This story was sent to the Bigfoot Project by Anonymous.
Apparently, the witness worked at a Sheriff's Department at the
time of the incident. The call originated from our
Local 911 centre, which is located in the county's
Sheriff's Office. The caller was speaking Spanish
and our dispatcher only speaks English.
We have two officers on staff who do speak Spanish, so one of
the officers happened to be in the compound that late June
night catching up on paperwork. He put on his headphones to
listen in and translate and direct the call.
The officer knew this was a bad one right away.
The caller was screaming into the phone begging for help,
begging for us to send cars. He just kept saying send cars,
send cars, we need help. Loud noises could be heard in
the background. Then there were several
gunshots. She needed an address because
the call was coming in from a pay by minute mobile phone and
in those days we could not locate the signal.
Finally the officer said to the caller in a loud but calm voice.
Where are you? The caller replied Browns Rd.
So the officer said, OK, who's shooting the guns?
The caller was gone for a minute, so the officer repeated
the question. 30 seconds later the response was we are
defending ourselves. The officer immediately replied,
we have cars on the way, you have to put your guns down when
the cars arrive. The caller seemed to calm down
and said, hurry, a monster is attacking us.
The officer and the dispatcher looked at each other.
When they returned their attention to the call, the line
was dead. After several attempts to recall
the number, someone finally picked up and it was a child.
I'm hiding from the monster. Please help me.
Then they heard banging and more commotion, more gunfire.
There was a fight happening in that house.
The child could not respond and the dispatcher assumed that the
child had laid the phone down or dropped it.
Deputies normally ride solo in their cars in this county, but
on this night I had a fellow officer with me.
He was a member of our narcotics team and when he heard the
location of the call, he knew exactly where this house was.
It was a single wide trailer parked at the end of a newly
bulldozed Rd. out in the county. It was a perfect spot for a meth
lab. It was a lab noticed by recent
flyovers and our narcotics team have been watching it for the
last two weeks. They had a two man team posted
150 yards behind the house in the woods to watch the trailer,
but that team had been taken off the stakeout to move to another
case for two nights. It had been confirmed that this
was a meth lab and they were going to take it down the next
week. We also had undercover guys
following the shipments hoping to make more arrests when we
pull the trigger on the operation.
It was a well established cash machine back in the woods and it
was not going anywhere. I will not describe our methods
of approaching a large drug operation like this.
We don't want the bad guys to know that we know what they're
doing. However, we were able to
approach the house within an hour.
When we hit a house like this in the woods, we know several of
the subjects will take off into the woods and try and escape.
No one ran. They were all standing in
Plainview as we approached the house.
Their weapons were laid neatly in front of the group and they
all stood sweating in the heat of the night with their hands in
the air. They were almost glad to see us.
Prior to approaching the house, we had positioned several teams
out and about the perimeter to catch those trying to flee.
When the tense moments were over and those guys were free to move
about and come in to help us process the area, they began
calling in on the radio that they had bodies in the woods.
Not a shot had been fired since we entered the area.
The sheriff was asking over the radio what was the apparent
cause of death. He wanted to know that his men
were not walking into an ambush with armed men who had been
placed in the woods before the pandemonium had broke out with
the 911 call. The officers in the field were
only saying that he needed to see it before they broadcast it
over the radios. The sheriff and two officers
began walking into the woods surrounding the house.
My team was to secure the immediate area surrounding the
trailer, so once we had our suspects in cuffs and loaded
into the van, we began making a search around the trailer.
Another team was inside of the house, and they'd been taken
inventory of all the evidence they could find.
As I rounded the corner to the back of the house, I could not
believe what I was seeing. The whole back of the trailer
was ripped open, walls torn off, and thrown into the yard.
I could clearly see the interior of the trailer from one end to
the other. Some of the debris was inside
the house, which looked like the walls had been caved in from the
outside, and some was in the yard as if something had tore
the walls out once it had a hand hold on the walls.
The scene reminded me of how a trailer looks after a tornado.
An officer with the team inside the trailer got the generator
started that had been the power source for the whole operation
and exterior floodlights that were still attached to the eve
of the back of the house illuminated the area.
There were two bodies laying just inside the woods.
They both lay in vines and brush in contorted positions.
We checked for signs of life, but it was not there.
One of the dead men looked like he had been doubled over
backwards. His back obviously broke and the
position he was left in haunts my dreams still.
The other's body was laying at the base of the tree.
The only way we could see how he got in that position was for
someone or something to have slapped him into the tree trunk
while holding his feet, folding him into a horseshoe shape, and
then letting him drop to the ground.
The officers and the sheriff out in the woods were finding other
bodies out there in similar positions.
Daylight finally gave us a better view of the area and we
searched most of the day for evidence in the woods.
Each body had a weapon laying close by.
Several spent brass cartridges were found close to all of the
bodies. We had no reason to think that
they were shooting each other. They seemed to be defending
themselves from something. By noon the next day, everything
had been bagged and tagged. The 8 individuals we had
arrested had been taken to the county jail for processing and
the bodies had been delivered to the coroner's office for
inspection. Later, we hoped we would find a
reasonable explanation on how they died.
None had a single gunshot wound. They had all been crushed to
death by something, we don't know what.
Around 3:00 PM the truck arrived to take away what was left of
that single wide trailer. The driver spent an hour hooking
everything up, then drove off down the muddy Rd. that led to
the meth lab. We were done with this job.
There were four of us left at the scene and we were loading
our gear into our cars when I slammed the trunk lid down.
A small child appeared at the edge of the woods in my view
over the top of the car. It was a little girl around the
age of 11 or 12:00. I walked over to her, kneeled
down and asked her if this is where she lived.
See. She said looking up at my face.
I asked her if she spoke English.
She said yes, very little. OK, tell me in English what
happened here last night. She began to tremble and I could
tell it was hard for her to get the words out.
Then she said Javier shot a man in the forest.
The big man chased him. I ran away to hide.
I took her hand and LED her to my squad car and placed her in
the front seat and shut the door while my partner rode in the
back seat. I wanted her to feel comfortable
and not like she was being arrested.
As we drove out on the muddy Rd. she started repeating a phrase
in Spanish. A monster came here last night.
It was a monster. It was a monster.
There's no official cause of death to this day for the bodies
that we found, but I'm pretty sure I know what it was.
