Ep:105 The Bigfoot Hunting Grounds

As soon as I stepped into that space, I just felt like I was
no longer at the top of the food chain. And that's when I just
started to notice it's really really quiet out here. Yeah, everything got quiet
at the same moment. And then that's when I heard what at first I
thought was two sticks being knocked against each other. It was just a and
then I saw movement and heard a reply, another knock knock. Then one
more time over to the left, I saw movement and another knock knock.
I was really freaked out by that, didn't know what to do about it.
Then the movement starts moving towards me. I took a few steps into
the path into the woods and I put my hand on my knife that was
on my side. And the moment that I put my hand on my side,
they took notice of me. This is something that Chris and I experienced
together back in May of twenty nineteen, and it's not something that we talk
about to a lot of people, and more recently have and I think that
why are we talking about this Morgan now? Chris, I wanted to get
rid of like the shame and the stigma. I wanted to shed that and
not feel like I couldn't talk about it because people would, yeah, think
I was crazy for what I experience. So yeah, and I'm in the
same boat too, I guess of caring a little bit less about what people
think about things they may not believe. I trust other people's faith when it
doesn't drive with my experience. So maybe people listening to this will feel like,
oh, I've had something similar happen, or oh, this could happen
to other people. So we met in twenty sixteen through a group of friends
who spent a lot of time in the wilderness together, really people that were
trying to get more comfortable camping off the campground, you know, just being
able to go out and hike and find a place off trail and set up
and feel like you have the skill set to take care of yourself for a
few days off trail. And so that's kind of how we met, through
hanging out with a common group of friends who all had this interest got really
into like bushcraft and stuff like that. Right, So this was May twenty
nineteen. We had gotten together with a group of friends for the weekend.
We were practicing bushcraft, and we had spent Chris and I with a few
other people. Most of the morning of that day practicing like stalking. We
were barefoot in the woods, just really trying to go quietly and see how
well could we get through the woods without disturbing animals. And we were also
practicing throwing skills. We were using throwing sticks. I don't know if we
were doing slingshots then or not, but we had recently I'd had the experience
of catching and processing and eating a rabbit and it was one of the most
delicious and rewarding things, and we were really we were about learning to use
the whole animal. It wasn't it wasn't gratuitous, but it was it was
a thing that I had chosen to experience. And Chris and I were talking
about through this morning and early afternoon of stalking and throwing sticks that we kind
of wanted to go out and see if we could get ourselves a rabbit for
dinner. And so we were out in the wilderness. Now, this is
out in Mount Hood National Forest in Oregon. It's probably about asation as we'll
get. And so another friend of ours was there. I was like,
hey, I was out here last week. I know where there's a ton
of rabbits there. They're down by the willows and thickets, and I can
show you where I saw some some rabbit runs, right, and so we're
like, cool, let's go. So this is probably four, almost five
o'clock in the afternoon, like late afternoon, almost going to be early evening.
And yeah, so we were heading out in the woods. Chris,
what happened when we got out there looking for rabbit? Well, we went
out, yeah, looking for rabbits. I really I really wanted. I
hadn't had what Kin described as, you know, looking for rabbits, trying
to up my skills, So I was really attached to that. And we
went out through an area with a lot of BlackBerry bushes surrounded by a small
wooded area and a clearing. And once we got out there, we were
we were with our friend and he was like, all right, well,
let's have someone stay put in the center or outside of the woods, and
then two people go around this wooded area and kind of push the rabbits out
and see if one of us can get a rabbit. So that's kind of
where we were at when I was just stalking in the middle on the outsides
of the field, kind of waiting quietly, just trying to be as quiet
as possible because I just really wanted a rabbit. And Chris was perched like
right at the opening of a rabbit run with a throwing stick, and our
friend and I had gone opposite directions around the edges to just try to rustle
up some rabbits to send them running out the run so Chris could capture one.
So this was like our whole intent was to help Chris get this rabbit
and we could get it for dinner. So you stayed put. I stayed
put, and you were right there at the edge of what we're going to
call the willows. It's just a very thick area with maybe a U shaped
path that goes through. It has lots of twists and turns. But you
know, Chris, you were saying, there's all this as BlackBerry thickets too,
so it's really dense with some paths through. And as I was trying
to get around the north end of this thicket, my path quickly ran out,
so there was just nowhere for me to go to try to scare up
rabbit. So I came back to this U shaped trail that goes into the
middle of the thicket and I'm walking on the trail and I'm going super quiet
where barefoot out there, and I'm just I'm trying to see if I can
sense any rabbit, evidence of any small game. And I get to the
middle of this thicket and there's this like clearing in the middle of it.
And I'd never been in there before, but there's this clearing in the middle
of it. So I step into this clearing surrounded by the thicket, and
immediately the hair on the back of my neck, just like every hair on
my body stood up. Honestly it does right now if I think about it.
Like, so, there was just fear in the air as soon as
I got into the clearing, and I hadn't seen anything, but I felt
it for sure, and I felt I felt like I've heard people say prey
feels when it's being watched. Wow. Yeah. So and we're in the
woods and it's spring, it's easy elk, mama bear, there could be
anything out there, right, Like, we're not dumb. Happened, but
we're also careful. And I hadn't seen any evidence. There's definitely there were
elk tracks in the area, and this was a known area for you know,
there's some migration happening just where the lay of the land was. But
I turned around in this clearing, and I'm going to say I'm usually a
bad judge of distance. I'm going to say, twenty to twenty five feet
away from me on the ground is what looks like a little like a short
lean tube built with sticks, and under it some kind of creature is in
it. And I say creature because I could not identify what kind of animal
it was, And all I could really see were the eyes on it,
and the eyes were they were round, they were gold. They did not
have whites. It was like gold and brown. It was very dark from
what I could see there. The eyes that I could see looked too big
for an animal that would be able to fit under this small shell that I
saw it in. Like something about the proportion of the eyes I could see
did not fit with the size of the space that it was in. And
what I was getting at from, like the feeling I was getting was that
it was scared and I was in danger, and I had to go past
it in order to get to the trail to leave the woods. But I
kind of gave it a wide berth and I kept walking down the trail back
to eggsit the thicket. So you know, at this point I've seen something.
