SC EP:1144 Crouching Behemoth

Tonight I will be speaking to Doug who is from Alberta Canada. John writes "My family and extended family arrived at the Wabasso Campsite the afternoon on Sunday August 7th 2022. Its important to note that the holiday fell on August 1st that year so we arrived after the long weekend rush, additionally it was a Sunday (not on a long weekend) so the campground wasn't as busy. Our trailer was located at the first spot (D1) on the right as you enter Loop D at the Wabasso campsite. Our family typically books this campground during this time year every year so we're familiar with the area. My father and mother in-law as well as my brother and sister in-law along with my two nephews (6 & 8 years old at the time), joined my wife and I and our two daughters (5 & 7) for a week-long family camping trip. We had booked site D1 for my immediate family, my father and mother in-law we located directly NW of us across the roadway and my brother and sister in-law were our neighbors directly to the East of us. After a busy first day and getting all three of our sites setup and everyone situated and fed, we decided to have a fire with the entire family at my father and mother in-laws site located directly across the roadway from our site. After the sun had set and darkness was beginning to fall, we decided to put all our children to bed at around 10:00-10:30PM. After tending to our children's bedtime routines, we bid goodnight to our daughters, who were bubbling with excitement about our camping adventure. They giggled and laughed as we left them snug in their beds in our trailer. My wife and I made our way across to rejoin our family around the fire. We all were sitting on one side of the fire when we rejoined the group as there was a light wind and we were avoiding the smoke from the fire. Shortly after sitting, the light wind changed direction and I was the first to take action making the jump across the semicircle now sitting across from my entire family on the other side of the fire. This change in seating now gave me a better vantage point now looking South and in better view of our Trailer and children. Who at this point had quieted down as we could no longer hear laughter coming from our trailer, thinking they were well on their way to sleep. As soon as I was seated and had taken in a view of our trailer, I noticed something large directly behind our trailer across the roadway. It then started moving West away from the rear of our trailer toward the entrance of the campground. Instinctively I stood up as I knew it was something large but what confused me most was the color. White or possibly slightly gray figure. Now at this time the moon had just finished cresting from behind Mt. Edith Cavell and because there was no cloud cover, the moon provided just enough ambient lighting to witness the event at this hour. According to google earth, I would put the rough distance from my vantage point to the figure at 150-175'. The creature began moving westward, away from our campsite. It appeared to be hunched over, and my gut told me it was intentionally trying to appear smaller, suggesting a keen awareness of its surroundings. Once it starting travelling West away from my trailer, I stood up and once I did the creature took notice and accelerated with such silent pace it startled me. The moment I stood up my wife and sister in-law took notice and both caught obstructed views of the creature accelerating across the terrain away from our campsite. The terrain was mostly bare and filled with deadfall for maybe 25-35 feet or more along the southern side of the roadway providing me with an unobstructed view. The entire event occurred in 5 seconds maybe. Immediately following the event I went to check on my children. When I walked inside the trailer, both were sat up in bed frightened and were both claiming a bear or something big was outside the trailer. Dad calmed their fears, tucked them back in and returned to the fire to debate what some of us had witnessed. Both my wife and sister in-law agree it was a large albino type animal. Myself having the best vantage point, believes it was bipedal and hunched over to appear smaller as its forward limbs were not touching the ground as it accelerated and reacted to my change in behavior. The following day I walked the path I believed it traveled but there were no tracks unfortunately. The Jasper area was very dry and had not seen hardly any rain in the days or weeks leading up to this encounter. Additionally, I also stopped in at the campsite registry and asked the park Ranger if any other campers had reported any albino animals in the area. Which they had not. I am certain this was not a bear or moose as the creature was too silent as it accelerated and moved with agility." John from Episode 883, http://SC%20EP:883%20The%20Spider%20Crawl if you remember he is a Nurse and had an encounter in 2020. Spoke to John and he wrote a book from eyewitness accounts in his area of Kentucky. I invited John back to the show to discuss his new book. Here is a like along with the description https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F1ZCJW7Z?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_em_apin_dp_63PZEDD22KS0KW6274S7&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_em_apin_dp_63PZEDD22KS0KW6274S7&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_em_apin_dp_63PZEDD22KS0KW6274S7&bestFormat=true For centuries reports of bipedal Sasquatch have captivated the public, but a lesser-known phenomenon lurks in the shadows...encounters with quadrupedal Sasquatch. These chilling sightings challenge conventional wisdom, forcing us to reconsider what we think we know about these elusive creatures. In Crouching Behemoth: Quadrupedal Sasquatch, we have the first book of its kind; it is the result of an almost three-year deep dive into spider crawls as well as walking, running, and gallops on all four limbs. Renowned anthropologist Dr. Jeff Meldrum lends his expertise in an exclusive interview, shedding light on the biomechanics and plausibility of this behavior. While he did not fully endorse this type of maneuverability, it is very interesting in what he did say regarding the aforementioned type of behavior and more. Charlie Raymond, one of the top field researchers and founder of the KBRO in Kentucky, weighs into it as well. Besides the multitude of frankly disturbing eyewitness testimony, we will also hear from Dr. David Harmon, a distinguished physician in the treatment of PTSD and how a traumatized witness can be treated! If all this doesn't convince you that this is definitely a different kind of Sasquatch book, you will find that although the subject matter is treated very serious, there is much humor sprinkled throughout this 400 plus page volume to lighten it up once in a while. This book is a fun, must read for Bigfoot enthusiasts, skeptics, and anyone fascinated by the intersection of science, mystery, and the human experience. This book has it all...well, almost all as the scratch and sniff Sasquatch fragrance was eliminated because I didn't want people out there saying this book stinks. You just might like this one, folks!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind and it either heard me or smelt me and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up and that, that shocked me.

• 0:24Speaker 00

  They don't make people that, that big.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything move like that in my life.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  They were screaming at each other in gibberish.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  It sounded like a language and they were chuntering away, back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forwards.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet that what I saw bears.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  911, what are you reporting?

• 1:16Speaker 03

  Jesus Christ, you better... Sir? See ya!

• 1:19Speaker 02

  Hello?

• 1:20Speaker 03

  Get somebody out of here.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  What's going on now, sir?

• 1:23Speaker 03

  That son of a bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know.

• 1:26Speaker 02

  Do you see him now, sir?

• 1:27Speaker 03

  Yes, I'm looking right at him. Uh-uh.

• 1:36Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Eli. And I'm Sonny and you're listening to... Sasquatch Chronicles.

• 2:23Wes Germer?

  Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show planned for you. We'll be chatting with Doug, and Doug comes to us from Alberta, Canada. In August of 2022, he was out with his family camping when they encountered this creature. And I'll kind of let Doug go into it. We're also going to be wrapping up with a returning guest, John, from episode 883. He wrote a new book, Crouching Behemoth: Quadrupedal Sasquatch Eyewitness Accounts. And if you remember, John is a nurse. He had an encounter in 2022. John went off and wrote this book. He mainly wanted to talk to eyewitnesses in his area

• 3:08Wes Germer?

  of Kentucky. So he'll be discussing some of the encounters from his book. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is [email protected]. And if you get a chance, check out sasquatchchronicles.com. You can become a member and get additional shows. And I want to give a shout out to John from last night's show, 1143, the Lad Mountain Incident. And John was kind of a harsh skeptic who encountered these creatures. And everything kind of ends with this encounter on Lad Mountain in Oklahoma. I want to thank John again for coming on. Let's jump into

• 3:52Wes Germer?

  it tonight. I want to welcome Doug to the show. Doug, thanks for coming on.

• 3:59Speaker 06

  Thanks for having me, Wes.

• 4:01Wes Germer?

  Yeah, and you had this encounter in 2022 out there in Alberta, Canada. Before your encounter, Doug, what was kind of your feelings about the whole subject of Bigfoot?

• 4:14Speaker 06

  So definitely an interest. Actually, I have three sisters.

• 4:21Speaker 06

  Sister closest in age to me, she was quite interested in it when she was a bit younger. She was going to listen in on various seminars, the local library, whenever, you know, Sasquatch. I think there was some books written, she was going to listen. So I kind of piqued my interest in paranormal and stuff like that. My family has a bit of a, a bit of a history with. So the, this subject definitely interested me for a long time. It's something that, something that, you know, and I never thought I would see. Like, you know, obviously that's a common line, but you know, all of a sudden, one day, one evening it happened and, and

• 5:04Speaker 06

  after that, like many others, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole. And very much intrigued myself and some of my family members that were involved in the incident. And even my, my oldest daughter now, who's 10, she actually listens to, you know, if I have one of your, one of your podcasts on. She, she always is asking to listen to it. And so it's, yeah, it's definitely something that outside of work and life and the rest, it's, it's a topic that I, I tune into and, and look up often, for sure.

