BWBS Ep:189 The Sheriff Of Bigfoot Country: The Final Chapter

Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.nl. That's Shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. I know that you want to listen to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a durore choices, can ASR maybe help? Well, I think, how then? Well, for example, when you're doing a lot of things that you love, you're doing. Will you know more about the instructions where a durore schade can be? Go to asr.nl slash durore choices. This does ASR for you and a more and more. ASR does it. So, we can now listen to your podcast. For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. Some blame wild animals. Others whisper of creatures the world refuses to believe in. But those who have survived, they know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness. Bigfoot, dogmen, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make it out. Others aren't so lucky. Are you ready? Because once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and remember, some things in the woods don't want to be found. Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto-downloads, and let's head off into the woods if you dare. Epilogue. The work continues. The documentary aired on a Tuesday evening in October. Amanda had done her job brilliantly, weaving together the years of interviews, the expedition footage, the Mount St. Helens documents, the story of my journey from that first encounter in Lyrely to our recent expedition. No definitive proof of the creatures themselves, but something almost as important, a comprehensive case for their existence that even skeptics would have to take seriously. The response exceeded anything we'd anticipated. Within hours, the documentary was trending worldwide. Social media exploded with reactions, some dismissive, some supportive, some sharing their own encounters for the first time. Scientists who'd been quietly researching the phenomenon came forward to validate our methodology. Former government employees reached out with hints of additional cover-ups. And across the country, in wilderness areas from the Pacific Northwest to the Appalachians, people started looking more carefully at the forests around them. In the months that followed, I watched the conversation change. It wasn't a revolution. The skeptics were still skeptical. The deniers still denied. But the discourse had shifted. The subject was no longer automatically dismissed as fringe nonsense. Researchers who'd been afraid to speak publicly found their voices. Universities began funding studies. Journalists investigated the cover-ups we'd exposed. The truth was emerging, slowly but surely, and I was there to witness it. I still don't know what happened to Austin Reeves. His case remains officially unsolved. His parents still live in hope, waiting for word that may never come. I think about him sometimes, when I'm walking in the forests where he disappeared, wondering if he found what he was looking for, wondering if he's still out there somewhere, living among the creatures he'd gone to find, or if he met a different fate entirely. The not knowing is hard, but I've learned to live with it. Some mysteries aren't meant to be solved. Some questions don't have answers. And maybe that's okay. Maybe the search itself is what matters. Daniel and I built a new life in the years after the documentary aired. The threats continued for a while. The men in black didn't give up easily. But eventually they faded into the background. Maybe they realized they couldn't stop the truth anymore. Maybe they decided there were bigger battles to fight. Or maybe they're just waiting, watching, preparing for whatever comes next. I don't spend much time worrying about them anymore. I have too much work to do. The podcast continues. Episode 750 as of last count. The community has grown to over a million members worldwide. Researchers from dozens of countries share findings, compare notes, push the boundaries of what we know. And every so often in the deep forests where the old trees still stand, something moves in the shadows. Something ancient and intelligent and patient. watching us as we watch for them. This is where my story pauses. For now. But it's not an ending. Not really. The search continues. The questions remain. The truth is still out there, waiting to be fully revealed. I've spent my whole life looking for answers. And I've found some. Enough to know that the creatures are real. Enough to know that the cover-up was real. Enough to know that the world is stranger and more wonderful than most people imagine. But the biggest answers? The ones about what these creatures really are, where they came from, what they want. Those are still waiting. Maybe I'll find them. Maybe my children will. Maybe the next generation of researchers will finally break through the barriers we've been pushing against for so long. I don't know. And for once, I'm okay with that. The Odyssey continues. That's what matters. The search goes on. and somewhere in the forests, in the mountains, in the wild places where humans rarely go, the creatures are watching, waiting, ready for the day when the world is finally prepared to meet them. When that day comes, and I believe it will, I hope I'm still around to see it. The End of Book 1 Interlude More Voices from the Wilderness The Hunter's Tale Russell Crawford, Tennessee Russell Crawford had been hunting the forests of East Tennessee for 53 years. He'd killed more deer than he could count, tracked bear through the Smokies, and once spent three days following a wounded elk through terrain that would have killed a less experienced man. I've seen everything these mountains have to offer, Russell told me. His voice gravelly from decades of cigarettes and cold mountain air. Or so I thought, until the morning I met something that made me question everything I knew about the natural world. Tell me what happened. It was November of 2008. Rifle season. I was set up in a tree stand about two miles into the Cherokee National Forest, waiting for a buck I'd been tracking all season. Big one. Twelve points. Maybe more. I'd found his rubs, his scrapes. I knew he'd come through that hollow eventually. What time of day was it? Early. Just after dawn. The fog was thick. You couldn't see more than thirty yards in any direction. I was watching a game trail, waiting, when I heard something moving through the brush to my right. What did you think it was? At first, the buck. The sound was heavy enough. Lots of weight, lots of displacement. I raised my rifle, put