Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

Apr 17

An encounter with “something”

A listener writes “I came across your show several months ago and I am addicted. You do an awesome job. I applaud and thank you for providing an outlet to people who have had these incidents that are afraid to speak out.

Like you say, it is easy to laugh at someone until what they claim happened happens to them.

My wife and I live in Decatur, AL. (northwestern) region of the state. My family lives in Florence, AL. and my wife’s family lives in Double Springs, AL. (middle of the Bankhead Forest). Our story took place before we were married and even engaged. She was my girlfriend at the time of this incident. We both had an encounter with “something”. I want to first off say that we did not see any kind of creature. We do not know what we ran into at all, but it terrified us. Her parents live off of highway 33 about 1-2 miles. Highway 33 is the main highway that cuts through the forest. There are several trail head access points off of 33. Before we got married we would go hiking sometimes in the forest. Mostly trails near her house. One day we decided to go to a trail head (not sure which one it was) off of 33 that was about 2-3 miles off the main highway. My wife had heard about this trail being a very beautiful spot near a large creek The trail head and parking lot are not visible from 33.

When we arrived at the parking area there was a group of about 5 teenagers there and it appeared they had been swimming in the creek. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, they were laughing and talking by their vehicle. The trail is very defined right out of the parking lot as it is completely dirt. The creek is immediately visible when you pull into the parking lot. We walked about half a mile down the trail, until it curved to the right into the woods. The trail up until this point runs along the creek bank. We stopped (thank God we did not venture into the woods) because there are these massive rocks sitting in the water by the bank and we climbed on them to sit and enjoy the view of this gorgeous creek bottom. Up until this point I had already noticed I could hear absolutely nothing out there except the water running in the creek. It was an odd feeling and did not realize at that point that this is usually an indicator of a predator lurking somewhere. We sat there for about 30 minutes on the rocks and then decided to press on down the trail.

As we approached the point of the trail that curved right and went into the woods there was this tree that was maybe 6-7 feet tall that was completely covered in leaves and the branch structure kind of gave the tree a spherical shape. The leaves made it so that you could not see underneath or behind the tree. We got maybe 20 yards from this tree and something violently smacked the tree. It sounded like a pine tree coming down to give you an idea of how loud this was. It was an awful sound. The tree did not break though, amazingly. We both froze solid and stared at the tree. We knew there was no one else out there because the only other vehicle in the parking lot belonged to the people that were in the parking lot when we pulled up. I immediately had this feeling of nausea come over me. I had a machete that I carried with me on our hikes, but I felt so weak at this point. I could hear my girlfriend starting to breathe in a manner of which she was simply terrified.

I did not even look at my girlfriend. I was a sheet of ice. I do not ever recall me having that kind of fear come over me because I knew we were in a location that if something happened to us it’d be days until were found. We stared at this tree for about 2 minutes tops. I was about to whisper to her to slowly turn and start walking back to the car and I would walk backwards keeping my eye on our blindside. When I finally turned to look at her there was nothing but dirt dust floating in the air. She had become so horrified that she turned and ran. When I saw she was gone I turned and bolted after her back to the parking lot. I am a former cross country and track runner so my skills were put to good use that day. I managed to catch up to my girlfriend and it seemed like we made it back to the car in 5 seconds. I guess that was just the adrenaline and fear that kicked in. We were both white as ghost and out of breath. I recall looking down at my hands and I looked like I had no control over my hands they were shaking so badly. The ride back to her parents house we tried to tell ourselves that was just squirrels playing. I do not think 100 squirrels could have duplicated the force that smashed into that tree. The more I researched into things like this I finally realized that this was simply something that did not want us encroaching on its territory. The dead silence I had noticed previously. No birds or any signs of wildlife in the forest. It all made sense. The most terrifying thing was that we never heard anything in the woods walking. Something was already there and it was most likely watching us. I to this day cannot get my wife to speak of that moment.

