SC EP:1261 Jumping from tree to tree

Jeremy writes ""My first encounter happened along a creek in south-central Kentucky. I wasn't a typical teenager. I didn't spend much time running around with friends. My passion was hunting, tracking, and being outdoors. After reading The Tracker by Tom Brown Jr., I was completely hooked on wilderness skills and wildlife. When I was around 13 years old, I often went down to the creek at night with a lantern and fished for catfish. I loved the solitude. It was peaceful, and every now and then I'd hook into a freshwater drum or a snapping turtle that would really test my gear. One night, I had been fishing for three or four hours. About 100 yards to my southwest was a road cut into the side of a mountain. To stabilize the hillside, large riprap rocks had been placed beneath the road. I've always had excellent hearing, and even at 13 I could identify just about every animal in those woods by sound alone. That night, something strange happened. As I sat there in the darkness with my lantern turned low, I heard something running barefoot along the road. Then I heard it grab the guardrail and vault over it. A moment later, rocks shifted and slid as it landed in the riprap below. Then the woods went silent. I could hear faint footsteps moving through the forest. Because I was down by the creek and the bank rose about ten feet above me, my lantern light probably wasn't visible from where the sounds were coming from. I kept fishing, convincing myself it was probably a deer crossing the road and that my imagination was filling in the blanks. Then things escalated. At first, small rocks started landing in the creek. Then larger ones some sounded as big as basketballs when they hit the water. I tried to ignore it and kept fishing, thinking maybe fish were jumping or something natural was causing the disturbance. About twenty minutes later, I caught a catfish. I turned up my lantern while I unhooked it, and that's when I noticed a pair of glowing eyes on the opposite bank. They were fixed directly on me. After I released the fish, the eyes remained motionless. Then, in one smooth movement, whatever it was turned its head and disappeared. For the next fifteen minutes, I heard vocalizations. They didn't sound aggressive. If anything, they seemed communicative almost as if the animal was trying to locate others or perhaps encourage me to leave the area. The closest comparison I can make is the sound of a barn owl. Oddly enough, I never felt threatened. Before leaving, I caught a decent-sized bluegill and placed it on the bank as an offering, just in case we ever crossed paths again. My second encounter occurred when I was 16. I've been bowhunting my entire life. I'm 47 now, and I still love it just as much as I did back then. This encounter took place in southeastern Kentucky in the vast wilderness of the Big South Fork region. The area is home to black bears, elk nowadays, and plenty of whitetail deer the reason I was there. I had hiked in along a muddy access trail maintained by Fish and Wildlife. The trail led to a place known as "The Helipad." I've always assumed the open field at the end of the road was used for helicopter rescues from the nearby ravines. Around the five-mile mark, the road split. My dad headed toward the fields near the helipad while I took the left fork to hunt deeper in the woods. It was early October. Some leaves had already fallen, giving excellent visibility from a tree stand. Once I climbed, I could see nearly 200 yards through the timber toward the fields below. I settled into a tree around 2:30 that afternoon. It was a popular climbing tree straight, sturdy, and easy to ascend quietly. At approximately 3:30, I noticed movement far down the ridge. At first, I couldn't make out what I was seeing. As it moved closer, I realized it was traveling in a way I'd only ever seen bobcats move. It would leap from the base of one tree to the next, minimizing noise with every step. I'd watched bobcats do this before while stalking. The difference was that this animal was upright. It stood roughly five to six feet tall and moved effortlessly. Its arms were unusually long, and whenever possible it traveled along fallen logs instead of the forest floor. Through my binoculars, I could see that it was black with reddish tips on the ends of its hair. It appeared young. Its coat looked clean, healthy, and almost glossy in the sunlight. There was a gracefulness to it a combination of strength and agility that's hard to describe. It would leap what looked like eight to ten feet at a time, landing at the base of a tree and grabbing the trunk with one hand. Despite its size, it made almost no sound. I watched it approach until it was about 75 yards away. Then it noticed me. To this day, I don't know how. Maybe it saw me. Maybe it sensed me. It immediately jumped behind a tree and began peeking around the far side, studying me as much as I was studying it. For what felt like an hour but was probably only fifteen minutes we observed one another. Finally, it turned and quietly retreated the way it had come, moving through the woods with the same incredible stealth. The moment it disappeared from sight, I climbed down and left the area as quickly as possible. My reasoning was simple: if there were juveniles in the area, there were probably adults as well. I hold a degree in biology with a specialization in fish and wildlife habitat, and I have spent a lifetime in the outdoors. Whatever I witnessed that day remains one of the most unusual experiences of my life. If anyone has studied similar reports or encountered anything comparable, I would be very interested in discussing what I saw."

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. 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... Karen, 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-oh.

• 1:36Speaker 04

  This is Carla from the great Smoky Mountains and you're listening to the best part of my week, Sasquatch Chronicles.

• 2:08Wes Germer?

  Welcome to the show. Tonight, we'll be chatting with Jeremy and Jeremy comes to us from Kentucky and we'll be discussing two encounters tonight. One was around 1990. At the time, he really didn't know what it was. The second encounter was about four years later where he got a pretty good look at this thing and he describes it jumping from tree to tree. I'll let Jeremy go into it. 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

• 2:53Wes Germer?

  shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Jeremy to the show. Jeremy, thanks for coming on.

• 3:01Speaker 06

  Hey Wes, how's it going?

• 3:03Wes Germer?

  I'm doing well. Thank you for asking. And we're going to discuss two encounters that you had. If you would, would you start from the very beginning? What were you doing and what happened? And this was around, this was like the early 90s, correct?

• 3:20Speaker 06

  That was probably 1990 when that happened. It was, I was, I was around 11, 12 years old and I'd been hunting and fishing with my dad all my life since I can remember. I went into the woods with him and you know, I would, he would fix me a tree stand 100 yards from his and I would climb up and just sit there while he hunted and you know, he was, I was just far enough, he could still see me, I guess. And then knew I was safe. So I would go in and hunt with him and he's a good dad. He's a, he's a good guy, but he, he taught me how to do all that stuff. And I liked to fish at the creek a lot by myself back then.