• 5:46Wes Germer?

  Well, if you would, John, kind of walk me into this encounter that happened back in 2022. What were you doing and what happened?

• 5:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, so a bit of backstory, you know, just on myself, I'm not an avid hunter. But 20 years in the oil patch at field level for a number of those years. Working in very remote environments, previous to that, when I was 18, 19, I worked as a forest firefighter for the government, in Alberta here.

• 6:23Speaker 06

  And just being dropped in via heli to some very remote areas, seeing a lot of animals. Um, you know, been been around a lot of bear, elk, moose, uh, seen albino moose. And, you know, so you think you have a handle on, on, you know, what's out there, right? And, uh, you know, curiosity is like, you know, does something like, you know, Sasquatch really exists? Could it exist? So in, uh, in twenty twenty two, we were, we were out in, uh, Jasper, we were at Wabashal Campground, which is about, I'd want to say it's like a twenty minute drive, uh, from Jasper, fifteen, twenty minute drive.

• 7:07Speaker 06

  The campground itself sits at the base of Mount Edith Claval. And, uh, not like, um, Marmot Basin Ski Resort is near there. Uh, the campground also backs on to, uh, the Athabasca River and the Ice Sun Parkway. But pretty remote, like Jasper's not, you know, for those, you know, that aren't aware. It's not as, uh, as much as a tourist destination, you know, as compared to Banff. Banff's close to Calgary, Jasper's a bit further, oh, four and a half hour drive from the Edmonton area. And so it's not as busy.

• 7:47Speaker 06

  And so in August of two thousand twenty two, um, you know, we, we, we go camping out there regularly. Sometimes, you know, multiple times a year. Um, and we frequented that campground specifically almost every year just because it was the furthest campground from the town of Jasper that wasn't crazy far away. And, um, always stayed in the same loop. Uh, you know, it's a powered hoop, so we have young kids, so having, having, uh, having power was, was key. So we came in, uh, August first, August long weekend, uh, that year it was the first. And, um, we had arrived around the seventh.

• 8:32Speaker 06

  So it was the Sunday following the long weekend, so, you know, usually on long weekends is, you know, spike with, with campers, so we decided to hit a week later that year and arrive on a Sunday, which typically there's even less people in the campground at that point.

• 8:51Speaker 06

  So we arrived there Sunday and um it was myself, my wife, I had I have two daughters uh at the time. I think they were five and seven. We also had my wife's uh sister and my brother-in-law. And they had two boys similar in age and uh my wife's parents actually. So we were all kinda uh nestled in this one loop. The loop itself is, you you know, in the immediate camping area. Uh that area has been hit with pine beetle quite a bit. So there's a lot of deadfall and they've fall uh fell a lot of trees in in within the campground itself.

• 9:33Speaker 06

  But there's quite uh you know, quite a bit of tree coverage on on the perimeter. Anyways, um so we kinda were settling in Sunday and just doing our thing. Kids were excited, of course, you know, especially at that age, you know, the four of them, probably between ages five and eight at that point. Uh everyone was pretty, pretty excited to settle in for a week-long camping trip and uh you know, cooking up supper and uh you know, marshmallows and all the rest. Finally decided to put the kids to bed. It was around like ten or ten thirty that evening. When we put them down, you know, kids, you know, they don't wanna go to bed even, you know, at that age or any age really.

• 10:18Speaker 06

  When we left the trailer, uh we could hear them, um you know, and we had decided to, you know, nestle in for a fire at uh my my my in-laws, my father and mother-in-law's place, and they were located directly across from our site. And so that's probably like hundred and fifty, hundred and seventy-five feet, kinda from, you know, from campfire to campfire type of thing. So left our kids in the trailer and uh put all the kids to bed and. We were there and we ended up, uh, you know, I was there for maybe, I don't know, ten, fifteen minutes and we were kind of sitting semicircle, uh, as the wind was at our back at

• 11:01Speaker 06

  that point, just to avoid smoke. And so the six of us were kind of sitting semicircle on, on, on the one side of the fire. And, uh, you know, the wind shifted suddenly as it does, you know, especially in the mountains. When it shifted, I decided to, uh, reposition to avoid the smoke. I was the first to do that. And again, this probably like within fifteen minutes and of putting the kids to bed. And, you know, we were, I'd still, even when I repositioned, I remember hearing them laugh and giggle in the trailer. And I'd been sitting down for, you know, maybe five minutes. And I noticed movement, uh, behind my trailer.

• 11:46Speaker 06

  Now, my kids at that point, they were, we'd, um, you know, it's just a bumper pole trailer. And there was bunk beds at the back with little windows and stuff, and they were in the bunk bed. And so I'm watching something from behind the trailer and I can't quite get a grasp on what it is. And so at the time, now it's maybe, you know, quarter to eleven, eleven o'clock, somewhere in that timeframe. And time of year, there was, you know, the sun, it's up late, uh, the moon was just coming in behind. So we're, there's

• 12:23Speaker 06

  good lighting at that hour. And the figure was white and my first thought was albino moose. That was my first thought when it was behind the trailer. And I remember. Standing up and seeing this thing come from behind the trailer and just before I stood up, but it exited from behind our trailer and it was moving very purposely in a crouched position, uh, but definitely um, two feet with its forward limbs hanging. And uh, when I stood up and my, my, i- i- it's almost like this movie like it knew we were there.

• 13:08Speaker 06

  And when I stood up and my change in behavior happened, it recognized that and accelerated at such a pace, at such a silent pace. And I had a good view of it. So like I said, you know, hundred and fifty, hundred and seventy-five feet from my vantage point. And when it uh, when it accelerated, I just couldn't, it, it was at a hard time registering what this was because at that point I knew when it was in my full plain, plain of view, it, it wasn't a moose. And I knew, uh, my brain was just having such a difficult time, like what is this? And now I'm thinking immediately following the event, I was like, I know what that is now.

• 13:53Speaker 06

  And relating it back to, to Sasquatch. And so as the, you know, it, can't remember, maybe it was like a hundred feet or so, give or take of i- i- it from behind my trailer to where I saw it uh, across, it was kind of parallel to the roadway of the campground and in its path was completely fallen trees. So there was no trees or anything. And I s- seen it accelerate across that area so silently and so quickly, especially after I stood up, really stuck out to me. And I, I was in a, a bit of shock, you know, obviously hundred and fifty, hundred and seventy-five feet, you're, you know, a good distance away, but for something at that size and.

• 14:39Speaker 06

  You know, it appeared at least, you know, the next day, just checking the the path out that it had pursued. You know, I felt that, you know, it was probably crouched down all of six feet. Now, my wife, Lindsay, and my sister-in-law, Erin, they were sitting at the at the outermost edge of the semicircle across from me when the event happened. They turned and saw uh the tail end of like the just its final moments of being in that open view. And, you know, afterwards, I I remember, you know, sitting there with my mother and father-in-law

• 15:22Speaker 06

  and saying like, you know, I have no idea what that was, you know, I, you know, it it was definitely on two feet. Um, its forward limbs were not moving. Uh, my wife and my my sister-in-law both recognized it was something that was very large and white. And my father-in-law, who's uh, who is retired now, uh, but he's forty forty-plus-year forestry guy. Uh, he didn't see it, but he uh, he wasn't uh, wasn't on the the belief path of what it could be. But I was like, you didn't see it, man, like this, this thing was huge. And I, after I sat down and and was trying to take a moment, I realized that

• 16:08Speaker 06

  it was behind our trailer and I was like, I need to go check on the kids. And, you know, like I said, they'd gone to bed laughing and and uh, you know, giggling and they were quite loud horsing around in there. And when I went back to the trailer to check on them, that was the moment where it kinda hit home a bit more because they were both, you know, sat up straight in their beds, in the bunk beds. And my oldest, who was on the top bunk, was like, Dad, like, there's something really big outside, I don't know if the bear, and like, I could tell they were both quite startled. Just calm their fears, told them it was probably a bear, and, you know, just relax type of thing, put them back to bed and

• 16:50Speaker 06

  you know, I walked back to the fire and it was a, it was an all-night debate for sure on on what we saw and what it could be and. Definitely something that I never thought in my lifetime being, you know, interested in the topic that that I'd have the opportunity to see, but very fortunate, feel very fortunate that I did because it it definitely made me a believer for sure.

