SC EP:1222 The Fort Lewis Training Incident

On a late November night in 2012, while driving in the foothills of Washington, two brothers were surrounded by mysterious creatures. Still haunted and forever changed, these men took to the internet, creating a forum for others. If you've had an encounter, and no one else can help, maybe you can contact Sasquatch Chronicles. It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind, and it either heard me or smelled me, and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up, and that shocked me. They don't make people that big. The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything move like that in my life. They were screaming at each other in gibberish. It sounded like a language and they were chuntering away back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I know what a bear looks like, and there is no way on this planet that what I saw were bears. now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right here. Uh-oh. Hi, I'm Robert from England. You're about to listen to the greatest podcast on the planet. So grab a cup of tea, sit back, and prepare to be entertained by Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show. Tonight we'll be speaking with Adam. Adam had two encounters in Washington State. One was with his father. And then many years later, he was stationed at Fort Lewis. and he had an encounter while doing training exercises. I'll let Adam go into it. I'm also working on a special project for the show and for the website, and I'm hoping to reveal it to the listeners in about a month or so. I watched the sun go down last night, and I watched it come up this morning. It's going to be a cool project, though. I hope you guys really enjoy it, and I'm sorry to be so vague, but I think you guys are really going to like this. And again, I'm hoping to kind of unveil the whole thing in about a month. I received this strange piece of audio from a listener in Virginia. He writes, I'm a longtime listener, and a friend recently asked me to reach out to you about some unusual sounds they've been hearing. They also took photos of what they believe may be a bedding. It looked like something very large had laid down. To me, some of it kind of resembles deer beds, but one of the impressions does seem unusually large. You previously did an interview with a man just northwest of me. It was the episode titled, What's a Gorilla Doing in Virginia? Where that gentleman had an encounter is very near to me. And I put these videos up on the blog, but let's take a listen to the first audio clip he sent me, and I'm curious to know what you think it might be. It's not a dog. Get closer. It's not a dog. It's not a dog. It's coming up the valley. Oh my god. Here is the second clip from another night. No problem can anyone else. analyzed this and it said it was an owl. Okay, thanks for your input, chat GPT. But I'm curious to know what you guys think. Leave your comments below this episode. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at SasquatchChronicles.com. And if you get a chance, check out SasquatchChronicles.com. you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Adam to the show. Adam, thanks for coming on. No problem. Yeah, and first off, I want to thank you for your service to our country. You know, as civilians, I think we get to run our mouths and write checks, and you guys have to go cash them. But I really appreciate your service to the country. Thank you for your support. That's what I always tell people is when they say thank you, I just say thank you for your support. I was paying for my school and has afforded me a decent life after the military. So I appreciate it. Well, that's the least a country could do for you, ma'am. And I know you had two encounters, both in Washington State. The very first one was actually with your dad. And this was, what, in the early 2000s? yes that was summertime of 2006 uh along the nisqually river just outside of uh jblm uh fort lewis the military base over there uh just outside of their training areas so they have a giant swath of woods and right at the border of it there's the uh the river that leads out into the puget sound well if you would would you kind of start from the very beginning what were you guys doing and what happened yeah so we had just moved to washington and my dad wanted to get into fishing and outdoor activity so he bought these uh fishing waders and he wanted to go try them out in the river to go fish so just outside of the base along yelm highway southeast there's a yellow bridge that goes across in the squalid river and we would use that as a landmark so we parked just outside the bridge and hiked maybe like half a mile down the squally river and he was in the river and i was in a rock bed just like trying to skip rocks throw sticks play with grass just sit there i'm also i really didn't want to be out there when i was younger because i just didn't want to be out in the woods it kind of freaked me out a little bit at first so he's out there fishing i'm sitting on the riverbank there's sagebrush tall grass and those evergreen trees behind me i keep hearing like stuff move and i'm thinking it's just like the sound of the forest a squirrel a bird or like the wind pushing stuff around i keep hearing it over and over and over so i look behind me and you know how like the rocks are kind of like mossy or the sides will have moss on them and i see what look looks like a bush or like a like looks like foliage and i'm looking past it and i can see that it's like swaying or like