My name is Tracy and as a young person I grew up in northern
Oklahoma. My grandfather owned property
that butted up against the Cow Creek watersheds to provide
location. It's about 30 minutes from
Ponca, 15 minutes from Pawnee, and 15 minutes from Red Rock
Lake. McCurdy was about 30 minutes
away in the opposite direction from Red Rock.
At one point he owned 500 acres, or basically a square mile.
Overtime he had sold the property off down to 125 acres
or what is referred to as 1/4. The property had two good sized
ponds on it and a natural spring that constantly ran towards the
watershed with Crystal Clearwater.
No one was allowed to hunt on his property and no one did.
He purchased the land around 1942 or 43.
He raised cattle, pigs, quarter horses and Welsh Shetland
ponies, goats, etcetera. Virtually anything he could sell
at the Stillwater auctions. My first encounter was with my
brother. I was 10 and he was just about
to turn 12. We were fishing at a neighbor's
pond with my dad and sister. My brother nor I caught anything
so we went snake hunting for ring snakes and horned toads.
As we were looking at the ground my brother said to me, you see
that tree fall? I heard a dirt slide and my
brother said let's go look as he thought he had witnessed an
erosion event of a tree falling into a small crevasse from the
edge of it. He ran over to the place where
it fell about 50 feet from where we were, screamed and told me to
run. As we were running back towards
the pond the tree now looking like a Bigfoot was running the
opposite way. Ends up he was watching us and
he got too close to the edge and the ground gave way.
Our stepdad said we had just scared ourselves and brushed it
off. He and my sister kept fishing
while my brother and I hopped in the back of the pickup and kept
an eye out if it were to come back.
My second and third encounter happened on the same day.
I was now thirteen years old and able to carry a shotgun, so my
friend Charles and I went hunting for quail on my
grandpa's farm. After an hour of walking, we
made a winding path to the very back of the property and did not
fire one shot. The forest had gotten pretty
thick but we knew where we were and that we were not far from
the watershed area. We stepped into a clearing and 3
or 4 quail flushed out. So I took a shot, hit the bird
and it fell into a thicket that you couldn't see into.
So my friend Charles ran over and pulled the branches back and
he turned to me and said I don't think it's your bird but
something is dead back in here. It sure does stink.
I laughed and I said we need to head back as we can't hunt past
the fence. This is where the watershed area
starts, and we were both getting hungry.
We started walking back through the woods in a more straight
line than we had getting there, and we heard large footsteps
behind us. We thought it was a cow, but we
couldn't see any cows around. When we walked, it walked.
When we stopped, it stopped. We had no idea at the time what
it was. We decided to run back to the
farmhouse and get out of the woods as quick as we could.
We came out of the woods into a 10 acre clearing.
We stopped in the middle of the 10 acres and look back to see a
very big Bigfoot walk out of the forest and stand behind a very
large juniper type Evergreen tree and poke his head out to
look at us. He then walked and stood behind
the next tree and then walked down into the Creek which was
the only thing separating us. So we ran the rest of the
clearing to get to the road and ran to my grandpa's house.
We were so scared, crying and hysterical that we just stood in
the mud room for 15 to 20 minutes.
We decided that we had to tell my grandpa and grandma and my
sister was there as well. They all laughed at us and said
we just got scared in the woods. My grandmother said take me to
it I would like to meet this thing if it's real.
So after an hour we got our wits back and said OK but grandpa
said no guns. So we took frog gigs.
We walked down an access Rd. used to check fences that would
take us very near where we first started being followed.
My sister who was 15 started throwing rocks into the woods on
the left side of the road and I was watching the right side.
This is where we saw it again. It was standing behind a large
cedar tree. You could see its legs, 5 black
toenails and its face through the branches.
Very tall. The hair was clay red and matted
like a collie that spent all day playing in the mud kind of AV
shape. Its nose was wider than normal
but not like an ape. Its face was dark and its eyes
were brown. The hair color was brown with
red clay in it. Without walking through the
ditch that stood between us, we were 15 feet away from it.
My grandma saw it and decided not to introduce herself.
We all stared at it for a few minutes as it stared at us and I
finally said I'm leaving and the rest thought that was a good
idea. It did not follow us back this
time. The next day after I told my
stepfather what had happened, he and some friends all went back
to the few places we saw it and found tracks.
He told me he believed I was followed by something, but he
would not say it was a Sasquatch or Bigfoot.
The fourth time I was 15. I would no longer go into the
woods, but I would hunt, quail and dove in the open fields.
There was a pond that was in the open about a 10 minute walk from
the house. My friend Jimmy and I stayed the
night at my grandpa's so we could get up with the sun and
shoot some dove as they got their morning drinks.
As we got to the pond and climbed down some dam, some dove
took off and I took a shot that was pointed towards the woods
about 50 yards away. Within a second we heard the
loudest, scariest scream come from the middle of the forest,
probably 200 yards away. Jimmy thought I had had to have
hit one of the cows, but then trees started crashing and the
screaming came straight towards us.
I can describe the scream as something large, deep and pissed
off. Along with the screaming, it
also sounded like a semi truck loaded with logs bouncing around
railroad tracks heading straight for us fast.
I was so scared I could not move.
I knew what it was. Jimmy didn't.
Right as the screaming and crunching got to the edge of the
forest, all I could think to do was raise the shotgun and wait
until it got close enough I could shoot it in the head.
So I raised it and everything immediately stopped.
It was right at the edge of the forest.
It never came out, however. It followed us as far as it
could back to the house while staying in the woods.
Later when I was a senior in high school, I was approached by
a kid at school who asked me, hey I heard you seen something
in the woods. I asked why he would ask me that
and he stated that he had as well ended up he lived in a
mobile home on the opposite side of the watershed and that's
where it spent most of its time. He stated that his home had been
vandalized by the beast tearing off his TV antenna and shaking
their home, but it never harmed them when they saw it by the
lake. We decided to go look for it one
evening. There were three of us and his
father would let us take a camera but we didn't see
anything that evening. His father was a top executive
at a large manufacturing company in our town.
He talked to us about what they had encountered and I told him
where my grandpa lived along with what I encountered and he
felt it was the same thing. Bigfoot was living in the
watershed area because it was government protected lands with
no hunting or fishing. No one could go there because it
was fenced off and there would be plenty of food for it to
survive. Abby Viner and I, Mike Smith,
met for the first time when we were both in boot camp at Parris
Island. Albert is his given name.