• 4:02Speaker 06

  And I would catfish at nighttime. I would just go down there and I'd pick a lantern and I would sit on the creek bank and just, you know, fish for catfish and just as what I did. My grandpa liked to eat them. So I would keep the gobble here and there and. You know, and take them to him to eat. But um, yeah, I was, I was sitting on the creek bank. I had my lantern kind of low and I always put a piece of tinfoil on the backside of it so it doesn't blind me. And I can keep my night vision pretty good. And here in Kentucky, it's, you know, it's pretty hilly where I'm at. I wouldn't say mountainous and, and I'm in southeastern Kentucky, so.

• 4:48Speaker 06

  It's not, I'm not to the main mountains yet, but it's still pretty mountainous and. The creeks are pretty low and the hollows and you know, the, the creek, the creek banks are actually. You know, if you're actually sitting on the edge of the creek, you're, you're down lower than the banks. The banks are probably eight or nine feet tall, you know, where the erosion has happened around them. So above, above me, there's a hillside that run on the opposite side of the creek. It runs up to the road. It's just like a two lane, small country road. And um, looking back on it now, there was a cave up there I used to go exploring in.

• 5:30Speaker 06

  When I was real little, I would, we would, we would cross over, me and my brother, and we would go over there and we would go caving and. We thought we were Indiana Jones and, you know, we were gonna find. The Ark of the Covenant or something, but we would go, we'd go in this cave and it was a big cave. It has some big chambers in it, but looking back, I'm, I'm thinking that this is, that's probably where. This thing I heard came from, cause it was in a direct line over there. And I've been all over that country down in there because I lived there and that was like my playground when I was younger. You know, we didn't have cell phones and all this stuff, so we, I had to do stuff down there to.

• 6:16Speaker 06

  Pass the time, so, but um, yeah, I was sitting there one night, it was probably two or three o'clock in the morning. And um, I heard something running down the hillside on the opposite side of the creek. And it was, I could almost hear it before it got to the road. I started listening pretty intently and I heard what sounded like, it sounded like bare feet slapping on concrete. Like, you know, we, me and my brother used to run and race on the blacktop outside of our house. Cause we had a little back road that was not many, is a dead end road, but it was still like chip and seal or, you know, for a while.

• 6:58Speaker 06

  And then it got to be blacktop and we would run up and down it and race and stuff barefooted and, and I knew that sound, you know? So, and it was late at night, so I'm guessing whatever it was, its feet had gotten wet with the dew on the ground. And it, I heard it cross the road, maybe two slaps with its feet, two or three. And there was a guardrail there and then it, it just, it goes straight down. Because they cut that road into the side of the bank. They had to under, it was undercut, so they had to put the riff ramp rock around underneath it. You know, the, they're about the size of a big softball, like a little bigger softball.

• 7:41Speaker 06

  And I heard it, I heard it jump the guardrail, cause I heard the guardrail slap, like he grabbed it. Or whatever it was, grabbed the guardrail and kinda heard it, heard it make a sound. And then I heard the rocks, when it landed, it, it, whatever it was, kinda slid on the rocks like somebody, you know? When you get on gravel or loose ground, you kinda slide in it. And that's what it sounded like. And I was like, oh man, I was like, what? I, I, I thought it was a deer at the time, you know, I'm looking back and I don't think it was a deer at all. So, I'm sitting there and it gets down and I don't think it ever saw my lantern because I was below ground level at that point.

• 8:22Speaker 06

  It was kinda coming down at me, but I don't think it had made up my lantern, cause it was turned down pretty low. It got down and there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of river cane down there. And it's really thick and I could hear it moving through.

• 8:38Speaker 06

  No, I think I, I think it saw my light and it started doing these, they started howling and making these. It, it was, it was like a whoop and then it was like more of a long like whoop and yell. It's like, I can't, it was long. It was a, it was all together. It whooped and then it done a long like vocalization. And I, I don't know how to explain it. It was all together and it was,

• 9:10Speaker 06

  it didn't sound like it was trying to intimidate me or anything. It was just a whoop. And it went into like a big, long whoop and cry sounding thing. It was, it was odd. It was an odd, odd thing to hear at nighttime, especially at three o'clock in the morning. At the time, you know, I'm so young. I, I thought it was probably an owl or a barn owl or something because they can make some crazy noises sometimes. I just, I just, you know, you don't, you're a mortal when you're that age. You don't really look at things like how dangerous it could have been, but

• 9:47Speaker 06

  I saw some eye shine and it was kind of a, it was faint, but it was looked like a reddish orangey color and they were set far apart. So I thought, well, that's maybe an owl or something over there in a tree. Looking back, it was probably 10 feet off the ground. So that's why I thought it was an owl because I thought it was up in a tree. And its eyes were set, but its eyes were set so far apart. I was like, that's a big owl. But I mean, we have great horned owls here and you know, the barn owls get pretty big and I've had barn owls scare me to death, you know, because they look like a person's face sometimes. Right at daylight and dusk when they, if, you know, if you're up in a tree and they flying on you, they just right eye to eye, you know, it's kind of scary, but.

• 10:33Speaker 06

  So I just kind of thought, thought it was something like that going on, you know, but I, I, I didn't, I didn't think too much of it then, but there were some rocks at the water up from me to my right of the creek and.

• 10:47Speaker 06

  You know, at the time, I just played it off like it was a fish jumping or something, you know, turtles, frogs, anything jumping in the water, because you'd hear frogs jump in occasionally and stuff like that. But looking back, I'm pretty sure it was rocks being thrown because it had that, you know, the sound of a rock hitting the water. It had that deep, deeper sound. So they were pretty good sized, probably baseball sized rocks. And the rocks hitting the water, looking back, that was, that's what threw me for a loop because I always wondered about that. And it just kind of stopped and I could hear it move away.

