TERROR AT THE HEADWATERS OF BRISTOL BAY, ALASKA (THE DARK SIDE OF THE BIGFOOT!)

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're listening to your podcast, so I'm going to keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a choice, can ASR help? Well, I think, how then? Well, for example, when you're doing a lot of things that are you love to do. Will you know more about the services where a lot of schade can be? Go to ASR.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This does ASR for you and a more and a more and more. ASR does it. So, then you can now listen to your podcast. with many locals reporting Sasquatch-like creatures coming into their villages and terrorizing the people. I was fortunate enough to get in contact with Fred who was willing to share some of his experiences and encounters. The encounters that Fred experienced in his life with the Sasquatch were not positive in any way, and still to this day, he finds hard to talk about. Just be respectful in the comments, and if you don't believe, just move on. It's that easy. If you enjoy this type of content, please be sure to like and subscribe. And if you have had a Sasquatch encounter and would like to be a guest on the show, please email me at SasquatchTheory at Outlook.com. All right, everyone. Let's dive into this next Bigfoot encounter from the state of Alaska. Hey Fred, welcome to Sasquatch Theory. I appreciate you being on the show, man. Yep, my pleasure. Yeah, if you would, could you take us back to your encounters and tell us about what you experienced and maybe what you saw? Oh, for sure. some of my oldest memories are of you know warnings of the hairy man out in the woods you know don't go out in the woods alone don't turn your back on the woods that kind of thing you know but we weren't raised like uh with the old native tales and the old native myths of the hairy man and things of that nature uh a lot of my older relatives were in the fishing industry and more sophisticated than the old ways, if that makes sense. So we didn't get a lot of the, like, the elders' guidance as far as mythological stories from our past kind of thing. Anyway, some of my earliest memories is berry picking. We'd be out on the tundra and you'd hear a howl or a hoot off in the distance, and you'll see shadow figures running off in the tree line and what have you. Let me see. This is Alaska, correct? Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, Bristol Bay, Alaska, north of Dillingham on the Nishigak River or the Wood River up in Wood-Tik-Tik State Park. That's extremely remote, correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then some. Yeah, it's very remote. A few small villages here and there, but nothing of any. I mean, the largest populous place was Dillingham, and there's roughly maybe 2,400 year-round residents. Kind of fluctuates, you know? Yeah. Even less back in the day. But me and three of my cousins, we were berry picking, and we're up by this place called Snake Lake in Snake Lake Mountain. and it's just off the road between Dillingham and Alechnigek. We're back up on some of these rises where the berry patches were and stuff, and it must have been about eight or nine maybe, somewhere in that age frame. And one of my cousins, Spencer, he starts crying, and he sits down, and he keeps pointing at the woods, said something to a rock at him. And we're from the tree line at this point. I was a little kid, but we were a good 100 yards from the tree line. Like, nothing threw a rock at him that we could tell. So we went, found my auntie. She was over the rise, got her attention, tell her, you know, hey, your boy's crying. Well, another rock comes in and almost hits us. There was a group of three of us. It almost hits us, and it's about the size of a baseball. Then that really got our attention because it wasn't just him throwing a fit because he didn't want to keep up with us, making excuses, you know. little kid stuff, but it got real. So we turned the direction of where the rock came from, and all we heard was this real loud howl. And it was like on about three different octaves, a real low one and two upper octaves, like real high-pitched. It sounded like a woman being murdered with a deep lion growl in the background. Kind of hard to explain. so that got our attention and my aunt's attention for sure and she got us the hell out of there that was just a kind of a brief thing that happened we didn't have any visual on it or anything like that but it was loud and clear and there was a bunch of thrashing and you could see the trees moving and stuff real creepy um but it's still to us younger kids it wasn't real yet You know what I mean? It was just Taco the hairy man. Let me see. In, oh, what year was that? We moved away in 85, but we would come back every summer and stay through the fall for hunting. And I believe it was in 87 or 88. We had an extended stay up from where we lived down in the States, the lower 48. and we were staying with my grandma and there was about six of us. We were all going to go up the Wood River by skiff and go to this place called Sorenson Scows where a family had some old fishing scows and stuff anchored up off the side of the Wood River. So we all take off early in the morning, caught the tide from where we had to launch the boat at the Wood River Landing in Dillingham there. And on our way up, we decided to pull into the McClung River and do a little sport fishing on our way. So we were about to be running, so all the kids were excited. You know, there was about three or four of us kids and a couple adults. We're cruising along. We get up in there, and there's these little sloughs that jettison off the McClung River. It's not a very big river. It's just a tributary to the Wood River. we start casting away you know we're crossing lines just being kids excited to fish and all of a sudden there's a huge splash just up the river from us real big boosh we couldn't see it because we were in one of these little sloughs trying to basically cut off the salmon you know we're trying to kind of block their way back out and try to cast up and you know catch them anyway We were just doing dumb stuff. So as we were backing out of there after casting a little while because we still needed to get upriver, as we were drifting back down, we came in the view of where the splash originated. And there was an upside-down pine tree root still on it. It wasn't old or beetle kill or none of that. It was fresh. This thing had been ripped out of the ground and speared right into the center of the little river. It didn't block us or anything. It was just above us. But we saw that, and we're like, where in the hell did that, you know? None of it made sense to us. None of it. So the adults, you know, they freak out. They get us out of Dodge. You know, we go upriver. We go up to the Sorenson Scouts, uneventful. So in the meantime, all this stuff going on throughout the years, there's always been sightings here, certain places you don't go berry picking. You'd see a lot of times you could see these things off in the distance running the tree line, but it's so easy to dismiss it as something else if you didn't know, if you weren't aware of what was going on. Like we were raised knowing hairy man was real. You know, we were warned, stay out of the woods, don't go alone. All that stuff. One thing I feel is that they don't want to be our friend. I've never had any warm, fuzzy moments or any kind of interaction that was in any way greeting. Like they wanted to be friendly in any way. Everything was always initiated by them, whether they'd be throwing sticks, rocks, screaming, that type of thing. So never have I gone looking, if that makes sense. There's never a – no one I knew back there ever wanted to go find one. They were always scary. You know, it wasn't something you just wanted to go and pick up as a hobby. Well, I'm going to give you the wrong version of what happened in 2006 because it's going to take a little while to lay it all out. We were, it was the end of the fishing season, and one of my relatives wanted to go gold panning. There was, you know, big talk about gold upriver and this and that, and the place he wanted to go was way up the Nushek River towards Iliamna, way up there. I mean, past all the villages that were on the Mizzagak River before you get to Lake Iliamna. It's kind of hard to explain. I don't have a map in front of me exactly. So we took a couple days getting ready. This was mid-September. Had the gold pinning stuff. Had all our supplies. We had a couple different outboards. we had a jet 40 horse for the lagoons we were going to come across and we had a regular outboard drive uh prop drive excuse me being out in the cold yesterday just gave me kind of a harsh voice so forgive me oh you're fine anyway you need to take a drink pause just let me know like yeah no i'm good i got my coffee right here i'll just take a sip now and then but um we're getting ready and like I said it takes a couple days gather up where you know where's this kicker left is it over at this relative's house yada yada we get everything together and we head out now this by river is a very long distance um days by river we we had a couple stops we stayed in the studio huck for a few days for my older relative to recoup from being on the water. It gets freaking cold, no matter what the ambient temperature is. Sorry, every time I talk about this, my hair starts standing up on the back of my neck just because it is, anyway, pushing forward. We talked to some relatives there in Neustria Hawk and spent a couple days there. This is, like I said, mid-September. 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. So, you can listen to your podcast now. with his planned out trip, we were going by his rules. So we take our time. Now, where we went up on the Newyukuk River, it's the Tikchik Lake, one of the northernmost lakes in the Wood Tikchik Park area, feeds it at the waterfalls. They had a salmon counting station up there, a weir tower, and the observers had built this little lean-to shack. I mean, this thing is chintzy. It had a glorified cardboard box. It was 5-H plywood and 2x4 construction with a little 50s-style eggshell camper attached to it on the backside. And they had boarded off the rear window of the thing and made it into their little bunk area. So it was this camper with basically a glorified lean-to attached to the face of it. It was like 8-foot square. A whole lot of nothing as far as real protection. It was basically keep the water off, maybe some of the wind. Had two little windows in the thing, and that was it. And the door was plywood and two-by-four with a little hook latch. I mean, literally a glorified box. We get up there, and I wanted to go bear hunting. I wanted a new black bear rug for three or four years at this point. Heard a bunch of stories about big black bears up in this area, So I am stoked. Had a brand new 870 Remington pump. I had got it in the village. So it was real expensive. It was a rifle barrel. Had the ghost ring combat sights. Beautiful gun. I was real happy with it. Anyway, I had that and I wanted to use some slugs and drop a black bear. So I'm dwelling on that. We get everything unloaded into this little shanty. I wanted to go right then and go look for bears, but it was getting dark. and we didn't want to be on the river. We're chilling out. My relatives start, there's just three of us. So they start playing a card game of some kind on this little card table next to one of the small windows. Now, I don't know exactly how much time had passed, but when we got there, this is not a good spot for a cabin. Our little shack, it's on the high bank. it's a high erosion area but that's where the observers built it I guess we where you park your skiff there's very little beach it's like someone added some gravel there's just enough area there to kind of and nothing to tie off to so when we beach up we have a long ass anchor line that we drug up over the bank because the bank is about 6-7 feet high on that side where we're at. We had to drag it back over and anchor into the tundra a ways back just so the skip didn't get pushed away in the current. It's relevant later. So we're up in there, and I don't remember exactly how much time had passed, but it was starting to get dark. This is fall in Alaska, so we're probably at roughly 12 and 12 on the light cycle. So it was looking real nice, you know, off in the distance with the sun setting and everything. And I was adjusting the sights on this shotgun. Because like I said, it was brand new. I maybe put four or five rounds through it on the way upriver, just plinking around. So I'm adjusting it, tweaking it, whatever. All of a sudden, the whole place just shifts. All right, makes us creak. I'm getting the chills. The whole place creaks. Just right, the whole place shifts. I kind of look at my cousin, and they're both looking back at me like, what the hell? Well, my older relative, deaf is a stump. He was my uncle. He's deaf, just deaf. So he was going by lip reading, and he didn't hear anything, but he said he felt the creaking in the floor. So we're looking, I'm looking at my cousin, and I see movement behind his shoulder in the window. So, man, my hair's standing on the back of my neck hard. Got the hard goosebumps. Anyway, saw movement, and he saw the expression on my face, and he jumped up and grabbed the 30-odd six. And I said, I think there is a bear outside. Because we weren't thinking hairy men at the time. It just wasn't, we're up there to fish and gold pair. well at first he jumped when he jumps up he thought i was teasing him and i was like no and he saw the expression on my face and there was something in the air it was like everything got a lot of pressure in the air it's hard to explain almost like your ears are half popped but they haven't popped yet, you know, when you're gaining altitude, that kind of thing. So we're kind of, he started taking it more serious because everyone felt the pressure. It was real weird, just, so we're assessing the situation, we're talking about, okay, if it's a brown bear, should we put it down? If it's a black bear, is it the one I want? You