Abby and I got along well at boot camp.
We talked whenever we had a chance to sit down and do so.
I found out over time that he and I had a lot in common.
We both love being outside a lot.
Both of us like to fish and shoot, but he was a hunter and I
never really haunted before. Instead, I like to shoot
sporting clays. During this time in the service
we decided to visit each other at our homes.
After the service was over. In the summer of 85, I packed up
my truck and drove to Abby's house in Wisconsin.
Abby had told me that I would need protection so I made sure
to bring my 12 gauge semi auto Beretta.
When I asked him what we would be protecting ourselves from, he
said bears. I thought that was fine, but it
made me wonder what else could live there.
I spent two days getting up to where he lived and when I got
close there was nothing but woods.
I felt like I was in the forest when I was here.
I mean there were only gravel and dirt roads surrounded by
dense pine woods and I could only see a house or building
every so often. After getting lost several
times, I was finally able to find their property.
It was a pretty big place with a big house and a smaller house
and as well a number of barns and other buildings.
I drove up to the house and honked the horn.
I felt like I was in the middle of a family gathering.
All of a sudden people of all ages were coming out of every
door and window. They greeted me like I was the
lost son coming home and I thought to myself that this was
going to be a great time. After the meeting I was shown
around the farm. One of the barns looked like a
machine shop or metal shop and these guys had everything back
in the day. It sounds like great Grandpa
made a lot of metal tools and things for himself and the
people in the area. In one other barn there was a
lot of professional equipment for a lumberyard and a mill.
It turned out that his family had cut down most of the trees
that were used to build their home and the homes of many other
people in the area. They were proud that they knew
what to do and how to do it. And as the day turned to night,
Abby told everyone what we would be doing for the next 9 days.
His plan was for us to take a tour of the area and see the
sights. After that, we would camp, hike,
and fish in the wildest way possible.
I thought it was all great. After dinner, which was served
in a traditional Thanksgiving way, his father took me into the
room to show me the family's gun collection.
The walls of the room were lined with three gun cabinets.
As the collection grew, each cabinet was made by hand, and as
the wood aged, each one looked different and more beautiful
than the last. They had 47 rifles and shotguns,
and there were handguns in the boxes under the cabinets.
I hadn't seen that many guns before, but these ones were so
nice that they could be part of a museum collection.
To top it all off, the family knew absolutely everything about
each gun. We talked for about two hours
right in front of the gun cabinets.
I was learning about the background of each gun, who made
it and where it came from. Abby took out a pistol and said
let me introduce you to Harry. It was a 44 calibre that he had
bought after seeing Clint Eastwood play Dirty Harry.
That thing wasn't a gun, it was a hand cannon and Abby said we
could shoot it in the morning. He must have been very proud of
that gun. After breakfast the next
morning, we took Harry with us outside.
We must have fired at least 100 times.
It hurt in my hands, in my wrists and in my ears.
Then we walked to one of the buildings that we hadn't been in
the day before. As soon as Abby opened the
doors, there she was. A big monster truck.
It was blue, had metal flakes and shined like a star.
It had a cap of the same colour and the name Littlefoot was
written on both sides. In hindsight, the name choice
seemed almost ominous. It was his version of the
original monster truck Bigfoot. It was made out of a 1969 Ford
F-250. He put all kinds of blocks and
chains under the body and added anything else he could think of
to make the truck go as high as possible.
When he started it up in the barn, the wood shook.
The exhaust system was made-up of pipes that went into cherry
bomb mufflers. The steps and supports made of
billet aluminium were used to get into the cab.
The truck was like a ride for adults at a fair.
It was crazy and for the whole time I was there, Littlefoot was
our main way to get around. Abby took me everywhere and I
learned everything there was to know about the area.
It used to be a big place for wood and until just after World
War Two, it was also a big place for copper mining.
He told me that the local mines had made more money from
minerals than the gold rush in California.
He also said that the woods were full of black bears, wolves,
moose, deer, Gray foxes, red foxes, Bobcats, porcupines,
hares, rabbits, and everything else you could think of.
Now I know why he told me to bring my shotgun.
He took me deep into the woods. In that area, all of the trees
were the same. They were big and full and no
one could be seen. They were both small and big
streams in different areas and there were not many people here
at all. After having a great time, we
went back to the Viner farm to get ready for our camping,
hiking and fishing trip. Abby took a small stepladder out
of the barn and put it behind Littlefoot.
He opened the cap in the back door.
He had already put everything we need in the bed for us.
There was a fire extinguisher, shovel, chainsaw, first aid kit,
and different kinds of ropes. He said that one of the ropes
was for putting our food that would spoil quickly into a tree
so the Bears couldn't get to it. He also had two big water jugs
like the ones you see at Little League games and a big cooler
that we were going to fill with ice.
We also had a case of Gatorade bottles and more than a few
beers. Abby had built some shelves out
of wood and put them inside the sides of the bed.
There was a rack for long guns on one side of the bed and a
rack for fishing rods on the other.
He had already put in two fly rods and several spinning rigs.
The front and back of the truck had electric winches.
After making sure we had everything we could think of, we
took off. Abby said that we were going to
a place near Lake Chippewa. On the way in there was a good
dirt Rd. that led to some real four Wheeler trails.
We had to use the chainsaw in the truck twice to clear the
trails of fallen trees. It was clear to me that no cars
have been in this area for a very long time.
It took us about two hours to get to a small, mostly clear
spot where we could set up camp, which was at the end of our
travels. He said that after logging
destroyed a lot of the forest, many areas had been replanted.
This is why there's a mix of old pine and new in some spots.
We set up camp, dug a fire hole, neither of which took very long.
Once we were done, Abby said there was still plenty of time
for us to go to the river and catch some fish, so we got the
fly rods. Before we started to walk, I
grabbed my shotgun and Abby took Harry.
We began walking and walking and walking.
Just so you know, a long walk for me right now is going in and
out of the mall with the occasional 2 mile bike ride
thrown in. Abby told me that we were almost
there even though my legs were killing me.
He knew this because the trees were getting closer together.
As we got closer to the water source there were more small
trees and bushes and there was no longer anything that looked
like a path. We were trying to find breaks in
the growth and fighting our way through the thorns when all of a
sudden we got out of the thicket and saw the river.
You could walk across this river without any trouble.