It seemed scared. It scared me, but this is to be expected
where we are and what we're doing. And I got back out to where
Chris was hanging out by the rabbit run, and at that point our other
friend also kind of started coming back, so we reconvened there for just a
second. I didn't say anything, like I saw something. It didn't seem
like so wild to me that it was something I was gonna mention because we
see things like that sometimes. And I didn't know Chris very well at the
time. We'd known each other in this group for a year and a half,
but yeah, we didn't really know each other at the time. I'm
in. So then we switch rolls, right, we switch rolls. I
didn't see any rabbits, so I was still hungry for them, and we
decided. Ken immediately was like, I'm going to stay here in the center,
and I was like, all right, So Ken kN stayed out right
by the rabbit run, and our friend and I we did exactly the same
route again. I took the route that Ken did up through the middle of
this thicket and it was. It was a really really slow amount of time
that I took to go back into that area. I was I was stalking.
I was just being as quiet as a mouse, as quiet as possible,
and I finally made my way through the twists and turns and made it
my way to the center of the clearing. And as soon as I stepped
into that space, I I just felt like I was no longer at the
top of the food chain. And that's the only way I can describe it.
I was in danger. I felt really scared, But at that point,
I was still feeling, uh, you know, new to being in
the woods with no one around me, So I kind of brushed it off
and I was like, yeah, I'm just being paranoid, Like we're fine.
There's there's nothing out here. Like if there was something out here,
you know, somebody would have saw it, somebody would have said something.
So I sat and waited. Nothing happened. So I just kind of pushed
into the other side of that clearing because there was a large stump and I
wanted to stand on that stump and have a good scene and look around at
the area because I could really it was kind of like the top of a
hill in a way where I could see all around me really well. And
that's when I just started to notice, hmmm, it's really really quiet out
here. Yeah, everything got quiet at the same moment, Like every bug,
every bird, every every backgrounds and even in the road in the distance
got quiet. I mean, it's the wilderness. I thought, Oh,
it's this is really Stranger's not any bird song at all. There's constant noise.
And then that's when I heard what at first I thought was two sticks
being knocked against each other. It was just a and then I saw movement
and heard a reply, another knock knock, and then one more time over
to the left, I saw movement and another knock knock, And by that
point I was like, you know, I'm thinking faster than I can speak
at this point, but it was, oh, a woodpecker is over there.
Wait, that's not what a woodpecker sounds like. Wait, why is
there a reply fifty feet away over in this corner. And by that time
another round had happened, where it was knock knock over here, knock knock
over here. And then by that point I had seen where the knocking was
coming from. There was like just slight movement in the bushes, and this
is BlackBerry briars that are taller than me seven feet up in the They're just
wild, right, So I was really freaked out by that. Didn't know
what to do about it. And then the movement starts moving towards me.
I could see clearly through the brush it was coming towards me, and I
everything in me said get out of there, so I high tailed it,
ran back down. It's a it was a curvy path through that thicket,
and I sprinted. I ran down that path because it it really freaked me
out. But right at the edge of the the end of the trail,
I kind of stopped and checked in with myself and I'm like, you know,
you didn't see anything. Nothing. I didn't hear a sound behind me
chasing me. I kind of just stopped and was like, you know,
I don't I don't want to freak out in front of my new friend here.
But then at that moment, once I stopped and took my breath,
right just directly behind my left ear was the deepest, like deepest guttural growl
right behind me. And I turned halfway around and there was nothing there but
that graul sent sent me out. I looked just enough to see there was
nothing behind me, and then I ran out of that trail and ran up
to the kin and you didn't really say anything. I didn't say anything.
I mean, you saw and you were like, are you okay? Because
I know I probably looked wild in the eyes or something, because I was
so scared at that moment. You look shaken, but you didn't say anything.
And our other friend had not come back yet. And meanwhile, while
Chris is in there hearing this and kind of getting scared, I'm also hearing
that same tapping communication. But I'm outside the thicket because I'm the one watching
for rabbits to run out. But I also can see at the same time
the movement in the high like thicket and hear where the tapping's coming from.
And then saw Chris come out, looking concerned but not saying anything. So
neither of us at this point I said anything. Chris takes the spot right
next to the rabbit run again, and I take a spot maybe twenty five
yards behind Chris. Yeah, I said, let's just wait for our friend
to come back, like maybe he'll know something about it. He had more
experience, Like, let's just wait and see what happens. I need to
calm myself down and just kind of sit. So we were waiting for a
while. Still everything's quiet. Our friend has n't come back. I don't
know how long we were there. I always say it was like forty five
minutes. Chris says, I'm thinking that that's a lot longer, Like that's
a lot less time than that. So somewhere less than that, I noticed
Chris visibly agitated. We've been sitting quietly for a while. I'm twenty five
yards behind them there by the tree line. I'm kind of in safety zone,
and Chris looks agitated because I guess you heard it sounded like something coming
up on you. Rat. I just, I mean, I silly had
my back to where I had just been run out, and but I just
I've just felt something was behind me. Still. I kept hearing something just
but just just a whisper, just absolutely nothing for me to be enough to
like stand up and go and look it. I just kept turning around because
and that's what I saw. I just saw you kept looking behind you,
looking behind you like something was there. And so my instinct was I like
did a wide flank, so Chris is there getting agitated. We've heard this
knocking, We've seen some stuff moving in the brushes. We both had something
weird happen inside the willows but hadn't talked about it. I take this wide
flank down to the other end of the U trail. But basically I'm triangulating
in my sight where Chris is on the outside of the thicket and into the
thicket in the area where we can where Chris is sensing this movement. And
this is about dusk now, and I'm looking and it's like I'm looking through
trees and the light's not full, but there's a lot of trees, and
it's spring, so not all growth is in, but some of it's in
that I'm looking through layers of vertical branches and like some thicket, and it
looks to me like there's a there's a big animal out there, for sure,
and it's moving towards Chris, but it's still at the moment, and
I can see a little bit of it around the side of one tree,
and I can see a little above it of around another tree. But it
shouldn't like the distance was too big to be an animal that could be like
partially obstructed by these two trees in where they were to each other. But
I was like, must be a huge freaking elk, because as one of
the pieces parts of it moved, the other one moved at the exact same
time. And I could still see these two parts of what I thought was
the same large animal moving behind the trees. And then as they it moved
and it was not one, it was two, and it was moving.