know, just frivolous stuff about shooting or chasing off a bear. Like I said, Harry Man wasn't on our radar. We had one of these spotlights that we use for hunting every year. Million candle watt power or some crap. They worked for all of 10, 15 minutes. Anyway, it's what we had. We had some smaller flashlights, but that was our main one. We get a game plan. We'll open the door. We'll beam around. We'll find the bear. We'll scare it off. Or if it's the black bear I want, I'll drop it. We had our game plan. And now when I push the riverbank we're on, the tree line is about 50 yards back from the riverbank. And the little shanty shack is about maybe five yards off of the bank's edge. Not a good place. That's just how they had it set up. So when we open the door, we're immediately looking towards the tree line. and I turn on the spotlight and all you saw was three sets of amber eyes off at the tree line. Now, these were so big, I thought they were fence post markers. Like, and I started asking him, is there fence post markers over there or something that I missed? Because this is a remote place. You know, you don't expect to see anything reflective in the trees. You know, you just don't. It's too remote. and just as he was telling me no, we got a real eerie feeling. Like there was no movement from the eye shine, but we just got this real creeped out feeling. It's hard to explain. So we jumped back inside and shut the door. Getting the chills thinking about it. My neck's tightening up. So we're standing there just a moment, like not very long, trying to discuss what had eyeshine like that. Now, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking something, just something's not adding up. Well, all of a sudden, he goes from next to me underneath that card table, like in a shot, just terrified, freaked out. He's underneath the table, and he's holding the .30-06 by the barrel, like clutching it like he was turning butter or something, but he was on his back under the table. I'm looking over at my uncle like, what the hell is this? I'm kind of looking around trying to figure out, you know, what the hell. And I could tell he's looking at the opposite window from where he's at. Get the show thinking about it. So I look over, and in the light of little pump-up Coleman white gas lamp, we saw two huge amber-red eyes and an outline of a head. Big. It gave me a shock to my system that I had never felt before in my life. Now, I've seen these things before. I've seen them at a semi-decent close distance, but they would run off, make a lot of noise, maybe come back and peek from a tree line. It was nothing ever in your face, you know. It was always at a distance. Well, this thing was like less than five feet from us on the outside of this chintzy-ass glorified cardboard box. It was the creepiest shit. like so seeing that the thing blinked when because everything went slow motion at this point i can feel the my heartbeat in my eyes right now so it blinked its eyes and started moving out of view of the window towards the little corner and i'm still holding the shotgun and just on autopilot i put three shots through the wall boom boom boom there was a loud scream and The whole place shifted. It shifted a couple feet. I thought for sure we're going to go in the river. I mean, that was the first thing on my mind was all shit. 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 1 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. Now, my uncle, he grabs a lantern right after this and goes back into the little, uh, little sleeping area. Little 50's style eggshell. Back part of this lean to where there's two bumps on one side, two on the other. excuse me this gets my heart rate up so uh i'm sitting there i just shot and there was so much pressure in the air i didn't hear no ringing in my ear from the shotgun this is a small area this is a 12 gauge kaboom and i was shooting serious rounds but there was no high pitch ringing in the air nothing it was just a lot of pressure in the air so after the scream in the shift there's some weird garbled noises in the distance uh nothing outside of just strange sounds uh like imitation of bird calls uh owl hooting weird clicking um let's see the the scream was weird very high pitched but like I'm into competition stereo systems so I like the real low notes from the bass well this scream although all you could hear was a high pitched part of it you could feel the notes you couldn't hear like it had to have been sub 20 hertz because we can hear everything down to about 20 hertz or so it had to be below that whatever octave it was just the creepiest stuff now i'm full-fledged panic because i just shot uh my cousins under the table freaked out um i i tried to get the the 30-06 from him because more powerful rifle i wanted more punch for the next time i have to shoot but i didn't want to the way he was freaked out i didn't want to accidentally shoot him because was loaded and the way he was holding it just wasn't good so mom goes back in the bunk area he kills the lantern now when he killed the lantern there's still enough light outside where you can see shadows move by the windows there was shadows moving by the windows real close to it but not a noise not a sound like just anybody that close up on it you would have heard them like walking by because this is literally a box. There's nothing to it. You can hear outside almost as well as you can inside. It's literally that kind of place. So it's deathly quiet. I'm beyond freaked out. I literally, at this point, my uncle shut down. My cousin's under the table and is of no help at this moment. He had wet his pants. He was freaked out. I was trying to hold it together. I'm trying to think, how am I going to do this by myself? I felt all alone. I kept getting this overwhelming feeling to make a break for it. And that, you know, I love these people. I wasn't leaving them anywhere. But it was real weird. It wasn't like a mind speak thing or anything. It was like the survival mode and trying to fight with my own emotions. emotions because it I was at in that moment in time I was I was not right I was holding the shotgun trembling mumbling to myself trying to come up with the a game plan here now the sun just is going down we have 12 hours of darkness and is dawning on me at this point that we have to get through in order to see to get out of there on the skiff because you can't go down the river at night and pitch black, even with lamps and stuff, you're going to hit something. It's just dangerous. So I'm sitting there trying to plot and plan in my mind. I don't know how much time had gone by, but I had gotten the lamp relit because I needed light. My mind was playing tricks on me as far as seeing stuff inside the shack. It was all bad. So I get it lit. And every micro-movement struggle, it's panic. Like, the fear was on a level that I never felt before. It's hard to explain unless you felt it. It won't make sense because it was so primal and so embedded deep. It's hard to express. oh maybe you have are those who have experienced these things might know what I'm talking about but this was a very primal holy shit like this ain't freaking happening you know that's what was going on in my mind is this isn't happening I this is something's well I don't know exactly how much time had passed my cousin started communicating again and I asked him I was like dude what did you see you know did you see anything different than we did because we saw the eyes it blinked I shot you know what did you see he said it showed me its teeth and I said when did it show you its teeth he said just before I hit the floor he said I was going to try to shoot it but all I could do involuntarily was flop over on the floor and try to get to some kind of safety. He was like, I couldn't control myself. I was freaked out. And I was like, all right, now I get it. You know, I was here. I saw what you did except minus the teeth part. And I said, what did it, what did the teeth look like? And he said they were big block teeth and the canines were a little bigger than how humans present theirs, you know. And I was like, okay, how many did you see? Because not too long before this happened, like moments, like we just shut the door and he was standing next to me before he ended up under the table and, you know, I started popping shots. But we just saw three sets of eye shot off in the tree line, like just right over there. He said, I only saw its teeth. I said, were there other ones looking in the window? He said, I only saw its teeth. So he couldn't get off the teeth thing. So I just left that alone and asked him, hey, you know, can you pull yourself together here? I don't know what's going on, but I need help. I can't defend us all and shoot every gun we got by myself. I need someone else here with me. He was like, no, I'm doing better. I'm going to change my clothes. I pissed myself. I said, well, let's hold off on that. You know, I wasn't trying to tell the guy what to do. It was still this shit just happened. And let's assess what's going on before we start, you know, getting domesticated and worrying about what we're wearing. You know, I felt in danger. Like, the flight level in my mind was, we should just go in the dark. We should hit the bank of the river and follow the high bank down for a while, swim across. All this crazy shit was going on in my mind just to flee. Like, I wanted no part of making a stand or, I mean, defending myself, yes, but there was no way in my mind at that time I wanted to frickin' be anywhere near where we were. All the fun and laughing of, oh, the hairy man, none of that. It was all deadly serious. Like, there was no good feeling coming from the pressure in the air. It was like an oppressive primal fear, this sense of dread that was so overpowering that if you didn't have a grasp of it immediately and calm yourself down, you could very easily lose yourself in just utter fear and the chaos of the mind going crazy about this. these eyes were huge um in the window this this figure we saw in the in the window we couldn't make out much detail outside of the eyes because they were real bright they weren't glowing themselves but the the refracted light from them was really kind of cool because the lamp was dull It wasn't very bright because it was still kind of dusk outside, but it was just so bright, like glowing, but just from the ambient light of the lamp. Anyway, it's just those things stand out in your mind, little things you just, in those situations, you just hold on to. Well, I don't know exactly how much time had gone by. there was this there was this nail this 16 penny nail and a rock and this was a big nail my cousin's down on his knees straightening this nail now the Shaquarean has a little J hook to close the thing no real lock no real there was no safety where we were none no safety whatsoever it was the glorified box well he was trying to straighten this nail with this rock to nail the door shut. And I'm like, yo, dude, think about what you're doing. Come to, you know, snap out of it. There's no way that little nail is going to stop none of these things. I need your help. Focus on, let's get a game plan. We got to get out of here. You know, I was running ideas by him, like maybe we can use a spotlight, get to the skiff and just get down river. you know we were miles and man i don't remember exactly how far away we were from the nearest village but it had to have been at least 60 to 80 river miles 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. Uhm, I understand that you listen to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a lot of choices, can ASR maybe help? Well, I hear you think, how then? Now, for example, when you're selling the things that you love are, you're a harm. Will you know more about the insurance where a harm harm can be? Go to asr.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This is for you and a more sustainable life. ASR does it. So, now you can listen to your podcast. time seems like it's going by in microseconds um there'd be moments where it seems like everything's moving at a normal speed and then other times everything's just real slow motion almost it's hard to explain it's kind of like have you ever been seasick and that weird feeling of kind of feeling okay but then not okay and then feeling okay but then not okay it was it kind of ebbed and flowed like that well i'm i'm sitting here trying to explain to him look i shot at one of these things and i think i shot this thing i couldn't tell i was shooting through the wall you know the first time i opened up with the 12 gauge i'm just shooting in the direction i think it would be according to how fast it was moving on and on whatever so i'm telling him this and we're hearing weird noises off in the distance. Now, I'm guessing about two, three hours have gone by at this point since the whole place shifted in the scream and after I shot. So maybe four hours. It had been a minute I was trying to get my uncle to communicate You know he knew a lot of people upriver He knew of all the little places and oh there a trapper cabin over here where so lives. I'm thinking of anything I can to spark some kind of help from them other than, you know, my cousin telling me he really wants to change his clothes. I get it. You know, I'm not happy with what's going on, but, you know, whatever, at this point, go ahead, change your clothes. He didn't need my permission. We were just panic-stricken. You know, nothing we were doing was making sense. So he's doing his thing, and I'm trying to talk to my uncle, and he's not really responding to me. I'm like, you know, what can you do? Do you know of anything to scare these things away? You know, I'm looking for guidance of any kind, and he was just solemn, not a remark, not a comment, and that was very disheartening. I mean, I love these people. It was just heartbreaking to see them broken, you know what I mean? Like just emotionally shot. They couldn't cope. I was just glad my cousin was around mentally enough to be coherent enough to want to change his clothes and acknowledging, yeah, we're in danger because I wasn't getting none of that from my uncle, so I