moving a little bit like breathing and i'm just staring at it like looking like intently and i'm trying to see what exactly it is and eventually i see like this this eye and the the pupil the best way like i could describe it is like it was like the size of a dollar coin and then the the white part of the eye was like kind of like bloodshot red like red but not like glowing red it was like when somebody is dehydrated or really tired type of red eyes and i saw it and it freaked me out i I didn't know what it was. Sasquatch wasn't even a thing that I knew about at the time when I was younger because I was new to the area. I was like maybe nine years old. And as soon as I saw it, I freaked out because I knew it was I. And I yelled out to my dad. I was like, dad, we got to go. We got to leave. He ended up coming out of the river. And then we hiked back to where the truck was about a half mile. I remember I was like freaked out the entire time. And that's the best the way I can describe it it was just like a body just breathing in the bushes and then I saw a giant eye looking at me and I I know it's like I sound nervous or anything right now but that I mean that's the best way I could describe that incident and then when we turned back it was just it wasn't there anymore he didn't uh he didn't see it or hear it at all he wasn't like annoyed with me he was just he could tell something had really bothered me i told him i saw an eye and he told me it was probably an animal and i i was like i think it's an animal too but it was i didn't realize or have a suspicion of what it was until like later on like after learning about sasquatch and then my other encounter i had near there the area where you guys were at is notorious for sightings, especially near the Nisqually River. Many, many, many reports come out of there. And Yelm, Washington actually has a long history. I'm not just talking about inside Yelm, but around Yelm has a very long history of encounters. I think the BFRO reports go back to the late 60s, but you can look up newspaper articles that from the turn of the century of people seeing the wild man or the hairy man through that area. And even up until this day, and it doesn't really shock me. You didn't get a good look at it because through that whole area is very dense brush. It's very thick through there. Tell me about this other incident that you had. Where were you at? What were you doing? And how much later is this? So it was about 11 years later, back in 2018. I was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, the same base that my dad was at. And we were leaving Fort Lewis through the training areas to get to a mock village. It's like an open field with like a container village that we would use to train, like room clearing. And just war games. So we're driving out there. And our whole goal was to stand out in this field and just be props for the Cav Scouts training. So the Cav Scouts, they would go out and they would, their whole job was to observe combatants or infantry out in the field and not be seen. That's the whole role of a Cav Scout. They're kind of like reconnaissance. And so our job was just to stand out there, do whatever we wanted to do. they come up they observe us and they're getting like evaluated on their performance for observing us uh we were allowed to basically do whatever we want you know hang out play cards smoke cigarettes talk cook food if we wanted what we had in marie's but just hang out it was basically like a glorified camping trip for us and it was about a one it was only going to take one night when we were leaving the training areas we ended up crossing that same exact bridge because it's one of the only bridges that you can cross with our strikers which is like an eight-wheeled armored personnel carrier so we end up crossing the same yellow bridge that i would go fishing with my dad we would end up fishing there a lot uh throughout my childhood even camp along there i just chalked up that first incident to like it was probably an animal staring at me but it was i mean it was big and it is like most animals out in Pacific Northwest aren going to sit there and look at you They more skittish of you than they more scared of you than they are curious of you. So we, we crossed the river. I can see the same exact spot where me and my dad would go fishing. And after we crossed the bridge, we ended up passing Yelm Highway and that leads into more training areas out there. So we, we pull up, it's still daylight out. And we're just, you know, kind of just getting set up, getting MREs ready, playing cards, smoking cigarettes, just talking crap to each other. And then the sun goes down and that's really when we kind of really had to be like out in the field standing around so the Cav Scouts could use their infrared devices to view us. So we're just standing there talking. and then to the east towards the nisqually river we hear like a loud scream and i don't know if you've heard the elk meadow scream from 1986 but it's it sounds like it's it sounded like it was kind of far away maybe like a few hundred meters i mean it was close to the river i mean it came from that direction so i mean that's maybe a thousand meters but you could i could tell that it was far away but the way like it hit like it felt like it hit you in the core like it was it was like and i knew exactly what it was when i heard it because i've been listening to recordings in the past and i was like that's that's freaking sad like i told all my buddies there was uh me Norman Proctor Rosario and Lieutenant