my eye to the scope, and waited for it to emerge from the fog. And what emerged? Russell was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice had changed. Softer. Almost reverent. It wasn't a deer. It wasn't anything I'd ever seen. It was walking on two legs, covered in dark hair, eight feet tall if it was an inch. Massive shoulders, arms that hung down past its knees. And it was moving through the forest like it owned the place. No hesitation. No fear. What did you do? I froze. Finger on the trigger, eye in the scope, frozen solid. I could have taken a shot. Clear line of sight. Maybe 30 yards. But I didn't. Couldn't. Something about the way it moved. The way it looked around. It was too human. Too aware. Shooting it would have felt like murder. Did it see you? It knew I was there. No question about that. It stopped about 20 yards from my tree, looked right up at me, and I swear to God it smiled. Not a threatening smile, more like recognition. Like it was acknowledging me, one hunter to another. What happened next? It walked away, disappeared into the fog without making a sound. I sat in that tree for another hour, too shaken to move. When I finally climbed down, I found tracks, footprints, 18 inches long, heading deeper into the forest. Did you follow them? No. I went home, hung up my rifle and didn't hunt for three years. It took me that long to process what I'd seen, to accept that the woods I thought I knew were home to something beyond my understanding. Do you hunt now? I do, but differently, more respectfully. I know now that I'm not the top predator in those mountains. Something else holds that title. And when I'm out there, I'm a guest in their territory. Russell's story exemplified something I heard again and again from experienced outdoorsmen. The creatures commanded respect, not fear. They were apex predators who chose not to prey on humans. Not because they couldn't, but because they didn't want to. The question was, why? Were they simply avoiding conflict? Or was there something more going on? An intelligence. An awareness. A deliberate choice to coexist with humanity rather than compete with us. The more encounters I documented, the more convinced I became that these creatures weren't just animals. They were something else. Something that challenged our assumptions about intelligence. About consciousness. about what it meant to be a thinking being in a world that had room for more than one kind of mind. The Teacher's Account Margaret White, Washington State Margaret White had spent 30 years teaching biology at a high school in rural Washington. She was a scientist by training, a skeptic by nature, and the last person you'd expect to believe in Bigfoot. I was the one who always debunked the stories, Margaret admitted. When kids came to class talking about Sasquatch sightings, I'd explain misidentification, pareidolia, the psychology of false memories. I had all the rational explanations ready. What changed? I saw one. Face to face. Broad daylight. No possibility of misidentification. And every rational explanation I'd ever offered turned to dust. Tell me about the encounter. It was June of 2015. I was hiking alone in the Olympic National Park, something I'd done hundreds of times before. I was on a trail near Deer Park, maybe three miles from the nearest road, when I came around a bend and found myself 20 feet from one of these creatures. Can you describe it? Female, I think. Based on the body shape and the lack of the sagittal crest that males apparently have. Maybe seven feet tall, covered in auburn-colored hair, standing right in the middle of the trail, holding something in her hands. What was she holding? Berries. Wild blackberries from a bush at the edge of the trail. She was eating them, one by one, with this delicate precision that seemed completely at odds with her size and apparent strength. What happened when she saw you? She stopped eating, looked at me, and I saw intelligence in her eyes, Brian. Real intelligence. Not the blank stare of an animal assessing a threat. Something deeper. Curiosity, maybe. Or recognition. Were you afraid? Terrified. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. But I couldn't run. Couldn't move. I just stood there, staring at her, while she stared back at me. How did the encounter end? She made a sound. A soft grunt, almost like a sigh. and stepped off the trail into the brush. I heard her moving for maybe 30 seconds and then nothing. She was gone, vanished into the forest like she'd never been there. What did you do? I walked back to my car on shaking legs, drove home and poured myself a glass of wine that turned into three. Then I started researching, reading everything I could find about these creatures, listening to accounts from other witnesses, and I realized that what I'd seen wasn't unique. It was part of a pattern, a phenomenon that had been documented for centuries. How did this affect your teaching? I still teach biology. I still value scientific method and rational inquiry. But I've expanded my definition of what's possible. I tell my students now that science doesn't have all the answers, that there are mysteries in the world that haven't been solved yet. And some of those mysteries are walking around in the forest just a few miles from where we're sitting. Do your colleagues know about your experience? Some do. Most think I've lost my mind, but I can't pretend it didn't happen. I can't go back to being the skeptic who explains everything away. I've seen the unexplainable, and that changes you, whether you want it to or not. Margaret's story resonated with many of the scientists and academics who'd reached out to me over the years. These were people trained in rational inquiry, in evidence-based thinking, in the scientific method. They weren't prone to flights of fancy or wishful thinking. And yet they'd seen something that didn't fit their models. Something that challenged the worldview they'd spent their careers building. How they responded to that challenge varied. Some, like Margaret, expanded their understanding, making room for the unexplained without abandoning their commitment to reason. Others retreated into denial, convincing themselves that they'd imagined the encounter or misidentified a known animal. But none of them could forget what they'd seen. The experience stayed with them, a splinter in the mind, a constant reminder that the world was stranger than their textbooks had taught them. The Child's Memory James Whitehorse, Arizona James Whitehorse was eight years old when he had his encounter. He was 62 when he finally