In fact, when I looked up and down as far as I could, I could
see that many of the tree branches along the river's edge
were only 8 or 10 feet away from hitting the branches on the
other side. Also, there are pieces of wood
and rocks in this water. It was moving water that was
mostly calm. When I looked at the top, I
could see that there was a lot of trout to catch.
We started fishing. We must have been fishing in
peace for a few hours, having a good time with each other and
the fish. It was very pretty.
I felt more at ease here than I had in a very long time when I
heard a loud sound like rocks hitting each other.
It seemed like it had to be very close to me.
I turned to look at Abby and we looked at each other.
He shrugged. We kept fishing and we kept
hearing the sound. It sounded like two rocks were
hitting something and cracking against each other.
It was clear that there was a crunch.
It reminded me more of breaking a mussel shell than a clamshell,
since a mussel shell is much softer and thinner and makes a
crunching sound when broken. As the sound kept going, my
friend and I started to slowly move toward each other.
I tried to look in the direction of the sound, but it was hard to
see very far because of how tight the river was and how the
trees were hanging over it. We couldn't see where the noise
was coming from, even if it was 40 feet away.
We whispered so quietly that we might as well have been lip
syncing. Abby thought it might be moose
antlers clicking together and that the noise might have been
much farther away than it sounded.
Somewhat encouraged, I slowly moved back to the pool I had
been fishing in, but this time I made sure to stand a little
closer to the bank and my 12 gauge.
After a while the noise stopped, but I could now hear something
moving in the bushes, which was starting to scare me.
I could see Abby craning his neck too, trying to see if
anything was moving in the trees.
We hope that whatever was moving around would leave while we
waited. When we started fighting our way
through this brush on the way out, I was very nervous.
I thought that something could sneak up on us at any time, and
between carrying our gear and moving trees, you wouldn't have
much time to shoot if you had to.
I had a creepy feeling in my neck all the way back to camp
and the forest was dead silent. When we finally got to camp, I
started making a fire right away while Abby went behind some
trees to do something. I heard a surprise shout a few
seconds later. I walked over to see he stood
there and looked at a big snake on the ground.
Both ends of the snake's body were tied in knots.
It looked like a dumbbell made of snakes, but it was living.
There was no way that snake writhing on its own could have
made those two knots. They were as close as a knot in
a rope. Considering that the knots made
the snake shorter, it must have been 6 feet long.
We couldn't help but think about who or what might have been in
our camp while we were gone. The whole thing was hard to
understand. Abby took the snake and threw it
into the woods, saying that it would make a good meal for
something. Now maybe it's because I grew up
in a city, but I couldn't understand how Abby could be so
stone cold and unmoved about all this.
After a night of talking nonsense around the campfire
about everything and anything, we climbed into our tent and
Abby fell fast asleep. But I lay wide awake thinking
too much about what had happened that day.
At some point during the night, I could hear noises coming from
outside the tent. It was hard to tell how close
they were until they cast a big shadow between the tent and the
fire. After a few seconds, the shadow
fully darkened the inside of our tent and then it let out a big
deep growl. The top of the tent began to
move down. Abby didn't snore anymore.
With my eyes on the shadow, I grabbed my gun.
Before I could even think about pulling the trigger, Abby sat up
and fired three shots through the tent.
The flash and bang was hard to believe, and the tent was filled
with the smell of gunpowder and smoke.
Whatever it was, it let out a scream that I could only compare
to AT Rex. I was shaken by how loud it was.
The tent was on fire and the shade was no longer there.
Whatever it was, it sounded like it was running away while
screaming and yelling. I took my gun and opened the
tent zipper. I wasn't going to give up
without a fight. Abby jumped out from behind me
and the two of us stood there looking and listening.
The animal was still screaming far away.
I was sure that Abby had killed this guy at point blank range
with 344 caliber shots. If it had been a black bear, it
would have fallen from where it was standing, but it didn't.
It ran away. I asked Abby how in the hell it
could run away with 344 caliber bullets in it.
His answer was that bears with Cubs can be hard to catch.
Now I was thinking about the same thing he did.
I was also going to shoot, but at the moment I thought it might
be some loser in the woods playing a really bad and
possibly dangerous joke. We looked around with
flashlights for blood, but we didn't find any and the ground
was so hard we couldn't even see our own boot prints.
Outside the light of the fire. Everything was as dark as it
could be. It was, at the very least, very
scary. We made a big hot fire and
stayed up for the rest of the night.
I was ready to give up at this point, but I didn't want Abby to
think I didn't have any guts. I was the one from the city.
We were meant to have hard balls, right?
According to our plan, we had three days left, so Abby, who
seemed to have forgotten about what had happened the night
before, offered that we go to the lake today.
So we got our spinning rods and guns and went to the side of the
lake that was closest to us. This time he led us through a
slightly less dense part of the woods until we got closer to the
lake. As we got closer, the shrubbery
got thicker, just like it had at the river.
At any rate, we set up along the side of the lake and started
tossing poppers and spinners. Pretty quickly we started to
catch fish on the lake. The sun was shining and it was
nice to be out from under the trees.
While we were fishing I saw something big and dark peeking
in and out of the trees at the far side of the lake.
It did this in different places. Every time it showed up.
I pointed it out and told Abby to look.
He didn't see anything. I, on the other hand, saw
something living and moving and I couldn't stop thinking about
last night. We'd been fishing for about 6
hours with a few breaks for food and drinks when Abby said we
should go back and maybe go varmint hunting before the sun
went down. I thought it was a good idea so
we started our long walk back. I couldn't believe what I saw
when the camp came into view. Things were thrown into the
trees and our cooler was smashed flat on the ground.
It looked like it had been run over by a steamroller.
The truck was in bad shape, both side windows were blown out and
the cap looked like a tree had dropped on it.
We couldn't open the driver's side door because the cab had
been smashed so badly. There was no sign of a log or
anything else that could have been used to do that much
damage. The tailgate was partly pulled
off its hinges and bent under the rear bumper.
The front winch was totally ripped off the truck.
The 916 bolts and washers were ripped cleanly out of the steel,
and the other winch had all of its cable pulled out and was
completely detached from its housing.
We could only find one of the two metal steps that had been
ripped off. The front of the hood looked
like it had been hit three or four times by a 12 inch tree
trunk. I say this because I don't know
how else to describe what we saw.