O'Connor so about five of us we I instantly I was like that's Sasquatch uh excuse the language but I'm like that's Sasquatch and they're like no no way and I'm like yeah dude I'm like that's Sasquatch like I know I've heard that scream in recordings in the past like that has to be after about a few minutes we're sitting there talking again about like what happened and they're shrugging it off. It was probably an animal, but like I'm freaked out. Then we hear out to the West and everybody gets dead silent. So like now there's like two of them. So there's one to the West and one to the East. The one we heard from the West was a little bit closer than the one that we initially heard from the East. It was, it was, I have like grown up, I was curious about Sasquatch and I was like, yeah, it'd be cool to see one or hear one. But when i heard that scream my like my first reaction was like kind of like fear more so fear and like shocked i didn't expect to hear that out there uh i i i always believed that they're out there but i did not expect that i would ever hear one yeah that elk meadow scream is is a notorious scream uh it's a very famous scream and it's always in bigfoot movies and that sort of thing and I don't have the one from 1986 but I do have the one from 1973 and for about 30 years of this went on in fact up until this day people still hear this but for the audience who doesn't know what the elk meadow stream is let's take a listen yeah that would get my attention really quick forgive me for cutting in uh so what kind of happens next so we we hear both of them and we're hanging out on the back of the striker and like we're just like dead quiet we have our night vision with us but there was no moon out that night and a lot of people think that night vision like it automatically makes you able to see everything at nighttime but it relies very heavily on starlight and moonlight saloon uh it takes that light and amplifies it basically but since it was pretty dark and our night vision was pretty old at the time pretty beat up it had been through multiple hands and you're supposed to baby these devices but most guys abuse them they throw them on the ground they throw them in pouches they fall on their gear like they get abused they're scratched up so all we can really see is like a it kind of looks like a static TV with like a black background. We could make out the the grass in the field that we were in. And by the way, the field was about a thousand meters north and south and 500 meters east to west. So it was kind of it was more like oval diamond shaped. So we were standing out there kind of like seeing what we can see at nighttime, but we're still like in a training environment so we just can't start flashing flashlights like the calf scouts are supposed to be able to find us on their own so we can't we can't use flashlights we can't even use red light and the red light wouldn't reach that far anyways so the tree line looks pitch black with static and the grassy field is semi-clear my buddy proctor he's like looking around and he's probably the only other one that would believe that it was sasquatch because he was very uh open about being pagan so he i mean he was open to like ideas of like supernatural or uh cryptids all of that so he's looking around with his night vision and he says he sees something moving out there he's like i see i see something to the south of us uh kind of moving uh like getting closer to us so it stepped out from the southern end this this creature this what i believe with sasquatch stepped out from the southern end of the field into the out into the open a little bit and then walked uh west to east and we could see the the backdrop of the creature against the trees was hard to see but we could see two legs moving and i mean it was moving it's 500 yards and it's walking casually and it crossed from west to east in like a matter of like 10 seconds like not that far i don't know if it was running we couldn't hear it at all but we could see it so we see like the the black legs moving across the grassy field then we see it get up next to another dark silhouette kind of like a kind of like a hump the best way i could describe like the top of it and then the the legs were very similar to the one that traveled east to west and then they passed on into towards the river and once we saw that we were like let's get inside the striker and just lock it up like we're not gonna we're not gonna mess with this we don't like know what that is and by the first one the first time we heard the scream everybody was like kind of casual about it like oh it's the calf scouts messing with us and i was like there's no way like how would they make that sound and they don't have like speakers or anything like that that could make a sound sound that far away but like that punchy at the same time and the fact that there was two screams one to the west of us and one to the east of us so everybody's pretty freaked out by the second scream and then even more freaked out when we see something walking across the field so we get inside the striker and you're able to combat lock it so if you close the door and you turn the handle and and stick a notch in it it's combat locked meaning nobody can open it from the outside But these Strikers, they have turrets on them that have infrared cameras. But the thing was, is our Strikers was a really old one. And since it was only being used to transport us out there, its digital imaging system, it's Mitaz, that's what it's called, was pulled off of it and used on a Strikers that was