spoke about it. I've carried this memory for 54 years, James said, his voice heavy with the weight of long-held secrets. My grandfather told me never to speak of what I saw. He said the white world wouldn't understand, that they'd think I was making it up, or worse, that I was touched in the head. So I kept quiet. What did you see? I was herding sheep on the reservation, up near the Chuska Mountains. It was summer, hot as blazes, and I'd led the flock to a spring where they could drink. I was sitting on a rock, watching them, when I noticed I wasn't alone. What was there? A person. At least that's what I thought at first. A person standing in the shade of a juniper tree, maybe 50 yards away. But when I looked closer, I realized it wasn't a person. It was something else. Stay tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. I know you want to listen to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a duroze choices, can ASR maybe help? Well, I think, how then? Well, for example, when you're doing a duroze herstellen of the things that you love, you're going to be able to do. Will you know more about the insurance where a duroze schadethestel can be? Go to asr.nl. This does ASR for you and a sustainable society. ASR does it. So, we can now listen to your podcast. Can you describe it Tall Taller than any man I ever seen Covered in hair Reddish brown Like the color of the earth after rain It had a flat face with eyes that seemed to look right through me And it was watching the sheep not me Watching them with an expression I can only describe as wonder What happened next It noticed me watching turned its head and looked at me I was scared. Terrified, really. But I didn't run. My grandfather had taught me that the spirits of the land should be respected, not feared. So I stayed where I was. Did it approach you? No. It raised one hand, slowly, deliberately, and made a gesture, like a greeting. Then it turned and walked into the trees. I watched it go, still sitting on my rock, too amazed to move. What did your grandfather say when you told him? He wasn't surprised. He said the Ye'izo, the big giant, had shown itself to me. He said it was a blessing, a sign that I had been chosen to see what others couldn't. Then he told me never to speak of it to anyone outside the family. Why are you speaking about it now? Because my grandfather is gone. My parents are gone. I'm the last one who knows what I saw. And I've listened to your podcast, heard other people telling stories like mine. I realized I'm not alone, that there are others who've seen the Yayitza, others who understand, he paused. I don't want to die without adding my voice to theirs. James' story highlighted something that I'd encountered again and again in my research. The indigenous perspective on these creatures was fundamentally different from the mainstream view. Where Western culture saw monsters, cryptids, animals to be studied or feared, indigenous peoples saw relatives, neighbors, spiritual beings deserving of respect. They had names for these creatures. Sasquatch, Yaitso, Temequess, and relationships with them that went back thousands of years. This wasn't superstition or primitive belief. It was knowledge, accumulated over generations, about beings that Western science refused to acknowledge. The indigenous peoples had been telling the truth all along. We just hadn't been listening. James Whitehorse had waited 54 years to share his story. Now finally, someone was ready to hear it. The Night Shift. Maria Santos. New Mexico. Maria Santos worked the night shift at a gas station on the edge of the Gila wilderness. For 15 years, she'd watched travelers come and go, heard their stories, and kept the lights burning in a sea of darkness. You see things out here, Maria told me. Things that don't make sense. Lights in the sky. Animals that shouldn't exist. Shadows that move when nothing's moving them. Most of it you can explain away, but some of it, she shook her head, some of it stays with you. Tell me about your encounter. It was February of 2019, middle of the night, maybe two or three in the morning. I was alone in the station, hadn't had a customer in hours. I was reading a book, trying to stay awake, when I heard something outside. What kind of sound? Footsteps, heavy footsteps, on the concrete apron outside the pumps. But there was no car, no headlights, no one walking up from the road, just footsteps, getting closer. What did you do? I put down my book and looked out the window. The station's got those big fluorescent lights over the pumps. You can see pretty well out there even at night. And standing right there, in the light, was a creature. Can you describe it? Huge. At least eight feet tall. Covered in dark hair. Almost black. It was standing between two gas pumps, looking at the station, looking at me. I could see its eyes. They reflected the light, like an animal's eyes do. But there was intelligence in them. Curiosity. Like it was trying to figure out what this place was, what the pumps were for. How long did it stay? Maybe five minutes. It walked around the pumps, touched one with its hand. I remember thinking how strange it looked. that massive creature poking at the gas pump like a kid exploring something new. Then it looked at me one more time, made a sound, a grunt, or maybe a word in a language I didn't know, and walked into the darkness. Did you report the sighting? To who? The police would have thought I was crazy. My boss would have thought I was on drugs. So I kept quiet, like everyone else who sees things out here. Added it to the list of unexplained experiences that comes with living on the edge of the wilderness. Have you seen it since? Not that one. But I've seen others. Shadows moving through the trees when there's nothing there. Eyes reflecting in the darkness beyond the lights. Sometimes I hear them at night, making sounds. Not threatening, just communicating. Talking to each other in a language older than human speech. Are you afraid? Not anymore. I figure we're neighbors. They live in the wilderness. I live on the edge of it. As long as we respect each other's space, there's no reason for trouble. And maybe. She smiled. Maybe they're as curious about us as we are about them. Maybe that's why they come to the station sometimes. To watch. To learn. To understand the strange creatures that build things in the darkness. Maria's account reminded me that encounters weren't limited to remote wilderness areas. These creatures existed at the edges of human civilization, watching our activities, observing our technology, learning