Even so, there was not a single sign like wood chips or even
marks on the truck that would have shown that a tree had been
used to cause the damage. There were no small dents in the
truck, just big, long and wide hits to the metal.
What worried me most was how much force it would be needed to
RIP big bolts out of the truck, leaving a reverse dimple in the
steel where they had been. That was crazy.
Whatever did this was neither a single person nor a group of
people. It was impossible for a man to
do. We didn't talk much to each
other, nothing could be said. We just stood there shocked.
I jumped into the truck's bed and tried to pull up on the
broken cap to try and get things to open up again.
I was pushing my back against the broken roof of the cap and
as I moved I noticed something very strange.
Several long dark hairs were stuck at the end of one of the
cracks in the fiberglass. Abby told me that it couldn't
have been a black bear fur when I showed him.
We gathered up everything we could and shoved it into the bed
under what was left of the cap. We grabbed the Hatch and bent it
back and forth until we could twist it up and into the bed.
Abby got into the cab from the passenger side, which was hard
to do without the step, and started brushing the broken
glass off the seat and everywhere else.
He turned the key and we got the hell out of there.
At some point we saw a police officer coming in the opposite
direction and Abby waved him down as he stopped.
I couldn't see him because he was on Abby's side of the truck
and it was high. I heard him ask what was going
on. Abby turned off the truck and as
I got out, he crawled out after me.
We walked around the truck and told the officer our story for
about 45 minutes. He wrote up an incident report
and gave us a copy. Later, when we got to Abby's
house, everyone came out to see the truck and asked us about
what had happened that night at dinner, his father started
telling us about what his father had told him.
He told us that the loggers and miners had told many stories
about big hairy creatures that had been seen in the woods.
He said that his father told him that after the workers went for
the day, they would mess with and damage their equipment.
When they came back the next morning, machines were broken or
bent. He said this happened to the
workers all the time and the men would talk about things being
thrown into the camp, but they couldn't see who or what did it.
Abby and I still talk and he even put Littlefoot back
together. Abby's dad put the hairs we
found in a frame in the room so that they would be kept in the
family for years to come. Since then, I haven't been back
to see Abby. The witness is a mature male who
has lived in the area for many years and lived for a few years
in the northeastern state where he haunted bear using a nuisance
animal permit from the state. He's an avid hunter and has
haunted bear, deer, wild hogs, small animals and predators in
Arkansas. He is very familiar with all the
classified animals in the Ozarks and familiar with the odors and
sounds produced by those animals.
The witness had driven alone in a Nissan pickup truck about 3/4
of a mile into the hollow where he parked without turning the
truck around. He was alone and did not lock
the truck. He had borrowed an old Remington
semi automatic 22 caliber rifle which was equipped with A3 by
9/1 inch scope with which he was going to use to hunt squirrels.
He walked up the old road 100 yards or so from the truck when
he noticed a live cedar tree to the left of the road which had
been broken and twisted at the top, bent to the centre of the
road and pointing to the northwest.
He saw that the brake was about 8 feet off the ground and the
trunk was slightly larger than his upper arm at the point of
the brake. The witness had been in the area
recently and had not seen the broken tree, and he knew there
had been no winds in the area which would have broken the
tree. He studied the tree for a minute
or two and after he was unable to determine how it had broken,
he continued up the road. After walking about 25 yards, he
saw there was another cedar tree on the right side of the road
which was also live about the same size and broken in the same
fashion, with the top pointed in the same direction as the first.
At this time he became very interested in determining what
had broken the tree and why. He stated he could see the trees
were not simply broken by the weight of a bear, as the tops
were twisted after having been broken so that they pointed in
the same direction. He was baffled by the way the
trees had been broken and although he soon continued
walking up the road, he could not help but think about how odd
the conditions appeared at the time.
The Creek bottom was heavily timbered with large oak, Hickory
and pine trees and he soon became preoccupied with stalking
and shooting a few fox squirrels.
About 30 minutes before dusk dark, he began to notice that
the normal sounds of birds, especially those of the large
woodpeckers that call that time of day around their nest trees
and insects, were missing. Just about that time he heard
the loud sound of a hollow tree being struck 3 or 4 times by
what sounded like a rock or green stick.
The sounds somewhat alarmed him because they were coming from
behind him and he placed the sounds not far from his truck.
He immediately thought that someone was messing with his
truck and since it was left unlocked, he turned quickly and
started back down the road. He was walking at a fast pace
and was soon within about 150 yards of the truck.
At that point he heard a soft grunt from the woods to his
left. He looked in the direction of
the sound and noticed a movement in the woods and an angle of
about 45°. He froze immediately and saw a
large figure in a squatting position behind a very thin veil
of brush about 35 or 40 yards away.
He immediately thought he was seeing a cinnamon phase bear
because of its colour, but he quickly realized what he was
seeing was not a bear. The creature was squatting on
its haunches with its knees spread slightly and with its two
arms extended between its knees and with balled up fists resting
on the ground in front of its feet.
The animal was staring directly at him and slowly rocking its
body side to side and making short grunting and clicking
chirping sounds with its mouth. The witness stated he was frozen
in shock for two or three seconds and suddenly he had an
overpowering fear that the animal was going to charge him.
He immediately assumed the animal was poised to spring off
the ground toward him. He said by reflex, he raised the
rifle in a split second and tried to shoot the animal just
below its chin and hit the spine to disable it.
He said the animal appeared to have no neck.
When the bullet hit the animal, it stood up with its arms
hanging to its side. The animal turned its whole body
and began running up the slope of the Ridge.
The witness stated the animal had actually been squatted only
a few yards from the base of the Ridge at that point.
As soon as the animal wheeled and started crashing through the
smaller timber on the slope of the Ridge, the witness stated he
emptied the rifle at the running animal's back.
He stated he thought the rifle held 15 long rifle cartridges
and he was sure that at least seven of those bullets struck
the animal. About the time the rifle clicked
indicate it was empty, he heard the animal stop running.
He then realized the animal was at a point directly up the Ridge
from his truck and that he was standing with an empty rifle.
He then bolted to the truck as fast as he could run.
He threw the gun into the bed of the truck and jumped inside the
cab. Just before he did so, he heard
the animal crashing through the timber again and it sounded to
him as if the animal was running toward the truck.
He started the truck and threw it into reverse to turn around.
He backed the truck into a tree, quickly put the truck in forward
gear and tried to turn around in a very narrow road, and in his
haste struck another tree with the front of his truck.