was feeling real alone. And, well, as I'm talking to my uncle, I'm telling my cousin at the same time, let's get a game plan. We can get into the skiff and let it drift. We won't make noise. We'll sneak out. We'll get down in the skiff. We'll drift downriver. We'll just let the current take us, and we'll be quiet until we get a ways away. and, you know, we can fire up the outboard and use spotlights to at least get down to the Nushigak River. No, no, can't do that, too dark, don't have enough lamp power, you know, flashlight power, yada, yada. So I'm like, look, work with me. We can't stay here. We're sitting ducks here. That's the only thing going on in my mind is if we stay here, we're going to die. Like, and it had nothing to do with me initially shooting through the wall. it was going on as soon as like it's hard to explain but I felt in my inside me when we saw that eye shine when we initially thought it was a bear at that moment something deep inside me clicked like this is not this is not good none of this is good this is not normal and it was that flight didn't want to fight just wanted to flight so all these things are going on he's not giving me anything back so we still got uh geez at least a handful of hours before we start seeing light the light of day and i'm expressing this to them i'm like look i need help here we need to come up with something get back to back whatever we got to do and get the hell out of here. We can't just sit here. So they're both, first light, we'll get out of here. Like, okay, well, just be ready at first light because I am not. I'm not loading up none of this shit up here in this shed. I'm taking the guns, the ammo, anything of importance. The rest of it, I don't give a damn. None of this stuff means nothing. You know, we'll maybe come back another time. But I ain't going to take the time to load this gift. That's just not going to happen. so they all agree we're sitting there um they start talking to each other um and my uncle starts talking about the last fishing season and I think he was just talking nervous talk trying to change the subject um because he was bringing up you know how much salmon they caught in the best district and this and that, just small talk basically, trying to snap themselves out of the terror that was going on. We're about two and a half, three hours from full on, light enough to see. We decide, hey, maybe we can get down to the skiff before it's light, drift until it is light, and then fire it up and safely get out of there. because at the mouth of the Newyacook, there's huge boulders, and we had a jet outboard and a regular prop drive outboard so that we could switch in and out for the lagoons versus the channel of the river for more power or whatever. But the gas, all our fuel, and the spare outboard were down in the skiff. That was the only things down there was the outboard attached to the back, the one in the skiff, and all the gas. everything else was up in the shed with us so I'm laying it all out in my mind what I think is best that we should do is uh we'll spotlight around see if there's anything going on you know anything nearby make a break for it jump in kind of slip away in the dark that was my idea they're like okay it sounds all right um you know it's gonna be hard to do in the dark because if we turn on a flashlight they'll see it on and on you know we're having this debate going back and forth we decided we're going to take the spotlight and kind of beam out the one side the river side and see if there's anything kind of lurking watching us or whatever we beam over there nothing now behind this structure they had an outhouse that was roughly eight eight and a half foot tall they built it with minimum cuts to the wood just kind of like the lean-to we were in but uh it wasn't big it was maybe you know a four foot square at most but it was about eight eight and a half foot tall i'm a carpenter so i'm pretty good with numbers it was obvious it was whole sheets that were you know cut for just a one-sided roof or whatever anyway so after we beamed the riverside we beamed the inland side and we started from the point of the direction where we saw the eyeshine, which was on the opposite side of where this outhouse is, but we're doing a sweep. So there's no fence post markers or any eyeshine from where we initially saw it. 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 1 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. So, as we panning around and over, there was nothing until we get over to the outhouse. And this thing behind it was freaking massive cartoon big. I'm telling you, blacker than black. It's like it absorbed light, just so big. Gives me the eebie-jeebies just thinking about it. I get a little frog in my throat because the size didn't scare me. It was how it was absorbing light. It was just like the black shadow. But this thing was, geez, 13-plus feet tall at least, at least five and a half feet wide, massive cartoon big, just hulking. We couldn't see any definition, but you could it's no different than if someone drew an exaggerated Arnold Schwarzenegger in black charcoal. You can tell it had bulk and it was muscular, you know what I mean? It moved. It started coming from behind that outhouse and that that spotlight went out immediately um we all tucked back into that little camper shell area which like i said this place was no protection we're so befuddled and just crazy with uh immediate fear like we were both shaken but we had barrels crossed i was pointing towards one window he was pointing towards another and at the point of when we saw this thing move, I realized that we only have two 12 gauges and a 30-odd-six, which is not enough. This thing was massive, massive. Like, it was totally unreal. Like, it was the most unreal, real thing I've ever seen. Just humongous. uh thick as tree trunks everything on it was just big uh real long arms and it it like the way it moved was like it didn't walk it glided it's hard to explain it just it was like this big shadow started moving so we took back in there we're we're freaking the out like we can't we almost can't even uh compose ourselves we're shaking tremoring crying couldn't understand each other because we had so much snot running out our noses from the fear and just trying to trying to hold it together i remember thinking if i'm gonna have to pull this trigger i don't know if i'm going to be able to like the fear was so thick and hard it was real it was just horrible it was the single most horrifying traumatic thing I ever dealt with like and I've I've been shot at I've had a buddy you know I've seen some things but this I think it was more the nature of it where it was happening and how it was happening that that really just it messed me up good for a few years after but anyway so we're sitting there, guns crossed it gets deathly quiet, the pressure is back like with a vengeance this oppressive pressure and fear it was just thick in the air so much tension, we were just freaked out and it's deathly quiet we don't hear a noise, we don't hear a movement deathly, deathly quiet I don't know how long we sat there for a while with the barrels crossed, and it had been quiet enough long enough, still with that pressure in the air, but we were able to calm down enough and catch our breath and stop hyperventilating and communicate again. And it boiled down to we're getting the fuck out of here now. Like, we're going to make a go of it. You know, there's something real big out there. that we just can't even, we ain't got nothing for it. We got no answer to it. We got to go. So we're getting back to our original game plan, get down to the skiff, and it dawned on me, man, that skiff is tied off way back up on the bank. Like, you know, we need to have a game plan to cut that rope. So I gave him my pocket knife because he was going to go first. his dad, my uncle, was going to follow behind me, and we were going to kind of cover each other on our way out. So that was the plan we were getting together. Now, it hasn't gotten any lighter. There's a slight change in the blackness, just enough to where you can kind of make out the tops of the trees at a distance. But if that, I mean, it was still pretty damn dark. So we get our game plan together, and we start hearing what to me sounded like rotor wash from a helicopter, a whoomp, whoomp, whoomp, whoomp sound, and it was getting louder and faster, and we could start feeling it in the ground. Well, it wasn't a helicopter. It was one of these freaking things running by the building. the sound we heard was at split steps but at a distance it sounded like rotor wash freaky shit man I mean it went by the window so fast and the only way we could tell it went by the window is because it was whatever it was was blacker than the blackness outside so it went by and it wasn't the big one cause that big one we wouldn't have been able to see all of it in the window it was too big so this one ran by a couple seconds later we heard heard it again this time it was different direction in a different one so we we tried to make out there had to have been at least three to four of different weights and sizes because you could feel it in the ground as they were doing laps around this building real fast and and running by like it was almost like they would run off line up and then start again you know it just ebbed and flowed like that like sheer terror is almost like they were feeding on our fear it's hard to explain it was like they were almost getting off on getting us because they could this was a match box they could have crushed this freaking place and smashed just against trees like yesterday No problem. I don't know why they didn't. That really messes with me to this day because these are intelligent beings. If someone had just shot at me and I was capable of breaking the structure they're in and smash them against a tree, I would have done it, you know? Anyway, so this running continues on for about 5, 10 minutes, maybe a little longer. We're terrified again. It hasn't really stopped being terrifying. But like I said, it was ebbing and flowing between white knuckle and, you know, enough calmness to speak to each other with coherent sentences. Because for a while there, after initially seeing the big one, we couldn't even communicate with each other to, like, get words put together because we were so freaking out of it in fear. like I remember it was the hardest thing for me to light a cigarette because I didn't or to pump the lamp I didn't want to let my hand off this gun like I knew it wasn't enough gun but I knew I didn't want to be without it because in my mind's eye I kept seeing them just come through the wall like I didn't know why they hadn't just flipped the place over threw us in the river and ended us because it would have been that easy for them. So that's why I felt they were, like, feeding on our fear. It's hard to explain. So this goes on for a little while with the running around, and we just tucked back into that little camper area more and kept our heads down, killed the lamp by this time, just to make sure, you know, so we could open fire on whatever looks in the window at us, because we determined that whatever looks in this window, doesn't matter which side, we're going to open up and we're going to keep shooting. And, you know, we were just ready. We had that mindset. Well, nothing happened, nothing happened. It got quiet again. And then it sounded like someone shooting a BB gun at this shed. They're small rocks. These things started throwing small rocks at the structure. and like immediately it caught our attention and uh someone had pointed out to me in recent past year it may have been trying to get a head count on us which makes sense because we we fell for it we're like what the hell is it we started looking out trying to look out the windows and stuff because it was starting to get a little light in the distance a little light off in the horizon so i mean it literally sounded like a someone shooting a pellet gun against plywood we beamed out and we just saw the tiny little rocks uh that were thrown at the at the shack the lean tube right down on the ground so that's how we determined it was rocks because we thought maybe some local kids were fucking with us like as far-fetched at this point as it may have then it was a thought like oh well maybe this was all just a a ruse by someone that and we're just so panic-stricken we you know everything looked crazy but that wasn't the case these things were throwing the rocks um that went on for a while and then uh 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. Uhm, ik snap dat je je podcast wil luisteren, dus ik zal het kort houden. Want als jij het belangrijk vindt om duurzamere Everything calmed back down. And we tried looking for the big one again. because all the other ones were huge, way bigger than us, but there was something about that real big one that I was concerned about. Like, I would rather deal with any one of the other ones than that one. Like, that kind of feeling, like the lesser of the evils, you know, I'll take that one, you get that one, that kind of thing. So, again, we're going over our game plan. You've got to cut the rope, get in there, start the outboard, while I'm coming down the little pathway, because it's about, it's not far from where we're at to the skiff. It's about 20 feet to the edge of the bank, and 10 to 12 foot, like, little sloping path kind of steep down to the river's edge. Not far. It seemed like forever, like 10 miles away at the time, but we're getting all this put together in our mind, And so it's getting a little darker, I'm sorry, lighter. As the darkness is lifting, everything got real quiet. Like, no birds chirping or anything like that, like we would normally hear that time of day and that time of year out there. Just dead quiet. The sun was coming up just enough to where we couldn't see it, but it was starting to hit the very tips of the black spruce trees off in the distance and the lagoon off a ways away from us where we could see out the window. And I can't, I should have sent you a little hand-drawn map of what I'm talking about so it would