We Had an Unusual Visitor - My Bigfoot Sighting Episode 88

Are you there, Thanks for tuning in, you're ready for another episode of
My big Foot Sighting? All right, then let's do this. Seen a
bunch of run down New Horse towns where the church at the backbone was in
the power and the fasting melodies cove in. But the Bombman rose where the
roots run deep beyond the noise of the busy streets with the songs of the
south US. So then when I hear the prom post picking down home rhythm
bringing out I don't run from banjum music. Yeah. My big Foot sighting
occurred in August of nineteen ninety in Northern Idaho at the Deer Ridge Fire Lookout
Tower. A friend of mine decided to rent the fire lookout tower. They
have in northern Idaho. They make it available for recreational purposes, that you
can rent the tower by the night. We rented the tower for three nights
and four days. The day we picked the keys up from the ranger station,
He's stressed to us, when we pull through the yellow gate, make
sure that gate is closed and locked behind you. Now, this road that
we traveled to get to the fire lookout tower was over an hour long,
single lane with very little place to pull over. After what seemed like an
eternity. We arrived at the lookout tower, unloaded the truck, and began
to set up camp. The weather was beautiful, as I recall, because
it was in August, it was kind of warm, but as high up
as we were, it wasn't stifling hot that you would typically see in the
month of August. Our first night was pretty uneventful. We basically just looked
out and did day hikes during the day and stargazing at night, and did
a lot of cookouts and talking and catching up on old times and it was
really a fun time. And second night was more of the same. It
was just pretty much uneventful. But the third night we were cooking pork chops
on one of those Coleman cookstoes. It resembles a briefcase. We were chewing
and eating pork chops and tossing the bones over the railing and didn't really think
too much about it. Afterwards, we shut the lantern out and the two
of us went to bed. Now there was only one bed they provided in
the fire lookout tower. Inside of the cabin. Also I should describe to
it was the twelve by twelve cabin with a catwalk all the way around it.
The walls went up to a roughly two and a half feet to three
feet tall, and then it was glass the rest of the way up.
All the way around. They provided a counter, a table, a chair,
and a cot that was permanently attached to the floor, and it had
dresser drawers under it. I used that and my friend he put out an
air mattress and a sleeping bag in the center of the cabin, and we
turned out the lantern and went to bed. It wasn't very long after that
lantern went out. Could I could feel the tower tremble? It moved like
you could just you could feel it in your body. It was subtle,
but if you could really feel it. I said to my friend in a
low, low whisper, I said, do you feel that? Do you
hear that? And he agreed he had felt it too. We figured out
that something must be coming up those steps, because you could feel the tower
tremble. And then there was a pause, and then you could feel the
tower tremble again, a little bit more firm. It was more. There
was more shaking, more trembling, and then there was another pause. Well
there was only four flights of steps that took you up to the catwalk,
and whatever was coming up had already came up two flights. We hear the
feel the tower tremble again. This thing's coming up the third flight. Then
we hear it coming up the final flight, and both of us are looking
far to the left, where a person of average heights their head would start
to appear. It didn't appear there. It appeared far to the right,
far to the right. That's blew my mind. I'll never forget that.
That blew my mind more than anything. That this what I'm seeing, the
silhouette of a head that shaped like a football. It shouldn't even be far
to the right. It ought to be way over to the left. And
I knew whatever's looking in the window is only on the second or third step,
and he's already in view. We heard a loud sniffing, smelling like
it was trying to take in if we were still in there, or if
there were more pork chop bones. I assume that was all I could take.
My adrenaline kicked in. I swung my feet over the edge of the
cot I jumped up, cocked at twelve gage shotgun eight seventy wingmaster and went
right out towards the door. Well, let me tell you, whatever it
was that came up there was nowhere near as stealthy going down those steps.
As it was coming up the steps, I went right out the door,
straight the railing and leaned over and whatever came out that bottom was going to
get shot. And I'm waiting and waiting, and it never came out the
bottom. My friend, he didn't see it come out the bottom. That
thing went down the top three steps, flights of steps, and went over
the railing and left me looking in the opposite direction. Now, I can
only imagine that whatever this was had some brains because it knew it was going
to get shot at, and it would have. It scared us bad.