about the world we'd built. What did they think of us? Our cars? Our buildings? Our lights that turned night into day? Were we as mysterious to them as they were to us? The more I learned, the more I believed that the relationship between humans and these creatures was mutual. We watched them. They watched us. We were curious about their existence. They were curious about ours. Perhaps that mutual curiosity was the foundation for something more. A connection. A communication. A bridge between worlds that had existed side by side for millennia without ever truly meeting. The understanding I'd been working toward wasn't just about proof. It was about relationship. About finally acknowledging that we shared this planet with beings as intelligent and curious as ourselves. The question was, were we ready for that acknowledgement? Were they? The Logger's Legacy Thomas Erickson, Oregon Thomas Erickson came from a logging family that had worked the forests of Oregon for four generations. His great-grandfather had cut trees in the days before chainsaws. His grandfather had survived the Depression by taking timber contracts that no one else would touch. His father had built a company that employed a hundred men at its peak. Loggers don't talk about what they see in the woods, Thomas told me. It's an unwritten rule. You go in, you do your job, you come out. Whatever happens in there stays in there. But you're talking now. Because I'm 81 years old and the company's gone. Sold to a corporation that doesn't know a Douglas fir from a pine. The old ways are dying, and the stories are dying with them. Somebody needs to remember. What stories? Stories my grandfather told me. Stories my father told me. Stories I lived through myself. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes distant. We called them the wood apes. Not Bigfoot. Not Sasquatch. That was for the newspapers and the tourists. The wood apes. Every logger in the Pacific Northwest knew about them. We just didn't talk about it. What did loggers know? We knew they were real. We knew where they lived. Which valleys. Which ridges. which old growth stands. We knew not to bother them if we could help it. And we knew that sometimes, despite our best efforts, we'd run into them anyway. Tell me about your encounters. Too many to count. Footprints in the mud. Sounds at night. Shadows moving through the trees. But there are three that stand out. Three that I'll never forget. Tell me about them. The first was in 1958. I was 17, working my first summer with my father's crew. We were cutting a stand near the Rogue River, old growth that had never been touched. One morning, we came into the work site and found our equipment vandalized, not broken, moved. The chainsaws were stacked in a pile. The fuel cans were arranged in a circle. Our lunch coolers were opened, the food eaten, the containers placed neatly on a stump. What did you think happened? My father said it was kids playing a prank, but there were no roads into that site. We'd built them ourselves. And the nearest town was 30 miles away. No kids could have found us. And no kids would have eaten our food and then organized our equipment with that kind of precision. What about the second encounter? 1972. I was running my own crew by then, working a contract in the C.S. Law National Forest. We'd been in the same area for three weeks, clearing a section for replanting. One night, we heard them. Not just sounds, but voices. Actual voices, speaking to each other in a language that wasn't English or any other human tongue. Did you see them? Two of my guys did. They'd gone out to investigate the sounds, stupidly brave or maybe just curious. They came back white as sheets, talking about shapes in the darkness, about creatures that moved like shadows and watched them with eyes that glowed. What did you do? We finished the contract and never went back. Lost money on the job. But I didn't care. Some places aren't meant for human activity. Some forests belong to someone else. And the third encounter? That was the one that changed everything. Thomas' voice grew quieter. 1985. I was alone, surveying a potential contract site. Deep in the mountains. No roads. No people for miles. I was marking trees when I realized I wasn't alone. What happened? There was one standing right there, maybe 20 feet away. Full daylight. Nothing between us but air. We looked at each other for what felt like an hour, but was probably only a minute. And then it spoke. Spoke? In words? Not words I understood, but speech. Communication. It was trying to tell me something. I'm sure of it. Its voice was deep, resonant. I felt it in my chest as much as I heard it in my ears. and when it was done speaking, it pointed at me, then at the trees around us, then at itself, like it was making a connection, saying we were all part of the same thing. What did you do? I nodded, didn't know what else to do, and then it turned and walked away, disappearing into the forest. I never saw it again, but I never forgot what it seemed to be saying. What do you think it was saying? That we share this world. That the trees aren't just resources to be harvested. They're home. They're home. Our home. Everything's home. And maybe we should remember that before we cut it all down. Thomas smiled sadly. I didn't listen, of course. I kept logging for another 30 years. But I always thought about that creature. About its message. About what it meant. And now that I'm old, and the forests are shrinking, and the world is changing, I think maybe it was right. Maybe we should have listened. Thomas Erickson died six months after our interview. His family sent me a note saying that he'd been at peace in his final days, that telling his story had lifted a weight he'd carried for decades. His account became one of the most listened-to episodes in the podcast's history, not because of spectacular sightings or dramatic confrontations, but because of the quiet truth it contained. A lifetime of coexistence, of encounters that defied explanation, of a relationship between humans and creatures that had existed in the shadows of the logging industry for generations. The loggers had known. They'd always known. They just hadn't been allowed to say it. Now finally their stories could be told. The final witness, Gene Patterson, Georgia. The last interview I ever conducted before the documentary aired was with my own mother. Jean Patterson, mama as I'd always called her, was 68 years old, still sharp, still strong, still the rock I'd built my life around. She'd never spoken publicly about anything related to my work, but as the documentary's release approached, she reached out. I think it's time I told you something, she said, something I've been keeping for a very long time. What is it, Mama? You remember when we moved to Lyarly? When you were 12? Of course. The worst year of my life. I know. Your daddy's drinking. My cancer. Everything falling apart. She paused. But there's something I never told you. Something that happened before we moved. What happened? I saw one. One of them. Before we even knew that property existed. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Tell me. It was the summer of 1983, Mama began. A year before we moved. Your daddy and I were looking at properties. We knew we needed to get out of Somerville. Find somewhere cheaper. Somewhere we could start over. A realtor showed us a place in Lyarly. 80 acres. Mostly woods. A little house that needed work. Our place. The place that would become our place. But on that first visit, before we'd even made an offer, Something happened. We were walking the property line. Me, your daddy, and the realtor. It was late afternoon getting toward evening. We were in the back corner, the part you'd later call the dead zone, when I saw something moving in the trees. What did you see? A figure. Tall. Dark. Moving through the forest, maybe 50 yards away. At first I thought it was a person. A hunter, maybe. Or someone walking through from a neighboring property. Stay tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.nl. That's Shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. and a valuable community. ASR does it. So, we can now listen to your podcast. it's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. But then it stepped into a patch of sunlight, and I saw what it really was. What was it, Mama? You know what it was. The same thing you saw a year later. The same thing that's been living in those woods since before any of us were born. I sat in stunned silence. All these years. All my searching. And my mother had seen one before I ever set foot on that property. Why didn't you ever tell me? Because I didn't want you to know. After your encounter, after I saw how it affected you, how it changed you, I was afraid. Afraid that if you knew I'd seen one too, you'd never let it go. You'd spend your whole life chasing answers that maybe didn't exist. I spent my whole life chasing them anyway. I know. And maybe that was always going to happen. Maybe some people are meant to see things, to question things, to dig for truths that the rest of us are afraid to face. She reached out and took my hand. But I wanted you to have a choice. I wanted you to be able to walk away if you needed to. I couldn't walk away. I tried. It didn't work. No, it didn't. And now look at you. Changing the world. Telling truths that have been hidden for generations. She smiled, her eyes glistening. I'm proud of you, baby. Whatever happens next, I'm proud of who you've become. Thank you, Mama. For everything. Don't thank me yet. The hard part is still coming. When those creatures show themselves, when the world has to face what you've been saying all along, it's going to be chaos for a while. You need to be ready for that. I am. I've been ready my whole life. She squeezed my hand. Then go do what you need to do. And when it's over, come home. We'll sit on the porch and watch the stars and talk about everything that's changed. I'd like that. Me too, baby. Me too. That interview with Mama never aired. It was too personal, too intimate, too connected to my own story to share with the world. But it stayed with me as I prepared for the final journey to the cave The knowledge that my mother had seen what I seen had carried her own secret for decades had been protecting me even as she watched me chase the truth she tried to shield me from We were connected, Mama and I, by more than blood. We were connected by experience, by knowledge, by the shared understanding that the world was stranger than most people could imagine. And as I hiked into the forest for the final time, I carried her with me. Her strength, her love, her faith that whatever I was doing, whatever I was becoming, was worth the cost. The truth was coming out, and I was ready to face whatever came next. Additional encounters from the archives, the trucker's midnight run. Eddie McGraw, Interstate 90. Eddie McGraw had been driving trucks for 31 years. He'd crossed the country more times than he could count, seen every state, driven every major highway. But the night of September 14, 2011, stood apart from all the rest. I was hauling a load of furniture from Seattle to Chicago, Eddie told me. Long haul, three days on the road. I'd stopped for the night at a rest area in Montana, somewhere between Missoula and Butte. Middle of nowhere, really. Just a parking lot, some bathrooms, and darkness in every direction. What time was this? Around two in the morning, I was trying to sleep in the cab, but something kept bothering me. This feeling, you know, like something was watching. I'd had that feeling before, out on lonely stretches of highway, but never this strong. What did you do? I looked out the window. At first, I didn't see anything, Just the empty parking lot. The other trucks. The tree line maybe 50 yards away. But then something moved. Something big. What did you see? It came out of the trees and walked across the parking lot. Walked, not ran. Like it didn't have a care in the world. It was huge. Eight feet tall. Easy. Covered in dark hair. Walking on two legs with this rolling gait that covered ground faster than you'd think possible. Did it approach your truck? It walked right past, maybe 10 feet from my door. I could see its face in the parking lot lights, flat, broad, with deep-set eyes that seemed to glow. It looked at me as it passed, just a glance, like you'd give a stranger on the street. And then it kept walking, crossed the parking lot, and disappeared into the trees on the other side. What did you do after? I sat there shaking for about 20 minutes. Then I started my rig and drove straight through to the next truck stop, About a hundred miles east. Didn't sleep for the rest of that trip. Couldn't close my eyes without seeing that face. Have you had any encounters since? Not face to face, but I've heard things. Sounds in the night at rest areas. Knocking on the side of my trailer when I'm parked in remote places. I know they're out there, and I think they know. I know. Eddie laughed nervously. Some nights, I think they're just checking on me. Making sure I'm still keeping their secret. Eddie's account was one of dozens I'd