• 17:18Wes Germer?

  Did you ever get a chance later to kind of talk to your kids and find out what this thing was doing?

• 17:25Speaker 06

  So I didn't, I haven't really brought it up with them and there's a couple of reasons why. So even though my daughter's interested in the topic, she knows dad has a story. She doesn't know that she's involved in that story because at the time, like I said, they were five and seven. And they're now eight, 10 and um, you know, so I had, but what my plan is actually because she's interested in your show. Uh, so much that, um, you know, if, if you decide to post this, I want to have her listen to that. Because she was the one that actually encouraged me to email you. She said, oh dad, you know, like we listen to Sasquatch Chronicles.

• 18:10Speaker 06

  You should tell them your story, even though she doesn't know all the details and that she was there. Um, and so my plan would be if, if you did post this, I would have her listen. So she gets the, she gets the, the full account of A that she was there and B. So no, I haven't addressed it with her. I know in that moment she was confused. In that moment she was confused. She just referred to it as something really big was outside. And the fact that this, this, you know, the Sasquatch was behind the trailer, right at the windows of their bunk beds.

• 18:52Speaker 06

  In the moment was very concerning to me after, like when I realized and took everything in and went back to the fire. And I remember hearing and I know it was on one of your podcasts, I'm pretty sure, like their interest level in children, especially like, you know, when they're laughing and playing and stuff. And I thought, you know, maybe that's what drew them in. But, you know, to provide some further context too, like at that time on Sunday, because there wasn't many campers there, it was even less, like, we were in a loop and there was, you know, that's, I don't know, fifty, sixty campgrounds in that loop, something like that. And there may have been one or two other campers completely on the opposite end of us. We were kind of

• 19:34Speaker 06

  at the entrance to the loop. And so, yeah, it's, it's something that, uh, you know, I'm hoping that maybe, maybe she can listen to an episode where she hears dad give the full account and she's like, I was, I was there? Yeah, you were, you know? So, but, um, yeah, definitely, uh, definitely a crazy story, for sure.

• 20:00Wes Germer?

  Yeah, I'll definitely play the interview, Doug. Uh, you know, they do have some weird interest in children. And, you know, as a father, uh, it's very unnerving. I mean, I think it would set me off knowing one of these things were watching my kids. And I don't know why the interest is there. Maybe the kids seem to be less threatening is the only thing I can come up with.

• 20:22Speaker 06

  Yeah. After, like, the next day, uh, the next morning, uh, now with that area, that time of year, we'd been hit with like, like, definitely like, you know, just, like, it was like plus thirty degrees Celsius for like a week leading up to that event. So it was very dry and, and the deadfall in the area that, you know, I saw it accelerate in. You know, I tried to find trackway afterwards, just couldn't like just too much, just too much dead fall and you know, there was again, no moisture, couldn't see anything. I remember it's kind of doing a height comparison and I was like, man, like this thing, you know, at its,

• 21:03Speaker 06

  you know, when it was, when it was crouched over and, and running with purpose. And then when I stood up and it accelerated, it still like, when it accelerated, it was still in its same position in terms of crouching and just, I mean, like a flash, just couldn't believe I, you know, just witnessing, you know, I guess at that range, how quickly it moved across that plane was something that just shocked me. And then after the afterthought of, of where it was and the windows at the back of the trailer and where my kids were, I was like, oh my God. So I was like, the next day after doing that, I'm like,

• 21:43Speaker 06

  I'm gonna keep that bear spray on me from now on, you know, like that is gonna do anything. It's not like we open carry here, right? But um, it's, yeah, it's, it was, uh, it was definitely the topic for that week. And it's not a story I share with many. I've shared it with few, but I would say generally the topic, you know, in Alberta is, you know, and BC for that matter, is generally accepted more than, you know, just, you know, laughed at, right? After listening to, to your shows over, over the years and, and now my daughter being so intrigued by your shows, I was like,

• 22:29Speaker 06

  all right, you asked dad to, to submit my story. I'll, I'll submit my story.

• 22:35Wes Germer?

  Yeah, I could see people being more open to it in Alberta and, uh, British Columbia. It's like Washington state, we all kind of share this long history of, you know, dating back to our Native Americans and your guys as First Nations and. You know, some of the the major accounts come from this area, historical accounts. So I could see people and you know, I to this day, I've had many people on from Alberta and B C. That have had very recent encounters. You know, one thing that you said, Doug, when it was running, it was kind of bent over and I've heard. Other eyewitnesses described that you also described no motion of the arms moving while it was running.

• 23:20Wes Germer?

  If it's about six feet kind of bent over. How tall do you think it actually was?

• 23:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, I like I said, I think crouched over, we kind of ranged it around six feet. So could it have been, you know, eight, nine feet or more? Possibly the next day after, you know, trying to find. Trackway and and you know, just going over, you know. The event was in the group, I actually later that next day I had stopped because we were there for the week. I'd stopped at the ranger station, like the the, you know, where the we check in for the campers, what have you. I actually asked the ranger, the park ranger, if if any, anybody had reported.

• 24:06Speaker 06

  Uh, any albino animals in the area, uh, which, you know, they know, nobody had. And I did report that I saw something albino, I didn't go into specifics there with them. But, um, yeah, it's. It's, it was definitely the highlight of the week for me and it, at the very least, it gives me. The belief, number one, that these things do exist. I mean, even without seeing it at this point, you know, even through your stories and your, you know, what you share. I mean, how can you deny it? Right? It's it's something that I feel that the government can never openly

• 24:50Speaker 06

  recognize, uh, just due to the economic impact it could have on economies, right? I mean, that if the government recognized that species, the protected area, how do you identify that? Right? And and how would that impact companies? Right? So I don't know if they'll ever recognize it, but I'm sorry, I probably strayed from your original question there.

• 25:19Wes Germer?

  No, that's okay. I know on last night's show, the Lad Mountain incident, uh, John and I talked about that. And I and I agree with you, Doug. I do think that there is a cover up. You know, even in my own encounter, me and my brother still argue about, he said it was white and I said it was light gray and, uh, which, you know, we're arguing over nothing, but you'd be surprised. White, that light gray color, when it comes to Sasquatch, this gets reported way more than you might think. You would think it'd be very rare, uh, for people to report a white Sasquatch or a light gray Sasquatch. And you would also think something of that color would be really easy to find.

• 26:02Wes Germer?

  Uh, you know, I know you had said you thought it was an albino moose at first because it was so big. Uh, but even that albino moose is very rare and I would imagine they would stick out like a sore thumb.

• 26:15Speaker 06

  Well, had this thing been darker in color, it would have been harder. Now, even though we had pretty good lighting, it's on the backdrop, like we're looking, uh, you know, where we where our campground was, we're kind of in the shadow of Mount Edith Cavell. So had this thing been darker in color, I may not have picked it up at all, especially on the backdrop because the perimeter was, you know, there is trees there, even though they've chopped a lot down within the campground. I don't know if I would have picked it up, you know, uh, because of how silent it was. And the only reason I stood up is because it was white, light gray in color and, uh, you know, the lighting just right. And yeah, it was, um,

• 26:55Speaker 06

  Something that uh that will stick with me forever. I did, you know, speaking about your incident there, I remember listening to that episode where one of your first episodes, obviously, where you went into that deep, you know, your story with your brother in the car there and man, what a crazy account, like what a crazy account. I couldn't imagine being out there and I mean, good for you for turning that event into into what you've turned it into, right? Which is really an avenue for for people like me and and others that have crazier experiences to, you know, share, write their stories and, you know, kudos to you, man, for sure.

• 27:35Wes Germer?

  I appreciate the kind words, Doug. You know, anytime you have an encounter, you play it back in your head over and over and over. And looking back at this whole situation, when you saw it kind of take off, and again, I realize all this is happening very, very quickly, but what's kind of the one thing that stays with you? Whether it be movement or um how it was proportioned, what's kind of something that stays with you?