We didn't go to sleep that night, and we talked about it. What
it could have been. We went through the natural process of elimination. What
would be enticed to the smell of cooking pork chop bones, Well, a
mountain lion would. But a mountain lion you would have never felt or heard
the thing come up the steps. They're just too stealthy, too light weight.
They did not have the body weight that this did. Well, then,
we thought, if it's not a mountain line, would about a bear.
Now, a bear would have been heavy enough to make that tower tremble
on its climb up the steps, and a bear probably would have even appeared
in the glass in the window where this appeared. But I don't think a
bear would have known if I go off the bottom flight of steps, I'm
going to get shot at from above. Whatever knew that had brains, it
had intelligence, and it left us there dumbfounded. I mean, we couldn't
believe what had just happened. The following day, we packed our things up.
I went out and looked where the third flight would have come down and
where the railing was, and it was about a ten foot drop to boulders
strewn grounds down below. There were no tracks, no sign of anything.
We returned to town to the ranger station, gave the keys to the forest
ranger, and he looked up at us and asked if we had a good
time, and I told him I said we did. I said, but
we had an unusual visitor last night. And that ranger, just by the
smirk on his face and the look that he gave me, we weren't the
first ones to go there. And tell him of such an occurrence. We
handed him the keys. He wasn't saying anything. He thanked us, told
us to come back. We went back to the town where we were staying,
and we found out from the locals that this was a common thing up
in that area, that many people have had full body encounters, sightings,
close sightings, and they referred to this creature as Maggie. My second experience
happened exactly eleven years later, in the same month this sighting occurred. Well,
it wasn't exactly a sighting. It was an encounter that took place in
an old abandoned tunnel. It was the Laurel Highlands Tunnel, part of the
Pennsylvania Turnpike. I had done a lot of backpacking and camping and day hiking
throughout my entire life, and had accumulated a lot of maps, trail guides,
and books. One day, I was reading through one of the local
trails and I saw that it had cut over an abandoned tunnel that was once
part of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. They closed this tunnel in nineteen sixty seven,
and they built a three mile bypass to go around it. The reason they
closed it It was a two lane tunnel east and west, and what would
happen is traffic would come at top permissible speed up approached the tunnel, and
traffic on busy summer weekends would bottle neck at the entrances to the tunnel.
So they closed it and they built a bypass around it. I thought to
myself, as I'm reading this an abandoned tunnel, that might be interesting to
see what they keep in that if I could find it, and then if
I found it, if I could get into it. A friend of mine,
he and I set out one August morning to find this tunnel. We
found it easy enough. There was nobody around. It was completely deserted.
The chain link fence, the gate wasn't even attached. It was laying on
the ground to one side. You could have driven a vehicle straight to the
portal of that tunnel. But we parked on the outside of the confinement and
we walked in and we found that the tunnel the entrance that we went in
on, they stored road salt in that. So we climbed up onto the
road salt and we continued walking probably forty yards, and the salt ran out
and we got down onto the original pavement. You could see the yellow lines,
and it was really cool in there because it was hot outside in August,
but it was cool inside that tunnel, and it produced a fog similar
to driving in fog with your high beams the right of your light, you're
not really going to see all that great. So we proceeded walking into the
tunnel. At the far end, you could see a small pin prick and
that was the other portal, that was the other opening. I mean,
it was a strong it would almost I guess it would be like an aperture
on a camera lens that it wore. The light from the outside. Light
on the far end really shone through. It really stood out. But as
we continued walking, my friend I asked him to whistle because he can put
his two fingers to his teeth and whistle were allowed. So he whistled,
and we thought it was kind of neat how it echoed through that whole tunnel.
We continued walking and all of a sudden we hear a piece of wood
that sounded like it had fallen from above, like a plank that would fall
off a lift of scaffolding. I've been in construction for a lot of years
and I know what that sound sounds like when a plank will come off,
like the second lift and hit concrete or blacktop. It has that distinct sound.