in better condition engine-wise. So we were basically blind out there. The only way we could see out of there is if we opened up a hatch on the top and then looked out with night vision, which wasn't very good that night. Or if we looked at the periscopes, which are hazy, scratched up, and it's dark out. So we're in there. We're not really sleeping. We're just sitting in there. And we can feel something like moving up against the striker, like scratching it, kind of like running, almost like it's running its nails, and then kind of like pushing it. The suspension is moving ever so slightly. It's a 20-ton vehicle. So it's not light, but if you push up against it, the suspension will give a little bit. So we hear maybe over the span of 15, 20 minutes, we hear just something moving around, moving its hand across it, touching stuff. I don't think they know what like a door handle is like no nothing was you know trying to like open the hatch and get in but they were like curious about like what this thing is or who we are and I'm sure that they've seen soldiers out there and they've seen like vehicles out there in the past and but when daylight breaks we we open up the hatches and get the engine get the striker ready to roll and then we get out and we walk around the striker and there's we're like looking for footprints but mind you we've been like walking around the striker like all day and then most of that night and it was summertime so the ground is very dry like washington state during the summertime isn't like a lush wet land it's extremely dry it's like not i won't say desert level dry but there's no moisture out there and the area we're in was a little bit sandy just from the dry foliage and the dirt so we couldn't see any tracks or anything and uh so we look around we decide like we can't see anything but we know like something was moving up against the striker it wouldn't be the calf scouts because their job wasn't to approach us or come up to our vehicle Their job was to observe us from a far distance. So we I'm sorry, I'm like stuttering a lot. I'm a little nervous. So. Once the once we turn over the striker, the vehicle, we start driving back to base and like nobody's saying anything because everybody's freaked out. I'm convinced of Sasquatch. The other guys, they either they weren't convinced or they want to admit that they were convinced. A lot of them, some of them weren't from areas like the Pacific Northwest. Proctor, he was from Colorado, so I'm sure he's heard stories. Rosario, my buddy, who was also out there, he was from New Jersey, Camden, New Jersey. So, I mean, there's no woods around him. Norman was from Illinois, like Cornfield, Illinois. I don't think he believed in Sasquatch. And then our LT, the officer that was with us. I don't remember exactly where he's from but nobody would admit that it was Sasquatch and I was telling everybody I was like that's we heard Sasquatch that night that was Sasquatch definitely so we get back to uh so we we start moving we start moving back to base nobody's saying anything about it except me because I'm so like excited and kind of shocked that I experienced that we get back to base and it turns out that we drove up to the wrong spot the wrong mock village that we were supposed to stage out the wrong field we were supposed to be in so the calf scouts they never even found us that night we were off by like five miles from where we were supposed to be and we're unloading a striker cleaning it up and our lt that was with us was getting chewed at yelled at because we basically wasted an entire day uh for the calf scouts evaluation uh i know i sound a little nervous right now because i'm not used to doing interviews about it but it was very bizarre i believe it was sasquatch that we saw and heard out there and to this day it kind of creeps me out initially the first few years after this i would listen to uh sasquatch screams and it would make my hair stand up because i was i mean like that's exactly what i heard out there now when i listen to it i'm a little less freaked out i don't think sasquatch out there is like aggressive i think they're just curious and that area that we're in leads off into the mount rainier cascades area with very few homes and towns in between uh they i mean i think they use the nisqually river as a way to navigate up and down from like Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens area. And I think they use it for, you know, the same reason humans would use it for fishing and drinking water and hunting. I mean, there's a lot of wildlife out there, like deers, coyotes, elk, bear, you know, who knows what they eat. I believe they're cannibals. But I'm not like, I was surprised when I heard it, but I'm not surprised that it really happened in that area at all. Yeah, and there's no reason to be nervous too, man. Nothing exciting is going to happen here. No one's getting waterboarded. It not an interrogation so there really no reason to be nervous I almost kind of think I know the general area of where you guys were I just talked to another veteran I almost want to say it was exactly where you guys were at That general area And he had actually got off track, too, or his group did during a training exercise. And they had experiences out there. I would imagine that moment you had with your dad many years before kind of came back into your mind after this incident. Yeah. Exactly. Like I remember since then in that in that exact moment, I wasn't thinking so much about that incident from 2006. But I was after the fact, like thinking