• 28:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, when I stood up and I changed my behavior, because like I said, I believe it knew, you know, it it knew we were there, you know, 150 ish feet away, open plain, nothing, no obstructions between us and and it. And um when I stood up, I remember it's it's head turned. And and not it now, I couldn't see its eyes um or facial features that great just due to the distance and even though the lighting was good and it was white, I could see its body, its limbs, but the face I couldn't make out and but it because it happened so quick, but it turned its head

• 28:47Speaker 06

  when I stood up and that's when it accelerated at such a pace and that was crazy to me. So that that right there is something that sticks with me when it's when I stood up and it turned its head to to really lock on to my behavior and my changing my behavior for sure. Um, and the direction it went in because it it didn't, it didn't fall back, there was tree line because our camper backed on to the tree line. You know, I remember thinking like, why wouldn't it? Why wouldn't it just? You know? Revert back to the tree line? But it took, it it stayed on its trajectory.

• 29:27Speaker 06

  And which ultimately, you know, had it, i- if it stayed on that, would have taken it to the base of the mountain. You know, I I I wonder if it like, had it, had it just been, you know, one of us there, would it would have been, you know, a different outcome? Would have done, done something differently, right? This thing was so silent. And the, and the pace that it accelerated, I was just, I was having a hard time registering it in the moment and afterwards, for sure. But um, I would say like, because I didn't see. You know, any breasts. Um, I'm assuming it was male. Ju- and again, the sheer size of it too. Uh, it was, it was a such a large mass. And I remember after.

• 30:11Speaker 06

  You know, asking like my wife, it they, they came, you know, and said, like. We saw it, we saw the tail end of it and that thing was running and it was large. And. I was like, okay, I'm not the, I'm not the only crazy person in the room here, right? So gave me a bit of solace, I guess, but yeah, it's uh. It was nuts.

• 30:35Wes Germer?

  You know, Doug, I ask everyone on the show, what do you think that these creatures are? And obviously there's no wrong answer, but. What's your take? What do you think that they are?

• 30:46Speaker 06

  I believe that uh. That's bipedal. It exists. Somewhere in our evolution. Um, from, you know, whether we're talking caveman, what have you. I I believe it migrates. Depending on the region, I think it migrates. Um. It's something that very much exists. Um, you know, the paranormal end, I do believe that that's an element. It's not an element I I witnessed myself, I know. Um, there's been, you know, reports in, in, in cases where, you know, there's orbs and things like this. Nothing like that to happen in, in my experience, but I.

• 31:27Speaker 06

  You know, I think anything's possible with this in terms of what it could be and where the origins lie. And I'm just, I'm just happy that, that I was able to have an experience and a positive one in terms of, you know, because, you know, some of the stories you hear where, you know, people are being chased or pursued or, or having them, parallel them in the bush and walking them out type thing. It wasn't so much like that, other than the element of it being very close to my kids in a trailer. It was generally positive and just fortunate that, that I got to have an experience in general, for sure.

• 32:08Wes Germer?

  Yeah, it's always nice having other people there as well. I know you kind of alluded to that earlier. But, you know, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your encounter, Doug. I always love hearing from Canadians, you know, whether it be Alberta or BC. And I've actually had a lot of encounters out of Northern Ontario recently. So, you know, I really appreciate it, brother. I appreciate your time and thank you again for coming on.

• 32:38Speaker 06

  Thank you, Wes. Thank you for what you do as well.

• 32:57Wes Germer?

  Next up on the show, I want to welcome back John from episode 883, The Spider Crawl. Welcome back to the show, John.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  Thanks a lot, Wes. I really appreciate that.

• 33:11Wes Germer?

  Yeah, it's great to have you back, John. And I remember 883. It's a very memorable episode. You know, you talked about your sister, you talked about being a nurse. And this encounter that you had in 2020, where you actually saw the creature get down and do the spider movement. You had written a book, Crouching Behemoth, quadrupedals, Sasquatch, eyewitness accounts. And it's available on Amazon. I'll include a link underneath this episode for the listeners if they want to go check it out. What made you write this book, John? Well, after I had my sighting, I was on your show, um, eight, eight, three, it walked like a giant spider.

• 33:52Wes Germer?

  That was, that was about five years ago when I had the sighting. I believe it was maybe three and a half years ago when I spoke to you about it. And I was kind of unsettled about it. You'd asked me the question during that show, like, have it changed my life? I really couldn't think of a good answer at the time. So after I was on the show with you, I thought about it for a long time. And it was very unsettling because it was something that I, in my mind, it really wasn't something supposed to be. So in the meantime, I had shared the information with my nephew Tommy, who at the time was a, a student at IU University in Bloomington, Indiana. So I shared the story with him. He listened to the podcast. Well, he had the podcast out with some of his buddies in his dorm.

• 34:35Wes Germer?

  And when they were done, one of his buddies, um, Kobe, matter of fact, he's the first chapter in the book. Kobe said, you're not going to believe this. He goes, my whole family had a sighting and we saw a big foot on all fours. His wasn't the scariest sighting ever, but it was the first one. So we go up there every year to, uh, they have the biggest collegiate bicycle race in the country. It's called the, um, little 500. And there's a movie years ago back in the, I think it was in the early eighties called Breaking Away. And Dennis Quaid was in there. He's a real young kid in the movie, but basically the movie was about the bicycle race. And so anybody that's familiar with that movie would be familiar with this race. It's a big oval track and there's thousands of thousands of people come.

• 35:19Wes Germer?

  So when I went up there, I knew, I had known that, um, Kobe was going to be there. He was on the team. So we were tailgating before the race. And the team comes over to where we're tailgating. So I got to meet this young man. He told me a story. Real briefly, we didn't have time to talk for a long time because he had a race to get ready for us. So we made an appointment later when I got home to talk to him. I spent several hours talking to him. And their family, they live on a farm. He grew up right outside of Bloomington and, um, so they lived on a farm. They were at this lake Monroe. Their whole family was on the way back to the farm. They come down this road called Scott's Road. It's a rural road outside of Bloomington. And they, they see this creature upright picking berries off a tree.

• 36:02Wes Germer?

  And the dad's like, oh my God, and they slow up this thing. Thing drops to four and it scurries across in front of them on all four. He said it was something that made an imprint and their whole family was petrified. So, once I talked to Kobe, I thought, you know what, there's, there's a little bit more to this. So I started Googling and you can't really find that. If you Google on, um, on the internet, you can only find three or four pictures of a Sasquatch doing a spider crawl on all four. And I think the reason it's, the people that have seen them, it's so hard to describe how they look. So people, you know, not everybody's a good artist, so it's hard to tell an artist even if you're not able to draw it, how to draw it and have it look, they're so surreal looking. And you can't, you can't really capture the image that well.

• 36:48Wes Germer?

  So, I couldn't really find anything. So then I started trying to find a book or something to read about it and I realized there's no material out there about Bigfoots riding, you know, there's some books that have anecdotal stories, one chapter here or there devoted to it, but I've never seen a whole volume devoted to, you know, not just the spider crawl, but sightings where people have seen Bigfoots running on all fours. Um, climbing up hills on all fours, galloping, moving like a spider, moving like a crab, all these different things. So, I thought, you know what, I, by this time I was starting to dig into it and I thought, maybe I should be the one to fill the void. So, the next three years I spent researching this and I pretty much opened a spigot on it and drained it. I wrote a four hundred and thirty eight, put, uh, four hundred and thirty nine page book

• 37:33Wes Germer?

  about it and I could have kept going. I just felt like at some point I gotta stop and, and put the material out there. But in the meantime, when I was at work, I work at the local hospital here and a coworker mine, she had these drawings out on her folder one day. And I said, my God, they were, they're drawings of like superheroes and different stuff like that. I said, who drew those? And she said, oh, my son Landon did. Well, at the time he was seventeen and then a senior in high school. So I said, do you mind if I contact him about, um, doing a cover for my book? I wanted something different. So, this guy Landon Shepherd, I talked to him, he's eighteen now, but, um, I described to him what I wanted and I said, I wanted something different.

• 38:16Wes Germer?