That's what this sounded like. Well, we didn't really think too much
about it. We thought it was strange that there'd be a piece of wood
in the tunnel that would fall on its own. But we kept walking,
and I was just about to tell my friend to whistle again and put his
fingers in his teeth and whistle roll out. We heard this roar. It
sounded like a tiger or a lion in the zoo. It just had tremendous
lung capacity, and it came from somewhere down in the middle of that tunnel,
or maybe even further. My friend and I we didn't even question one
another as to whether we had heard that or not. We both turned and
ran for our lives. We didn't know what was in there, where was
it exactly, how many of them are they coming after us? We had
no idea. The only thing we knew is we need to get out and
get out now. Well, we ran and we got back to that salt
well. The salt when it's piled up in a semi moist environment, it
will have a crust on the outside of it. Well, that's what we
were trying to crawl on, and it was coming down a little bit on
us. It was caven. We were having a hard time climbing to get
up and out. The whole time we didn't know if something's bearing down on
us or not. We got up on top of that salt and we had
to run stooped over, really stooped over, because the ceiling of the tunnel
wasn't that far off of the top of the salt pile. We ran stooped
over, got down into the sunlight, and we were shook up. We
were shook up, really really bad. We left there and when actually we
went to do another day hike, but we wanted to get out of the
tunnel area. We went ten miles away and went hiking on a trail and
we're still talking about what had occurred. I was in the lead walking this
trail and I turned around to speak to my body about what had happened and
didn't pay attentions. When I turned back around to walk, there was a
young couple and their small child that were like right there, and that I
almost I was still so shook up. I almost jumped out of my shoes
when I saw them. That's an experience you just you never forget. Fear
to the highest level that I've ever known. But my third experience was also
pretty intense as well. This I should have known better, but I still
against the advice of a friend of mine to dunk camping by yourself, I
decided I want to go. I had a week off work. I wanted
to go in an area in the Laurel Highlands here in southwestern p It's a
wild area called Quebec Run. It's in the Chestnut Ridge area. So I
with my maps and my tent and everything I needed for a two day solo
hike and a camp out overnight. I pinpointed the site of my first night's
stay where I wanted to stay, and it was a hemlock grove pretty close
to a mountain stream. Perfect spot, pine needles on the ground, plenty
of kindling from the bottoms of the dead hemlocks that they die because lack of
sunlight, I guess, just a picture perfect spot. Time off from work,
fully equipped, no hurry to do anything or go anywhere. The whole
night and the following day all to myself. I pitched the tent and it's
probably getting around five o'clock. Again, this is in October of twenty twenty,
so it gets darker a little bit earlier. So I went ahead and
the first thing I did was set up the tent and began to build a
fire. Well, darkness had set in, but it was only dark for
maybe an hour, and I was continuing going up to the hemlock tree closest
to my tent, which was about ten feet away, and snapping hemlock twigs
off the bottom of the tree because they really had very good kindling. So
I've got the fire going and it started to really illuminate the area, and
I just had a really weird feeling come over me. Like so many people
had said in the past, they get a strong sensation of being watched,
and I had that sensation. It was really it was really unnerving. I
mean it was that strong. Well, I got to think, and the
more I built this fire up, the more visible that I'm going to end
up being from anything or anybody that might be off in the shadows. So
I let the fire die down and I figured I'm not hungry, I'm just
going to hang here and I'm just going to wait until daylight. I just
just just doesn't feel right. But it's too dark to pack out now,
So I go inside the tent. I don't take my boots off, don't
get undressed, don't do anything. I just like the air mattress is blown
up, and I lay down on my side in a fetal position, and
I just pulled my mummy bag up over top of me like a comforter.
I didn't want to if I had to get out of there. I didn't
want to be you in a tent and then in a sleeping bag with no
boots and no pants, And so I was ready to fly at a moment's
notice if I had to. Well, it wasn't long after I settled in.