It was like two animals moving in sync with each other from like almost like
tree tree moving towards Chris a little at a time and not moving with any
kind of like gait that you could see. And so they were the glott
Chris is pulling up a picture because I sketched it. When you know,
shortly after this happened, we wrote it all down and sketched it. So
Chris just pulled up an image I sketched. But that's when I saw two
things moving. They they were standing up right. I could clearly see that
it was two creatures. I'm guessing they were seven feet tall, but they
were kind of hunched over. They were absolutely acting like they looked like as
if you were people hiding in the woods. They were. They were visible
around the edge of the tree and then would move at the same time.
But they didn't move like walking or running or jumping. They moved like sliding.
So I couldn't tell exactly what it was. But I took a few
steps into the path into the woods and I put my hand on my knife
that was on my side. And the moment that I put my hand on
my side, they took notice of me and they looked at me, but
like they their bodies turned and faced me like they it was like they spun
or something like they I don't know how to say it. They just turned
towards me. I had my hand on my knife and they how do I
just they faded away. They slid backwards and sort of just disappeared into the
dark amongst the trees and the willows and everything, like I saw them clearly.
The next picture I drew is your stereotypical sasquatch outline, Like you know,
you saw that. I had no doubt and I had no experience with
this, but I was like, I just I think I just saw big
feet. You know, there was two of them, but they they went
away, and I was freaked out and also like I'm losing my mind came
back out. We'd been there for a while. No, I didn't say
anything to Chris, but yeah, so we were like, well, what
happened to our friend? Chris called? We had cell reception out there,
and we found out that he had gotten a call. He had to go
back into town, like he left. So at the point the last time
we had seen him, he was walking to scare some rabs for us and
then got a text or a call and he left, so he was back
in town. So we went through our evening. We didn't talk about it
at all. We went through dinner. We had a campfire with everybody,
and I think we were clean enough after campfire and we found ourselves alone together
by that little table and you want to talk about that, yeah, I
mean it was we came back to camp just quickly with no words. That's
it's pretty pretty strange for us. I'm a friendly person, I talk a
lot, but we we really neither of us talked on the way back through
camp talk. It was a very quiet dinner. Afterwards, Kin came up
up to me and was like, so, what what happened? I saw
you ran out the end of the trail. What what happened? What did
you experience? I told him everything I just told you, and then he
started saying, well, if you what was behind you, you know what
was there. I didn't say anything about what I had experienced. You were
just telling me you have and then kept pushing me, Well, if you
had to put a name to what what you thought happened, what we what
you thought was there behind you? What? What would you put a name
to it? And he just kept pushing and kept pushing. I didn't want
to say it because I was just I felt crazy, you know, And
finally I just I just said it. I said, I think the only
only thing I think that it could have been was a sasquatch. I I
don't know, I've never been more relieved to hear somebody say something they thought
was crazy, because that's exactly I mean. When I saw what I saw,
I was like, I have no doubt that's what that is. And
I want to say too, like I'm telling you about how they were gliding,
We're telling you about the knocks and stuff. But I'm in my late
forties. Before this, I didn't I mean, I knew i'd heard of
sasquatch, yet any bigfoot, you know, like Harry and the Henderson's,
But I didn't know anything about like details of Sasquatch. It wasn't something I
was into. But when the thing, when it got silent out there,
when the tapping was going on, whatever I saw with eyes, I don't
know if it was, it wasn't related. But then when I saw the
two of them standing there and they pulled my knife and they spun around and
looked at me and left, like, I have no doubt that's what it
was. And so then as we started learning more and just talking about it
more, and we immediately, like within days, wrote down our experience and
we're sketching and we have a map of the place and stuff, and we
have been back a few times to just respectfully check it out, not to
try to like be on a hunt or a lookout again, but just kind
of we feel like and special happened, and we don't know why, and
we don't know why we were in that place at that time, but it
was pretty formative in the sense of, you know, opening both of us
up differently into things that we believe are possible, just based on that experience.
And I know that's what faith is for most people. And I think
it means different things for both of us, but it definitely also like cemented
our you know, friendship now over these last six years since then, Yeah,
and just recently we've been talking about it more and having a little more
of a you know what, there's other people who have experienced things like us.
They might like to hear that other people do too, and you know,
share a story with people who are interested and might have some thoughts about
it and feel, like you said earlier, Chris, less like shame for
somebody thinking you're crazy because you had an experience or have a belief that they
can't understand. And that's kind of bs. So we thought we'd call you
up and talk about it. Uh. I don't know what to do with
that, Matt, But yeah, the first thing that comes to mind both
sides, the podcaster side and the old researcher side, in me this story.
