Some of the details and
stuff that you were able to see and observe kind of lend some credence to
it in my opinion. Well, I wasn't trying to take down notes when
I was looking at it. Bizarre that you kind of remember, you know,
I would play it that night and the nights thousand nights afterwards. It's
not something that sits in my mind all the time, but you know,
it's something that it was clearly, it's set in my head that I know
exactly what it looked like, and I know how it differs from what I
hear on podcasts or shows or what have him. I was telling you when
I lived in Colorado, when we had just moved to Colorado, some of
the strays, I had no idea Bigfoot existed anywhere else. And like you,
I you know, shows that we liked in Search of and Arthur C.
Clark State Universe. I don't know how she even was able to get
her news director to let her do it. But Lynda moltenhow was at KMGH,
which was the CBS affiliate. And like I told you, my dad
wasn't broadcasting, and I grew up in the business and I knew, I
just I was more tuned to broadcasting than most you know, eleven twelve year
olds. And right when we moved there, once the first thing I said,
you know, I would watch the news every evening and it was a
four parter I think it was four parts on the cattle mutilations, and and
it was just I was like, well, what in the world why would
that happen. Everyone of course thought it was predators, but you know,
obviously she didn't think it was, or any of the people or the ranchers
there did not think it was. And my dad, who had been in
the Air Force, you know, back in the sixties, it was like,
well, it could be the government doing samples. And I was like,
well, samples of what, because well, they're down winds from a
lot of nuclear test sites from the fifties and they might want to be seeing
what animals have in their you know, and systems. And I was like,
well, why wouldn't they just go to test, you know, if
they wouldn't have to do it like that. But that actually kind of made
sense to me. You know, that wouldn't be a because the tissue samples
that seemed to be taken aren't places like the cord out anus, the tongues,
the pieces of certain parts of muscle, we're you know, heavy metals
and would be deposited in someone's built, you know body if it was you
know, something like that. But I don't know. I mean, do
I pretend to know anything about any of this? No? Do I like
to speculate, Sure, I do. It's interesting people think we are at
our apex apex of scientific knowledge, when we just really don't know as much
we did three thousand years ago. We've barely gotten our toes wed in terms
of understanding and figuring things out. I don't think we're anywhere near the apex.
Uh. You know, we were talking about the cattle mutilation stuff,
because I'm basically one decade behind you in age, and I remember the eighty
and even a little bit into the early nineties. You know, cattle mutilations
was a big thing, but you also had that was the time of the
big you know, Satan scare, whenever everybody was a double worshiper, and
that was starting to be put on the news all the time. And I
remember Haraldo doing his big thing. I'll tell you if somebody even made it
worth of Colorado was because dungeons and dragons had just gotten really pocket and that
really freaked out the parents. And I never was that creative to get involved
in that. But I have a lot of friends are and there's nothing devil
worshiped. If you were finding somebody that's doing devil worshiping, it's usually one
or two people. It's not like a coven of witches, yea or anything.
If they're going to do an animal sacrifice, yeah, they might slaughter
a goat or something, or a chicken. But I think devil worshiping,
how would you even get into that community and ask, hey, I'm in
the devil worship what about you? Not? Not a very good icebreaker,
I don't think. I think it would just be one or two people and
probably solitary. But you know, it's kind of it's kind of interesting because
a lot of that cattle mutilation stuff, that was another theory that it was
you know, double worshippers or whatever behind it. But I had a cousin
here in Oklahoma that owned a fairly big piece of land and had some animals
on it, and she actually had, you know, something happened to a
calf on her property. She found, I mean a mutilated calf in that
way, you know, like the very precision like yeah, it was like
missing the tongue and everything. It had. I want to say, it
had like a small incision of some kind on its stomach. Very weird scenario.
I mean I was just a kid whenever it happened. But her father
was actually a pretty well known judge in the state. So I'm sure it
was investigated thoroughly, you know, exactly, and she was loving out there
by herself, so I'm sure you know, they went above and beyond during
the investigation and everything. But it was it was brought up, you know,
and my family talked about it, so I know that it was definitely
kind of a strange circumstance type situation that happened. All right, We did
kind of touch on this. We were talking about how very very real voodoo,
hoodoo and all that is down here, and it is part of a
religion and it's not a Louisiana creation. This was brought from Africa, this
was brought from the Caribbean. And it's not like these famous touristy things in
the French Quarter that you're going to be running. These are regular people that
are practicing this. And sure some of it does call for goats, blood
and this and that. But you know, voodoo can go good and it
can go bad. You can. I'm a very, very very I do
not discount when it comes to someone's religion. I do not second guessing because
to them it's real and if it's real, to them, it's real.
Like I said, you don't blame a fart on a voodoo priests or you
will be for that. But it's just uh, And it's not in the
places you would think, you know, New Orleans being the touristy place it
is. Yeah, But out to my northwest, just a few miles maybe
twenty miles, twenty three miles as a place called Saint Francisville, just off
the Mississippi River. And that's for the murder Who Plantation is. And I've
just heard from more than one person that has been there and stayed there because
it's a bed and breakfast that just bizarre things happen. I'm talking not talking
like the hauntings where you see and apparition. A very good friend of mine,
this is back in the days of beepers. He and his brother got
a room there and they stayed there, and they both had their beepers,
you know, right there on the side they both It was a double bed,
I mean one of those big canopy beds, and they both slept in
it, and both of their beepers started going off at the same time for
like minutes and minutes and minutes, and all was coming across it were just
bizarre numbers. Not like six six six or anything, but just bizarre strings
of numbers. But they were identical on both things. And then shadows,
the shadow people that he said that it was all they could do to sleep
first stay there. They didn't sleep, They just stayed up all night and
as soon it was time to you know, have breakfast, and you know,
they got up and got out of there, but it just left a
very bad feeling in there their guts. Something wasn't right. And he goes,
this was I've seen ghosts before, and this is what he told me.