I realize this account is not anywhere near as terrifying as some of the ones I have heard on your show, but listening to your show has helped me realize that there was probably a ‘squatch out there. There are numerous reports of sasquatch sightings ing the Bankhead forest. I never saw it, I never heard it, I never smelled the odor that people talk about, but the activity leading up to that tree being hit made almost too much sense. The situation could have been worse. Running was the last thing we needed to do, but when she bolted I became a microwave dinner. We have never been back to that spot and now if we go into the woods I carry a .45 springfield handgun.

Thanks for taking the time to hear my account.

18 Responses to “An encounter with “something””

  3. Shirley S

    Alabama has a lot of Squatches, especially in the Bankhead Forest. I used to cave and camp in northeastern Alabama (and southeastern TN and northwest GA). I remember encountering them in three different areas in one weekend once! If it’s any comfort, the Bigfoots in Alabama aren’t usually as aggressive as they can be in other areas. Obviously, you don’t want to take chances with any of them, especially with only two people, but I wouldn’t be alive today if they were quick to follow up threat displays with violence.

    I caved and camped nearly every weekend for years My first encounter with a Bigfoot was in GA and was bad. He clearly intended to kill us. However, I caved for years after that, and we were frequently paced by them as we hiked the hillsides on the way to caves or looking for new caves. They’d pace just uphill of us, wood-knocking every few minutes and shoving over a tree just over the ridgeline every five minutes or so. My caving friends simply tuned them out. They didn’t want to consider Bigfoots were real and got annoyed at my constantly drawing attention to the knocking and treefalls. “Trees fall.” Every five minutes? Always just 100 feet or so directly uphill of us? It was surreal to be the only one that realized something big and wild was making threat displays directed at us, but I wasn’t about to separate from the group! Anyway, we ticked Bigfoots off at least a couple of times a month or more for years, and my old caving buddies are still out there ticking them off . Outside my first encounter, the worst that ever happened was we got pelted with dirt and pebbles.

    I’m not suggesting anyone adopt a casual attitude about the risk presented by Bigfoots, but I know people are sometimes haunted for years by the thought that they came close to being killed after they encounter a Bigfoot that drove them out of an area. Take the threat seriously , and leave the area, but realize that you probably weren’t quite as close to being killed as you might think and don’t let it haunt you. As a side note, Alabama and Tennessee Bigfoots also seem fond of smacking your vehicle so hard it rocks on the springs if you’re camping in it or parked near a ditch they can sneak up to it in. It can startle the daylights out of you, but it usually appears to just be a game they play. They’ve smacked my truck so many times over the years I’ve lost count (my friends had small trucks and built sleeping platforms elevated over their gear and even with the windows in their truck caps; I slept on the bed of my

  4. Shirley S

    Alabama has a lot of Squatches, especially in the Bankhead Forest. I used to cave and camp in northeastern Alabama (and southeastern TN and northwest GA). I remember encountering them in three different areas in one weekend once! If it’s any comfort, the Bigfoots in Alabama aren’t usually as aggressive as they can be in other areas. Obviously, you don’t want to take chances with any of them, especially with only two people, but I wouldn’t be alive today if they were quick to follow up threat displays with violence.

    I caved and camped nearly every weekend for years My first encounter with a Bigfoot was in GA and was bad. He clearly intended to kill us. However, I caved for years after that, and we were frequently paced by them as we hiked the hillsides on the way to caves or looking for new caves. They’d pace just uphill of us, wood-knocking every few minutes and shoving over a tree just over the ridgeline every five minutes or so. My caving friends simply tuned them out. They didn’t want to consider Bigfoots were real and got annoyed at my constantly drawing attention to the knocking and treefalls. “Trees fall.” Every five minutes? Always just 100 feet or so directly uphill of us? It was surreal to be the only one that realized something big and wild was making threat displays directed at us, but I wasn’t about to separate from the group! Anyway, we ticked Bigfoots off at least a couple of times a month or more for years, and my old caving buddies are still out there ticking them off (and probably still thinking that every five minutes, a tree commits suicide). Outside of my first encounter, the worst that ever happened was we got pelted with dirt and pebbles, which my friends also pretended to ignore, though they looked scared that time. (My first encounter was a different scenario, and there was no threat display.)