Your experiences are a really big deal. There's a lot of information to
unpacked, especially experiencing all these things and not knowing that these are commonly reported
trades of bigfoot. Send me a podcast shortly after. I don't remember which
one, but I listened and the first or I listened to, I was
just like, holy crap, Like they couldn't have described more perfectly. And
I'm putting words to it now that I got from other people afterwards talking about
their gate. I wouldn't have thought of it that way. But they slid,
they floated, they faced not it wasn't walking, or if it was
walking, it had a different kind of skeletal system than Also, I don't
know where do I even begin. I mean, the passe stability that you
saw, a small one under a structure. I'm so conflicted about I have.
That's the thing that I have like not second guessed myself about, but
I have been back to that spot so many times to try to unpack that,
because yeah, it all right. Can I just tell you what I
rationalized it to be absolutely absolutely okay? And this might get convoluted, so
you cut me off. But Chris has has been You've been out to this
area before I was new there. You've been out there before you actually I
had never seen the clearing, but you had, and you had pictures of
the clearing from photos you've taken with other people from some months before. Okay,
you know where I'm going with that is that? Okay? Can I
talk about it. Yeah, Okay, So when I saw whatever it was
underneath, the structure that it was under was like the size of maybe a
coffee table, right, it was like a lean to that was a coffee
table height. So when I saw the eye and what would have been the
shape of the head of what was under there, it was more to me
like somebody was standing in a seven foot deep hole poking their head out of
it. Okay, then and then there was something small crouched there. That's
how as I played that back in my mind over the next like seventy two
hours and went back there, that's what I just it just it didn't seem
like something small curled up or it was small with really big eyes. It
just didn't seem proportionally right that it could be something small, unless you know,
I've heard since that people think sasquatch are shape shifters. Maybe that maybe
it transformed its shape. I don't know, but that's that is a piece
I'm It emanated like it stared hard. It emanated fear and danger and like
I've never had the hair on my body stand up like that. Let me
ask you this, Yeah, could it have been laying down and just from
your angle. All you could see was the head. Absolutely, I've never
thought of it like that. It could have been laying on its stomach looking
up. It could have been laying on its side with its head. Yeah,
I've never thought of it that way, but yeah, it absolutely could
have. And here's here's the other weird thing. The reason I brought up
the photos that Chris had from months before. The next morning, we went
out there with a few other people just to walk out and we wanted to
check out the scene. And that little structure was like gone. It was
thrown off into the bushes like it had been strewn there forever, like there
was no evidence that it had been constructed where I had seen it the day
before. And some time after this, some weeks or months after this,
Chris came across the photos from being there months before and had a photo with
that structure where I saw it the size that it was, and that was
back in Like, was it it was in the winter. We were doing
this in May, and it was sometime in maybe January February you had that
picture from No, it was from October October, Okay, Anyway, the
shelter had been there for that little shelter had been there for a long time,
but the morning after or when we went back, it had been kicked
off into the brush and totally dismantled. You guys are out there, for
lack of better terms, practicing bushcraft. Correct. Yes, yes, so
I would assume that whenever you say you saw a lean to or a structure,
you saw something that something built and it wasn't just like a pile of
brush. Absolutely, it was a it was constructed, it had joints,
it had it was it was meant to be. That Was it similar in
design to any specific type of bushcraft structure that you know of, I wouldn't.
I wouldn't say so. I mean, if it was larger scale,
it could be something out like it could, but it was just it looked
like it looked like a small lean to. It looked like a shelter for
a big cat. It looked like it looked like a shelter for a rain
shelter for an animal. If I had to say, I would say it
looked like something that held like fire wood and kept the rain off of a
small stack of firewood. So maybe somebody put it there to protect firewood if
they were camping out there or something I don't know, but yeah, it
was definitely constructed. It wasn't a naturally occurring pile of logs or sticks.
And whenever you saw the thing, the eyes Yeah, no sort of movement,
no sounds, no smells, nothing like that. No smell, staring
straight at me hard, no blinking, fear and danger. That's what it
was. I mean, I think it was maybe pheromones, but I didn't
smell anything. Yeah. They also specifically, we had an advantage for rabbit
hunting because it was a very windy day. Oh right, So I was
when I was like hiking up the trail or you know, sneaking up the
trail, I was moving with the wind. So we had it was it
was very windy. And that's something I've thought about too, is like we
didn't encounter smell, but you were rabbit hunting with sticks, and you you
managed to take a rabbit with a stick. Is that correct? I have
before? We did not. That day. We were not successful. We
went back to I don't know what. We probably had ramen for dinner.
I just met it in general because I mean I have been rabbit hunting before
with a gun. Yeah, and it was extremely difficult with a gun,
So kudos to you for being able to accomplish that. That's amazing. Thank
you. The two that you saw creeping stalking, whatever they were doing,
yeah, you talk about them spinning around. Yeah, And you were also
talking about their movement was more of a glide or a slide as opposed to
bouncy steps like humans take. And you said that they were moving in unison
with one another. Absolutely, I thought it was an I thought it was
an elk at first, because I thought I'm seeing the front and back of
an elk moving and right, it is obstructed by trees. But that's not
what it was. Whenever you put your hand on the knife and they turned
towards you. Yeah, was the movement synchronous. Yes, that's so creepy.
It was. And it was the moment I touched my knife, I
mean I and I didn't pull it out even I just put my hand on
my hip because I was like, I don't know what that is or what's
about to happen, but it is definitely moving towards Chris and I'm over here
and I put my hand on my knife and they just spun looked at me,
and I stepped backwards and they faded away backwards like that is like,
and then we left. Now do you mean they disappeared from view? Or
do you mean they disappeared there? They disappeared. There's no there's there.
I don't know how tomore. They're not just obscure it or hidden. They're
gone. They looked at the same at the same time, it seemed like
all of these things were happening. They were gliding backwards, they were getting
smaller, and they were moving through the trees, not around them, like
they just faded away, moving backwards and getting smaller, and they were gone.