  You know, a lot of Bigfoot books will use AI and show an image or show a face looking through the

• 38:21Speaker 03

  Woods. So I wanted something that would be appealing to a lot of people. And this, this guy likes graphic novels and stuff. So I said, you know, that'd be kind of cool. Why couldn't you do me a picture? Like, I'll describe the, so the cover is basically what I saw when I had my sighting, but uh, he couldn't get the arms right. So I told him, just look at my guns on my arm. That's how you can do it. Kind of laughed at that. It'd be a scrawny little thing if he did that. But, but anyway, so he ended up doing the cover. And I thought he did a really great job. He kind of made it look like a graphic novel type of, you know, so it's a little bit different than what you'd normally see.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  So anyway, so I started working on the book and, and after that, I started making contacts and I found out it wasn't that easy to find these spider crawls. They happen, but you don't find them. All over. So that's one of the reasons it took me three years to get a lot of, enough to have a really good volume. And there's also more in there. I've got interviews by Doc, um, Dr. Meldrum has two chapters. I think it's the first interview he's ever done. About Sasquatch on all four and what his take, he didn't exactly endorse it a hundred percent, but he says it's possible and here's why. And he gave some of the, some of the stuff in there. So I thought it was kind of like that movie Dumb and Dumber. Where uh, the guy played by Jim Carrey asked this beautiful girl out for a date. So I wouldn't go out for you.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  With for, unless it was a million and one odds. And he said, so I still have a chance. So I told Dr. Meldrum, so there's still a chance. So anyway, so that transpired. Then I started finding witnesses. I learned how to find them and I, I'm going to share one here, this guy named Gerald. He was in Wayne County, Illinois. And I feel like this is a really, on the surface of it, it doesn't seem scary until I get to the end. And then I'll tell you, you'll realize why this is kind of a terrifying story. So he's got a farm near Sam Dale Lake Fish and Wildlife Rec area. It's in the southern portion of Illinois. They call that area Little Egypt. And he grew up on the farm. It's a 400 plus acre farm. He'd lived there his whole life.

• 40:24Speaker 03

  And he still lives there. And um, he'd only counted a big foot one time on his property and it was while he was bow hunting. The back of this farm has about a hundred and fifty acres of forested land. And it runs up to thousands of more forested acres of the Dale Lake Recreation Area. So there's a lot of woods back in there.

• 40:43Speaker 06

  So he'd been seeing this buck back in there over the several months before hunting season. It was a trophy buck. So that's what he had his eye on. So he goes back in there. He had a deer stand already set up before hunting season. He goes up there at dusk and he's already in place. So when the sun starts coming up, he'll be in a good place. So it wasn't long after the sun comes up, he starts hearing something coming towards him. Now, this area where he hunts, he's kind of a different kind of guy. A lot of people, some states, it's legal to put food plots up and so forth. Well, he told me he didn't really believe in in putting out a food plot, but he believes in preserving. They have white oak trees that produce lots of acorns.

• 41:22Speaker 06

  So this area where his deer stand, it was in heavy woods, but then there was this area that was covered with with oak trees. And the acorns are all over. So the deer would come in there and he said the the acorns give at least twice the amount of energy than any food plot would. So he's in place, the sun's starting to come up. He hears something coming through the bushes. So he's excited. He gets his bow. Starts drawing back in anticipation of this large buck coming through there. Well, he said, once this thing came through the the bushes, this face was looking up at him that wasn't a deer. And it was looking right at him. He said he was seventeen feet up in a deer stand, but this thing already had a bead on him that came through him and was staring at him.

• 42:04Speaker 06

  But he had the bow drawn back and he said the thing made like a really nasty face at him. So he was terrified. He didn't think he could hit it at the profile. It was on all fours. And all he could see was basically like the head and the shoulders. So he wasn't sure he could get a good shot. He starts slowly drawing the bow back. Then it seemed like the thing relaxed a little bit and he said it turns, it walks, just kind of saunters back on all fours real slow. Back into the woods till it's far enough out of range. And he sat up in the deer stand for a couple more hours, petrified. He had a long ways to walk to get back to his farmhouse. So he sat up there a couple hours like, my God. Is that thing just laying in wait? When I come down, is it going to tag me?

• 42:46Speaker 06

  So on the surface, that seemed like, yeah, he saw one on all fours. But the scary part, after a couple hours of sitting there, he decides finally, well, the sun's up. Pretty high. I'm going to get out of here before anything else happens. He starts climbing back down the deer stand and his foot gets about halfway down and touches a rung. And it doesn't feel right. He's afraid he's going to fall. The way he looks down, the bottom eight feet of. The ladder is smushed in like something took the sides and just pushed it in like an accordion. So he, it wasn't like that when he climbed up there. So he was horrified. And he didn't know what to do. So he was already halfway down and he thought if this thing's out there, he can already get me. So he jumps down.

• 43:27Speaker 06

  And he quickly walks out of there and never had another encounter, but he swears that when he was in that deer stand. He did not hear anything come up. He doesn't know if it was the one that he saw or if while he was looking at it, this other one might've been right below him. Maybe messing with him, trying to get up, but at any rate, he got the message. He's never been back there hunting again. And he's never had another sighting of Bigfoot or even anything strange happening on his farm. So I thought that was a really good, but you could tell when I talked to the guy. Um, you know, in these interviews, I'll record them. I'll type it up and send it to them. And then send it back. And, and, uh, so I talked to him several times. And I really felt like his story was poignant and it was, it was downright scary. The way he told it, you could tell he was

• 44:11Speaker 06

  really shaky about it. And he really doesn't like telling a lot of people in his area because the few people he told thought he, he wasn't all, all right up in his upper chambers. So he felt like it was a good outlet to talk to me and I found him. From his brother was the one that connected. He saw a posting I'd made and contacted him. So I thought that was a really good one.

• 44:33Wes Germer?

  Yeah. And for the audience, again, the book is called Crouching Behemoth. Quadrupedal Sasquatch Eyewitness Accounts. And I like reading eyewitness accounts. You know, it's a lot harder to get people to come forward. Then I think most people think. But I would imagine, John, that, you know, there's kind of a sense of, um, go out like when I spoke to you. Uh, because that's what I saw. I saw it get down and do the, the spider crawl. And when you were talking about it, it was very validating because uh, for the longest time, these Bigfoot experts would say, well, they don't get down and move like a spider. Do the crab crawl. Uh, but they do.

• 45:14Wes Germer?

  And so I'd imagine because you're focusing on this, when you're talking eyewitnesses, it's kind of nice. You can relate to them because it's what you saw.

• 45:23Speaker 06

  Yeah. And, and the thing is like, when I talked to Dr. Meldrum, he found out as a nurse for years, I worked in orthopedics. So I had a strong orthopedic background. So his, I asked him if he could dumb it down for me. But he really explained the mechanics and what it would take for something like that to walk on all four. And the calories it would burn versus calories burning when it stands up. So I found what he had to say fascinating, but he didn't discount that it happens. He just said, he doesn't think it happens frequently. He thought maybe more like going up hills and so forth, which I, I can see that as well. But the one thing I've, I've got a new appreciation for you, Wes. I wanted to, to say that I didn't realize it was that hard to find good witnesses.

• 46:06Speaker 06

  And I don't know how you can do it, man. Cause I, every show you have is banging out. I just love listening to your show and I have for years. But I don't know how you can find, I had a hard time. It took me three years to find really good. Now I was looking for a specialized type of witness. So I thought that golly, sometimes you go on Reddit and whatnot and you'll find somebody saying something. I, I saw myself being made fun of as a guest, just like, so I told this guy, I said, well, not everybody that goes on the show is a professional speaker. I'm not, you get nervous when you come on there. You get nervous when you're getting interviewed. When I interviewed people, I could see how nervous they were. The voice inflection, all the different things that, that go through, because some of them seem to relive it as they're telling and they get scared.

• 46:48Speaker 06

  And so not all of us are so good at putting our stories. I feel like I can put my stories on paper really well, but when I'm talking, I get nervous. It gets your heart rate going and it's not that easy. So I've got a really good appreciation for, for what you go through and each of your guests go through. Cause it's not easy to go on there and talk about this stuff. It's scary to some people. And that kind of leads me into, um, another story I've, I've had is this family, they were from Ohio and they were visiting in Louisiana. And, um, they were, they had an encounter. Well, when they got back home, they started having.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  Problems. They're they're two teenage kids couldn't sleep. They were having nightmares. And they um they end up going to therapy because it was so disturbing to the family. They ended up um going to therapy. Well, therapists laughed at them. They didn't believe them. And they felt horrified. It took them a while to find a good therapist. So now I work in mental health. So I thought, you know what? That's a pretty good point. Um, there's a lot of people that do suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. So I started researching about who would be the best in the region. I'm in Kentucky, so this whole region, the most, the number one treat treatment for PTSD is Dr. David Harmon.