• 11:27Speaker 06

  I, I was puzzled for the longest time. I asked my dad and I got the next day whenever he woke up, because I was up all night with it on my mind and I fished till probably five o'clock in the morning and then I came home. And, you know, I skimmed the catfish that I'd kept from my grandpa and got them ready to give to him. And, you know, the sun started coming up, my dad woke up and I was explaining it to him and he's like, he's like, I don't know. He said, it's probably a barn owl. He said, they can make some crazy sounds. He said, I've heard them really get crazy and make some weird noises in the woods. And I'm like, okay, so that's probably it. I just explained it away as a barn owl.

• 12:11Speaker 06

  But looking back on it, I think it was more than that.

• 12:15Speaker 06

  That was my first encounter with something I didn't know what it was in the woods. And at that point, like, I, I killed my first deer with a bow when I was 10 years old. So, I mean, I was, I've hunted and fished my whole life, so I've seen a lot. And looking back at the things, there was two or three instances in my life that I couldn't tell you what it was.

• 12:40Speaker 06

  So the second one happened around 1994. And me and my dad, we were deer hunting down in Beaver Creek, which is the, uh, that'd be, it's a wildlife management area, WMA down in Macquarie County, which is about, I don't know, 25 or 30 miles from here, south towards Tennessee. So you're getting in a more mountainous, you know, country down that way. And you're not very far from the Big South Fork. It's the beginning of the Big South Fork.

• 13:14Speaker 06

  That area there where some, you know, that's, that's some big woods down there that run into the Smoky Mountains. And, you know, part of the Appalachian Mountains, I'm sure. And so.

• 13:26Speaker 06

  I was, we, we, we used to go down there and hunt a lot. And one evening we were gonna go and do an evening hunt. So. We went down towards Cumberland Falls. And there was a road there that was the helipad road. That's where, I'm sure if anybody's listened from that area, they know exactly where I'm talking about. So there's a field, about a three mile field that you can walk to, and then there's like a five mile field on out farther. And so my dad said he would go to the far one and I would go to the closer one. I was like, okay. So you turn left off of the main road and go to the smaller field and he kept going. The, out towards the field, towards the end of the road.

• 14:10Speaker 06

  So I'd walked in that day, that afternoon, and it felt like we walked forever, but. We finally, I finally got, got on stand and I was, it was in November because most of the leaves were off and. It was, it was warm that day though, so it was probably, you know, it was probably sixty-five or so, sixty. So I was sweating pretty bad by the time I used my climber and got up and stand and, you know, everything calmed back down. And so I'm sitting there. And I hadn't seen any deer or anything. I didn't think I would till right around dark. But this was about an hour before dark hour and I had, the sun was still up. And, but it was going down to the west and I was facing directly west.

• 14:55Speaker 06

  And I could see the field opening and I could see a patch of woods coming around the end of the point. The country down there is like, it's like, um, box canyons kind of, and, you know. You, you get into those canyons and you can't get out because of the cliff, you get cliff lined. And you can't come up out of them. So we kind of stay out of the bottoms of those. In that area just because they're so hard to find an opening to get back up on top. So if you get turned around, you're basically gonna walk twenty miles to get out to my main road if you go up or down. So. It's just, you don't wanna take that chance in the dark.

• 15:34Speaker 06

  And I'm, I'm sitting there and I'm watching, I'm watching the field edge and the woods that I can see, and I can probably see a hundred and fifty yards down through the woods. And I was pretty high up in the tree and had a good vantage point and and the squirrels beside me, they start barking and they're looking down the point and I'm, I can hear the squirrels down there going crazy and then everything just goes dead silent. I'm like, okay, there we go, something's coming. I stand up and get my bow, I'm standing there and I see something black coming at me. And at first I thought it was a bear because there are more bears in that country than there are here. But first I just saw a black blob, kind of, you know, I could see

• 16:20Speaker 06

  the sun hitting it. And I thought, man, that thing sure has weird coloration because I could see that it was black, but then I could see it was on two feet. And I was like, oh, what is this coming here? And it was around five or six feet tall. It wasn't, it wasn't a huge animal, but it was on two feet. And it was moving so graciously. It was, it was, I've never seen anything like the way, well, I have. I've seen bobcats move like it moved. It would, it would step like at the bottom of the trees, the way they splay out.

• 17:02Speaker 06

  It would put one foot on where, where it wouldn't hit the leaves. It would put one foot on the side of the tree and hold it with one hand and it would jump to the other tree and hang on to it and it would like land on that other tree. And it, you know, it was probably jumping eight, nine, 10 feet each time. And I'm off one leg and I'm like, holy cow. And best way to explain it's like a bobcat moves through the woods. I've seen lots of bobcats and I've killed a couple and, you know, I've, I've, I mean, I've been around them. So I see how they move and that, that's the way this thing moved. It was, you know, it was trying not to make any noise at all.

• 17:43Speaker 06

  And it was doing a good job, but I could see it and it was, it was black. But where the sun was set behind, I could see it so vividly that it, like I had a pair of binoculars and I was kind of watching it through those. They weren't very strong, but they were strong enough to, you know, bring it in closer. And I could see it, I could see the red at the tips of its fur. It was, it was with the light sitting behind it, it was just black with these red tips. And the hair didn't look like it was two and a half, three inches long, maybe. It didn't look very long as, it looked really well manicured. I was like, I don't know what this thing is.