collected from truckers over the years. The highways that crossed wilderness areas were prime territory for sightings. Long stretches of empty road where the creatures could move unseen. Rest areas surrounded by forest where they could observe human activity without being noticed. The trucking community had its own folklore about these creatures. Stories passed from driver to driver. Warnings about certain rest areas. certain stretches of highway where you didn't want to stop after dark. Most outsiders dismissed these tales as campfire stories, exaggerations born of long hours and lonely nights. But the consistency of the account suggested something more. The truckers were seeing the same things, in the same places, decade after decade. Whatever was out there, it was real. And it was watching. The Photographer's Obsession David Baker, Pacific Northwest David Baker had been a wildlife photographer for 25 years. His work had appeared in National Geographic, Smithsonian, and every major nature publication in the world. He'd photographed grizzlies in Alaska, tigers in India, and snow leopards in the Himalayas. But the image that defined his career was one he could never publish. I've spent 15 years trying to get another photo like it, David said. 15 years of expeditions, of waiting in blinds, of camping in remote areas for weeks at a time. And I've never come close. Tell me about the original photograph. It was 2007. I was in the Olympic National Park, working on a piece about temperate rainforests. I'd set up a remote camera on a game trail, triggered by motion sensor. Standard practice for wildlife photography. You can capture images of animals that would never tolerate a human presence. What did the camera capture? Three frames. Just three frames. Before the camera was destroyed. David's voice tightened. The first showed the trail, empty, just as I'd left it. The second showed a figure, massive, hair-covered, standing in profile about 20 feet from the camera. And the third showed a hand, a huge, dark hand, reaching toward the lens. The camera was destroyed, crushed. When I went to retrieve it, I found pieces scattered over a 20-foot area. The memory card was intact, but the camera itself had been systematically demolished. Not by accident, deliberately. What did the images show? Exactly what you'd expect. A Sasquatch. Clear as day. In profile. Close enough to see individual hairs. The best photograph ever taken of these creatures. And I couldn't do anything with it. Why not? because no one would believe it was real. The clarity was too good. People would assume it was faked. And because... He paused. Because I was afraid. Afraid of what would happen if I went public. Afraid of being labeled a hoaxer or a crackpot. Afraid of destroying the career I'd spent decades building. What happened to the images? I still have them. Locked in a safe. I've shown them to a few trusted colleagues. People who know my work. who know I wouldn't fake evidence. They believe me, but that's not the same as going public. Would you consider sharing them now with the documentary? David was quiet for a long moment. Maybe, if the time is right, if the world is ready. He smiled sadly. I've spent 15 years waiting for that moment. Maybe it's finally here. David Baker eventually agreed to share his photographs. They appeared in the documentary, along with expert analysis confirming their authenticity. The images became some of the most discussed evidence in the history of Sasquatch research. Clear, detailed, undeniable. But for David, the victory was bittersweet. He'd spent so many years hiding the truth, protecting himself from ridicule, that the revelation felt more like a relief than a triumph. I should have shared them sooner, he told me, after the documentary aired. I should have been braver. Maybe if I had, we wouldn't have had to wait so long for the world to believe. Maybe. Or maybe the world wasn't ready until now. Maybe everything had to happen in its own time, according to a schedule none of us could control. The truth was like that. It couldn't be rushed or forced. It would emerge when it was meant to emerge. And all we could do was prepare the ground and wait for the seeds to sprout. The Ranger's Confession Patricia Morgan had spent 32 years as a park ranger in Yellowstone National Park. She'd seen every kind of wildlife the park had to offer. Grizzlies, wolves, bison, elk. She'd rescued hikers, fought fires, and enforced regulations in one of America's most treasured wilderness areas. But she'd never spoken publicly about the other things she'd seen. Until now. There's a file, Patricia said. An unofficial file passed down from ranger to ranger. It contains reports of sightings, encounters, things that don't fit into any official category. We call it the X-File, like the TV show. It's been growing since the 1950s. What kind of reports? Everything you'd expect. Large bipedal creatures seen in remote areas. Footprints that don't match any known animal. Vocalizations recorded at night that can't be identified. Strange structures found in the backcountry. Shelters made of woven branches, arranged in patterns that suggest intelligence. Why hasn't any of this been made public? Because it would cause chaos. Yellowstone gets millions of visitors every year. If people thought there were unknown creatures living in the park, some would be terrified. Others would flood the backcountry trying to find them. Either way, it would be a disaster for the park and for the creatures themselves. Have you had personal encounters? Three. The first was in 1994, my second year as a ranger. I was on patrol in the Lamar Valley, checking on a wolf pack we were monitoring. It was early morning, just after dawn, and I saw something standing on a ridge about a quarter mile away. At first I thought it was a bear, but it was too tall, too upright. It watched me for about a minute, then turned and walked over the ridge. I never reported it. Why not? Because I wanted to keep my job. I'd seen what happened to rangers who reported things like that. They got transferred to desk duty, or their assignments suddenly became less desirable. The Park Service doesn't want to deal with this. They'd rather pretend it doesn't exist. What about the other encounters? The second was in 2003. I was investigating reports of strange sounds in the Thorafair region, the most remote area in the lower 48. I spent three days camped out there, and every night I heard them. Vocalizations. Communications. Things talking to each other in a language that wasn't human, but clearly meant something. Did you see anything? Just shadows. Shapes moving at the edge of my flashlight's range. But I could feel them watching. I knew they were there. And the third encounter? That was last year. I was doing a routine patrol in the backcountry when I came across a structure. A lean-to, made of branches woven together with remarkable precision. Inside was a bed of moss, clearly used recently. And on the ground nearby, I found a footprint. 