    I’m not suggesting anyone adopt a casual attitude about the risk presented by Bigfoots, but I know people are sometimes haunted for years by the thought that they came close to being killed after they encounter a Bigfoot that drove them out of an area. Take the threat seriously , and leave the area, but realize that you probably weren’t quite as close to being killed as you might think and don’t let it haunt you. (Again, talking about AL and southeatern TN Bigfoots here.) As a side note, Alabama and Tennessee Bigfoots also seem unusually fond of smacking your vehicle so hard it rocks on the springs if you’re camping in it or parked near a ditch they can sneak up to it in. It can startle the daylights out of you, and I know it sometimes terrifies people. It usually appears to just be a game they play., though. They’ve smacked my truck so many times over the years I’ve lost count, and before I realized it was them, I’d always hop out of my truck to look for what hit it, even looking just inside the tree line. Actually, I always hopped out and pretended to look after I realized it was them, too. They never grabbed me! It did, however encourage them to wait about 15 minutes and smack my truck again (which is how I finally realized what was doing it)! This got a little long-winded! Sorry about that! I guess I kind of miss those Alabama Bigfoots.

  6. Charles R

    Just last Friday a guy that works for me was talking. He has relations in NW Alabama and has spent a good amount of time with them. He told me there are some really strange sounds that come from those forest at night. This guy that lives down there has had numerous run ins with a creature ( forgot what he called it ) that is nine feet tall on two legs.
    Fascinating accounts Shirley S. I do tend to agree with you about being a game, of course until it is not.

  7. Tennessquatch

    Heya Shirley. I’m actually working with several spelunkers, two of which have worked directly with the state, trekking out and getting geo-coordinates. I’d love to talk to you sometime, about your experiences, as I’ve been using the extensive location maps they’ve provided me, in an attempt to check for correlations between activity and such locations.

    Thanks for sharing!

    • Shirley S

      I’d be happy to. We should do it sooner rather than later, though. I’m in the preparation stages for a stem cell transplant and have the first 24/7 x 4 days chemo treatment the week after next, and I may be out of commission for a while (as soon as you recover from the first one, you go in for the next). I’d love to hear if you’ve found correlations. As you probably know, I don’t think Bigfoots use or enter caves very often, but I’ve always thought karst areas seem to have unusually high Bigfoot populations. Perhaps it has more to do with the overall topography of such areas? The southeast has all those lovely little coves. Remind me to tell you of a pit in TN that has a lot of Bigfoot activity around it. An old Cherokee woman who lived at the base of the mountain used to tell cavers it was an earth elemental. Most cavers didn’t really understand that, but it caught on, and for most of the 80s and 90s, a lot of cavers I knew attributed the tree knocks to earth elementals. They apparently were more comfortable with that than with Bigfoots!

      Are you using the state cave survey data (locations, cave descriptions)? If so, don’t mention that to any cavers you meet unless you know your friends got approval to share it with you, which, knowing the TCS, is unlikely. To protect the caves and landowners, the lists are not supposed to be shared with non-members/non-cavers. The TCS (Tennessee Cave Survey) has always been especially strict about it. [To clarify for anyone else reading this, state cave surveys refer to both the data bases cavers created and maintain of cave locations, features, and maps for each state and to the organized group of cavers who collect and maintain the data; they’re not government agencies, just cavers.] I’m cool with it. I smuggled a copy of some of it to the Forest Service once to help them catch an artifact hunter/dealer who was pillaging Native American archaeological sites on park land. My dad was the surveillance pilot, so I figured they were trustworthy. I probably would have gotten my membership revoked if the TCS found out, though.