• 18:25Speaker 06

  And I could see, I could see the way it was moving and I know it was on two feet. I know it was, it was walking across the log just like a human. It was, it was thick, it was muscular, it was, it didn't have much of a neck, but it had a rounder head than you see in the depictions on, you know, these people, you know, with the big dome head on Sasquatch. So it looked like a, looked like a wrestler or something. Just a short, shorter version of a ra, you know, there was the big traps and the, the head sitting around on the neck. And it was so athletic that I thought, man, this, to be that big, it's so,

• 19:09Speaker 06

  it can move so gracefully. And it, it was coming straight at me whenever I saw it. And I, and when I saw it and started, I was like, is that a person? I was like, no, it's all one color, it's all black. I, its face was even black. It had big eyes, really, its eyes were really big. I could see its forehead, it had the wrinkles like, you know, in it. When it would look a certain way, it would have the wrinkles across its forehead. And it was just a black face, was, was big black eyes. And it was just, it was wild looking.

• 19:52Speaker 06

  And I, you know, it wasn't, it didn't get within twenty or thirty yards. So I didn't get a great look at, you know, at its face. But I do, I could see it through my binoculars enough to see that it had, you know, it had a nose and eyes and lips and, you know, it's, it looked, it turned sideways once and I could see that its, its forehead was a little bit, you know, rather, you know, its eyebrows were protruded out a little bit. Its eyes were sinking, but they were big, his eyes were big. And.

• 20:25Speaker 06

  It was, it, it reminded me more of a man, really. It just had, had long arms and it was swinging its arms. And like an odd cadence to the way it walked. You know, I don't know. I don't know how to explain it, but it was.

• 20:40Speaker 06

  When I saw the patty film and went back and watched it, it was walking exactly like that. Like its arms would swing with the same leg as it moved with. It was, it wasn't opposite like we do. It was more, I don't know. It was like the arms swung with the same leg. It was, it just looked odd the way it was walking. And I just, I was like, huh, that's strange looking the way it's walking, kind of like slump, slump down a little bit with its knees bent, but. Its head didn't bob like a humans, you know, animals. They glide. They don't, they don't bob. You can tell a human from a long way off, the way they walk. We kind of bounce on a walk and.

• 21:25Speaker 06

  I've always heard like the apathies and stuff. They call it the fox walk. And you, you walk just like a Sasquatch would walk, bent knee, your head, you try to make sure your head stays. Parallel with the ground. It doesn't bounce, so it doesn't draw attention. You know, that, that extra movement of going up and down, you know, shows animals, you know, your location a lot easier and. I don't know. It just slows you down enough to be a little bit better. You know, you're, it keeps your eyes more stable when you're moving through the woods and I don't know, it just. It, it's a little more efficient way to go through the woods if you're hunting.

• 22:06Speaker 06

  You know, it, it doesn't bring, it doesn't bring a lot of attention to you if you can do that type of walk, but. Whenever it got to about seventy-five yards of me and it kind of threw its head up and looked in my direction.

• 22:24Speaker 06

  And stopped. So I don't know if it saw me or smelled me. But at that point, I know, I know the gig was up. I know he was going, he was gonna try to move away, but he didn't move away like a deer or something. He didn't take off and he, he just kind of like, he was, he was holding on to a tree leaning out, getting ready to make another jump. And he just kind of threw his head up and like in my direction and then he moved behind the tree. And I could see him kind of looking around it.

• 22:56Speaker 06

  I say him, I don't know if it was a male or female. I don't, I'm not sure, but I, you know, at that age, I couldn't see any type of, you know, anything on it, but it was just black fur. But it was still looking around the tree and I was, I got my binoculars and I was looking, I was still looking at it through the binoculars. And I took them down and when I did, I could still see it even around the tree, but then it goes, it starts to move away. Back, it uses that tree between me and it. Which I thought was crazy. I could see its legs moving like it had dropped down. Maybe on all fours or was maybe crawling. I, I don't know.

• 23:42Speaker 06

  I could see its legs moving, but it was using that tree between me and it to keep me from seeing it. And then it just disappeared. And I was like, huh. That was a weird. It was a weird encounter. But I do know that it was bipedal and I do know that it was just jumping back and forth and it was very athletic to be what it was. I mean to, you know, you, you hear about these encounters and you know, they say that they are so stealth. You know, stealthfully and they move so stealthfully and they're so quick and.

• 24:20Speaker 06

  I I I have no doubt that's what I saw. It's it's arms were long because when it was holding the tree, it would lean way out from the tree and then it would pull itself back a little bit and then it would spring off of one leg and spring across to the next tree. And I was like, wow, this thing's got some hops. And I was like, wow, there's a thing to jump. And, you know, then it would it would come across the top of a log, you know, there would be a tree down and it would it would get on top of it and just walk across it like a human would. Just like it's walking a tightrope and just right across it.

• 25:00Speaker 06

  And then it would it would move again and it it was moving pretty steadily when I first saw it. I mean, it was walking. And it was actually in the edge of the field when it came up. It came off the end of the point. I know it did. It came up off the end of the point and it come up the edge of the field, but then it had to come into the woods to keep coming up to where I was at. So that's when it entered the woods. When you enter the woods and it was it was really dry that year and there was, you know, you could hear, you could hear, you know, a deer coming from 200 yards away if they were walking pretty steady, you know, you could tell that's what they were. It was really dry. So I'm guessing it was it just didn't want to make any noise

• 25:46Speaker 06

  so it could hear better and, you know, walk on the stuff better. I knew enough at that point about Bigfoot that I thought that's a small one and I need to go now because if it goes back and tells his mom and dad and they come up here, I'm gonna be in trouble. Because at that time, I didn't carry any type of firearm with me when I bow hunted. I just, you know, I just went in with my bow and hunted. Not that a gun, not that a pistol's gonna do a whole lot. A nine millimeter or something's not gonna do a whole lot against Bigfoot. Probably he's probably gonna beat you to death with the pistol, but I would have felt better. But I sure didn't want to be walking out of there in the dark, you know. So I got down