And I was gone, Like I didn't once I saw them start fading
back like that, and I was like, what the is this? Like
I just that's when I just I just stepped out of the woods. And
we were like shaken, and like, hey, let's see if we can
call our friend and let's get that up because we still don't I mean,
we still you know, we're not talking about any of this the whole time
untill like four hours later. What color were they The way I described it
before was it seemed more like a black hole than like a furry color.
It was like it was really dark and it was dusk, and it was
in the trees, but they were like dark dark, Like I've seen a
bear in the woods, black bear in the woods from a distance, and
it has that kind of matte finish to it, like you can kind of
tell the critter. It had that sense of like it seemed like fur,
but it just looked so dark and like the silhouette that everybody draws on the
bumper stickers and whatnot, like that was pretty active. I remember you said
it was the deepest, darkest, blackest black you've ever seen. Yeah,
And as I'm thinking about that, when I saw whatever was under the cover
in the clearing was like more brownish to it, like definitely more like a
darker brownish to it. Yeah, So they were super dark. Were you
able to see any like eyes or facial features or anything like that. I
can't describe the facial features, but yes, And I saw them one other
time. And the one other time I saw was at a gas station in
Washington, and somebody at this gas station they had a bunch of local people's
art in there, and everybody was doing sauce watch art, a bunch of
magnets and mugs and paintings and things and I was like fake, fake,
fake, fake, looking out all of them, and then I got to
this one and I was like, holy shit, because this one artist had
drawn on this magnet like their features exactly. How can I describe I don't
have a good drawing of that. You've got the eyes down, but ivess
you before You've asked me to retail those features, and I can't describe it,
but they the eyes were perfectly round. When I saw the smaller under
that shelter, it was like that golden brown, no whites, just like
brown and pupil Chris, how did you unpack all of this mentally? I
mean after you got home and everything, processing all the information and everything that
happened, Like what were you thinking? I mean, that was why I
wanted to go sit down at the end of the trail. I needed to
process and figure out what the heck just happened and why I was growled at.
But there was nothing there because the fear it instilled in me, it
just really affected me. So I think I sat there in shock for a
bit, just kind of running over what happened. And at that point I
think I'd seen maybe a stray episode of something on TV, you know,
I was. I was a full blow and skeptic at that point that I
believe that you know, if if they, if sasquatch existed, we would
have caught it on a camera. We would have you know, one would
have turned up, and we would have a body, we would have some
evidence. I was totally convinced that they didn't exist, and then I had
no other explanation. I was. There wasn't an elk, there was.
I went home the next day, talked to her friend that had a lot
of wilderness skills, and she made me listen to every single growl of every
single animal we can think of, and nothing was. Nothing was that deep,
Nothing was that guttural. Nothing, nothing came close, honestly, and
I I was just in shock still for a long time. I really,
I had no idea what to think. I was out of options. Whenever
you heard the growl, you mentioned it was behind your ear. Do you
mean it was literally behind your ear, like growling into your ear or just
on that side of you, back behind you somewhere. I didn't feel anything.
I wish I could say I felt breath, but it was it had
to be right behind me. It was so close and my left ear.
It was so strong, and you know, nothing on my right side picked
up, so I felt like it was just just right there behind me.
That's so creepy. That's super creepy. I mean, nobody knows for sure,
But what do you think was going on that day? Whenever you guys
encountered this, Why do you think they were doing that? Running you out
there, behaving the way they were. Have you formed a story in your
minds about what played out that day? Yeah? My theory is, uh,
we went out hunting and they were out hunting as well. I think
the area we were in was probably a great funnel for catching an ELK.
I believe you know, our two groups were being as quiet as possible,
and then we intersected, and they I one hundred percent know for certain,
if I if they wanted to hurt me, if they wanted to do anything
to just take me out, they could have. I feel like we were
very obviously pushed out of an area, so maybe they could hunt, maybe
they could get their own dinner. Uh, that's that's what I think.
I Yeah, we've we've we have talked this through so many times over the
years about like what and why and how and the whole fact that is an
area, you know, a migratory area on near a mountain that you would
have a lot of game going through. Makes sense just as it would if
these are migratory animals. Wherever they're coming from and wherever they're going, maybe
this is also a migration path or time for them, and we happen to
be in the the same place at the same time. I don't I don't
know the way they moved in the way they disappeared. I just I don't
know where they went. I want to know where they went. And then
of course I've had plenty of now time to talk with folks or listen to
different stories I've heard, and you know, people talk about sasquatch and other
beings being able to live in multiple planes of existence that maybe we can't sense,
And so I've thought about that a lot, Like was it a time
of year in spring and a place on the rolling kind of slope of the
mountain at a dusky time of day, which is all kinds of transitions,
that some kind of veil was just thin enough and they popped through to eat,
and so did we? Like I don't know, but I believe sasquatch
are multi dimensional, and that's how they're able to move. And that's purely
from my experience of something being directly behind me, turning around and there's nothing
there. There There is no physical way for something to move away that quickly,
and given Kin's description, that's my theory. You know, there is
there. There is one piece that I It's not like another thing that happened
with the sasquatch, but what I might have done to piss it off that
very first time when you were on the watch and I had gone around the
north side and saw like I couldn't get much further. I was throwing pebbles
into the willow thicket, into the area that then I was walking into.
I could have very easily nicked somebody with a pebble and just kind of like
set off that whole irritation. But that was one thing I was I was
doing to them if they were in there. You know, nobody knows anything
for a fact, which you know causes a lot of problems whenever we're discussing
this subject. Yeah, right, But there are some people out there that
believe and I happen to be one of them. Interestingly enough, the type
of hunting that you guys were doing that day. I believe Bigfoot hunt in
a very similar fashion. I believe they oftentime use a multiple end of it
jewels to flush game into another area where they are ambushed by waiting bigfoot,
which is exactly what you guys were doing. Wow. And now you say
that you were throwing pebbles, which is another thing that they do. Oh
is it? I mean you guys were out there barefoot, behaving like Bigfoot.