• 48:05Speaker 03

  So I talked to him and I I asked him, I said, I'm not asking you to endorse uh Bigfoot. But would you be able to let me interview you to ask about what somebody should do? If they have it a counter, because some of these people are absolutely terrified and they don't know what else to do. So they ended up um, yeah, he spent a couple hours with me. I went down, I'm I drove out there to River Valley where he works and interviewed him for a couple hours. And he told me, it doesn't matter from a therapist standpoint. What, he says, I don't have to believe what you see. If you believe what you saw and it's traumatized you, my job is to treat you, not to judge you.

• 48:45Speaker 03

  And it really struck home with me because a lot of times when you do tell people, even friends, a lot of people will judge you and and they might not say it, but you can tell when they kind of clam up and kind of look at you and they'll look at another person beside them and kind of do the eye roll. So he gave some really good, that's why I interviewed him in the book. That was fascinating what he had to say about how to treat a traumatized witness without judging them about why they're there. So that's why I ended up getting PTSD. I've never seen a Bigfoot book cover something like that. But this family, they were they were vacation in Louisiana and they were in the Bogachita National Reserve in the Pearl River Basin. And that's a really remote area. So the

• 49:27Speaker 03

  they ended up deciding to drive around. They were going around the outskirts of the the park and they found this gravel road. They go down the gravel road. And the gravel road starts kind of petering out, but when they get towards the end of the road, there was this trail, it looked

• 49:40Speaker 06

  Like maybe people had used ATVs. It was an old trail. So they decided, you know what? Let's park here. They had a big SUV. Let's um go hiking a little ways. Well, the, the reason they were looking for specialized kind of trail. They have a daughter that I think she was fifteen at the time and named Abby. She'd been partially paralyzed. She was a paraplegic. She couldn't move her legs. Somebody on, high on meth had hit her. Um, one of the first times she'd gotten her learner's permit. And paralyzed her. So they had to get one of those wheelchairs. It's got a wheel in the middle. It's almost not, not really like a chair. It like a rickshaw, I guess. It's got handles in the front and handles in the back and her chairs in the middle with one big wheel. It's like ATV kind of wheel where you can go through rough territory.

• 50:26Speaker 06

  Cause the family's avid outdoors people. And then they have a, a son. His name was Declan. And anyways, so the mom and dad, they're hiking. The, um, I think dad was in front. Mom was in the back of the wheelchair. Abby was in the wheelchair and their son was over to the right side. So they hike, they get back a mile or so. They hear something coming through the bush. And all of a sudden, right on the trail in front of them, there's a, they realized what it was. It was a creature. It was gray. And black. It was about two to three hundred pounds. And it was on all fours and the thing stopped in the middle of the trail after it was running and turned towards them. And they knew right away. They'd heard about feral hogs. It scared them. So they, they didn't know. They knew they couldn't run with the wheelchair. So the thing starts running towards them.

• 51:10Speaker 06

  And they were terrified. They kind of froze up, but the thing stopped about halfway to them. It got within twenty-five yards. Then the thing turns and goes off to the left into the woods and runs off. So before they could really recover from the shock, they hear something coming through the woods on the right side. Evidently this hog had been getting chased. This bigfoot comes out. They said it was about seven foot tall. They got a look at the side. It was blurry though. It came by. And ran through it. It was chasing this hog. So they were just standing there and they hear the hog running through and this thing's crashing through there like an elephant. Well, they hear. They feel it caught the hog because they hear this awful squealing. And um, on, on the, in the book I put on there, I found something close to what he says the squealing was.

• 51:55Speaker 06

  This guy has a call on YouTube and the family said it sounded just like that. But they said then the squealing stopped. It sounded like he, he had um, striped their neck and broke the, broke the hog's neck. Cause it got quiet then. So before they could. Recover from that, they were to decide at this point, let's get out of here. Something else comes through the bushes and it stops in the middle and turns on them. It's on all fours. It turns on them and they figure what later, they feel like it was a juvenile bigfoot. It was staring at them and it starts slowly walking towards them. In this thing, they said it was. The way they described it was, it was, it had a reverse mohawk is what the, the dad said. He said it was shaved in the middle. Instead of most people have the mohawk and the, on the middle of the head.

• 52:40Speaker 06

  It was like bare bald on the top of his head, but had hair tufts on the sides. He said it reminded them of a, of a um, reverse mohawk. And this thing starts coming towards them and it starts snarling and hissing. Well, pretty soon they hear this whistle off to the leftover where this hog they feel had been killed. The whistle, the thing turns towards the whistle and is gone. So at this point, the families, they turn around and they get back to their, their car. And they drive out of there and they said it was like 20 or 30 minutes before anybody in the family said a word. And then the dad said, I guess when we get back to our cabin, we need to talk about what we saw. And then that night, their daughter had a nightmare and they're, that from then on, they, they were really traumatized.

• 53:22Speaker 06

  He said it changed their life were, and not for the better. They were depressed. They felt like their kids would wake up in the, in the night and come to the parents' room. Um, wanting consolation were, were just tore up. So after a few weeks of this, the dad and mom decided we've got to go to therapy. And that's unfortunately then when they had the experience, I hate that when somebody goes to a therapist. Because I work in mental health and I know you're not supposed to judge somebody and that's horrible that they had an experience like that. So that's kind of what led me to talking to Dr. Harmon about um, PTSD and I thought that was really worthwhile to include. As well as there was another um, sighting, this guy, I don't know. Some people might know who he is. His name is um, Long Island.

• 54:06Speaker 06

  Mike, he's got a YouTube channel. Anyway, he goes out there investigating. He's a disabled veteran, but he could walk and stuff. He suffers from heavy PTSD. So it was also interesting to help him. But when he was in Korea, he had what he called a rock ape, but rock apes are usually in Vietnam was my understanding. But when, but when he was in his twenties, he was in Korea. It wasn't wartime, but of course, but he was in a bus going to this amusement park called Everland. And he saw this big thing zigzagging through the trees. He said, in Korea, they don't really cure, um, um, cut the right away like we do in the United States. And he said this thing was weaving in and out of trees, keeping up with the bus on all fours. And so what he described was, was really wild, but his

• 54:51Speaker 06

  PTSD, that his chapter has, his isn't the scariest account, but he had a lot of good information in there. So I'll leave it at that. But because of his PTSD too, and this other family, those two things thought, God, I gotta cover PTSD. So anyway, that's that on, on the PTSD and how that got to being in the book.

• 55:10Wes Germer?

  I think it's really cool that you included the PTSD portion in the book. I do think a lot of people suffer from that after an encounter. It's such a shocking event. And I would love to read what Meldrum wrote about them, the locomotion of them being on all fours. And again, I know the book is full of eyewitness accounts. It'd be kind of interesting if you could put together a picture of, of why they go down to all fours. I think that they do it, you know, it's become a smaller target and I almost think they can move quicker on all fours.

• 55:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, I agree with you. Um, I talked to Charlie Raymond. He's the head of the Kentucky Bigfoot Research Organization. He's over on the other side of state. I'm in Owensboro, Kentucky. He's over by the Red River Gorge and Daniel, Daniel Boone. And so he interviewed, Gracious enough to spend time too. I interviewed him and he he actually had a thermal of a Sasquatch on all four that was pretty amazing. And he also had explained, I like his term, this is his term, he said, he said they're the ninjas of the forest. They can do so many things and that's why it's so hard to catch up with them, but he believes he's talked to witnesses even that have seen him going up steep inclines.

• 56:26Speaker 06

  And on all fours and he said, it's almost like putting it, putting a car in four wheel drive, you get that four wheel traction. So, you know, I've on two feet tried to go up steep inclines with loose dirt. It's not that easy. You can fall and bust your tail. So the way he explained it, he's, he believes they do it a lot going up inclines, which makes sense. It's almost like four wheel drive. You're less likely to slip and he says they can book up an incline. But um, there's another one I was gonna tell you, this one, I'd, I'd had to share this one with you because all the time I've listened on your show, I've never heard anything quite like this one. This one's a little different. So it happened in the spring of nineteen ninety six, these two brothers, William and James was their names.

• 57:07Speaker 06

  And back in the, back in the nineties, ninety six is when they, they had their sighting. He called them, he said, we were down and out chumps. They'd got out of high school and they really didn't have a direction. One of them had just recently got fired from his job and he's, so the other brother like hadn't even gotten around to find a job. They didn't know if they were gonna go to college and they really didn't have their life squared away. So they decided to go camping to Appalachia Cola National Forest in the Panhandle of Florida. I looked it up, it's about five hundred and eighty thousand acres of forest. It's kind of savannas and um, pockasins and swamps and like a whole mix of different things. But then on the outskirts of the park, there's more and more woods. If you Google Earth that area, it's thick.