• 26:29Speaker 06

  right then, soon as it got out of sight, I got down and I walked back to meet my dad and I had to sit there in the dark for probably an hour before he got back to me. So, you know, I was jumping at every sound and I thought, man, they've tracked me out and they're gonna get me before he gets back and. I was just, I was really worried and I, it took me a long time to tell him. When he got back out to me, he didn't say much. He, he hadn't seen, he hadn't seen any deer that evening and so we just walked out to the truck and I said, Dad, I said, I saw something I can't explain. And I told him about it and he was like, like, these woods down here are strange. He said, there, he said, you'll, you'll have that sometimes. And I'm like,

• 27:15Speaker 06

  thanks, Dad. So I don't know if he'd seen anything. He won't, he won't, he won't ever talk about it if he has, but he's just, he's that type of person. He don't want to be made fun of and

• 27:29Speaker 06

  people to ridicule him, but I, I don't, I don't really care if people laugh when I say it because I know what I saw and I know that it was something out there that not many people saw and I know it's, I know it's real. Being where I'm at in Kentucky, I'm probably not gonna ever see another one because I don't think the population numbers are very high here. I think if I lived in maybe Washington or Oregon or Northern California, then yeah, there might be a chance of it, but I was just, I felt very blessed to see the, what I saw after, after I saw it, you know? Looking, I'd love to see another one

• 28:12Speaker 06

  in that type of stage where it's a good waist off and wasn't right off on me, but.

• 28:19Wes Germer?

  Yeah, I can understand the way you feel, especially with your, your encounter. I mean, it's not like it was aggressive with you at all. Let me ask you though, you see this thing and it's advancing towards you and it lifts its head up and kind of looks in your direction, but it keeps coming. What, what do you make of that behavior?

• 28:43Speaker 06

  I think it was a little bit curious. I think it was just wondering what, cause you know, if it had never seen man or saw very few, it probably wanted to see what that smell was maybe. We always use fox urine on our boots back then as a cover scent and so, and it may have thought that there was a fox in the area or something. It may have smelled that. But we would always put a little bit on our boots and we wore rubber boots when we walked in and out to leave no scent and. We're very con- I mean, I was, I'm, I've always been very conscious about the wind and hunted was the wind in my face, you know, and tried to stay upwind from everything that I'm hunting.

• 29:29Speaker 06

  You know, of the evening here, there wasn't much wind that evening. I mean, maybe one mile an hour at the most, you know, it was just varying and I, I think the thermals pulled my scent down into that low spot and he just kind of smelled me before he started. You know, he didn't, he didn't, once he smelled me, he didn't really advance too far. He, it was ten or fifteen more yards and he, then he, I think he saw my stand up in the tree. And that's whenever he just, he went behind the tree and kind of hunkered down and kind of moved, crawled back his way off of the side of the ridge to where I couldn't see him.

• 30:11Speaker 06

  Cause there's a lot of laurel, laurel bushes and stuff right on the edge of those cliff lines. Must be all the growth right in that area. But when it got into laurels, I couldn't see it. I couldn't, I couldn't really see it anymore and it could have dropped, I mean, it could have climbed down the cliff face or, you know, for all I know, you know, that's very possible. There, I'm sure there are a lot better climbers than I am. I'm I get sweaty hands watching people on TV do those mountain climbs and freaks me out.

• 30:44Wes Germer?

  Yeah, you and me both. It freaks me out watching that stuff. I'm not a huge fan of heights. I mean, I'm okay up until about twenty or thirty feet, then beyond that I'm, I'm not a huge fan of it. The part of your encounter, and I've, I've heard this behavior very few times. Uh, but the, the part about it jumping from tree to tree. Its movement and, and how it moved, I, I find that it makes me wonder why it would jump from tree to tree.

• 31:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, it would, it would bounce, it would jump from tree, like tree base to tree base and.

• 31:25Speaker 06

  Like I said, the trees around here are mostly deciduous. They're not evergreens a lot. There's some hemlocks and stuff down there, but they're more on the river. On that area, I was up on top of the ridge, so it's oak and stuff like that, oak and maples. And so at the bottom, they got a they split, they, at the bottom of a tree, they usually, it usually grows out. You know, it fans out at the bottom a little bit and leaves don't usually sit right at the bottom of the tree, like around the base. So it was, it would plant its foot right there and it would jump to the base of the next tree and kind of hold itself in place. Till it could get to a log to run across the log or walk across the log and then it would walk across the log and then it would do that all over again. And

• 32:11Speaker 06

  so as it picked its way up through the woods, it was trying to find the, it was finding the path of the least sound, I think, you know, he was trying to stay as quiet as he could.

• 32:21Wes Germer?

  Yeah, you would think it would almost make more noise doing that. I guess if it's November and all the leaves are down, maybe not so much, but did, did you and your dad ever go back?

• 32:35Speaker 06

  I never went back to that spot in my life. I've never been back down there. I thought about going back and just going in there and camping just to see if I could get any responses or anything, but it, it freaks me out. That, that place freaks me out because I don't know, I just, you, that, that's a that place is an odd, it's got an odd energy to it anyway. It's to, to me, I feel, I feel odd when I go in those woods for some reason. I've, I've had some encounters with people down there too, that have worried me like I would come back to the truck and there'd be a car sitting there idling at my truck and I would just turn my light, because I would walk out of the woods a lot of times without, without a light.

• 33:20Speaker 06

  And I would just hunker down in the woods till they left because I didn't know what they wanted, you know? And like I said, I didn't carry a pistol or anything, so I was worried. Cause those roads down there, they go in the no man's land and I just didn't like the way it looked. So I just hunkered down and waited till they left and.

• 33:42Wes Germer?

  Yeah, nothing good comes from strangers idling at your truck when you're in the middle of nowhere. Nothing good comes from that situation. When you talk about the vibe, you know, in that area that you didn't like, what was it like a feeling of being watched?