After banging the truck through the timber and over large rocks,
he finally got it back on the road and drove at breakneck
speed out of the hollow. He never saw the animal during
that process and he is not haunted in that hollow again.
When first seen, the animal was facing him as squatted in the
position of a man taking a dump in the woods.
The man said the animal's legs were spread and its arms were
between its knees with the hands made into fists resting on the
ground. He stated the animal was covered
in reddish brown hair that in most places appeared to be about
3 inches long. On the forearms, he saw the hair
appear to be shorter and not as thick as that on the rest of the
body. He stated the head possessed A
conical shape similar to that of a mature male gorilla.
The animal had no visible neck or ears and although he stared
at the face, he was unable to discern any facial features
because of the Halo of hair around the face.
After he fired the first shot, the animal leapt into an upright
position. He noticed the hair on its head
and shoulders was noticeably lighter in colour than the hair
elsewhere. He also noted the hair on its
knees was discoloured and thought those areas were covered
with a light coating of mud and water.
He said when standing erect and later when running, the legs
appeared to be thick and powerful but slightly bowed.
He particularly noted when it was standing upright.
The animal's arms were large and long and hung alongside the body
like a human's, rather than protruding forward like the
front legs of a bear, standing erect on its back legs.
He said the animal appeared to be about 7 feet tall with a
muscular build. He said for its height the upper
body did not look disproportionately large.
The witness said he could not see breasts or genitalia to
determine the sex of the animal, although he was sure it had no
pronounced breasts like those of a mature woman.
He stated he believed the animal would weigh somewhat more than
£400. When the animal ran away, its
legs were noticeably bent and its long strides were fluid,
like while running. Its long arms were said to be
swinging in what appeared to be an exaggerated but fluid motion.
While the animal was squatted, the witness said it was making
short, low volume, grunting and chirping, clicking sounds with
its mouth. He stated the sounds were
somewhat similar to him, but different from those made by
hogs and bears. He stated that when the first
shot hit the animal, it made a loud, short grunt, but he did
not believe it made vocalizations as it ran off.
The only sounds he remembered hearing during the time were the
sounds of breaking limbs and brush and the thuds made by the
animal's feet as they struck the ground.
The witness also stated that shortly before he saw the
animal, he smelled A foul odour, which he described as being a
mix of smells of rotten meat and a sewer treatment plant.
After the witness encountered the animal, he said that he made
the mistake of telling some of his coworkers about the
incident. He said that he caught a lot of
flak and ribbing about the incident and after a while he
refused to talk to anyone about it.
But he has recently decided he doesn't care who knows about it
because he knows what he saw. I want to share an experience
that happened to me in the backwoods of Arkansas back in
the early 90s. I don't mind if you use my first
name, but let's keep my last name between you and I.
My name is Eli and this is my story.
In 1994, I was 13 years old. I used to stay at my
grandparents house a lot out in the very rural area in
southeastern Arkansas. It was a series of network dirt
roads to get to their house. The closest neighbor lived a
mile and a half away and the closest town was 10 miles down
the road. It's in the middle of farmland
and it's mostly woods. They have lived in this house
since my mother was a child. A general store served the
people in the area. It was a two mile walk from my
grandmother's place. An old lady ran the store.
Her and her husband had added the store to the front of their
house. They lived in the back.
My grandmother asked me if I wanted to walk to the store and
get her a few things. She gave me some money and I
headed out. It was early in the day and I
had plenty of time to get back before dark, which I always made
sure to do when I was out roaming about.
Things can get creepy out in the backwoods of Arkansas after
nightfall. It's a darkness unlike most
people who have lived primarily in the cities or towns have ever
experienced. I was easily distracted at that
age, and I stopped at a Creek on the way.
I stayed too long, catching crawdads and throwing rocks in
the water. It was getting late and I picked
up my pace. By the time I left the store, it
was getting dark. I didn't want to be walking
those lonely, secluded roads through the woods alone in the
dark, so I hurried as fast as I could.
I would jog a while, and then I would Sprint.
I was doing anything in my power to get back as quickly as
possible, but it wasn't enough. By the time I made it to the
bottom of the hill near the bridge where I had wasted all
that time earlier, it was dark. I could see the road in the
woods all around me because of a glowing moon that was coming
over the horizon. It shined an eerie glow across
the land. In one way I was glad that I
could see, but in another the moonlight made it very creepy.
At the top of a hill, the road was perfectly straight and flat,
with woods on the left side and a large field on the right.
Another half mile and I would be home.
I could see the Porsche lights way off in the distance and I
felt relieved. My eyes were fully adjusted to
the dark at this point, and the light from the moon allowed me
to see all the way across the field on my right.
I was getting closer and I had actually slowed down a bit.
I was tired from the run. I heard something in the woods
on my left. Leaves were crunching.
Something was walking in there. Keeping my eyes on the woods, I
kept moving. There was no way for me to see
anything clearly inside the woods, even though the moonlight
was shining. But in the ditch closest to the
trees I could make out a dark figure.
I stopped and focused on that spot for a few seconds.
There was something, and now it was moving towards me.
I thought it was a dog, but then I realized it was much too large
to be a dog. And then I realized it wasn't
really actually walking on four legs.
It was crawling or creeping like a person would.
I couldn't take my eyes off this thing.
A jolt of fear shot through me when I realized this thing was
trying to sneak up on me. It was stalking me.
I started walking again and I kept my eyes on it only a few
yards behind me. Now a few steps into my walk and
this thing stands upright. It was big, I'm guessing 7 feet,
and it looked like it was covered in dark hair, but it
wasn't a bear. Bears aren't that tall and I had
never seen anything like this. I dropped the bag of stuff that
I had been carrying and I ran as fast as my legs could take me
towards my grandparents house. I heard a heavy breathing and
growling sound behind me. It was up on the road with me
now and I could hear its feet crunching the gravel.
I thought it was going to catch me at any second.
I couldn't make my legs go fast enough.
It was so close to me that I closed my eyes in anticipation
of it grabbing me, but at that moment, I heard a crash off into
the woods to my left. For whatever reason, it had let
me go. It was right on me, and it could
have taken me down if it wanted to, but it let me go.
When it was a short distance away into the woods, I heard a
scream. I don't think I could replicate
that scream now, but I'm telling you, I'm never going to forget
that scream. By the time I reached the house,
my heart felt like it was going to explode from the run and the
adrenaline pumping through my body.