make more sense to you. But anyway, there was an initial tree line, which is about 50 yards or so from the structure, and going downriver from the position we're at, it opens up into like a muskeg, like swampy muskeg, Alaskan muskeg, and then another tree line further away. So we were scanning to see, you know, where this big one went. We saw nothing, no eye shine. It's just this oppressive quiet. So we're like, okay, now is our time. There's enough light we can see. Don't need the flashlights. We'll leave those. My uncle got his little day bag or whatever the hell it was, fanny pack thing, little miniature backpack-looking thing. I had a gun and bullets in my pocket. That's all I wanted. We left all the gold panning stuff, all our food, all my new hunting gear I bought, new Coleman stove, all that stuff, all this brand-new stuff we just left. what we were leaving. We were in the process of leaving. So we talk it over. We get stacked up by the door. He's going to lead the way. I reiterated, hey, cut that fucking bow line, dude. If you don't cut that bow line, then, you know, someone else is going to have to do it. We may not have the time. I don't want to get down to the boat and have to mess with anything. I want to get in and go. So when you get down there, cut the bow line, start the skiff, and we'll go. He's like, yeah, yeah, I got it. I got it. I said, now, look, if we get out this door, I can't have you freezing up on me, dude. I can't. I can't do this alone. I can't have you freeze up, lock up, and hit the ground. I can't protect all of us. You know, like I said, my uncle he wasn't some like disabled dude but he wasn't spry you know he was almost 70 at that time so we get our game plan and it's time to go so we go out the door and it's dead quiet not a sound not a movement because we we went out the door real quick and then all this it's kind of comical looking back, but we all three stopped real quick, like, like almost like we were ready to jump back inside kind of thing. And it kind of assessed looking around and there was nothing. So it was like a kind of quasi relief, like, okay. So he starts shuffling down over the trail. And at this point he has my eight 70 pump shotgun. I have the 30 odd six in my hand and I have my uncle's, uh, like a wing master, 12 gauge old school, big ass, big ass 12 gauge slung over my shoulder or whatnot because I wanted him to be as quick as possible because he was the the weak link physically so my cousin Jett's in front of us he goes down there goes down to uh start the skiffing whatnot and I'm kind of I'm not far behind him I'm just like two steps behind him kind of looking back looking around because I'm super paranoid at this point my my hair's Standing on end, I'm borderline about to freak out. You know, that overwhelming fear started getting real strong again. So I look down the bank. There's nothing there. He's safe at where he's at. He starts cranking on the outboard. I wasn't paying attention. I pause. I turn around. I tell my uncle, come on, come around me and watch yourself going down. I don't want you to slip and hurt yourself or whatever. Just a little pep talk like create up kind of thing. And if I hadn't have took a step back to reposition myself, because this was right at the river's edge where there was an erosion line and the grass kind of hooks down onto the bank. It wasn't a very stable area. So the way I leaned down to kind of help guide him down the little trail, my foot kind of sunk in and it felt like the ground was giving away there. So I kind of readjusted and moved back about half a step, and I stood back up erect. And just as I was standing up to full height, this rock, bigger than a basketball, comes flying past me. Now, everything was in regular motion up until this point. Then it goes slow motion, like, instantly. I saw this rock, and my eyes just naturally follow it. And this thing was thrown with such force. I felt the air whiz by my face but I also watched this thing impact the river it had to have been at least three foot deep in the spot it hit this thing hit with such force it hit the bottom of the river before the river could flow back over it it was like a big gaping wound momentarily like a kabloosh and then the water covered up the impact it was crazy so immediately my head whips towards the tree line. I'm getting the hard chills. Give me a second here. Okay. So, the big black one is coming out of the trees roughly 50 yards away. And this thing just tried to take me out. If I hadn't, if I would have just stood up where I was, I wouldn't be making this, having this conversation, I immediately, even though I was in fear, I had a rage in me, like, you m***er, okay. Well, I had a .30-06. It's not a lightweight gun. I've killed everything in Alaska with that. Coastal brownies, moose, you name it. I've dropped it with a .30-06, no problem. So, everything's still slow motion. I turn and this is a bolt action. I shot so fast. Like these three shots were, it sounded like a semi-auto. I'd never worked an action that fast in my life. Now, when I started opening fire, this thing was moving. It was like gliding. You couldn't make out physical walking. There was no bobbing. It was just gliding out. And I couldn't, it was so black, I couldn't make out. like it's how it was moving. It was just, it seemed like it was gliding. So I put the three-shot center mass. I mean, boom, boom, boom. I'm a good shot. I was raised subsistence. I shot my first moose ever with this same .30-06. This .30-06 had been in the family forever. Like it was the rifle most of us got our first moose with because it was reliable, it was accurate, it and it was a workhorse it was just a solid rifle so I know this thing three times it it doesn't flinch it stops coming forward but it doesn't flinch so now my my inner fighter flea is on overdrive it's time to go I get down he didn't cut the bow line so I'm like shit throw me the knife. He's got the outboard running. And he throws a knife. Luckily, it landed real close to me. I noticed my 870 pump is on the ground. So what I'm guessing happened, because I never got a straight answer from him, was once he got on the skiff, since his dad didn't have a gun, he threw the shotgun out off the bow right there on the gravel for his dad to have access to. It was the only thing I could come up with because I mean anyway so he throws the knife I cut the bow line and I'm uh I'm he's got the engine revving too high for it to shift right and I'm like hey hey idle down idle down they're coming idle down calm down idle down so it'll shift and uh my uncle's trying to sit on the skiff and swing his legs in and i i wasn't trying to be mean but i shoved him i like this ain't a pleasure cruise kind of thing i flung him into that skiff i was like get in there dude you know this ain't yeah i feel bad now but at the time i didn't you know he's gonna make it in one piece we were getting the hell out of there 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're listening to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a duroze choices, can ASR 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 services where a duroze schaderairstel can be? Go to asr.nl slash duroze choices. This is for you and a duroze samar. ASR does it. So, then can you now listen to your podcast. wrist pretty bad but he shifted himself around and was facing back towards the bow of the skiff where I was and uh at that moment my uncle or my cousin at the outboard uh he looks up and his eyes get real big and all the blood drains from his face and my uncle where he repositioned in the gift he fell backwards more so i looked back over my shoulder and holy shit this thing it was the big black one it was massive it was on the bank just above me i just put shots on this fucking thing you know what i mean like and i wasn't in a place where i could shoot more uh it was time to go kind of thing but what really caught my attention was even though it was pitch black it had like amber red tips to the hair it's kind of hard to explain um it really stands out and all i could focus on was its freaking shin its shin area um just because of freak out mode my i had tunnel vision so hard it's hard to explain so i push off we uh he he backs up there was no movement from this thing nothing else being thrown he puts it in forward gear and we start skiffing down the river now uh we're not up on step yet we're just kicking along uh one of the the outboard that we were using was the jet drive and it doesn't have as much torque as the prop drive and at this point it didn't matter it was running but the jet had issues with its intake boot getting jammed up real easy with you know little pieces of grass or gravel or whatever it was an older model but uh you know I was kind of hesitating when we were getting up on the step so it was taking a second to really get the skiff moving but I remember looking up towards the bank and kind of back over my shoulder the big one was no longer there um but one of the smaller ones was running alongside of the riverbank now this is it's about six seven feet high bank on that side where it was and it was probably a good 30 feet back but you could see its head moving amongst the trees and you know it was cruising so that really put a they're hunting us kind of feel to it like they're they're gonna try to cut us off at the past kind of feeling which at this point it was like you know all these things we'll we'll we'll shoot every single one that we can kind of attitude I had anyway. Uh, my uncle wasn't saying nothing and my cousin was just working to keep us moving. So what ends up happening is, is I, uh, I left my shotgun on the, on the bank there. We left all that expensive shit, gold panning material, a brand new hunting stuff, left it all there. We got out of there with whatever my uncle brought, uh, the 30 odd six, his shotgun and the kicker and the gas and the clothes we had on our back because when we were going back down the new yukuk at this point um i was yelling back at my cousin saying hey hey they're trying to follow on the high bank you know they're trying to follow where's the other rounds for the 30 odd six there was four shots in it i just shot three so there's one more in it um had his uh my uncle's game master or wing master 12 gauge was like a big 28 or 32 inch barrel just a big it was a gun though you know I wasn't knocking it it just wasn't what I wanted I wanted more rounds for the 30 odd six and uh uh we couldn't we couldn't find ammo at the time so we only had one round in that and so I got the wing master shotgun and thankfully there was no further um sightings or attempts to get at us at that point. We were able to skiff on down. We made it to the Nushigak probably close to midday. Now, we were way, I don't know if you've got Google Maps, you can look at it yourself. We were way the hell out in the middle of nowhere. And we had just started a journey with luckily enough gas to get us to Caligunic, but, uh, we were basically no food, no nothing, uh, probably a day and a half river trip from Caligunic, and it, it was just, it was hard to deal with at the time, like, I drank pretty heavy after that for a couple years, um, just, just dealing with it, the, the, it was so surreal, like, I don't fear going out in the woods, uh, even to this day, but when I get a feeling I I've I know what that feeling is and I know what's causing it so like it's almost like my own self-protection kind of thing if I get an eerie feeling in the woods I don't care what I'm doing it's time to go I don't care what kind of hardware is around I don't care who's got what gun or what we're doing it doesn't matter we got to go because it just it didn't feel like there was enough gun you know especially for that big one I I can't think of a single outside of maybe a 50 cal big heavy round to even want to start something with it you know because it when i shot this thing it didn't flinch like you couldn't even what was real creepy is there was it was all pitch black you couldn't make out facial features all you could make was it so it was like this emotionless uh gonna kill you machine it's hard to explain but yeah it was by far the scariest most like this was 15 years ago this happened in 2006 like I still get the ache in my gut and my hair standing on end no different than the day it happened yeah man that story gave me goosebumps well what's messed up is is these relatives of mine that i love they won't even talk to me about it like like sharing it is a form of healing from it i guess you know what i mean like get it off my chest kind of thing because even talking about it i realized i i still have a lot of pent-up emotion about it like it just telling you about it just now there's a couple times i felt like i wanted to just cry because it was just so surreal. So did you ever return back to the area to grab your belongings? Hell no No no No no no no Nope None of it meant nothing In my mind it was like good luck gold panning hairy man Have at it Have my shot. I don't give two dams about that gun or any of it. Since then, I've wanted to go back to that area just because of my morbid sense of curiosity. Kind of, you know, a few years back when the big hunt for Bigfoot thing came into more popularity, because all this happened pre anything really mainstream about the hairy man or anything, you know. But I've thought about it since, and, like, part of me is like, yeah, maybe I'll go get one, you know, bring one in. And then the other part of me is like, hey, you're stupid. What are you thinking? Just remember the last time you shot at one of these things, what happened? You know, that kind of thing goes through my mind. It's like, ah. So I'm kind of torn. And, you know, I want to go back out and maybe, you know, look at some stuff and maybe, you know, obtain some more concrete evidence for people. But another part of me is like, ah, stay at home, man. Don't do it. Well, one of the creepiest things is the following year in 2007, I was going with two of my other cousins. We got a very large family up here. I was going with two other of my cousins from Dillingham to Nistuja Hawk. We were going to do, I don't remember exactly, it's all kind of a fog. We were heavy drinking back then. It had been a little less than a year since this experience happened that I just told you about. So I'm on high alert. We still have no, we were so dumb. We didn't have any different firearms. I mean, my one cousin had a .30-06, but he had a 10-round box mag. And a real good gun, you know, but just not enough. I had the same .30-06 I had the year before. And the other relative that was with us, he had this little .243, this little nothing rifle for Alaskan game. I mean, you shoot caribou with it or whatever. But so we were on our way up to New Studio Hawk because my aunt just married into a family up there. We're doing something out that way. I don't remember exactly. It was in the fishing season. Everyone was flush with cash. We had a bunch of beers and some whiskey and shit. We were going to have a good time. So we leave Doreenham a little late, and it just happened to work that way with the tide because the mouth of the Nushigek is a tidal area. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but when the tide comes in, it'll push the freshwater up and raise the water level, and then when it goes out, you can get stuck on a sandbar if you're not careful, that kind of thing. So we made it past a little obstacle course by Black Bluff and Angel Bay, and we're still miles and miles and miles from New Studio Hawk. Ecklok isn't as maybe four and a half miles from where we ended up banking on the river's edge because we couldn't, it was getting too dark. And so we saw a good stand of trees, a little bit of a higher bank, and an open area to where we felt comfortable setting up a little camp until it got light and then continue our trips. 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. This is ASR for you and a more expensive life. ASR does it. So, now you can listen to your podcast. off in the distance it sounded natural at you know maybe 80 100 yards it was like oh nothing that really stood out you know you hear your owls periodically you know out that way and uh everything changed a moment later when behind us up in the up in the hills behind us probably a little over 100 yards maybe more we heard another owl who very loud and very unnatural. It was an owl imitation. So immediately, that's where we're from. We knew immediately all is not good. So we just thought, okay, we'll stoke the fire bigger and we'll keep a better look because there wasn't much we could do. We were stuck on the riverbank. We couldn't navigate in the dark. It was way too dangerous. Now, granted, it's not pitch black yet. But it was too dark for us to try to make a go of it by river. Well, after the one behind us hooted across the river, directly across from us. And at this point, the river is about 75, 85 yards wide. And on the far bank, the tree line is 50 to 80 feet back. There was another out hoot that came from that stand of trees over there. now like i said earlier i'm into competition stereo so i know loud i know what loud is you know what i mean like the loud you could feel from a distance this thing hooted so loud i felt it in my pant legs like i i can't even imagine the lung capacity it took to do that it was just it was amazing honestly it was very amazing at how intense it was and how powerful it was so right after that hoot we're all immediately stoking the fire getting this thing ripped right right i mean it got so hot the little pop-up tent we had a good 12 feet away or a little better uh it melted one of the guidelines and melted part of the tent that's how hot we got it going so we're during this time as we're stoking this fire and getting guns close to us and taking a shot of whiskey to calm the nerves kind of thing like oh man what's going on here because we didn't really it was strange but nothing ominous yet well where the original a hoot came from we heard another hoot a little closer louder and not natural sounding then again behind us a little closer this time same thing hoot then across the river we heard it again a hoot but out of view because we were kind of on a bend of this river and just out of our view we heard this thing run and go through the river i don't know if it jumped most of the way across in the shower i don't know how it happened but we heard kabloosh kabloosh kabloosh this is a nushyak river man this is not a little stream kind of thing you know what i mean it's it's a it's a river and uh so immediately we're we're all on edge um we heard this thing splashing in the distance and where we guesstimated it came out of the river we heard another hoot real loud but with this click chirping going on with it so you had the hoot hoot and then this kind of like almost like a tongue popping kind of sound real fast almost like a almost like a woodpecker woodpecking against a tree if that makes sense so you had this combination of owl hoot unnatural owl hoot real loud with this clicking and then the other two sound off doing the same thing right so we get back to back um there's about 30 to 40 foot distance between the tree line we're camping at and the river's edge where we had the boat banked we're sitting there and we're kind of joking around i was like oh great you know it didn't get me last year so now I got you idiots with me it's definitely going to get me this time you know that kind of lighten the mood and not allow ourselves to get so freaked out so the hooting continues loud and all all of them are sounding off with the clicking again so it went from just hooting to hooting with this clicking this quick popping um kind of like you know that movie the predator where there's that kind of like a cat purr but more click to it it was kind of like that along with it but not necessarily a growl uh it's hard to explain it was on so many different octaves at once um it was very confusing uh i noticed that because each time we had heard it from the different areas and each time we heard it it they were they were moving in on us um there was no doubt so we're immediately talking about hey look we're being hunted uh let's let's go you know we'll just drift from here because we were on the channel side of the river we're on high bank so if we were to cut loose even if we couldn't see the river would just kind of spit us out you know what i mean so that was going to be our game plan of getting the getting hell out of there um while we're sitting there talking uh my one cousin with the little small rifle the 243 he goes over to the tent and the only thing we had in the tent at this time uh was just a a bag with the the beer and alcohol it was a small duffel bag so for him that was the most important thing i guess because he he ran over there grabbed that and uh was coming back towards us and we're kind standing up looking around seeing if we could see anything because we had this bonfire going we couldn't get too close to it because it was so hot but we had it going so hot and bright we were trying to see if any of these things were looking at us from the tree line you know maybe have a shot at one of them or something because we were we were feeling a buzz at this time you know we're we had a little bit of bravery kicking up because of the alcohol the whiskey kicking in but at the same time we were real apprehensive like uh we were making jokes about the next guy being a sissy just to make ourselves feel better trying to trying to lighten the mood and play it light because it was just this ominous feeling and as he was coming with the duffel bag over back by us we heard a rustling uh couldn't have been 25 feet away from us in the light that we should have been able to see whatever was making this noise because it happened between where the skiff was at the riverbank and the tree line it was in the open the the sound was originating in this open area and it sounded like footsteps with the leaves and the little all their scrub brush rustling around couldn't see anything moving not even leaves moving because when we heard that initially all guns were pointed that way and uh immediately my thought was don't get distracted make sure we look around us you know don't just look in one direction they could be distracting us and the other ones could be doing something hokey throwing rocks or whatever you know it felt like an ambush like uh they were going to get us that's why i start looking around there's nothing we can't see anything there's nothing to shoot at there's nothing to even um feel like you could defend yourself we're just Three guys standing in the open with a duffel bag of booze and some guns at this point. So, you know, we were like, okay, well, the noise is between us and the skiff now. So let's all together kind of shuffle together in a little group past whatever's making that noise. Hopefully it's just a noise and we're tripping because we're on high alert at this time. We're like borderline freaking out. 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. So, we shuffle on over to the skiff. We get down in there. We untie the line from the scrub brush we had it tied off to. And we push off from the bank. And it's a good current there. So, no sooner, we clear the bank. We're immediately sweeping downriver. just before our fire got out of our sight my one cousin that grabbed alcohol he decided he'll throw the anchor we'll anchor out in the channel where we'll be safe sound like a good idea throw the anchor maybe with the fire off in the distance we can see them move and shoot at their silhouettes You know, we're feeling brave at this point because we got away. We're ready to pop some shots at these things. But where we ended up, where the anchor finally caught, was just below where we could see the fire itself. But we could see the light from it on the trees around. And from our vantage point, you could see shadows move, like from the firelight. Nothing that you can make out, but just big shadows move. and then you heard stuff and then all of a sudden heard this loud scream and some of the fire logs were flung into the river. Real weird. The sounds that were coming from that area were just if we could have recorded them, we could have sold them to a horror movie picture show for background noises. They were so demonic sounding, so evil. Like it sounded evil, like the most demonic growl, yelps, howls that you could even imagine were coming from that area. And once that happened, I was like, look, let's pull the anchor. Let's drift the fuck further away from here, dude. Like, we're still too close. Just no, no, no, no. Let's go. Let's just pull up the anchor and let it drift us down to where we can, you know, be in a deeper channel and not worry about running aground and just head back to Dillingham. So that's what that's what we ended up doing. But, yeah, just some of the eeriest, creepiest. Like, I don't want to make it sound like every time you go out, oh, you're going to be accosted and confronted by these things. That's not it. There's just certain areas up there that you are more than likely going to be accosted by one. I think it has to do with the lack of people around and their curiosity. I think they're drawn to us just out of curiosity, and then I feel they become territorial. Once they see who's there, that's what I feel anyway. So the Sasquatch in Alaska are a lot more aggressive than the Sasquatch in the lower 48, right? From what I surmise, I've heard a lot of stories of people down there gifting and this and that. And I can't, I personally, I wouldn't. There's nothing that I've dealt with that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Like all I've ever had happen was predatory behavior, a hunting type behavior. like they were closing in on us man you know at each and every encounter they initiated it they pushed it i don't know granted i was popping shots but i was provoked it wasn't like i just decided oh i'm gonna start taking shots it was you know in defense have you heard of any positive of encounters from around the village? None of a happy nature. It always involves, like there's a couple missing kids right now in New Studio Hawk. This was a few years ago now, but a lot of these missing people, especially from remote places, they will chalk it up to alcohol death. Even though there's no sign of the body, there's no autopsy or anything, that was just, oh, young kid, liked to drink, went off alone, got drunk in the woods, disappeared. Okay, fair enough. Sometimes I'm sure that happens. But there's just too many missing people in this state for it to just be one thing or another. I'm not saying it's all, you know, Sasquatch. But I firmly believe, from my own personal experience, there's at least some that go missing because of these things. and I'm going on anecdotal evidence uh things I've experienced myself like I've met people and I tried to tell them this and they're like oh you're full of shit you didn't see nothing but a bear and I'm like look I'm Alaskan native I was raised with coastal brown bears around me all the time I'm from like Katmai National Park isn't far from where I grew up you know I know brown bears I hunted I did bear control for a lechnigate village in the early 90s I know what a bear is These are not bears. You know, these are big f***ers that aren't friendly. You mentioned the Sasquatch moved the building. How much did it move? A couple feet at least. Like, I thought they were going to push us in the river. Like, part of me wanted to go back and check out how much was disturbed from when we got there, but I was so freaked out for the longest time. Going back there in any near future from when it happened wasn't going to happen. I was too freaked out. Yeah. And the amber-colored eyes that you saw through the window, can you describe the diameter and how far apart they were? They were probably a foot apart and at least the size of small teacup saucers. Like, at a distance, I thought these things were postmarked reflectors, those big round ones. And this head in the window took up most of the windows. Now, these little windows in this shack were only 18 inches tall and 24 inches wide. They were just little. I think they came from an old school somewhere upriver, and they were just thrown into this little