• 34:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, it's like that. It's like that there a lot like it's. It's it's either dead or it's alive. It's with an odd feeling like it's either got a lot of wildlife moving or it's nothing at all. It's like you're being watched and it's like there's nothing moving at all. It's just. It's it's an odd feeling. I've never been in the woods that made me feel that way. Other than maybe LBL, it's got kind of the same vibe to it.

• 34:31Wes Germer?

  You know, Jeremy, through all your times of hunting and fishing, especially catfishing, because you know, you mainly do that at night. For all your time in the woods, have you ever seen the lights we talk about?

• 34:46Speaker 06

  I mean, I've seen some orbs and stuff, but I never paid attention to that stuff really that much. I'll, you know, I've seen. I've seen shooting stars and stuff like that, that I know what they were. And I've seen lots that I couldn't explain, but. Um, I was, I was fishing at night and they were just, they were just some, they were just, they looked like white lights. Like just off in the distance and they were moving, moving just like in an erratic pattern. I used to not fish on the lake a lot for bass too. And. I was out by myself one evening and it was just a light that was kind of ping ponging around.

• 35:29Speaker 06

  And I thought maybe somebody just had some sort of flashlight and that were, you know, maybe running with it or something because of the way it was moving was real erratic. But then it split in two.

• 35:41Speaker 06

  And I was like, um, maybe there's two people there. It was between me and the, me and a, there was a big point that ran down to the water. And it had, it had lowered down to the, towards the water level and was, you know, it lowered pretty slow. And then it started moving pretty erratically like, um, you know, it kind of floated along the water. And then, and then it's, like I said, it split and then it started moving really fast. And then it just zipped away. And I was like, oh, that was odd. Maybe there's somebody that was a spotlight, you know, that was looking for a spot over there or something. Or, you know, I just, I kind of try to rationalize that stuff.

• 36:25Speaker 06

  Cause I, I don't, I don't know about that stuff, but it's hard for me to, I don't know. I don't want to introduce another mystery with the, until I saw this one with the big.

• 36:38Wes Germer?

  Yeah, I hear bigfoot researchers say that a lot. You know, they'll say, well, we don't want to add one mystery to another mystery. And, but if you saw it, you're not really adding one mystery to another mystery. It's something weird that you saw. Out of all the, the times of fishing and hunting and how many times would you say you saw the lights?

• 37:02Speaker 06

  Probably twice in my life, I've seen them dance along the water and, you know, and just kind of moving erratic patterns that no way that an aircraft could do that. And hit that and zoom and just take off like that and move and just move away so fast that you can't hardly follow it with your eyes. It's just, you know, zero to Mach 10 and no, no, just drop of a hat. It's just crazy. And they're on. It's like they've seen what they want to see and they're gone. So. They look about the size of a tennis ball, maybe, or maybe a little bigger. At that range, it was a, it was a pretty good ways off.

• 37:47Speaker 06

  I mean, it was not a full moon, I don't think, cause I like to fish on the full moon, you know, before and after. So that night, I don't think it was a full moon. So I could see them, I could see it a little bit better, the way it was moving. Cause it's a dark hillside behind it. And then I had, you know, the lights were moving and so.

• 38:07Wes Germer?

  You know, I've seen the lights on two occasions. The first time was not like a flashlight, like someone walking with a flashlight. The second time at the Brown's though, I thought it was someone walking with, I thought, I thought we pissed off one of their neighbors. And they were coming out, you know, to kind of give us what for. And it was this light, it was kind of, I know you and I are about the same age, like in the eighties when they had those crappy. Flashlights, I know what you saw was kind of a white light. What I saw that night was kind of that dull, yellow, like an eighties flashlight. And it was bobbing up and down and then that's, I honestly thought it was someone with a flashlight.

• 38:50Wes Germer?

  Ended up not being a person, ended up being a weird light. But when you described the erratic. Behavior of how it moved, is that kind of what you're describing like? Someone, I mean, you thought it was people, someone walking with a flashlight. Was that kind of the behavior of the light?

• 39:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's exactly what it looked like. I thought, well, there goes somebody walking out, you know, walking out that hillside. On a road or something like, you know, I wasn't close enough to see, but. I thought somebody was just moving out through there and I was seeing the light off the flashlight, but. Then it, when it dropped straight down, I was like, well, they either fell down the hill or. It's not a person. So, and then when it dropped, it, when it got to the water level, it sat there and hovered for a minute and then it split into two and. One went one way and one went the other. And I was just like, huh? That's wild looking.

• 39:50Wes Germer?

  You know, kind of looking back now, what was it that you saw that night? What do you think it was?

• 39:56Speaker 06

  I have no idea. I really don't. I don't know if it was a reflection, maybe off of. Car lights. I don't, I couldn't tell you. I haven't, I have, I have no idea.

• 40:09Speaker 06

  It could have been some sort of UFO. It could have been, it could have been a reflection from a boat with its lights on that I couldn't see around a point or something. I, I'm not sure, but it sure was bright if it was a light off reflecting because you normally, you know, they'll disperse a lot and you'll get a more of a floodlight look. This was more of a ball. So.

• 40:38Wes Germer?

  Yeah. So strange. I, I wish I had a great answer for what the lights are. I can tell you from the Browns property. Like I said, I, I thought it was someone coming with a flashlight. There was a guy there. We were all in a barn and a guy was using a thermal and I kind of glanced up and I saw it and I was like, okay, someone's coming, you know? And I remember him looking through the thermal and he goes, there's nothing there. Like he couldn't even see the light through the thermal, but he takes his eyes off of the thermal and there's a light, but he goes, there's no one there. And I go, what do you mean? There's no one there? And the light did dive it. I thought it dove down into bushes or into the ground. I mean, it dove down is what I'm trying to say.

• 41:23Wes Germer?

  I don't know where it went. I thought it, it was someone screwing with us. I was like, okay, someone wants to play games and, you know, whoever it was, they dove down into these bushes. And I remember we all snapped our, our lights on and it, there was nowhere for it to dive down into. It was like 12 feet up of sticker bushes. And the weird part is I felt like it almost kind of reacted to all of us watching it. I know you have a degree in biology and fishing and wildlife management. With your education, what do you think Sasquatch is?