I flew into the house and in an incoherent, hyperactive mess of
gibberish, tried to explain to my grandparents what had just
happened. My grandmother didn't really
seem to believe me, but she knew something had scared me.
She acted weird about the whole thing the rest of the night.
She said it must have been a dog, but that wasn't a dog I saw
on the road. The next morning I woke up and
found my grandpa sitting outside whittling wood underneath the
shade tree in the front yard. As he often liked to do, I went
and sat down beside him in one of the old metal lawn chairs.
He was a rational man, down to earth, and had grown up and
haunted that area his entire life.
He knew every square inch of that place, it was mapped into
his mind. He knew every type of critter
and creature that lived in those woods, what noises they made,
where to find them and how to catch them, etcetera.
I'd only been hunting with him for a couple of years, but I've
been going into those woods with him since a pretty young age on
walks. He had passed a lot of his
knowledge down to me during those adventures.
I spoke to him about what had happened to me the night before
and I told him that I knew what I saw.
It wasn't my overactive imagination, I wasn't making it
up, and it definitely was not a dog.
He knew that I wasn't just a dumb 13 year old kid, and he
knew that I knew the things he taught me.
He stopped whittling, looked me right in the eye and said, I
know what you saw. I've seen it before too.
There's things in the woods that people don't understand and they
ought not to be fooled with, ever.
I remember those words clearly to this day because it gave me
affirmation. But at the time, it made me
realize that whatever I'd seen was real and it was beyond my
understanding. My grandpa then went on to tell
me that far back in the woods there are some cliffs, and at
the bottom of those cliffs is a cave.
He told me that The Cave is where the creature lived.
He had once stumbled upon it a long time ago when he was
hunting. He was standing on top of the
Cliff looking at it when the creature fitting the same
description emerged and began screaming wildly at him and
throwing rocks. He took a shot at it, he missed,
and then this thing gave chase. But my grandpa was on the top,
so in order to get to him this thing had to go a long distance
and then climb up, which he said it quickly began to do.
So he high tailed it out of there in a hurry.
The whole way back home he felt as if you were being watched and
he kept hearing twigs snapping behind him and he was certain
that it was following him, stalking him.
He made it home and he reached his front porch.
He turned and looked back at the woods from where he had come
from, and he saw it peeking out from behind the tree.
Later that night, he said that he and my grandmother awoke in
the early morning hours to large rocks being thrown at the house
and howling noises from outside. It walked around on the front
porch, rattling the doorknobs, banging on the windows, and it
sounded like it was muttering to itself in a low, garbled voice.
But it didn't sound like a language, just a bunch of
gibberish. After a while the thing went
back to throwing some more rocks and howling.
So my grandpa grabbed a shotgun and fired it out the front door
a few times into the darkness. He heard it run back into the
woods, and that was the last time he'd seen or heard of it.
But over the years he heard of other farmers, cows being
mutilated, or someone's hunting dog going missing, or someone
would have a story about some strange creature they had seen
in the woods. He also said it scared my
grandmother beyond words and she absolutely has refused to ever
talk about it or even acknowledged that it happened,
which explained her acting weird about when I told her about what
happened to me. I know this story is pretty far
fetched and you can believe it or not, it makes no difference
to me. I know what I saw and my grandpa
knows what he saw and neither of us have ever felt the need to
convince anyone else. I've never spoken of it to
anyone other than a few close to me and my grandfather, and he
passed away over 10 years ago. And now I'm sharing it with you.
These things are just as real as you and I.
And just like people, they come in all manners of personalities
and temperaments. They aren't just stories.
These are people's memories of a creature that lives in our
woods. Eli, I'm probably going to
regret telling this story. Everyone I know will probably
laugh me out of the country. I myself for years would hurrah
and laugh every time someone would mention these creatures.
Here it goes. I live in Northeast Texas, not
far from Texarkana. I've lived in the Texarkana area
for quite some time. I don't Coon hunt anymore.
My business has become more demanding.
Coon hunting is a sport that really demands a lot of time.
I found I didn't have the time to devote to it, so I got rid of
my Walker hounds. I was so into the sport.
At one time I had hunting licenses in three states.
I had several night champions to my credit several years ago on a
cold night in January or February.
I believe in 2000, I don't remember the exact date, I was
Coon hunting in Miller County, Arkansas.
I don't know exactly how far from Mercer Bayou we were, but I
know we were in an area the old timers call Thornton Wells.
While we were hunting in this flooded timber, our dogs split
tree. I went to my dogs who had tree
on the other side of the swamp. The other guys went to their
dogs on the other side. I got to the tree my dogs were
treeing and looked at my Coon and caught my dogs.
Everything seemed OK so I decided to amble back towards
the others. I could just barely hear their
dogs treeing way across the Bayou.
Suddenly I hear something walking in the flooded timber.
Bear in mind this whole area is 8 to 15 inches flooded with
brackish swamp water. I could tell by the gate that it
was someone coming in the flooded woods, so I called out
to them thinking it must be one of my hunting companions.
To my dismay no one answered. Instead all I heard was a deep
throated gurgling growl and the awfulest putrid smell.
The smell was like when you kill a wild hog and grab him up by
the hind leg and then you give out dragging him and put your
hand up to your nose and the smell knocks you over.
I also heard a whining kind of whistling sound.
My dogs were on my leash and were whimpering.
Now these weren't just any dogs, these were UKC lipper bred
walkers. They probably weighed in close
to £100. They could RIP a 20 LB Coon
apart. Yet they were cowardly crouched
behind my legs whimpering. I knew I had seen them tear
coyotes to shreds that had tried to come into the tree where they
were treeing. I couldn't understand it.
Still in all, I was not concerned about any of this and
got my dogs and started back across the swamp.
After a few minutes I heard the sound of someone or something
walking in the water again, so I stopped and turned around and
standing right behind me was a creature of immense size.
He must have been at least 8 or 9 feet tall.
He was covered from head to toe with a real dark hair and when
my Coon Buster Coon light hit it in the eyes, his eyes glowed
like a deer in a spotlight talking about the hair on the
back of your neck standing up. I was scared.
I don't ever remember being that scared.
He made a hissing sound and reached down and took his hand
and started scooping water and throwing it up at me and making
a deep throaty noise. My dogs started chomping at the
leash and growling trying to get at it.