Yeah. I don't think. I definitely realized that that's just how we
were trying to get dinner. I mean, I don't know if that played
into anything that you experienced that day or not, but it's kind of an
interesting note. I think it does play into it because we were trying to
be as quiet as possible. We weren't the typical human just come stomping in
and let me go look at this, and let me go see and if
there is any sign over here and just stomp through. Okay, there.
We were being as quiet as possible. Yeah, like as quiet as possible
trying to sneak. Yeah. And in terms of body language, I mean,
you were a predator and you're not carrying you're not carrying guns. You're
not carrying weapons like they would normally see humans used, you know, when
hunting like that. So I can see several reasons why that would definitely get
their attention, uh and maybe caused them to react the way they did.
Without giving too much detail, of course, how did you guys find this
spot exactly? Yeah, Chris is given me the don't give away this area,
so I'm not gonna gi Yeah, don't give away the area for sure.
This Uh. A group a group of friends that we had in common,
had used the space before, just for like you know, group outings
and stuff. It was just a place in Mount Hood National Force that they
liked to go, and we just were there and they're like, oh,
yeah, there was rabbits down here last weekend, right down here. So
is it like just a in a place that someone found at some point or
is it like a place that's like a public location that people go to.
It's a It's a place that someone found at some point and through taking their
friends there, we both kind of randomly ended up in that group of friends
and came to that spot like I know it by GPS coordinate the U shaped
trail that leads into the thicket that you're talking about, Is that a human
trail it could have. I mean, definitely there had been people on that
trail before. I would say seemed like game trails, and there were.
This is one of those things that like I didn't know to look for until
we went back different times. Was many of those the game trails, Like
if you got off the biggest game trail, they were like blocked with what
looked like small trees have been pulled down into like an X shape to block
your path. I never like thought to look for it. But after I
did, we went back and we're like, oh, there's places where it's
like, what's down this smaller game trail and then there's like an X are
blocking you. And then we came to respect the fact that we weren't going
to go down there. I mean, I feel like that's been part of
this experiences. We had all of these things, and we noticed all of
these things and wrote them down and then learned about them, and then went
out and saw saw other stories and heard these other things, other coincidences.
It seemed like that couldn't be coin sentences. What kind of things have you
guys found after the fact, going back out there. Well, that first
time we went, we felt like their work. We went deeper. We
went during the daytime. It was just the two of us. We went
during the daytime, and we were trying to like recreate our steps and see
what was going on. And we went further down the trail, like instead
of running out. We went past that clearing, and if you remember,
there was a few places where it seemed like is that a downed tree or
is that of like really rough kind of habitat like protection it was, but
none, no, no human constructed stuff that we found, but just there
were some places where it was like the way the bark was leaning, the
way the big piece of bark was leaning, the way these couple of things
had fallen, looked like too conveniently, like a place to lay down,
but it wasn't like man made. We tried to see it. We thought
we saw a partial footprint, but I think we just wanted to see that,
honestly. That next morning, yeah, we're not sure, we don't.
We didn't get a cast of anything, but it was like the place
where I'm where I feel like they were when they spun to look at me.
We went into that area and that's where I was like, is that
a big heel? Or is that? I think that was just me wanting
to see it really not sure. Yeah, it's so difficult once you have
something like this, whenever you go back into an area or just in the
woods in general. Yeah, you know, everything starts to stand out as
like, oh this could be a track, Oh this could be a structure.
It's so difficult to kind of you know, yeah, check your self
and not get carried away. Well, and your brain is designed to see
patterns, right, and so then when you want make things seem logical or
fit a narrative that makes you feel less insane, then you're going to see
stuff that fits your narrative, which is another reason I think we haven't talked
about it, right, Like, I mean, I know, I'm we're
talking to you now, and you have an episode and where we chose that.
But you know, I hate being introduced to a group of people as
my friend who has a sasquatch story, right, Like, I don't tell
me people. I only tell people if I go camping with them. That's
my new thing. If somebody says, hey, I heard you've seen a
sasquatch, I'll say I'll tell you if we go camping sometime. But it's
not a bar story, but I guess it is now we just told it
on a podcast. What kind of reactions have you gotten whenever you've told your
friends and family or whoever about this. I've only told close friends or people
I felt like I could trust the story with, and remarkably I was met
with a lot of understanding and belief. Honestly, I you don't know how
many people actually, like know somebody that's known somebody, or you know,
just believe that they actually exist. I have run into maybe one critic,
someone who didn't believe and felt, I mean felt the exact same way like
I did. Of Oh, if if they existed, we would have gotten
it on camera somehow. But really, what is significant there is after we
had our experience in the same area, a few months later, a mutual
friend and their friend went out and they had almost something something very similar happened
without without us having talked to each other and known each other and shared the
story with each other. They they also had an experience where there was one
person that two figures were tracking were, you know, watching and moving and
staying and hiding behind and then a second person off further away, could see
and was watching these two figures move in accordance with the with the first person.
Is that the person we were talking about earlier today, Okay, there's
there's been more that's happened in this area. Uh, and and that's that's
been kind of a nice confirmation, you know that this wasn't just uh,
it wasn't just nothing. Yeah, I told somebody who's got a big mouth,
and they blabbed it to a group of people one time, so then
I was known as that person. And so there's a handful of people who
I was like, kind of like felt like I had to tell it.
I didn't have to, but I felt like I had to, And I
think I get For the most part, people are like, I don't disbelieve
you that you think you experienced that, and I don't find you to be
generally lacking your mental faculties, so I don't think that like, you know
whatever. So they were finding me to feel a credible human, but just
a general disbelief of a couple of one friend who I told right away,
who was very excited and got me in touch with her brother who is like,
never had an experience, but his way into this stuff, and he
turned me on. He's actually he's the one who sent me a map of
the area because I gave him. I told him, I told him to
coordinate, and he sent me the map and that's why we started drawing on
this map. So a couple of supportive folks, my family, my kids,
and my wife. I think, uh believe or want to believe me.