• 57:51Speaker 06

  And what's really amazing about it, it's not, there's no hills, it's flat. So these two brothers, they decided to go camping. They went to a primitive campground near a river basin. It was in a floodplain forest in a boggy area. And they said that um, the thing is about it, he goes, if you don't have a compass, he said back then they didn't really have GPS or cell phones in ninety six, but he said, if you didn't bring a compass back then, he said, you can get back there and get lost and you can't find your way back. There's no high points to go up. So he said, a lot of people are very cautious, especially back then before you had the GPS or anything. So he said, they were carefree because they really didn't care. They said they were young and when you're young, he said they feel invincible and

• 58:33Speaker 06

  whatnot. So he said, we did something kind of stupid. They were hiking off the trail. Well, prior to coming up that area, it had rained and rained and rained. So there was a lot of palmetto, flatwoods, lots of steeper swamps. Well, some of the areas that got boggy where the trail was washed out and there was water, they got a couple of miles in there. And they said, you know, we got nothing to lose. The water started getting ankle deep. And one brother says the other, do you want to keep going? He says, screw it. I'm not, I don't care about getting um, my feet wet. So they're in ankle deep water. He said, they went literally like about a mile through ankle deep water. And they said, it was kind of cool.

• 59:10Speaker 06

  Because they saw all kinds of birds back there. He said, it was like a paradise. They didn't care about trying to get, you know, getting transport or anything like they did in Vietnam. They just didn't care, I guess. They, they hiked and hiked and they got to this water area. It's called Memory Island. It's actually, I found it on the map, but memory, M E M E R Y, not memory like mine, memory. But they get to this area. It's just a little bit higher than the outlying land. When the forest cleared a little bit, there's a palmetto here and there. And then with the wood line behind it, he said, it was might have been like a one or two acre clearing with scattered trees. Well, beside one of the trees, he said, they were still in the water coming through, getting ready to get up on dry land. And they said they saw something laying next to one of the palmettos.

• 59:56Speaker 06

  And he said, both of them, one of them whispered, that's a bear. And uh, they said, but it didn't really look right. They, they get a little closer and they realize this thing looks like it's laying on its back. Well, once they get to dry land, all of a sudden, the thing flipped around. And faced him and it was on all fours and they realized his brother said right away, that's a bigfoot. And he said, the, the weird thing about it, he described it. These two brothers are identical twins and what's funny about it, you know, sometimes, and it's usually the mother, cause mothers are nurturing like this. The brothers always got outdoor gear for my, their mother at Christmas time.

• 1:00:35Speaker 06

  So he said they had matching shirts and pants that their mother had given them at Christmas. So they are dressed identical. And he said, they're maybe like 10 feet apart. Well, this thing stood up on all fours and was facing them. But then he said, the thing looked confused. It put its head back and curled up its upper lip and moved its nose up like it was sniffing them. And he said, for a minute, we thought we were dead. We thought this thing was getting ready to charge, but the more it looked, they thought, kind of something wrong with this thing. It's confused. But he didn't think about this at the time, but later on, he said, I think because we were identical twins. This thing was confused, you know, had like, and he, he said, you know, you're ever asleep and you wake up and in a ways or something, you're kind of half confused.

• 1:01:17Speaker 06

  He said, I think we got up on this thing so close because I think they were only like 50 yards away, but he said, we think we got up on them because we were in the ankle deep water and we were quiet. And he said, once the thing woke up, he said, I really feel like it thought it was dreaming because it acted confused. And he said, the way it was sniffing at us. We probably had similar sense since we're brothers. It was probably sniffing instead of moving his head back and forth like he was sniffing the air. And he said, with us dressed, it was like it was seeing double and it wasn't sure what was going on. He said, I think we surprised it as much as we were surprised. So it was pretty wild. So anyways, the thing advances on a little bit and they start backing up.

• 1:01:56Speaker 06

  Well, then the thing turns, it goes back off into the woods, turns on them a couple of times. It stands up on two legs. And it grabs a tree and starts swaying back and forth like it's trying to intimidate them to get them out of there. Said it works. We started backing up, but we knew that if this thing ran at us, we're dead meat. Because behind us, the only dry land was in front. So behind us, all water. An ankle deep. He said, you couldn't run in there. We would have fallen. We would have been dead meat for sure. So they didn't really want to turn. So they turned, but they kept turning their head back, looking towards it. And luckily, the thing didn't advance on them. And they said it was terrifying getting back out of the water. And they eventually get back to their camp. Well, this, when they get back to their camp, it's a primitive campground.

• 1:02:39Speaker 06

  But he said there was some other tent campers in the next campsite over to them. That had had a whole bunch of teenagers and whatnot. And he said, so that night, the teenagers were cutting up like sometime they will and kind of noisy. And he said, it was actually kind of welcome because they said they were kind of petrified at what they experienced. And so during the night, those guys were still out there. These two guys have a fire. They decided to go into their tent and go to bed. He said it was around midnight or so. And those guys were still making noise. He said, for once, I wasn't angry that somebody was noisy and, you know, not thinking of the other campers. So they go to bed. Well, in the morning, one of the brothers wakes up, I think it was William.

• 1:03:19Speaker 06

  He told me that they had their wood was stacked close to their fire pit, but in the morning, he got out for his morning constitutional and realized the wood's gone. Where's the wood? And he thought, I bet those boogers next door took it to keep their bonfire going. And then he looked around and he saw their wood. Somebody had taken their wood and set it on the other side of their tent in kind of a half hazard pile. And he thought, well, that's really weird. Why would, why would those guys do that? So he tells his brother and they investigate their campsite and they go walk over. By that time, one of the kids was awake. He was brewing some coffee on a, on a table. And they walked over there and he said, hey dude, uh, why did you guys come over and move our wood? And then the guy said, what are you talking about?

• 1:04:04Speaker 06

  And uh, he said, you came over and moved our wood last night. He goes, bull crap. Why would I come over and move your wood? I saw you guys move it. He goes, it's about two o'clock. I came, he said, we, everybody else was in bed. And I saw you two guys. All I could see was the, the fire gone out and I seen your shadows, silhouettes moving the wood around. And I thought you guys were crazy. I wasn't going to go ask what you're doing. Well, it wasn't them moving the wood. So now they're thinking, and he saw, this kid saw two silhouettes. So these guys. They started looking around. They didn't exactly see footprints, but they saw shuffle marks that looked like they were awful big. And so they feel like these, this bigfoot must have had a buddy somewhere around. So who knows where it was at when they had their

• 1:04:46Speaker 06

  sighting in the swamp. Evidently they tracked him or followed him back in the middle of the night. They messed with them and moved their wood over because these kids, he swore that it wasn't him and he thought they were the ones moving it because he saw their silhouettes moving around over there and he thought they were nuts moving their wood. So that was another one I thought was, that's a little different.

• 1:05:07Wes Germer?

  That is interesting with it laying on its back and then the twins show up. I could see the Sasquatch, I mean, the whole movement of it flipping around and being on all fours. I would imagine probably happened in a blink of an eye. But the confusion of the Sasquatch seeing two identical humans wearing the exact same thing. He probably was freaking out a little bit. And I know I've ordered my copy of the book. I can't wait to really dig into some of these eyewitness accounts. Give us one, one last one from the book if you would.