about like, oh, yeah, we used to go fishing out there. We camp and I had that weird encounter or that weird. I feel like almost like I don't want to call it a sighting because I don't know exactly what I saw. but I had like a weird moment out there with something staring at me from the tree line behind bushes and grass and stuff. And since then, like I've thought about it. I was like, that was, I'm like the fact that I heard screams out there like 11 years later. And then that incident happened. Like, I think they're connected. I don't know if like it's the same one or same group of them. Cause that area, like it's, it's very wooded. it's very like foresty and pretty thick but i mean there is like small towns like yam that you have to get through roy and then like some roads that would have to be crossed to get up there but it is there's not a whole lot of people in between fort lewis and uh mount washington cascade area yeah that area through there if you wanted to vanish from society and have no one find you that's exactly where I would go because no one would ever find you there and there is a lot of encounters that go on there not only near Fort Lewis but as you get closer to Mount Rainier and Mount Rainier is weird there's a lot of weird stuff that goes on there but yeah if you wanted to vanish that would be the place to go you know I was thinking about that Elk Meadows scream and I've heard many different versions of that here in Washington anyway because it's been going on for so many years. The weird thing about that vocalization, I can't say that I have one from almost any other state. I guess maybe California. But that particular vocalization really is something here in Washington. And I've heard many different versions of recordings of that. It's very, very close to that. And it's such a strange vocalization. and that striker vehicle you guys are using uh if my memory is right it's basically like a big armored personnel carrier isn't it correct it's basically like a tank without its turret um when it was scratching on that thing and you guys were all inside of it why do you why do you think no one got out i mean i wouldn't have gotten out but why do you think no one got out uh we didn't have weapons at all with us we had well we didn't have live ammunition rather we had our m4s with us because they always wanted us to be with our rifles and some of us had like knives but they were like multi-tools like three inch blades uh nobody wanted to get out because we didn't know what it was and the fact that it was kind of like moving like the like not like rocking a car like when a group of people rock a car and it rocks violently but more like rocking like you're on a like a big boat and it's like slowly swaying back and forth i don't know if it was because it was like pushing it on purpose or if it was leaning up against it but it was it was like moving its hand across and these vehicles they're not like steel through and through what they are is like they're kevlar plating like like kind of like really really compressed fabric plating that you can bolt onto the side of the vehicle and then underneath that there's like a thin layer of steel and then on the interior there's like another uh portion of that kevlar um plating so i mean you can you can hear like if you're inside that thing and people are talking outside you can hear what's going on outside the uh seals around the hatch hatches aren't like airtight either like they're supposed to be so i mean if water can seep through that then i'm sure that attributes to like being able to hear out there but i mean you can you can tell when something's moving across it. And I think, yeah, nobody went to get out because, I mean, we didn't have weapons and we didn't know what it was. And if we would have gotten out, we would have been completely blind to what was around the vehicle until we were already outside of it. Yeah, we felt pretty safe in there. Like nothing's getting inside those things if you combat lock them. I get it. I wouldn't have gotten out either. I know a few Marines that would have gotten out, but they're a little crazy. So, and God bless them. I'm just joking, man. You know, I wouldn't have gotten out either. I'd been right there with you guys, been like, screw this. And, you know, their behavior of screaming back and forth to each other and then actually coming down to that striker vehicle and touching it, pushing it, and, you know, I'm a pretty big, strong guy. I don't know that I could rock one of those striker vehicles. Yeah. I mean there maybe since it was taller I had more leverage to be able to to move it I mean like it wasn't like moving it was maybe moving like side to side by an inch but you could feel like something like pushing up against it and I've heard stories of them like walking up to people's tents and like touching the outside of tents I've done a lot of camping out there I've never experienced that uh thankfully that would have that would freak me out that would probably keep outside of the woods for a while if i heard that but this i mean yeah it was pretty freaky and it's kind of a bummer that we didn't get to see like an entire silhouette body it was more so like just being able to see the legs in the in the grass because under night vision that comes up a lot lighter than tree foliage and then like imagine like during the daytime but you know how So during the daytime in the Pacific Northwest, there can be tree, foil it or tree groups of trees that are so close together and so sick that the sun can't even get through