• 42:02Speaker 06

  I think, I really think with all the secrecy with the government with it and all the people seeing it, I really think it's a hominoid. I think it's, I think it's a primate of some sort. I do. I think it's a two-legged bipedal, some sort of relic. I, I, I think that these tribes, these American tribes, you know, all the American tribes have a name for Sasquatch, a different name. And if you look at the depictions of, you know, we learned about in college, we learned about Bergman's rule. And what it is, is I'm sure you've heard that before is where,

• 42:44Speaker 06

  you know, animals to the south are usually smaller in size. They have long legs. I don't know if the legs look longer because they're not as dense for heat dispersion. And animals in the north are, are much heavier. With a little, probably just, probably the same bone structure, but they're just heavier where they can retain more heat during the winter time. So, you know, like a deer in Texas will be, you'll have 150-inch deer that will look enormous. And that same 150, it'll be, you know, it might weigh 150 pounds, but in Saskatchewan, it's going to weigh 300 pounds.

• 43:26Speaker 06

  The same deer, the same sized deer. So it's not, the, the rack won't look as big because the deer's so big, but you look at the depictions of all the Bigfoot that they've saw over the years and, you know, you get in the skunk ape and stuff down in the south. And you, you see, I saw the video, the one where the ones in the cypress tree digging around. And that, that thing is not as heavy as the ones you see up north, like the depictions of them. They're not as robust. They're not as thick. So it makes me kind of think about that. It's, it's adhering to the rule of science if you look at it that way, you know?

• 44:13Speaker 06

  So I don't know, I don't, I, I really think that they're Sasquatch in, in the woods. I think that people are going about looking for them the wrong way. I don't think they're using a hunter's mentality. I don't think it's. When you go out into the woods, I don't, I don't think they, I don't think people are using a scent control. They don't play the wind like they should. I don't think they. They don't wear rubber boots. They, you know, I think they go into these areas with a group, group of people and they wander around. And they're leaving so much scent in that particular drainage or wherever they're at, that those animals just move.

• 44:54Speaker 06

  Until they're gone and then they come back. And I really think they can see our light. I think that's how they evade all these, all these, um. Trail cams. I mean, if you watch, you watch this stuff, they never get anything more than maybe a little fur on a camera. I think that. You know, truck cameras, the hour flash goes off before it starts recording or takes a picture. So. I'm sure they see that and take off or hit the camera or dive, you know, away from it. Because, I mean, there's been many times that I've taken pictures of nothing. There'd be nothing standing there. So.

• 45:36Speaker 06

  I think that's why we'll never get a picture of. I think they smell them too. I think they smell whatever chemical they make the cameras with or the chemical in the batteries. The lithium, maybe? I don't know. I'm, I'm no expert on the scent, but I, I do know that they train dogs to smell. You know, for cell phones and stuff like that with dogs and they. I've, I've heard that they look for the chemical that's in the lot, that's in the, uh, camera on them. Which makes me wonder if they're doing the same thing, if they're smelling that before they get to it and they spot them out before they ever get in that area and just go around them.

• 46:18Wes Germer?

  Yeah, I don't think it's too far outside of the box to realize that these creatures know those trail cameras are there. I mean, in most trail cam pictures, whether it's a deer or a bear or whatever animal, in most of those pictures, the the animal's looking right at the trail cam. I mean, even a dumb deer knows that that camera's there.

• 46:44Speaker 06

  They do. You're right. I've had I quit using trail cameras because of that reason when I lived in Ohio, because I was hunting small, small little plots of land that around huge agricultural areas, soybeans and corn. So I'm hunting small, like 10 to 15 acre woodlots. And I would put a camera in there and I would get I get one picture of a big deer and it would always be staring right at the camera and I'd never get another picture of it. So I just took down all my cameras and I go, I don't go in the woods until, you know, when I lived up there, I didn't go in those woods till October, the end of October and with the first cold spell. And that was my greatest chances of killing a big deer

• 47:28Speaker 06

  was the first time I sat on stand. Cause you know, you contaminate your area with scent. Every time you walk through the woods and something brushes against you, that's leaving scent. And even deer, when they're moving around at night in the woods, they'll track you to your stand and they know where your stands are. I mean, I've had deer walk through the woods and look up in the trees. I've seen them do it. So to think of something that's exponentially smarter than a deer. I mean, you're, you're not going to get close if you've contaminated the area and you've. Is there any research going on that where they they try to maybe somebody goes and stays elevated

• 48:12Speaker 06

  and like gets really high up in a tree for a week or something that's just stays there and stays put and I mean, I don't, I haven't seen anything like that. I mean, I see, I see these like Expedition Bigfoot. I just got done watching that for just say, for instance, and that Russell guy on there's a beast, by the way, he's a good tractor and a good hunter, but I feel like they contaminated an area and then they move everything out. They may see something and they may not, you know, if they do, I think it's just luck. I mean, they have uncovered a lot of, a lot of structures. I

• 48:52Speaker 06

  I do think that, you know, they've proven the nests are real and, uh, you know, the teepee structures that they leave for, I think that's a directional thing.

• 49:03Wes Germer?

  Yeah, but you got to understand shows like Expedition Bigfoot or Finding Bigfoot, they're for entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less. They might capture some cool things, but like you said, they're going to move to the next location or whatever. And I agree with you, Russell is a beast. I gotta, I'll tell you a funny story about Russell. Um, we were at a conference, we're friends, by the way, when you hear this story, we're actually pretty good friends. We're at a conference one time and you know that backpack he wears on the, on the TV show, that thing's no joke. That thing's heavy when you put it on. I think it's

• 49:46Wes Germer?

  like a hundred pounds. I can't remember, but it weighs a lot. We're at a conference one time and he, he has people come up and they put the backpack on and they go walking around the auditorium wearing it, see how long they can carry this backpack. Well, Russell is up there giving a speech, him and the guy kind of get into this, kind of a friendly.