18 inches long, five toes, distinctly humanoid. What did you do? I photographed everything, added it to the file, and kept my mouth shut. Patricia looked at me with tired eyes. I'm retiring next month. 32 years is enough. And before I go, I wanted someone to know the truth. I wanted someone to document what we've been hiding all these years. Can I see the file? I can get you copies. It's not everything. Some reports are too sensitive, too recent, too connected to people who are still working. But enough to show the pattern. Enough to prove that the Park Service has known about these creatures for decades and done nothing. Why are they hiding it? Fear, mostly. Fear of what would happen if the truth came out. Fear of losing control of the narrative. Fear of having to deal with something that doesn't fit into their bureaucratic categories. She shook her head. But the truth is coming out anyway. You're helping it come out. And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's time for the hiding to stop. Patricia Morgan's file became one of the most valuable resources in my research. Decades of reports, observations, and encounters, all carefully documented by rangers who'd been sworn to silence. The evidence was overwhelming, not just of the creature's existence, but of a systematic cover-up that extended to the highest levels of the park service. When the documentary aired, Patricia was one of the first to go public. She appeared on camera, in uniform, explaining what she'd seen and what she knew. The reaction was immediate, both support from the public and condemnation from the Park Service. But Patricia didn't care. She'd spent 32 years hiding the truth. Now, finally, she could speak. Stay tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.nl. That's Shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. I understand that you want to listen to your podcast, so I will keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a valuable choice, can ASR help? Now I hear you think, how then? Now, for example, when you're selling the products you love to be a bad person. Want to know more about the insurance where a bad person can be? Go to asr.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This is ASR for you and a bad person. ASR does it. So, now you can listen to your podcast. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles. Designer, marketer, logistics manager. All while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.nl. That's Shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. And her voice was one of the loudest in the chorus that changed the world. The scientist's journey. Dr. Michael Brooks, primatologist. Dr. Michael Brooks had spent his career studying great apes in Africa. He'd published dozens of papers on primate behavior, locomotion, and cognition. He was respected, established, secure in his position at one of the country's top universities. And he was ready to risk it all. I've known the truth for 15 years, Michael told me. 15 years of keeping silent, of pretending I didn't see what I saw, of compartmentalizing my knowledge so I could continue my career. But I can't do it anymore. What truth are you talking about? The truth about Sasquatch. The truth about the scientific community's systematic denial of evidence that contradicts our established paradigms. The truth about how we failed the very principles we claim to uphold. When did you first become aware of this? 2006. I was at a conference on primate evolution when a colleague showed me a footprint cast from the Pacific Northwest. He'd obtained it from a researcher who was terrified of going public, and he wanted my opinion. What did you see? A footprint that didn't match any known primate. The proportions were wrong for a human or an ape. The dermal ridges showed a pattern of wear that would be virtually impossible to fake. And the size, 18 inches long, 5 inches wide, suggested a creature of enormous proportions. What was your reaction? Disbelief at first. I assumed there must be an explanation, some hoax or misidentification that I wasn't seeing. But the more I studied the cast, the more convinced I became that it was authentic. And that realization changed everything. What did you do? I started investigating. Quietly at first. I couldn't let my colleagues know what I was doing. I collected evidence, interviewed witnesses, analyzed samples. and what I found was extraordinary. What did you find? A species. An actual species. Undiscovered by modern science. Living in the wilderness areas of North America. The evidence was overwhelming. Footprints, hair samples, vocalizations, eyewitness accounts. Everything pointed to the same conclusion. These creatures were real. Why didn't you go public? Fear. The same fear that's kept thousands of researchers silent. Fear of ridicule, of career destruction, of being labeled a crackpot. I'd spent decades building my reputation. I wasn't willing to sacrifice it for a truth that no one was ready to hear. What changed? Your podcast changed. The documentary changed. Everything changed. Michael leaned forward. For the first time, there's a critical mass of evidence and witnesses. For the first time, the public is ready to listen. and for the first time scientists like me can speak without destroying ourselves in the process. What do you want people to know? That science has failed them. That we've allowed our preconceptions and our fears to blind us to evidence that's been in front of us for decades. That the creatures you've been documenting are real. They're intelligent and they've been hiding in plain sight while we pretended they didn't exist. What should happen now? Study. Protection. Recognition. These creatures deserve to be understood, not hunted or exploited. They deserve to have their habitat protected, their existence acknowledged, their intelligence respected. And science, the scientific community that's denied them for so long, needs to step up and do the work that should have been done generations ago. Dr. Michael Brooks became one of the most visible scientific advocates for Sasquatch recognition. His credentials gave him credibility that most