them. Like they're almost I won't say pitch black, but it looks like nighttime in there during the day just because it's blocking out the sun. So, like, imagine at nighttime, like and there's barely any moonlight. So, I mean, the only very little amount of moonlight that could it's hard to explain. I'm sorry, dude. Yeah, no, you don't have to explain it. I completely get it. I have a night vision camera and mine has an IR light that I can press to kind of light everything up. But without that and the star light, that's the reason why you could actually see the legs in the grass as it was running by because there's no obstruction. And a lot of times the grass will reflect light. So you'll be able to see about a foot up from the grass. um i know exactly why you weren't able to see the whole thing and i've experienced that with my and mine's not even military but i've experienced that before to where you can kind of see in the grass but if you go into the wood line good luck you're not gonna without an ir light you're not gonna be able to see anything you know after all this happened did you and your friends ever talk about this again um we would like amongst ourselves uh we never really told anybody like higher about it uh i mean we would chit chat about like weird stuff we've seen all the time but never like oh like an official uh report or anything like that uh if we did i mean if you i mean in the infantry there's a there's a ton of weird dudes that say weird stuff all the time but if you kept talking about it they would i mean you'd get written off as like a crazy dude especially if uh the the lt that we were with or platoon leader if he told his his commander which was the company commander or further up the fact that he's like saying like stuff that most people would believe to be like crazy it would be worse for him for us lower enlisted guys we'd just be written off as like all right dude you're weird but for officers it'd be like more of an issue but so like the the military a lot of people don't think about like how like the places we go within the united states are pretty desolate and they kind of have to be so that way we have room to do our training with all our vehicles and um like artillery and helicopters like all that kind of stuff so i mean the places we go to sometimes not the fort lewis area but in other parts of the country are the size of like east coast states really uh like the mojave desert over in uh ntc fort uran area i mean that it's a massive place there's nobody out there same with 29 palms uh hawaii has thick jungle i don't believe sasquatch is in hawaii but just like as an example like the military is full of like weird stories of paranormal or sasquatch i mean i know that there are a ton the stories from soldiers from the fort lewis area of like sasquatch sightings more like especially decades ago like in the 70s and 80s when these towns weren't as big as what they are now i mean there was literally it was very it was a very like rural country area now it's very urbanized it was like subdivisions everywhere we always get sent the places where like nobody's at you're truly like in the middle of nowhere yeah and i say this every time but that's what really amazes me about the military or the government that they don't look into this i mean i get why uh if you're in the military why you don't want to talk about this you don't want to ruin your career and that sort of thing uh but fort lewis in particular man decades of people coming forward that have had run-ins with sasquatch on the military reservation out there and I'm talking about like veterans high ranking guys that are way up on the food chain I've had on the show that I've shared encounters from 30 40 50 years ago and even up until this day happens all the time and you would think the military or the government would take interest or take note of it privately anyway but they don't really seem to be yeah I mean if they do they're not telling us my dad he was a uh a pilot when he was stationed up there in fort lewis a kiowa pilot and i mean they have ir on their helicopters and they fly at night vision all the time and they would i mean they would fly around the fort lewis training areas but they would also like go up the peninsula go out towards rainier i'm like i'm sure like other listeners in the washington area maybe an hour or two out have seen like military helicopters flying around like the the forest out there and he would tell me that he would see like there would be like no roads because you would see a road lit up at night time there would be no roads no no towns no nothing and he said he would see like like people out there but it's like what what are they i mean they could have been hikers or campers but the fact that like there's nothing else out there and there's just some random person out there at night time i don't know if he saw hikers or what he saw was maybe Sasquatch but he like later on in life I've talked to him and he's he's a believer he would go out into those woods alone a lot of the time when I'd be in school or or whatnot he would go out there and hunt or hike or scout out new locations for us to hunt and hike and he would tell me that he would hear like chirps like little whoops or just like just weird feelings like you're being watched by something and i mean he's a he i'm sure he has stories about like screams chirps one time we were out there when i was a kid and not the fort lewis area but like if you keep going past like yelm towards like uh like douche falls or duchette falls park there's uh