• 50:10Wes Germer?

  I don't want to say argument like debate. The guy saying, I can make it back to the back of the auditorium, back to your table before you will, and I'm wearing your backpack. Well, that was the wrong thing to say to Russell because it's on now. And I'm sitting in the back of the auditorium. They both take off running down. He Russell's like on the very far right side. And this other guy's on the very, very far left side. So I decide I'm going to get up and I'm going to block Russell. So this guy wins. Now I really wasn't going to stop Russell. You know, it was friendly. It was, I really wasn't trying to stop him. It was more like a joke.

• 50:53Wes Germer?

  Well, here comes Russell coming right at me. And there's a lot of room to go around me. I mean, we're in the back of the auditorium. And I'm like, why, why is Russell speeding up? Why, why is Russell lowering his shoulder? And why hasn't he tried to like go around me? And he hit me. And it was like two brick walls slamming into each other. I mean, he got the better of me by far. Again, I really wasn't trying to stop him. I was like, what the hell, man? But he hit me and that guy is a beast. I will give him that. You don't want him running full speed at you and running right into you.

• 51:36Wes Germer?

  I guess I effed around and kind of found out. And I felt it for the rest of the day for sure. But yeah, those shows really are for entertainment. I wanted to ask you, kind of going back to your very first encounter. Does your family still own that property?

• 51:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, they still own it. We, we still go down there and I let my kids fish down there. And there's more deer in there now because it's grown up. And they've started having crops nearby. So there's more deer that come in there and stuff. So they, my, my one son actually bow hunts down there. But he's never seen anything like what I saw that night and heard. He's never had any, an experience like that, that I know of. But yeah, that was.

• 52:26Speaker 06

  I feel like that was just lucky to have that experience too, because I was just in the right place at the right time. I don't think that animal, I don't see how it could survive right in there with, you know, I mean, I guess it could with the creek and the fish and shellfish and you know, the crawdads and stuff and but feel like they would have to kill something large to sustain them if they were, you know, as big as a deer or so to get by.

• 52:56Wes Germer?

  Yeah, it makes you wonder if when you were younger, when you saw it, if it was just kind of passing through. You know, earlier you were talking about Bigfoot researchers and I agree with you. I, I don't know who gave them the title of Bigfoot researchers, but at the end of the day, if everyone's being honest in the room, they're amateur campers hoping something will happen. You know, with your background and your education, I'm assuming you have the scientific view that a body has to be collected, a specimen has to be collected for this to ever be proven. How would you go about that?

• 53:34Speaker 06

  I would sit on a ridge with a 50 cal for a week and shoot one in the head and then I would call in somebody with a chopper because I wouldn't go get it by myself. That's the only way anybody's gonna believe it. I know that sounds, that sounds morbid, but I think that's at the end of the day, that's what it's gonna take to, because nobody's gonna believe a picture. Nobody's gonna believe the sightings. Nobody's gonna believe the footprints. Cause we have all those. I mean, we're still, you know, people are still getting, well, they still don't take it serious. And it's just, it's really upsetting that these people get pictures of monkeys and, you know, they,

• 54:17Speaker 06

  they're good with that, that, you know, brand new species of monkeys. We found them. They're, they are, they are, you know, or maybe some sort of weasel or something. There's a picture there, one, you know, there it is, but they get pictures of Sasquatch and it's like, no, that can't be real. Not all the, not all the pictures can be fake. Not all the sightings can be fake. There's just too many. And I know mine's not fake. I'm not, I wouldn't call and take your time up in your listeners' time just to tell a lie. I mean, that's not, that's not who I am. And I don't know, I just don't, I don't see any appeal on that.

• 54:57Wes Germer?

  Yeah, it is frustrating. I think most of the evidence we have now is the same evidence we keep getting over and over and over again. And you know, you're right, no one's gonna believe a video, especially with AI. No one's really gonna believe the audio. And encounters aren't gonna change people's opinion. It might, a little bit, but it's never gonna prove it. And you know, that very first encounter that you had, where you really didn't know what it was. And then the second time, when you saw it, I'm still thinking about that thing, jumping from tree to tree. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and, and share it.

• 55:37Speaker 06

  Well, thank you for having me, Wes. I appreciate it. And I appreciate what you do. Thank you.

• 55:42Wes Germer?

  Thanks, Jeremy. 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.

• 56:32Speaker 04

  Shredding on broken glass, feeling the weight of doubt, looking for a white star.

• 56:45Speaker 04

  I'm fine.

• 56:53Speaker 04

  I'm a lion.

• 57:00Speaker 04

  In a peculiar state of mind, traveling back in time, I wanna be a white star.

• 57:15Speaker 04

  I don't care if I die, moving backwards, head and heart.

• 57:30Speaker 04

  I don't care if I die, moving backwards, head and heart.

• 57:44Speaker 04

  I'm home.

• 57:51Speaker 04

  I'm like me.

• 57:59Speaker 04

  Stood at the speed of sound, ready to leave the ground, looking like a white star.

• 58:14Speaker 04

  I don't care if I die, moving backwards, head and heart.

• 58:28Speaker 04

  I don't care if I die Move it backwards, head and heart

• 59:28Speaker 03

  I got you guys, I got you guys, do everything upside down.

• 59:34Speaker 03

  Okay, nice, nice, good, good, nice, nice, molly, okay?

• 59:47Speaker 03

  I don't have to be earthbound, I'm a creature.

• 59:52Speaker 03

  I'm a little cautious, I'm a little cautious, I'm a little bit of a...

• 1:00:10Speaker 04

  I don't care if I die Move it backwards, head and heart

• 1:00:24Speaker 04

  I don't care if I die Move it backwards, head and heart