Having regained their bravery, I grabbed the leash and tore out
across that swamp, so scared that for a while I went in the
wrong direction. I got to a Big Cypress tree and
caught my breath. I could hear the thing behind
me. It sounded like it was about 100
yards back or so. It followed me for a ways.
Then after a while I could hear it across the Bayou, making a
moaning sound and moving away slowly.
I got my breath and my compass and my bearings and started back
to the truck. When I got there, I didn't say a
word to my friends about what I saw and heard for fear they
would laugh me down. Needless to say, I never
returned to Thornton Wells, nor do I plan to.
For a long time I kept this to myself.
I even had nightmares about it. The only person I ever told was
an old Coon hunter from Doddridge, AR.
He's dead and gone now, but I do remember something he said to me
that day. He said if you're smart you keep
that to yourself. I know from experience that
people will laugh at you and call you a liar.
I've haunted in the Sulphur River bottoms many nights, but
never have I ever seen anything like that before or since.
One summer day, while the witness was taking a nap at
home, his brother and two sisters returned from a hike
they had taken to a recently unoccupied house down the
mountainside near the head of Cat Holler.
The three siblings returned home in the afternoon in a very
excited state and awakened him. They told him they had seen an
ape or gorilla near the unoccupied house they had
visited. He did not believe a word of
their story and was angry because they had disturbed his
nap. The three siblings said that if
he did not believe them, they would go with him to the house
the next day to show him the animal.
After a heated discussion, he finally agreed to go with them
to the home the next day. The next morning they all walked
down the steep hollow to the house and arrived about 8:00 AM.
After searching through the unlocked house and around the
yard and outbuildings, they found nothing unusual.
The witness again became angry and accused his siblings of
playing a prank on him and gave them a what for for causing him
to walk a long way down the mountain for nothing.
He then angrily turned and started walking back up the
mountain with the other three following behind, trying to
convince him that their story was not a joke or prank.
After walking about 300 yards from the house, the older sister
tapped him on their shoulder and asked.
Brother, do you still think we're lying?
Without stopping he angrily replied yes.
She then said well look on the porch.
He turned to look and was stunned to see a small black ape
like creature standing on the porch nonchalantly watching them
depart. The witness stated that while
the animal made no threatening actions or sounds, its presence
caused him to shiver and his hair to stand up.
The group watched the animal for a few seconds and all broke into
a hard run toward their home. The animal was said to have had
coal black shiny hair that covered its whole body except
its face, which was of a lighter colour.
The witness stated the animal looked very similar to a
chimpanzee and was standing on 2 feet in a slightly slouched
position with its arms dangling in front of its body.
The animal appeared to be about 5 feet tall.
In this report, the witness was driving to his girlfriend's home
near Roseville when he discovered the road was flooded
from rains that had backed water from Gaddis Lake over the road.
The witness knew it was a very long drive to the home by other
roads, so he decided to drive through the water.
The car made it through the water, but the engine quit on
the other side. He thought the problem was due
to water inside the distributor, but was unable to start the car
even after drying the inside of the distributor cap.
When he was unable to start the car, he decided to walk about 1
1/2 miles to a friend's house for help.
He had no flashlight, but there was enough light from the clear
sky and a nearly full moon that he could clearly see the road
and objects alongside it. After he had walked quite a
distance from the car, he began to get the feeling that
something was on the road behind him.
When he stopped and turned to look, he saw what he had first
thought was someone approaching him closely.
As he looked at the figure, it stopped.
He could see then that the figure was not as close as he
first thought, and then the realisation struck him that the
figure was much larger than a man he had first assumed it was,
which made him appear closer. He was immediately seized by an
overpowering fear and for a few seconds was unable to move.
During that time, the witness realised the figure was huge,
covered in hair and walking like a man.
The witness briefly considered running away, but he thought
that if he did, the animal could, if it chose to do so,
overtake him in seconds. He said that it took all his
willpower to turn and slowly begin walking up the road.
After walking several yards, the man turned to see if the animal
was still following him. It was, but it stopped when he
stopped. Both he and the animal stood
dead still for several seconds, staring intently at each other.
At that time, he considered saying something or shouting at
the creature. He quickly decided not to do
that either, because he could not bear the thought of hearing
the response the animal might make.
He turned again and started walking slowly.
At times he could hear the sound of a foot striking the road, but
other than those sounds, the area was silent.
As the long walk continued, the animal stayed behind him,
gradually getting closer until it was no more than 30 or 40
feet behind him. The man would occasionally stop
to look at the animal, but it would stop and silently stare
back. The animal followed the man
until the friend's house came into view.
As he approached the house, the friend's dogs began barking
loudly and running toward him. The dogs ignored him and when
they got beside him, began barking frantically at the
figure behind him. He heard the animal make a quick
movement on the road, and the dogs wheeled and began yelping
as if someone was beating them. As the dogs disappeared yelping
under the house, the man turned around again, thinking the dogs
had scared the animal away. He said the animal was still
there, standing quietly watching him.
At that point, the man began hurrying to the house.
After he knocked on the door and the friend opened it, the first
thing the friend asked was what the devil did you do to my dogs?
When he told his friend what had happened, he wasn't sure he
believed him, but the friend listened to his story intently.
The witness stated the animal was huge and estimated it was 7
feet or more in height. Its neck appeared to be very
short and its head was large and shaped somewhat like a human's.
Its upper torso was reportedly massive and its midsection was
lean. Its shoulders looked to be 3
feet or more in width. Its arms and legs appeared long
and muscular. Its hair was long like a
setter's hair, and in the moonlight looked to be light
brown and reddish in colour. The witness said that while the
animal leaned forward when it was still, its posture did not
appear to be slouched. He never heard any sounds, nor
could he hear the animal breathe, and the witness does
not remember detecting an odor from the animal.
The witness stated that when he and his three siblings were
children, they often played in the creeks that ran through the
area near their home. At the junction of the two
creeks, there was a curved and uneven water channel in the
limestone rock in the Creek bed they called the Devil's Twist.
It was a favorite place to play because when the water was
running through the channel, it made a natural water slide.
On one occasion, when they were there laughing and screaming for
a long time, they suddenly heard something jump out of a large
tree nearby and heard it walk away through the dry leaves on 2
feet. They immediately left and ran
home. Thanks.
Thanks for listening everyone. Until next time, take care.