My parents laugh at me. I've gotten a lot of the same type
reactions from people, especially the one where I believe you believe you saw something.
Yeah, there's nothing more condescending than that. It's again one of those
things you have to experience it for yourself exactly. That's the only way.
That's the only way. Whenever I had what I call my first sighting the
night before that, I had pebbles thrown at me with a group of people.
We were all there together, and I mean, it wasn't a hallucination.
The pebble actually hit the hood of a car and bounced up and hit
me, coming from the direction of the woods. And I mean for the
rest of the night and the better part of the next day, you know,
Okay, Well, I'm trying to rationalize that rock throwing incident, knowing
that there's not animals that can throw rocks, and there was no way there
was a person out there throwing these rocks. Absolutely no way. I know
where I was and there there's nobody out there. Yeah, but still it
didn't matter. I wasn't convinced by a rock being thrown at me. It
really takes, you know, a sighting, really, you know, throw
you over that line. I feel super lucky. I think that's one thing
that's been out of this. I feel like it was a I mean,
like you, I didn't ever hear it or think of it like you did,
about how we were kind of behaving like them, blending in. I've
always just taken away this feeling that we were incredibly fortunate to tap into the
ability to see your experiencing something that most people don't, and I don't know
why, and I don't try to seek it out again. It's not the
first time I've had some type of what probably most would call paranormal experiences.
So I think there's some people I know who are like, oh, yeah,
of course you've had this happen, you know, because I've had a
couple of other experience of my own and I don't know. It's a it's
comforting to me that we got to experience that, because there it's like confirmation
that there is more than what we see, which we already know. But
to have the opportunity to be able to have an experience that you had right
in your left ear, yes, yeah, it's shocking. The synchronous movement
that really creeps me out. That the mental image of that really creeps me
out, even though I didn't see it. These things would have to have
some sort of psychic bond to be able to do that. I mean,
that's my train of thought here aste or it would have to be like projecting
itself. Yeah, something something's going on here. Unnatural. First, the
movement was absolutely unnatural, which is why I was like, that's not an
elk, Like I know how it elk moves, even when it's moving through
a tight area of trees, Like, that's not it. And they don't
haves and a head and arms down to their thighs and stands fall separate bipedal
beings, you know, like and not to be sinister, but you were
observing these two things creeping up towards Chris. What I think they my interpretation
is they had no idea there was two of us because of the way,
or they thought there was two of us and didn't know there were three because
the way that we kind of organized our time and our positions was Chris and
I just basically alternated who sat in that spot and who was walking around,
and our third friend walked off and left. So if they just didn't catch
I mean, I'm not I haven't gone that far into thinking about it,
to be honest, but I think they were surprised to see me, and
it was I feel like they picked up on whatever I put out because my
fear instinct as they moved towards Chris was to reach for my knife, and
that is when they spun, like they they sensed me, and I think
there was a get the hell out of dodge, we've been spotted. That's
how like the whole thing seems to be. How far from Chris where they
went over that happened, That's a great question. So Chris helped me out
here because they were halfway between the clearing and you. So what is that
like twenty five feet yeah? Maybe thirty feet away? Yeah, yeah,
through some thick brush blackberries? Is this BlackBerry thicket. Yeah, but when
our blackberries out, blackberries and like willow willow, and I mean thick wild
brush. You know you can't walk through blackberries. Oh no, I've tried.
You will jack yourself up. I mean we went out when's the most
recent time we went out there? Just like two weeks ago, three weeks
ago, because we were talking about this and it all looks very different and
has grown up differently and all of that. But the area where I wanted
to see a footprint, in the area where you know, it looked like
they turned and disappeared. We had to practically army and crawl to get to
because of how thicke it is. Now. It's been a long time,
right, it's been six years. And whenever you were observing the two,
Chris, did you have any idea what was going on? Did you know
they were there? I kept sensing something behind me. I kept feeling,
I kept hearing, I kept turning around. And that's what made Ken stand
up and go look off to the side. Is I just I was trying
to sit there and center myself and really come down and like process what had
just happened. But I could not because it felt like every thirty seconds,
there was just something behind me, and I just kept turning around and trying
to see and trying to look, and yeah, I didn't know anything was
there, but I knew something was there. It's so unique and interesting hearing
you guys talk about this, because, as I'm sure both of you know
at this point, there is a huge division in between people who believe flesh
and blood and people who believe supernatural whenever it comes to these things, and
you guys experienced aspects of both. I think yes, which is why I
wanted I finally broke and wanted to to talk about this. I was mostly
the one that didn't didn't want to speak about this, really, but I
wanted to add to the public record our account because it is significant in the
way that it is different. We experienced not just flesh and blood, but
but the unexplainable, the the spiritual. And I the other part of this
is you said, sinister, but I want to point out, like,
if they had wanted to do something to me while I was in that clearing,
from from that clearing to the out out outside of it in the woods,
they could have done something. I was I was, I was the
rabbit at that point, I don't get the sense that they're sinister, because
if they wanted to, they could have done something. They didn't. I
believe they they just wanted to be left alone. They just they just wanted
to hunt. They just wanted to to do what they were doing without a
human interfering, and that I surprised them. That's a that's a very good
and important point to make. I agree with what you're saying. Sinister was
definitely just a term that kind of popped in my head because it's it's still
trying to understand, you know, what was their reason for approaching you or
even letting you guys know they were there. We don't know. No,
I still just stick it to I think that that that place was a perfect
funnel for hunting, and we were just in their way. They wanted,
they wanted to hunt, they wanted to get dinner, and I felt pushed
out more than anything, chased out. I guess I should say to you,
we've talked about this too. The times that we've gone back to this
area, this general area or others that you know, feel squatchy as you'll
know, and think, oh, or is something ever going to happen again?