shack. It was nothing. There was no internal skinning or anything. It was just on the outside was 5-8ths plywood and 2x4 construction. and the floor itself was a bunch of old pallets with like osb screwed down to it okay and what what exactly did you see in the window other than the eyes is that all you saw was the the outline and the big eyes glowing uh no this this one had the facial features of like uh the the skin tone was like uh an ash gray um looked like uh an old native american you see those old pictures of a chief you know wide big cheekbones uh inset eyes kind of thing it had that kind of look with the ash gray but the nose uh instead of being pronounced was more flattened to the face but had nostrils like us but just wider spread um the hair it was almost like from where you have the smile lines next to your nose that come down to your mouth from that point it was like hair hairless around the cheekbone up onto the forehead was the only place that didn't have this it wasn't fur uh but this hair was it was denser in the face it looked like a real full mustache kind of bearded look with the couldn't make out the full jawline but the the lower part of the head was wider than the upper yeah so you feel like they didn't want you in the area i mean that's a given correct yeah oh not at all not at all from from initially when when i saw it over his shoulder i didn't i couldn't make anything else out but a dark shadow moved and the movement caught my attention because the place just shifted a little bit and there was no wind. You know, we're right on the river when the wind blows earlier that day when it was breezing a little bit, you heard a little bit of a creek but it pushed against it. It almost felt like it was feeling it out, looking back on it but I'm just speculating at this point. But it, whatever, it had to push down. I'm sorry I wasn't trying to cut you off I was just saying it had to have hunched down to look in the window at us yeah no that's what I was going to say is can you describe the the movements and the gliding motion uh fluid very fluid like the big the big one it it moved like you know those old movies where Dracula's coming out of the fog and he's just kind of gliding it was almost like that effect but without the fog uh it was so pitch black you couldn't you couldn't make out any detail and its size was one thing but the fact that beaming it with this spotlight it was still pitch black like it wasn't giving nothing back you couldn't make anything anything out on it it was like it was absorbing the light that creeped me uh still just getting the chills thinking about it size was definitely scary as shit but something about it absorbing the light it just made you feel like death is right there and it's coming for you like you're not going to escape this blackness kind of feel can you describe the the pressure feeling i've kind of described it before in some other episodes it's kind of like when a tornado is coming every like all the air that that is a Good analogy. The air goes deathly still. I got goosebumps thinking about it. The pressure almost felt like you could tension in a room. Like if you've ever been in a situation where there's two arguing parties that just got quiet and there's that pent up tension, you know, because everyone's holding their tongue kind of thing. It's like that on steroids, like oppressive, not just a feeling, but it's like. a pressure that's pushing in on you. It's oppressive. It's like being forced upon you, this primal fear. Yeah, I've heard other people talk about it, and it's just kind of like a gut instinct, like we're hardwired to know that when these things take place, something isn't right. Yeah, I was speaking to that a little bit when we saw the eye shine. like there was no movement from the eye shine when we looked out the door but something i'm getting the chills thinking about something just was unnaturally wrong like it wasn't your run of the mill oh there's a bear out there kind of situation even if it was an aggressive bear been there done that i never felt that way about a bear we used to go we were so dumb we used to go reached bear control, if we shot a wounded bear and it didn't drop in the dump where we were told to get the biggest boars we could and we had to track it at all, we didn't fear that. We didn't get these kind of feelings from even that kind of situation, tracking an injured brown bear into the woods. It was an unreal oppressive fear. It was almost like it was being projected on us like and at one point it looking back on it it felt like they were feeding on our fear like when they were running around and and all that stuff it really felt like they were doing it to get a reaction out of us so do you feel like the more frightening the situation became the more active the sasquatch became that's what it seemed like now understand this was all uh under duress it was under some of the highest forms of stress i've actually the highest stress i've ever dealt with um i've been out on the bering sea with huge rolling waves ice buildup all that was nowhere near as scary or as intimidating or life-threatening as this felt yeah it could have could have been that they were feeding off of that they could sense that from you guys kind of like when something runs from a predator it's instantly going to chase them you know they could have sensed your energy and just kept it rolling 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 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 more expensive choices, maybe ASR can help. Now I hear you think, how then? Well, for example, when you're selling the products you love, you're hurting. Want more information about the insurance where a cost-effective insurance is possible? Go to asr.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This is ASR for you and a more expensive community. ASR does it. So, then you can listen to your podcast now. Yeah, because I'm telling you, it was... The thing that stands out the most to me was the feelings I ended up having towards these family members of mine. Like, I love these people. I grew up with them. there. I got a photo album downstairs with them in it. Like these are family. But in those moments, I felt like, which one of these assholes am I going to shoot to get out of here safely? You know what I mean? Like I was getting to a point of fear to where it was like, they're not helping me. It's me and myself. If they're not willing to help me, well then them kind of, but forgive my language. I'm just being honest with you. I felt that way. I felt in moments. It wasn't that way the whole time, but I would get little pockets of emotion that I felt that way. And then I kept getting this feeling of make a break for it. You can make it, you can get to the skip yourself. If they don't want to go, screw them. They know what's going on. They can see, you know, that those kinds of things are going through my mind. And that's not me. You know, I love my family. I would fight for them. But in this situation where they weren't acknowledging what was going on or or it's hard to explain yeah their mind went blank i've had that situation happen before to me when one pushed down a tree across the river and then screamed at us behind from behind the trees and you know my ex was telling me grab the gun grab the gun and i'm smiling and kind of looking one way and like looking at her half-assed smiling and I just couldn't process what was going on because... Right, it gets a little too surreal and like, whoa. Yeah. And I know what you mean. It totally shifts your paradigm. Like, okay, I grew up knowing these things existed. I've seen them at a distance. I've heard screams, yells within close proximity. You know, I've seen their silhouette in the brush and then them run off and break a tree or whatever. We even saw one time we were four-wheeling And we were coming back from Manicotic Twin Hills on an old snow machine trail on these four wheelers. And we were coming across this muskeg between tree lines. And my cousin in front of me hit a deep spot on his quad and kind of sunk down to where we were going to have to pull him out. So we ended up stopping. And my cousin behind me and a family friend that was with him got my attention saying, look, look. And over to our right, in the middle of the muskeg, probably 100 yards from us, out in the middle of the open, was a hairy man. And it was making a tree knocking sound with its mouth. Like, it sounded like two Louisville sluggers banging each other. Pop! Just that classic wood knock sound. But it was making it with its mouth. It wasn't hitting no tree. It had no branches in its hands. It was standing there. and that was that was creepy because one uh the quad was stuck and we're all in a train line basically because it was the safest part of the muskeg to cross because there were some deep spots that where if your quad goes through the muskeg you ain't getting it back you know or whoever goes with it so we're we're on a pretty uh tight trail so we're kind of stuck while he's stuck and this thing is that 100 yards is pretty far but in this situation it wasn't far enough because we had some handguns with us but it wasn't we we didn't go every excursion out worried about harring it you know what i mean because yes there's encounters and things happen over the years but it wasn't like a constant but when it did happen um it got real real fast because once it was uh done making the tree knocking sound we're all just awestruck there must have been eight of us total uh there was like five or six quads couple double rides you know two riders on one and uh once this thing stopped making the knocking sound and we're all talking amongst each other uh one of our uh family friends was like should we shoot it you know with his uh native accent and uh another one of my cousins it's funny in hindsight but at the time he was like don't be dumb you're dumb and uh i kind of chuckled and i was like someone you know does anyone got a camera because a lot of us had those little fuji film little uh disposable cameras we used to use those a lot because we didn't stop those weren't prevalent back then whatsoever um but we were just talking about that and then it started running um the same direction it was heading parallel to us but off into in front of us and when it took off running this thing was so fast like um it looked like a jet boat rooster tail from all the water uh when it was running across the muskeg that it was kicking up behind it it looked like a rooster tail coming from a jet boat It was running so fast, just so loud. I mean, it had to have been weighed over 1,000 pounds. And that one looked like Chewbacca, but twice the size, broader shoulders, and if you lowered the head more onto the chest than the shoulders, it had that kind of look to it. Real long, amber, kind of like orangutan-looking hair. so they all look a little different yeah i've never seen two that look alike i've seen two that look similar um like the the native american look with the flat nose i've seen a couple look like that um seen a few that look more like patty at a distance um then i've seen little black ones real small uh less than six foot they kind of had a real pointy looking head um i saw a group of about five or six of those one night we were let's see we were coming down the wood river from a lake and gick and it we were just above where those uh Sorenson scows were from what I was telling you earlier. All this stuff transpired in the same geographical area, a very large area, Grant Hu, but it was all from the back home, as I call it. We saw them in the tree line as we were drifting downriver. They tried throwing some sticks at us, but I guess they couldn't find anything big enough. But they ran along the riverbank up until my brother started popping shots at them. Because it was like, it didn't seem real at the time. It was like, well, look at that. You know, what is that? We're all looking. And there's literally five or six of them like hopping along and making this weird kind of chatter sound. It was hard to make out because of the sound of the outboard and the river. so once we saw them we killed the outboard and we're just drifting kind of checking it out because it was everything was surreal it was like what is this because at first it was hard to make out it almost looked like some black bear cubs kind of prancing and flipping and messing around but once we started really focusing you could you could tell that they were uh they were less than six foot tall they were all about the same height real pointy heads almost like uh I heard somewhere someone explained that Disney movie Tarzan, where Rosie O'Donnell's gorilla character kind of had that swoop to the top of the head, like the curl of hair. Yeah, the conical-shaped head. Yeah, exactly. It was like five or six of those looking little things, but humanoid. Real long arms, real weird sounds they were making, not like the normal owl hoots or screams or anything. This was like a real garbled chatter. Couldn't make it out. But, yeah, that I was focusing on. I'm trying to figure out what exactly I was looking at when my brother opened up. He didn't hit any of them, but as soon as he started shooting, everyone kind of snapped out of there. Oh, shit. My other cousin fired up the skiff again, and everyone was on the same kind of page of, let's get the hell out of here. Yeah. So let me ask you this question. In Alaska, do you guys carry rifles all year round? Like, do you guys hunt pretty much all year round? Yeah. I mean, for the most part, back home, when you're living in a remote, you don't go anywhere without a gun. You just don't. Like, see, here in the lower 48, I mean, we have seasons just like you guys, but there's only like specific times that there's people actually out there with rifles and you may have people that you know carry one around their property or whatever but normally people don't have guns on them when they using the forest around here in missouri you know they either hiking or kayaking but down there or up there in Alaska if you go out on a boat you going to bring your gun You know if you go deep in the forest you know that you might encounter a grizzly bear, so you're going to have that. Oh, even on a day hike. Even on a day hike. My little brother, he'll bring either his Tesla AK or his 10-mil Glock or something that is more than just a little, you know, 9-millimeter or something like that. Yeah, for sure. So it seems like the Bigfoot and the lower 48 are more used to people, and they've kind of grown around generations of humans and have gotten more adapted to them. But up there in Alaska, it seems like they're not used to people. I mean, most of these areas are extremely remote, and nobody really goes up there. No, you might get some flying fishermen that'll land on the Agulawak River or at one of the lodges up there or whatnot. but no it's few and far between and the seasons are so short that those who can afford to go to those kind of places there's not many of them and they're not there for very long you know what i mean so it's like a very short window of time now i used to know a couple of the um starting a business can be overwhelming you're juggling multiple roles designer marketer logistics I'm a business 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 you want to listen to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a cost-effective choices, maybe Acer can help. I hear you think, how then? For example, when it's a cost-effective decision-making, you want to know more about the insurance where a cost-effective decision-making is possible? Go to Acer.