I've seen ghosts this had. This wasn't like that at all. This
was just weird stuff. It's just bizarre. I live in a very old
part of Baton Rouge downtown and it's you know, three hundred years old town
of Baton Rouge. And it's harder to find a place that weird stuff hasn't
had in a house than it is to find that nothing has happened, because
my house is very old, built eighteen early eighteen sixties. And you know,
I don't have horrible things happened, but things do happen. I've seen
a few things and it doesn't I always thought for sure that I would run
screaming out of a house, pulling my hair out if I saw a ghost.
And I've seen the same thing five times since we bought the house,
and this is going on seven years. It's a little girl. And when
we first moved in, the day we moved in, we had all the
doors open. It's springtime, it's beautiful, just getting stuff done. And
I'm looking down the hall and I see a little girl, probably seven six
seven years old. And the first thing I was like, well, she
was as solid as a rock. And I was like, well, hey,
how are you? And I said, sweetheart, there's a little growing
here. And because she wouldn't turn and look at me, she was looking
at the wall. Well, I thought it was well, she could have
been for all I could tell. She was looking in the bathroom, but
she went in, well hello, and she kind of crouched down. She
was about ten feet away from him, and she just fizzled away, just
dissolved like and not I missed, but just faded out. And she turned
and looked at me, and I was like, oooh that we did not
get that scared feeling. It wasn't oh my god. And so we had
seen her a couple of times later, always the same spot, never looked
at us, and I would say the dress that she was wearing like we
like, I said, it was like little rascals era that you know,
like the little cheap little dresses that they would wear. She had long dark
hair down to just past her shoulder, but never looked at us, but
just stayed away. So that's when I started looking into ghosts and what kind
of haunting. I mean, this wasn't like interacting with us at all.
And so they said, well, as close as I could figure, it
was what they called residual haunting. It's just an imprint on time and space.
Whether something bad happened, good happened, who knows. And then I
was like, why she's looking at the wall and then where I look into
that? Actually it was a neighbor. I didn't tell her about the ghost,
but he's like, well, you know these houses here, at some
point in these one hundred and six years or an hour old your houses,
the floor plants probably changed somewhats, So she may have been looking into at
her time a completely open room or a window or something, or out a
window. Yeah, exactly, have no problems with it. I've i haven't
seen learn probably eight nine months. But it's at the strangest times. It
can be people here, people not here. I did have two friends visiting
me from out of state and they wouldn't come back. They left, they
saw her, and when she fizzles away, they just left. So we're
going to go get a hotel, and it's like, well, Johnson's gonna
have and I promise. But yeah, the whole paranormal and interdimensional and how
spaces can be right next to ours just off by vibration. You know,
there's so many things that we don't know, and I firmly believe there are.
I've heard very credible people on some shows talking about they'll see a big
foot take off walking into what looks like just the densest thorn bush, you
know what I'm talking about, those things that I know they haven't a big
ticket with the big long, pointy thorns, and they just like dissolve into
it, like they kind of shift out of our dimension and just disappear.
Or it's like when those footprints or people be following footprints in the snow and
they just disappear. You know, it's just it's just it's so fascinating to
me, and my brother, who is much smarter than I am, has
he he goes, well, there are certain ways you could do that if
you start with string theory and he starts droning on and then I tune out.
I just don't understand it, but you know, it's fun to think
about. It's interesting. You know, I've got lupus and it's really affected
my joints a lot in the last ten years, and so I can't I've
always wanted to go out into the forests, and you know, I can
still get out in boats and stuff. But you know, actually, you
know, just walk around with the right frame of mind and see what happens
and what I see. I think it all has a lot to do with
your frame of mind. If you're outlooking for Bigfoot or anything from that,
I mean, any kind of cryptic if you've throw out good thoughts, you
know, maybe they will let you see them. I think it's entirely up
to them if they want you to see them, not whether it's paranormal or
not. They're just that good. I would like to talk to more dog
man witnesses. The Ruguru has always been a thing that's fascinated me. Man
I don't know if it's just because it's you know, Louisiana and that's kind
of close to Oklahoma or what, but all the crazy stuff that goes on
down there. Man, it's such an interesting state whenever it comes to like
legends and folklore and things like that. And to meet someone who has encountered
one of these creatures in the flesh, I just think it's awesome. So
I really do appreciate it. Well, I really appreciate it, and I
enjoyed it. And please don't hesitate to reach out to me anytime. I
love talking to you, oh for sure. Likewise likewise, and if you've
encountered something that you can't explain, maybe a rugaroo or a bigfoot or anything
at all, email me at Bigfootcrossroad at gmail dot com. Check out the
website if you get a chance bigfootcrossroads dot com. You can find links to
social media, a contact form to reach me directly, past episodes, and
links to merchandise. Everything you need all in one place. And until next
time, remember there's something in the woods.