Is that a once in a lifetime kind of thing. And we've talked
about the fact that we are not seeking out more, but we do go
to these places, and I think like we have, we've left a couple
of gifts when we've gone before, right to just kind of put it out
there that we're not we don't have bad intentions and being in that space,
what have you left food apples? Have you noticed any possible interaction or what
you believe to be interaction? No, I mean we left like I left
them at the places where you know, paths were blocked by X's anything could
have joined those apples. I just I thought if I got out there with
the right intent and if they were able to pick up on my fear when
I grabbed a knife, maybe they'd pick up on my piece when I was
in their space and wishing them well, which is what a lot of people
believe. Yeah, or maybe they'll never go back to that spot again.
You mentioned having had other paranormal experiences. That's true. That is an aspect
that I'm kind of focused on, especially a lot in this podcast. Is
it seems like there are certain people out there. I would dare say the
majority of people who experience something in this category of the unexplained, whether it
be they have a big foot sighting or they see a ghost or a UFO.
Yeah, it tends to be the case that it's not just oh I
just saw this and nothing else has ever happened in my life, totally,
totally, And I also have experienced things previous to this that you know,
not in the woods, not in the wild. But I think, I
want to say, it's my theory that that there are people just with their
eyes open and with their senses they are just more sensitive and can pay attention
to what's happening in front of them and then not immediately push it down or
push it away and say, oh, it was just an elk oh,
that was just an airplane going by. Oh yeah, I think that there's
I think that there are just people with their eyes open. I think too,
like you know, humans don't use the full percentage of their brain,
and I don't claim to use any more of mine than anybody else, but
I might use a slightly different part. That's all I can think is like
the things that my other experiences are sensory based, and so I feel like,
okay, so it's something about senses, right, it's something about a
sensitivity or receptivity to I have no idea, well, I mean, scientifically
speaking, even though I hate to admit this one, especially to my wife
and stepdaughter. Women can see more colors than men, which is kind of
weird to me, especially whenever I'm arguing with them about what color something is.
But we also know that like different people have you know, wider hearing
ranges than other people. Sure, younger people can hear more frequencies than older
people, you know, as are hearing gets less and less as we get
older. But it stands to reason that that same thing would apply to this
sort of thing, that some people might be able to just sense things more
than other people. And just like you're saying, being more receptive to these
sort of things, I say, and detractors will say, your mind is
a powerful thing and you see what you want to see or need to see.
Right, people say that to me absolutely. I was asked specifically to
ask Chris about what you experienced in the desert. Oh, in the desert,
Yeah, that's that's pretty like small compared to what I just told,
So I'm not nervous. I went to the desert, and it was something
I was super excited about. It was a certified dark zone. It's you
can look up and see the Milky Way, and it's especially awesome because there's
these huge dunes you can walk up and really see just the almost the whole
horizon around you as well as just the stars. So I I went out
by myself one night to just lay and just watch the stars, and it
was it was gorgeous. I could sit there and see literally like satellites going
by, just slowly moving, and when there was an airplane going by,
and then I noticed something that was moving, not in a trajectory, not
in a in a path. It almost looked like if someone had like a
cat laser pointer and would kind of moving it around in the air and it
would go this way and would immediately turn and go and make a triangle and
go down and take a left and take a right and just very erratic movements.
And I sat there and watched that thing for the longest and about the
time that I was like, wow, I should like maybe document this and
pull you know, pulled out my phone and actually turned it on. It
shot off and disappeared. So it's it's I have no other explanation for it
than you know, it was a UFO or UAP as they call them these
days, because there there's nothing that I know of that moves like that as
far away as it was, and the bright, bright yellow that it was
of the light, there was nothing else that I know of, So yeah,
nothing that we know of can do that. So I love, Yeah
that that classifies for sure. I appreciate you guys sharing. I hope you
guys don't disappear on me after we're done doing this episode around Yeah, because
I mean, like I said, lots of information. In my opinion,
this is a very important case involving bigfoot. You guys have shared quite the
story, quite the experience, and I'm very happy that you guys decided to
come on my podcast and share it because there are people listening that this will
help immensely good, especially those who have not only seen a bigfoot or a
sasquatch, whatever you want to call it, and seeing something like what you're
talking about, because I would imagine that would be very difficult to come forward
and say, because not only are you trying to explain to people that,
like, you saw something that's not supposed to exist, but you saw it
do something that it's not supposed to be able to do, and then that
would be a lot for anyone. So thank you very much for sharing your
experience, Thanks for taking us on site unseeing thank you for listening. Yeah.
Absolutely, And I think that's one of the things when we were talking
about doing this, because Chris has initiated this in terms of like involving me,
I was like, well, why why did you pick this podcast?
And one of the things that Chris was saying is, and I agree just
from what I've heard, is you're not invoking sensationalism or judgment into it,
and you're letting people tell their stories and you're genuinely curious about it. And
of course we're all reaching out to your listeners by doing this, but we
liked your vibe. Yeah, it's great not for not to feel like I
have to approach someone who's looking for a thrill, who's looking for yeah,
just that next pair normal adrenaline rush, and that's that's how I want to
approach the subject. That's not how I feel about the subject. And I
yeah, I appreciate that from you. Well, thanks, I appreciate it.
I appreciate it. And if you've had your own experience with something to
explained, like Bigfoot ghosts or a UFO, Send me an email Bigfoot cross
Roads at gmail dot com. If you get a chance, check out the
website bigfootcrossroads dot com. You can find past episodes, links to social media,
merchandise, everything you need, all in one place. And until next
time, remember there's something in the woods.