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This is Acer for you and a cost-effective life. Acer does it. So, now you can listen to your podcast. caretakers of the lodge, the Mission Lodge on the Wood River and the Nushigak Lodge up on the Nushigak River, which are closer to Dillingham versus way remote where I had to fire on that one was. But one of the caretakers had one come into his campfire light, and he quit that night. Like, he'd just been there two days. He told me about this at the Dillingham Airport when I was picking up a cousin of mine. because it was fishing season. We were getting ready for hunting, and one of my cousins was coming in for the hunt, and we just so happened to be talking about going upriver, and he was like, I don't know if you know this place well, but we're from there, so we're just listening to the stranger. He's like, I don't know if you know what you're getting into. I just got a job up there caretaking this lodge, and I was there two days, and this damn Bigfoot came into my campfire and stared at me, and don't go there. Just don't go. and we kind of laugh because even people unaccustomed to it will have these experiences out there. There's a guy named Joe Active out of Bethel. He keeps track of a lot of stories. I've been trying to kind of back-channel and get a hold of that guy just to get more info because outside of my anecdotal stuff, I'd hear people tell me their stories and whatnot, But this guy really keeps track of some of the more pertinent, more credible stories outside of, you know, just the little, oh, I saw something big and brown off in the distance kind of thing. He keeps good track of stuff. So I've been kind of trying to reach out to that guy and get some better information. because I've been kind of contemplating, like, looking into things around here where I live now in the Mat-Su Valley. But, like, even getting 911 calls for strange disturbances with strange critters and stuff is really hard because their computer system's all jacked up. I mean, my older brother's a state trooper, but even he can't, you know, access certain things. So this is kind of one of those things, I guess. You mentioned you heard a chirping or clicking sound. Was that a vocalization that the bigger Sasquatches were making or the smaller ones? It was all of them. All of them in one form or another. It just so happened, we didn't see any of the four at the bonfire site that were hooting like owls and making that sound. We didn't see any of them. but they were within range where they were just outside of our site, like, before we got out of there. And then the one we couldn't see that we knew was right there, that was real freaky, because there's no way we shouldn't have seen it. It was within 25 feet of us. Like, we could hear the noise right over there on the ground. And it wasn't just like a mouse going through some brush. It was heavy. when you guys were getting ready to leave the shack and you saw the large figure hiding behind the outhouse what went through your mind like no way what the uh it it took a minute for it to even register what i was looking at like uh and i immediately knew but it was absorbing what I was looking at because it was so black without any real definition outside of silhouette. So it was a form of panic and fear that I can't even put into words. It felt like the end, like this is it. You know, it was almost like it almost made a person feel like they were just ready to lay down and give up. Like, okay, you know, it was that kind of feeling like, what can I do to this? You mentioned you started drinking after this encounter. How bad did this affect you? Oh, man. I had drank occasionally and went on binners before this. But after that point, it affected me to where I lost a couple jobs because of it. Just it got a lot heavier, my drinking did, that's for sure, because I was trying to self-medicate because those who I experienced it with that I was trying to communicate with to kind of talk it out, kind of make sense of it because it was all just so freaking freaky, they weren't there like they wouldn't even acknowledge our trip you know what I mean and I tried to corner them after that on a couple different occasions like hey we need to talk about what happened and they just they didn't know what I was talking about and that really honestly that pissed me off and made me feel even more alone about it yeah that's understandable yeah I understand being traumatized, but I was there. I was traumatized too. Like, I didn't get away scot-free. It's still, like, talking about it helps, but there are still times periodically where I'll wake up in a cold sweat feeling like I don't have enough gun. Where's a bigger gun? Just out of the blue, you know? It won't, I know, it's hard to explain. No, I understand. And, you know, some people will take these experiences and push them back in a place deep in their mind and lock it away and never talk about it again. And that's kind of a way certain people deal with these situations. Right. And one thing that helped me quit drinking so heavily, I don't drink anymore at all. But one of the things that helped me is I started telling people about it that didn't believe me. I didn't care if they believed me. I just needed to talk about it. You know what I mean? Like, I would go out to the bar and shoot pull and just bring it up. And that helped, even though the people, I'm sure they're like, oh, this loon, you know, this guy's nuts. But I've never been a timid guy. I'm not scared of anything or any man. Never have been. But there's something in those situations that's just so primal. 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 you're listening to your podcast, so I'm going to 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 lot of things that are you love to do. Will you know more about the services where a duroze schade-restal can be? Go to asr.nl slash duroze keuzes. This does ASR for you and a duroze sameness. ASR does it. So, then you can now listen to your podcast. electronics vans and heavy equipment. We had a D10 cat, big, massive mining equipment. You know, their trauma was down in the pit and all that, but we were really remote. And I went there as a carpenter to build them two new bunk houses. They were 10 by 20, one-sided roof, easy for one guy. Well, like the second day I was there, I was out on this gravel pad alone because everyone else work down in the pit you know they'd run the trommel and do whatever gold miners do and I was up on the pad by myself and I would get that pressure feeling periodically it wasn't constant but I I felt it enough times and I'm real keen to it since the experience in 06 and 07 um to go with that feeling I got so there was a couple days where I didn't even get a full day's work in because I felt that pressure. I just knew something was watching me. I was there by myself. Everyone was down the hill in the pit. So essentially I was by myself, and I just got so creeped out a couple times, I just went into camp, which was like four ATCO trailers all melded into one unit that they used for their camp, and they had a couple little outbuilding cabins for some of the more senior equipment operators. But, yeah, there's something about that pressure. Once you feel it and you, it's easy to pick up on. It's kind of like once bitten, you know, you kind of, you immediately, it's like muscle memory. Oh, get the hell out of here. You know, you don't want to stay here. So what do you think they are? Do you think there's some type of hominid or some type of primate living out in the forest? Well, I definitely think it's biblically related, but not in the sense of their actual, because it states in the Bible and extra biblical text about, you know, like the book of Enoch, where there was a Nephilim and then there was a Rephium and a few others. So I think it's along that lineage, but not on such a supernatural level. I just think they're a remnant because it even states there were giants in Earth in those days and also after I think that has something to do with it that's for sure I've thought deep about that too it seems like to me the giants they were killed and they lost their bodies so maybe like the disembodied spirits that people experience is them because hell wasn't designed for them It was designed for the devil and his angels And unfortunately for us But them I think they're stuck in between You know they don't have a place to go Right And I think some of these Get possessed Or oppressed by some of these Demonic type entities Just by how they act And the kind of fear that they project It's just unnatural Like I've had a startle With a brown bear Like, oh, crap, this is going to get ugly kind of situation. But it was never – it was a primal fear, but it wasn't on this level. It's hard to explain. It was so intense of an oppressive fear. It wasn't – it was like unnaturally – it wasn't my fear, but it was being put on me to fear, if that makes sense. Yeah, I understand. And I guess where I was getting at earlier is if it were the giants, you know, they've either died in the flood and the ones that did remain got killed off with it, you know, throughout all the years. But it also states in there that, you know, God was so disgusted with not just the people from that age and the giants and the angels and everything that was going on. He was also disgusted with the animals and the things that were created by him. so he also wiped out the animals as well. So it kind of makes me feel like that if some of these giants lived, maybe some of the creatures from that age did as well. Yeah, and that's kind of my line of thinking as well, because it even states that, you know, the fallen angels had corrupted all the fish of the sea, the beast of the field, and whatnot, and I think that's where the dinosaurs come from, these things, and various other things, you know. There's a bunch of lore and myth about the little people, back home uh call them the cinsi they're like little elves for lack of a better word little goblins or whatever uh there's a bunch of stories of those things out there too yeah it's about the little people and you know dog man stories ufo stories all kinds of cryptids really yeah and you know who's i mean i was never big on the dog man thing but if everything had been corrupted at one point and there's a remnant of them around, it's not out of bounds to think that way. You know what I mean? It's not unheard of. And for some people, they're so caught up in the day-to-day rat race that they can't even begin to wrap their minds around the reality of what goes on in the rest of the world because not everything is concrete and asphalt. Well, there's places that I know I've been up here in Alaska that no one else has been. You know what I mean? At least where I happen to be standing. There's so many remote places around that it's kind of arrogant to think that nothing like that could exist. Yeah. And if there are intelligent beings out there that we haven't fully discovered, they're going to be more intelligent than us. And we wouldn't even be aware of their presence. And that kind of seems to be what's going on with this situation. Right. Well, I've noticed one thing, too, that if you see one, there's at least a couple more around. And the one that's letting you see it is distracting you so you don't see the other ones. That's why when I initially heard that rustling, I pointed out to my relatives, don't just look around. Don't get stuck on that one point. be aware of it, but, you know, make sure that there's nothing moving on us, because until you've been hunted, it's hard to explain how it feels in those moments. It feels so unnatural to be a hunter that's being hunted. Like, if you've dealt with it at all, you can pick up on certain things hunters will do, distraction, whatever it may be. It's just a feeling that's hard to explain. Do they ever, like, triangulate around you? Like, not just come from one area, but all of a sudden they all come in at the same time from kind of every direction around you? That's what happened on the riverbank. All that transpired in a very short period of time with owl hoops. and the one crossing the river. All total until we were drifting away from the bank was probably 25 minutes. And it got so overwhelmed feeling of dread and being hunted that we left because initially we were just going to stay by the bonfire until first light. But it just got, they were coming in on us. Every time we heard a noise, it was closer. and again it felt like it was done intentionally to invoke fear like cause these things are fast one of these things could have ran up and snatched us up and smashed us into our fire in a