I start hearing wood snaps, sticks being snapped, and it was close.
And I'm listening. I'd hear a snap and something would hit my tent,
the top of the tent. I'd hear a snap. Two seconds later,
something with it hit the tent. Snap, tent gets hit. It
was it was. It was a pattern. And I'm thinking, somebody or
something's out straight out at my tent here ten feet away, snapping twigs and
throwing them at my tent. They're snapping these twigs off the very same tree
that I was snapping them off I to get my fire going. That was
intense. I was scared. I was I was really scared because there was
no way to reason that off that. You know, everyone that was going
to hear a stick's break or something snap in the woods, So that's no
big deal, it's not out of the ordinary. But to hear a sticks
snap that close to your tent and to have a pattern created to wear two
seconds, three seconds at most and something would hit your tent, that was
too much of a pattern. So I'm laying there not doing anything. I'm
doing every thing I can to stay, to keep quiet and to keep still.
Next thing I hear, laying on my stomach, from about thirty yards
away across the creek, I hear a crack. I mean, like when
you hear a lumberjack cut in the tree and the chainsaw goes through that loud
like crack when it's finally letting go. That's what I heard. And I
heard this and it was a quiet night, the weather was nice, there
was no wind, there was nothing, and I heard this crack, and
damn, something hit the ground, and it was very It was close enough
that I felt the vibration come up through the floor of the tent. And
I know what that feeling feels like now when your hair stands up on your
back, because it felt like bugs ran up my back and the hair just
stood up all on its own. It just never I didn't have to do
anything to do it did it on its own. By that time, there
was only two things I knew for sure. One that was stupid for coming
out here by myself, and two, I'm not spending a second night here.
As soon as it got daylight enough to see because I never closed my
eyes, I never slept a wink for the entire night. As soon as
it got daylight, I unzipped the tent and stuck my head out and I
looked, and all around my tent are broken sticks off of that hemlock tree
that was ten feet away, And those sticks were not there the night before
because I policed the ground and used what I could find off the ground first
where my tent was going to go for kindling to get my fire started,
and then I started snapping. I'm off the hemlock tree right there. That
was all it took for me in record time. I had that tent down
stuffed into the bag. I didn't wipe the dirt off the stakes. I
didn't care how my sleeping bag went back and the stuffed sack. I think
I even had my boots on they were tied because I never took them off
from the night before they was. It was more than I would never I've
never been camping since, I've never gone back out in camp by myself.
It truly was a very scary experience. But since my third experience in Quebec
Run, I've had the opportunity to buy a piece of property up here in
Acme, Pennsylvania that my brother had had, and it came equipped with a
small retail store. And being an avid Bigfoot enthusiast for thirty to forty years,
I had acquired quite a few chainsaw carvings and different memorabilia stickers, pins,
pocket knives the like, and I thought, boy, wouldn't this store
be a dandy place to open up Chestnut Ridge's first big Foot store. And
that's what I did in last year. In twenty twenty two January, I
bought the property and had my grand opening Memorial Day of last year. What
I offer is a lot of handmade items, but I also offer your typical
novelty items that you would see at different Bigfoot conferences. But the hours are
now weekends only ten am to six pm. The phone number for that store
is seven to two four eight three three eight six zero. And again my
name is Bill, and I'd like to talk with anybody who's also had an
encounter or an experience. It helps to talk to people that can relate instead
of just talking to someone that looks at you and you know, I'm done
waste my breath because this person doesn't even believe me. There's a lot to
be said about sharing your encounters with other people, and anyone out there who
has had an encounter, I would encourage you to do so. Well,
that's it for tonight show. If you've had a big Foot siding and would
like to be a guest, please go to my Bigfootsiding dot com and let
us know. Thanks for listening, have a great night seeing a bunch of
run down no horse towns where the church is the backbone, those and the
power and the five string melodies cove in, but the Bombman rose, where
the roots run deep beyond the nose of the busy streets with the songs of
the South or so then, and I hate the prompt boat picking, down
home rhythm ringing out. I don't run from banjam music. Yeah,