researchers in the field had lacked. His willingness to speak opened doors that had been closed for decades After the documentary aired other scientists followed his lead Biologists anthropologists primatologists researchers from every field began coming forward, sharing evidence they'd been hiding, admitting to experiences they'd never dared to discuss. The wall of scientific denial was crumbling, and in its place, a new understanding was emerging, one that made room for creatures that didn't fit the established paradigms, for mysteries that science couldn't easily explain. The world was changing, and science was changing with it. The final gathering, before the expedition. The night before we left for the forest, we gathered at the mountain house. Everyone who'd been part of the journey. Everyone who'd helped bring us to this moment. Daniel was there, of course, and Amanda, with her camera crew. Zach, who'd spent decades building the evidence that would finally be validated. A dozen witnesses whose stories had become part of the podcast's legacy. Friends from the community who'd traveled from around the country to be present. We sat on the deck, watching the sunset, talking about everything and nothing. I never thought we'd get here, Lucille Marsh said. She was 92 now, frail, but still sharp. She'd traveled from Georgia to be present for what she called the moment I've been waiting for since 1953. None of us did, I replied. But here we are. Here we are, Bobby Dean Carver agreed. He'd driven up from Arkansas, bringing his famous laugh and his unwavering certainty. About to prove every skeptic wrong. About to show the world what we've known all along. It's not about proving anyone wrong, Patricia Morgan said. She'd flown in from Yellowstone, her Ranger uniform replaced by civilian clothes. It's about showing them the truth, giving them the chance to understand. Same thing, isn't it? Bobby Dean asked. No, it's not. I looked out at the mountains, at the forest where the creatures waited. This isn't about victory or vindication. It's about connection. About finally bridging the gap between our world and theirs. You really think they want that? David asked. After everything humanity has done, the cover-ups, the hunting, the destruction of their habitat, I think they're willing to try. They've been waiting for this moment, preparing for it. They wouldn't have invited us if they weren't ready. But are we ready, Amanda asked. Is humanity ready for what's about to happen? That was the question. The question that had haunted me for years, that kept me up at night, that I couldn't answer no matter how hard I tried. We'll find out tomorrow, I said finally. Either we're ready or we're not. Either the world is ready to hear the truth, or it isn't. But we have to try. We've come too far to stop now. Later that night, after most of the guests had gone to bed, I walked to the edge of the forest. I could feel them out there, watching, waiting. The same presence I'd felt since I was 12 years old, since that first encounter in the woods of Lyarly. I'm coming, I said softly, to the darkness, to whatever was listening. Tomorrow I'm coming, and I'm bringing everyone. The witnesses, the cameras, the truth. Something moved in the trees. A shadow, darker than the darkness around it. Thank you, I said, for waiting, for believing in us, for giving us this chance. The shadow moved again, and from somewhere deep in the forest, a howl rose. Long, mournful, beautiful. It was answered by others, from every direction, until the night was filled with their voices. They were singing, celebrating, calling to each other across the mountains, announcing that the time had finally come. Tomorrow, everything would change. Tomorrow, the search would enter a new phase. And whatever happened after that, whatever challenges we faced, whatever obstacles arose, we would face them together. Humans and seekers, witnesses and researchers, those who had seen and those who were ready to believe. Together, we would keep searching for the truth. I walked back to the house where Daniel was waiting on the porch. Ready, he asked. Ready, I said. We went inside to our bed, to one last night of rest before the journey that would change everything. And as I drifted off to sleep, I heard them singing. the creatures the witnesses the whole vast network of beings who'd been waiting for this moment tomorrow we would step into the light tomorrow the hiding would end tomorrow the world would finally know the truth and nothing would ever be the same again starting a business can be overwhelming you're juggling multiple roles designer marketer logistics manager all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. 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Welcome to the Strange History Podcast, where every episode explores the bizarre, hilarious, unsettling, and occasionally, someone please check on humanity corners of our past. We dig up the stories your textbooks skipped. From haunted mansions and medical oddities to forgotten jobs, cursed holidays, and historical scandals so ridiculous they sound fake, but aren't. And yes, there will be sarcastic commentary, historical chaos, and questionable fake sponsors like Dr. Pumpernickel's patented goat-based relationship therapy. Side effects may include regret. So come join the adventure. You can find the Strange History podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Because history wasn't just weird. It was beautifully, catastrophically weird. Ever look up in the sky and wonder what's really going on up there? Hi, I'm Martin Willis, and I host Podcast UFO, the longest consistently running podcast dedicated to UFOs and UAP. with over 700 episodes in the last 15 years. Each week, I sit down with scientists, researchers, filmmakers, and people who have had real encounters to talk honestly about what we know and what we don't. There's no shouting, no crazy music, just thoughtful conversations about one of the biggest mysteries out there. If you're curious, open-minded, or just a little bit obsessed with UFOs, you will feel right at home. Search Podcast UFO wherever you get your podcasts or visit podcastufo.com. Podcast UFO, where searching the mystery never ends. I know you're listening to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a lot of choices, can ASR help? Well, I think, how then? Well, for example, when it's a duurzaam sale of products that you love are, you will be able to do more information about the services where a duurzaam schade-referring is? 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