heartbeat like easily I mean just like I still have a hard time of why they didn't just smash that little shed and beat me against a tree You know what I mean? Like it is a glorified matchbox. It is a glorified box. It is just I don't know. There's certain things of it that I just can't. I accept it. I just can't wrap my mind around why it transpired that way. I guess it's easy 20-20 hindsight to get there and, you know, kind of overthink certain things and the way you handled certain situations. But there's something about why they didn't just because there's a little J-hook on the door. I mean, a stiff breeze could have pushed this place over, you know? Yeah. Do you think that they could smell the food that you guys had in the shack? uh we kept the food um outside hanging in a tree outside of just a couple canned good things that we were going to make for dinner that night did we always stay better aware i have no idea man once so you know it sounds like blood or tracks or anything like you never looked no no uh any finding of evidence or trying to investigate anything was all out the window uh it's hard to explain the fear was so so intense that any logical thinking was gone that there was no logical it was all survival it was all primal we're doing this so we can live It was all mapped out step for step, getting the hell out of there. I mean, looking back on it, I wish, you know, I would have been able to been more aware and paid more attention to, you know, certain things like whatever it may be. But in the moment, it was, oh, hell no, no effing way is this happening. We got to go. that was the overwhelming feeling is you gotta go gotta go there was no question of like making a stand and let's you know hold our ground none of that shit I was ready to go yeah like around here I shouldn't say just around Missouri but states like Missouri people are trying to interact with them and swap berries with them but up there in Alaska you guys aren't trying to do that you guys are having bad encounters you know you guys are horrified by these things all the villagers yeah it's never been yeah it's never been even some of the folklore that we weren't necessarily taught as kids but you know when you look into it you hear about it you wanted nothing to do with these things nothing good came of it you know your children end up missing your women go missing they killed dogs a buddy of mine had three of his sled dogs ripped in half and left on their chains like ugh just ugh that'd be hard to deal with and the guy still lives in the same place yeah that'd be hard to know that they're out there somewhere watching you. And that's the thing of it. It's not like every time you go remote, you're going to deal with it. But if there's anything nearby, the curiosity, I feel, is at such a heightened level because there's not that many of us that make it out there that immediately they want to not necessarily engage you, but they want to come and check you out. You know, they want to see what that noise is. They want to see what this is Because it isn't until you start yelling or some commotion happens that they'll either run off. And a couple times we've had one run off and circle back out behind us at a further distance just still eyeballing us. So it's like, I feel it's because of the remoteness and the curiosity of them. they just naturally want to come in and check out what's going on in their backyard, see who's making that noise, who started that fire, that kind of thing. Yeah, that makes sense. But there's never just one. Granted, I've only seen one here, one there, and a few handfuls here and there, but each time I've only seen one, I can guarantee there was more than just one. just because of how things went in 06. I don't even know how many ended up running around that building and how many was total because we saw the three eyeshine, then the one next to the building, so that's four, unless it was one of the ones we just seen, ran over real quick and then leaned down and looked in. But it didn't feel that way because when we opened the door, it was a totally different feel. Because the eye shine was unmoving, unblinking, and we got that feeling. And so door shut, he ends up underneath the table almost immediately, and then we look over and see it. So there was at least four there, and then the big one. So that's five. and just looking back 2020 hindsight, I could see other instances where there's probably, like the one we saw in the open making the click sound, the popping sound, or the wood knock sound, I should say. There was probably other ones around that we were being distracted from seeing, because it stood there, like giving us the ugliest look of just hate. it was almost like the wood knocking sound was a challenge to us. Like it was calling us out. And when none of us made a move, it got mad and ran off. Is how it felt. In the moment, it was freaky shit. But looking back on it, you know, it challenged us. We did nothing and it took off. I speculated for a while that they could be making the wood knock sounds with their mouth. And this is one of the first stories I've ever heard where somebody actually saw one doing it. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, it sounded like two Louisville sluggers smacking each other. I mean, loud. And that seems surreal. Like, to make that kind of noise and to project it at the – I mean, it was 100 yards away, but we could hear it very loud. There was a concussion to it. You know, it was just powerful. I mean, it makes sense to me because they're just giant. You described the big black one earlier and just the set of lungs that they have. And I'm sure their mouth is just huge. You know, they've got a huge tongue. So if they did try to do some type of tongue clack, I mean, I think it would sound like a wood knock. They're that big. 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 duroze choices, can ASR help? Well, I think, how then? Well, for example, when you're doing a lot of things that are you love to do. Will you know more about the instructions where a duroze schadenerstel can be? Go to asr.nl slash duroze keuzes. This is ASR for you and a duroze sameness. ASR does it. So, then can you now listen to your podcast? or what have you. It looked like a Chewbacca, a little more stout, broader shoulders with the head lowered on the shoulders. But it was really big. So in contrast to size, it looked skinny, but it was still massive, if that makes sense. Yeah. So it kind of seems like to me the Bigfoot and the lower 48 are kind of trying to break that division between them and humans and maybe interact a little bit more because they don't have another choice but out there I mean I feel like if I brought some apples and some gifts to an area where they've been they just swipe it off the table and go on with their day or swipe you and leave the apples for someone else yeah it doesn't seem like they're interested in like the whole gifting scene and the interaction part out there they do what they would normally do naturally and if you run across them it's not going to be okay you know here's some berries and yeah no it's immediately territorial and they're going to defend it i mean that's that's overwhelming feeling i got was it went territorial and you're in danger and i've heard and i'm curious to the i'm sorry i didn't mean to cut you off but I'm curious as to the observers for fishing game, what kind of stories they have. Because there's some PhD guys that are trying to get their doctorate in biology going up into these places doing the fish counting with the Weir Tower. I wonder what kind of stuff they had happen. I mean, they're out there, so I'm sure they're experiencing the bulk of the activity. Oh, yeah, because they're there for weeks at a time. And we were there less than freaking 24 hours before shit went sideways. So I don't know if it was just luck of the draw because the Fish and Game Observers have been gone for weeks at this time because they're only there until probably the end of July. And then we went up mid-September. So I'm sure there is a seasonal aspect to it as well. Not that they migrate, but I think they have certain areas they stay because there's valleys up there all over the place that easily could hide a million of these things and we would never know. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think that answers most of my questions that I've had. I mean, a lot of them you kind of answered when you were telling your story, so I kind of marked them off the list. But, yeah, I think we got a good show in, and I really appreciate you getting in touch with me and telling your encounters. I know that one really spooked you and messed with you for a long time, and I'm sure it always will, but I appreciate you telling it to us. Yeah, eventually, logistically, it's such a pain to get to where that happened because it's, I mean, yeah, you could fly in, But I would rather have some mode of river or ground transportation to be able to retreat or have the plane right there. But then I'd be worried they'd throw a rock at it. You know, I don't know. There's certain after that experience, I don't feel as safe that remote just because of what transpired. If I had the funds to go out there, not saying I do, but let's say some rich person was like, I want you to go out there and camp with this guy. If we went out there, what do you think would happen? I think we would be accosted at some point. That's one of the areas I feel that if you're there for any period of time, you're going to have some kind of encounter. and I say that because I feel they're very territorial about those places especially that time of year like I noticed in the fall it's a heightened aggression they're aggressive regardless but other times like we've seen them in the winter time and they'd just kind of be a tree peeker you know peeking from a tree kind of looking at you from a distance away but it seems like in the fall they're highly aggressive and territorial so if i was to do something like that i would probably go early mid-september and see what happens yeah i think it'd be fun well not the whole terrifying bigfoot part But same fishing and same wildlife. Right. I was going up for a black bear and some gold panning, so I was in the mindset of getting rich. I was not, it wasn't even on my radar that we were going to have to deal with what we dealt with. But knowing that now, I would totally approach a trip like that in a different way. because I don't feel that these modern cameras and stuff would work as far as catching them on it. I'm thinking go old school with the old VHS recorder, you know what I mean, and something not as technologically advanced that they seem to pick up on. Let me ask you real quick. Did you do any digging at the area before the encounters happened? Nope. Didn't even, outside of getting the gear out of the skiff and up into the little shack, nope. But that was the intention, to go up there and dig around for gold and pan? Yeah, because it's just south of the proposed pebble mine. It's rich in quartz and granite and gold up there. No, I was going to say, if you did dig up, maybe that was what caused the activity, because I heard if you go in certain areas and you dig up things, That's what causes the paranormal activity or whatever transpires. But, no, you didn't dig. Right. No, we just showed up. We unloaded stuff. We weren't overly loud. We weren't popping shots off or whooping it up, you know, whooping it up, drinking. We just unloaded our gear, and they were playing cards quietly, and I was dicking around with my sights. And I was adjusting the rear ghost ring on the shotgun because I noticed the windows was a little too far left. But, yeah, it was intense, man. My heart rate's still up thinking about it, but I wouldn't wish that on anybody. Like, hey, you know, do your thing, search for whatever, do what you got to do, but just be careful what you wish for because if you come across one of these things in that state, it's not going to go well. Yeah. okay well how often do you get out and get to like go up trance around in the woods and explore i try to every other day i normally don't bring an axle though i just go out there bring you know just my cell phone really sometimes i'll bring a gun you know if i'm hunting or if it's hunting season just whatever but But most of the times that I go out in the forest, I just go out there to chill and walk around, explore. Yeah, I guess it's a little different up here, though, because there's so many different critters and whatnot. It's like second nature to always have something with you when you go out in the woods. And as a matter of fact, if you go to fish and game or the troopers and say, hey, I'm going to be remote here or wherever, one of the first things they're going to ask you is, you bring in a gun? We recommend you bring a gun. You know what I mean? Yeah. Unless, of course, you're a prohibited possessor or something like that, but, you know, they encourage you to be prepared to defend yourself. Yeah, anything could happen up there, being so remote or just being anywhere. Yeah, it's definitely a different animal. Well, once you get to see some of the pictures of the area I'm telling you about, you'll see what I'm talking about. Okay. Yeah, you'll have to send me over some coordinates or locations for me to look up, and I'll look them up. Yeah, if you just Google the Wood Tick Chick National Park, man, it'll bring up a whole slew of mountainous valleys and rivers. Okay, Fred. Well, I appreciate it, and you have a good night, and be safe out there, and stay warm, man. Oh, always. You too, man. We'll talk to you later. Alright. You have a good night. Alright. Bye-bye. Alright, thank you for those who made it this far, and I know it was a long one. So it appears that not all the Sasquatch like humans, and it is possible that going into these remote areas could put you at greater risk with running into one of these clans. Overall, it was a very fascinating story, and I really learned a lot about the Sasquatch's behavior. anyways that's all for this episode and I will catch you guys on the next one take care everyone Thank you.