• 1:05:42Speaker 06

  Okay, this one happened in Alabama. There's a couple named Josh and Taren. Taren's the one that actually contacted me and outside of Montgomery, there's an air force base called Maxwell. Well, they had recently, he was in the air force, so they recently had got stationed there. Well, both of them were avid hunters. So they researched the area. They'd never been in Alabama before moving there. And they found it was a good turkey state and not that far. I think she said it was maybe like an hour away. There was a county called Barber County and it's supposed to be one of the best turkey hunting areas in the state. So they had a little tiered up camper. So they went ahead. The turkey hunting was in the spring. So this happened like in November 2022. They went in, there's a campground

• 1:06:27Speaker 06

  and it's there. There's a wildlife management area in the Barber County. If you Google Earth, you can see it. It's pretty impressive. There's lots and lots and lots of acres. But then when they went there in November, early November. The turkey season wasn't until, I think it was March or April, but since they'd never been there, they wanted to go there when, you know, there's a lot of pine trees, but there was other trees that didn't have leaves. So they wanted to be able to see really well the lay of the land. So when they go back there, they figured there'd be a lot more hunters in the area and they wanted to make sure that they knew how to get around and navigate the area safely. So that's what they did. They brought their tear drop camper. They were going to stay for a couple of days. There was only one other camper on the other end of the campground at the time they were there. So they set their, their tent up. She

• 1:07:10Speaker 06

  said the gravel road was right in front of them. There was a fire pit between the gravel road and where their camper, their camper was sideways facing the fire pit. So they went around scouting and the whole first day, they scouted, they found, you know, like kind of what, what, what they were looking for. They learned the area and how to navigate where likely hunting areas and habitat and so forth. So that was all fine and good. So that evening they build a fire and they got lawn chairs set up right up with the back to the tear drop camper. Well, um, her husband Josh, he said, he starts telling these ghost stories and she said he's a really prolific storyteller. So she starts getting kind of scared. She said, you know, out there it's so dark and creepy and you can hear different

• 1:07:52Speaker 06

  animals in the distance. And she said, I wanted a subject change. So she had remembered that she brought her turkey call. I'm still gonna practice my turkey call. So she gets out of the camper and I don't remember how she said it, but the way she described it, the turkey call was, I've seen these before. It's like a box that has this lid that you scrape across it. But she was so into, she was calling them clucks and gallops and all the noises that she was making. So she said, she hadn't used it for a couple of years. So she practiced it. She said she did it like 20 minutes. And, uh, she said it wasn't long. They hear some rustling in the bushes and her husband tells her, uh, you might want to hold up on that turkey call. You're calling in a fox or a coyote or something.

• 1:08:33Speaker 06

  Well, where the fire was, the bushes were on the left side of the camper, something Comes around the end and she said she heard something come, but she saw this pair of glowing eyes. And it was just out of the fire, the light. And then it comes towards them a little bit. And actually, this is the only account I heard where they actually came fairly close to the fire. Which was kind of scary. I always figured they'd be scared of fire. So it comes out there and to the left, she says, this thing, she described the spider crawl, just like. What other witnesses seen, this thing was on all fours, but she said this was kind of going back and forth and. And kind of bending back and forth like swing and looking intimidating. And by this time she had quit the turkey call course, so they were sitting there terrified.

• 1:09:16Speaker 06

  And she didn't really know what to do. She thought, my God, we're dead meat. So she's looking around to the other side for a possible exit because the camper is right behind them. And pretty soon they see a pair of eyes on the other side. This one. Comes over to the right side and now they're trapped. And this one's down on all fours. I forget which one, if it was the left or the right, one of them was much bigger than the other one. So she feel like later one of them was a juvenile. But just the same, it's pretty scary. So she said they felt like they were pinned in. You got the fire pit. You got one and the spider maneuver on the left, one on the right, the camper behind them. And she said it was going through her mind like, my God, is there another creature behind the camper? If I try to run back, it's all woods.

• 1:09:57Speaker 06

  I don't want to run there. And she knew, she said, if I go in the camper, this thing could probably get on us before we could get in the camper and get the door closed. And she said before she knew it, her husband started saying, you know what the Lord's prayer? He started saying the Lord's prayer and he said, then they stopped advancing. They just stood there and looked at him. And he said, so whenever she said she doesn't know if it's a prayer because he was talking. But once he started doing that, they stopped and they stared at him. So then he got to the end of the prayer. He started saying it louder. They start backing up. So then he stands up and says the third time really loud, they backed up and they took off. And she said, when they went around the bushes, one on the right, one on the left, you could tell they went up on two feet. And because she said it sounded like you can tell the way they were

• 1:10:42Speaker 06

  running and they made a point to make it noisy as they were going off in the distance and you could see them or hear them getting out of there. And she said that, so she doesn't know if it's the power of that prayer, or if it was the talking or combination of two, but she said, I didn't know what to do. I thought we were gonna die. She said, I was just sitting there frozen in fear. She said, I guess I had this lighter fright and I was frightened. And she's, and then I talked to her husband, Josh, he was a really nice man, but he said, I don't know what come over me. I didn't know what else to do. So he said silently while I was praying. So I thought I'm gonna do it out loud. And maybe it'll make a difference. So he said, I got more bold. He said that third time when he stood up, he goes, I don't know. He said, I don't, I didn't do it consciously. He

• 1:11:25Speaker 06

  goes, I don't hardly remember standing later. My wife told me I stood. He said, I think it was all on adrenaline. But he feels like that intimidated him for whatever reason. And those things took off. But it was the turkey call that brought him in. So, you know, who would have thought that sitting at a fire that that was gonna bring in a bigfoot. But I think they, I don't know if they knew it was a turkey call, or if they thought it was a turkey and there the dinner bell was ringing. But that was a pretty scary one, too.

• 1:11:52Wes Germer?

  Yeah, one on all fours in that spider movement is creepy enough. I can't imagine two of them. And, you know, again, I love reading eyewitness accounts. I think you get a lot of information from the eyewitnesses as far as what the creature is doing. And you can kind of figure out why it's doing what it's doing. And again, I got my copy coming. The book is Crouching Behemoth, quadrupedal Sasquatch Eyewitness Accounts. And if you enjoy encounters, definitely check out the book. I'll include a link below. John, I know that you've been on a journey, man, for the longest time after your encounter, especially writing this book and doing all the work of

• 1:12:35Wes Germer?

  getting the eyewitness testimony and all the other stuff you did with Dr. Harmon, with the PTSD, Dr. Meldrum, and all these interviews, man. It's, I admire the journey you've been on. Thank you so much for coming back.

• 1:12:53Speaker 03

  Well, I appreciate that Wes. Like I say, if there would have been something out there, I probably would have never wrote the book, but I wanted answers and I couldn't find any reading material on it. I like to read and I couldn't find anything. So I thought, you know what, as long as I'm studying this, I was willing to put the three years it took in it just to make a complete journal. If you notice, it says eyewitnesses and more. There's more even in there than just eyewitnesses. There's several different chapters on, it talks about game cameras and different things and there's some other surprises in there, but there's also a quiz in there at the end testing your Sasquatch IQ. There's a lot of different things to do in there. And there's also, you know, I take life seriously and I take Bigfoot seriously, but also through life, I think you've got to have a little sense of

• 1:13:38Speaker 03

  humor sometimes. So there's things in there that people will read that'll make them smile once in a while where I'll shift gears from maybe the previous story was really scary and then I might lighten it up with something a little funny for a minute just to get, bring people back down from that, that high. Cause you can't stay on that adrenaline for the whole way through. So it's kind of a journey where you shift gears back and forth. But I really hope that, that people enjoy it. I tried hard on it and, and like I say, I really appreciate you coming on and talking about it. And I've really enjoyed sharing some of the stories too.

• 1:14:11Wes Germer?

  Yeah, without a doubt. And I hope people go and check it out. Thanks again, John.

• 1:14:18Speaker 03

  Thank you, Wes. I really appreciate it.

• 1:14:20Wes Germer?

  And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is [email protected]. And if you get a chance, check out sasquatchchronicles.com. You can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone.

• 1:14:58Speaker 03

  She's got a smile and it seems to me Reminds me of childhood memories Where everything was as fresh as a bright blue sky

• 1:15:15Speaker 03

  And now and then when I see her face She takes me away to that special place If I stare too long, I'll probably break down and cry

• 1:15:32Speaker 03

  Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, sweet child of mine

• 1:15:40Speaker 03

  Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, sweet lover mine

• 1:15:57Speaker 03

  She's got eyes of the bluest skies Says if they thought of rain I'd hate to look into those eyes and see An ounce of pain Her hair reminds me of a warm, safe place Where as a child I'd hide And I'd pray for the thunder And the rain to quietly pass me by Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, sweet child of mine

• 1:16:38Speaker 03

  Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, sweet lover mine

• 1:16:46Speaker 03

  Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, sweet child of mine

• 1:16:54Speaker 03

  Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, sweet love of mine

• 1:17:02Speaker 03

  I'm singing, where do we go now? Where do we go? Where do we go now? Where do we go? Where do we go now? Sweet child of mine, yeah I'm singing, where do we go now? Where do we go? Where do we go now? Where do we go? Where do we go now? Sweet child of mine, yeah I'm singing, where do we go now? Where do we go? Where do we go now? Where do we go? Where do we go now?

• 1:17:47Speaker 03

  Sweet child of mine

• 1:17:51Speaker 03

  Oh, sweet child of mine Sweet child of mine

• 1:18:00Speaker 03

  Sweet child of mine