there's like all these like logging fields that like you you turn out on on a like a dirt road and like all of a sudden it's like acres of like chopped down trees so we would go camping out like in that area and one time we were like in this little cutoff from the main road that went down it looked like it was like a turnaround point for these logging trucks because it was just like a grass trail that just ended in the woods like it led to nowhere so we decided to camp out there but prior to that we had hiked around and checked out like this this uh this field the side of the hill that was completely logged and we were shooting clays just like looking around just like logging equipment still sitting out there so we come back to the hiking spot and it's like nighttime now it's like me my dad my stepmother at the time and this dog we had this bull mastiff and then we're just sitting around the campfire just talking and i don't know we hear like coyotes but like they're not like you know how you hear coyotes like talking to each other as they're like running through the woods or in the field like they're just like chirping at each other this sounded like the coyotes were like fighting something like they were like screaming like that yelp when a dog gets hurt we could hear that i mean this logging field was wasn't too far away from us and we could hear them out there like screaming and like like they were either attacking something or something was attacking them or they were they were fighting something but the sounds just eventually ended and maybe like 30 minutes later where this dirt road cut off into this little outcropping that we were that we were camping in my dog just like starts going ballistic at the end of this trail like barking at it for like I mean I don't know how long it was because it's so long ago but it It was for a good while that my dog was just standing there, just barking at the entrance of this trail we were at. So whatever was out there wouldn't move. My assumption is the thing was at the end of the trail just staring down at us. And my dog was just barking, going crazy, going crazy. And we had no way to see what was down there. We didn't have flashlights that were big enough. So we had no way to see what was down there. but I mean it's a long you know it's towards Mount Rainier and I mean those coyotes weren't they weren't just talking to each other they were like fighting beating up something or something was beating them up and after that incident whatever whatever was probably dealing with those coyotes was probably at the end of that trail like looking at us yeah that is creepy especially hearing the coyotes and then kind of the way your dog was reacting uh you know a coyote isn't hard to take down. A group of coyotes, which is generally how they show up, is a different story. And I always say, watch your dog. Your dog will generally tell you when these things are around. Dogs will react in one of two ways. Either they'll kind of get down in a submissive position and whine or want to find a place to hide. Or like your dog, they'll bark, but they're not going to go after it they'll stand there around and bark uh you know if it would have been a normal animal you think it would have taken off especially hearing you know humans and dogs and black bears and cougars are big and bad but generally speaking they really want nothing to do with us and that's about the only thing we have here you know i ask everyone on the show what do you think Sasquatch is what's your take I used to when I was younger I believed it was like some some animal that like hadn't gotten skint and then I went through a phase where I thought it was maybe something paranormal uh like just due to the fact that we can't find it we can't like capture it or anything like that I was like it has to be something paranormal if we can't like actually like physically documented but then i heard stories of uh like native tribes like modern natives like along the columbus river between oregon and portland that like have like have like the bones of it i'm not sure but as i get older i i kind of believe it i go back to believing it's like some animal some creature that's like probably on the edge of extinction and there There isn't very many of them. I think that they don't reproduce very fast just due to their numbers just not growing. I mean, there's plenty of food out there for them. They're obviously experts of their environment. I mean, they're hard to hear. I mean, they know their environment like crazy. So I do believe that it's just some old creature that just hasn't gone extinct yet. Yeah, and you could be right. I really want you to be right. You know, even some animals have kind of human-like characteristics. If you ever watch gorillas and chimps play, there's a lot of things that they do where you're like, wow, that looks like something a little kid would do or a human would do. So you're thinking more of an animal than really anything human-like. It's hard to... Maybe human. I would lean more towards more human. Um, because there are stories of them like interacting with Native Americans, just the fact that like they can use, you know, tools that I mean, they're able to grab stuff and like build stuff. Like the stories of them building like little not forts, but shelters with sticks and like breaking limbs off of trees. I haven't heard that. I haven't seen that. But like I hear stories of that. I think they're probably like maybe somewhere along the like the genome of like humans. I don't think they're monkeys like I don't think they're primates. I think they're like just like maybe like ancient people that used to like coexist with like the people who used to live out here before we were out here. Yeah, it could be. You know, a lot of times I'm listening to encounters. I often think, man, that sounds like something a human would do more than an animal. And I would prefer it to be some great ape we haven't caught up with. That's really what I want Sasquatch to be. But what I want is irrelevant. But even when you look at their behavior, like in your guys' situation, coming up to that striker vehicle and kind of pushing it and running its nails along the side of it. That sounds like something some creepy human would do over an animal. Yeah. Yeah, I don't really see an animal doing that. That's more like something curious, like using its hands. Most animals are just like freaked out by us. They don't want anything to do with us. Yeah, it's so true. You know, I bet we have more cougars in Washington State than anywhere else, probably on the planet. We have towns called Cougar. and I bet if you ask most people in Washington, I bet the majority of people have never seen a cougar. It's because they really want nothing to do with us. And, you know, that's what really surprises me about Sasquatch on these bases. I realize that you guys have blanks, and if you've fired guns before, you can tell the difference between a blank and a live round. But I wouldn't imagine that these creatures know that, or for that matter, any animal out there that knows that. you know i've talked to guys on bases that have run into these things especially for lewis and they've opened up and they know they're shooting blanks they're not going to shoot anything they're just making a bunch of noise and you think sasquatch would flee but i will say most of the time they don't um i remember i had this one guy on the show he's very high up now in the military He's retired now, but he was talking about how they were doing. I don't remember what they were shooting. They were shooting something. I did a whole show on it. I want to say it was mortar fire, but it was live fire. And it was during the day. And there's a huge group of people out there, and they're doing this mortar training. One of these things downrange goes running across the little field that they're shooting at. And the guy had to shut down the whole training exercise. and everyone saw it, everyone knew it wasn't a human, you would think that would scare them off. You know no bears in the area, no cooters in the area, but these things hang around. It's strange, man. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share what happened to you, and thank you again for your service and your time coming on. I really enjoyed chatting with you. Yeah, no problem. So I hope it was interesting, you know, for the listeners. And I want to make my way back out there someday. Maybe I'll be passing through. I want to that area you're able to drive out there. There's no fence that's stopping you from getting to this area that I was at. I want to go back out there and see if I can hear it again or, you know, see something. I used to work on towers on the Pacific Northwest. us so like a lot of the job sites were out in the mountains and uh you'd have to drive for like an hour or two off a main road just to get out to the tower that's just out there and we would be at the top you know working and during downtime while we were up there i would look out into the tree line see if i could see anything or hear anything and uh i never saw anything again but like now that i'm older i think uh i want to see one again uh i'm less scared of it now i don't think they're like inherently like aggressive towards us at least on the west coast i don't think they're like i don't think they're as aggressive because they have more space to like move around i mean they have a giant swath of mountains and woods and tons of rivers and ponds to like feed from and live so i don't think they're as like stressed out as like you know stories you hear from like the midwest or the east coast where they just don't have as much space yeah i would agree with you i think i'm not so sure i would test that theory uh because i think that they all can be very aggressive the real question is are they going to kill you um and I think most of the time they're probably not. But I think they can be aggressive to the point where you think they're going to. Definitely be careful if you go looking again. And thank you again for coming on. No problem. And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at SasquatchChronicles.com And if you get a chance to check out SasquatchChronicles.com you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone. Bless your own, memories of you dear Unturned your eyes, closed the skies I'll mesmerize, memories of you dear I saw a moon as a human and lighter And each power grew wider So I put my spirit a little wiser To do something quieter Put that light on This is my hope This is my hope Memories of you, dear Unturned your eyes Closed at the sky I'll mesmerize Memories of you too Pop that night song This is my home, close to town Memories of you, dear Hunting your life, close at the sky On this sunrise, memories of you, dear Thank you. So I hope to die in the mood And I'll make you stay in the mood And we'll slip away in the mood So I hope to die in the mood And we'll smile in the mood As I found the key to me You are the guest of me And I think you stay in a minute And you slip away in a minute And you slip away Thank you.