      Anyway, I’m also curious about your caving friends’ encounters. Are they similar to mine? I’ve always thought there was a correlation between the speed a group moved through the woods and the intensity of the Bigfoot response. We were a very fast-moving group that never really stopped to rest. I think it made the Bigfoots nervous! When I caved with slower moving groups, we’d still get the wood-knocking but not as much treefall. Of course, we also caved every weekend and usually in rarely visited caves, so statistically our chances for encounters was good. I stopped caving regularly about 2004. The human population of northeastern Alabama has increased tremendously in recent years, especially around Huntsville! I often wonder about how it’s affected the Bigfoot population in those areas.

      Oh, by the way, we always say “caving” and “cavers” rather than spelunking and spelunkers. “Spelunker” is the term we use for the caver with a six pack in one hand and a flashlight without spare batteries in the other! ? Here’s the background about the modern use of the term. In 1941, a caver in Indiana was interviewed about his hobby by his local, small town newspaper. Deciding “caving” sounded far too mundane, he inexpertly drew on his high school Latin and came up with the fancier sounding “spelunk” (“spelunc” has wandered in and out of history a few times in the last 500 years, but judging by his spelling, our caver was unaware of this). That would have been the end of it, but in 1942 a popular dictionary did a new -word search of publications to update their entries for a new edition. To the horror and dismay of cavers everywhere, they picked up “spelunk,” and it’s plagued us ever since! ? The guy was still alive in the 1990s. Cavers still hadn’t forgiven him!

  8. NW Mike

    Gramma was from Alabama. She used to tell me stories about the Booger Man. I thought it was a joke or a mispronunciation of boogey man. Maybe she knew more than she let on.

  9. Trent M

    Shirley can you tell us more about the 1st encounter in Ga. where you believe he intended to kill you? If it is already posted somewhere can you point me there? Thanks for telling of your encounters!

  11. Shirley S

    Sure. I’ve probably posted it before, but I’ve no idea which thread it was in. The incident happened about 1987 or ’88. It was in northeastern Georgia, Dade county, near Rising Fawn and not far from Crockford-Pigeon Mountain Wildlife Management Area, both areas in which Bigfoot sightings have been reported. I’ve heard some impressive vocalizations on Pigeon Mountain. Anyway, I was fairly new to caving and hadn’t yet heard the wood knocking that would become so familiar. My friend Richard and I had decided to visit a cave in the area. To get to the cave, you could contour around the hillside on an old logging road for a ways, then walk downhill from the road to reach the cave. A month or so before, a good friend had hiked down the logging road, and something paced her and her boyfriend, knocking on trees. She was convinced it was a Bigfoot. I hiked down the logging road with her about a week later to see if we’d hear it, but we didn’t hear anything. This was before the internet, of course, and neither of us had heard about Bigfoots knocking on trees. The nearest accounts of Bigfoots sightings we’d heard of were at the opposite end of the state, down in the Okefenokee Swamp. Still, we got out my old Bigfoot books from the 1970s and looked through them. Maybe we missed it, but we didn’t find any references to wood knocks. I believed Bigfoots existed , but I thought of them as rare and not at all local. Despite having heard occasional stories of terrifying encounters, I really didn’t grasp how dangerous they can be. The incident I’m writing about here scares me more now than it did then. If I’d seen the Bigfoot in this incident, I’m sure it would have had a greater impact on me. At any rate, when my caving buddy and I visited the cave a few weeks later, my brain was primed to listen for Bigfoots. That turned out to be a very good thing!

    So, my friend Richard and I were hiking along the logging road, hoping we could find the cave. It’s not visited often, being smallish, unremarkable, and hard to find. We weren’t talking much, as we were concentrating on finding the cave. We figured we were in the right area, and started walking downhil into the woods l from the old logging road. Moments later, we startled something large in the brush less than 30 feet downhill of us. We assumed it was a deer. My friend started toward the cave. I stopped him. Whatever we startled hadn’t run away. Something wasn’t right about that, and I wanted to know what was going on. I almost walked down there to see, but thanks to my friend, I had Bigfoot on the brain. Common sense overruled curiosity this time, and after a couple of minutes of discussion, we continued to the cave. Richard didn’t seem concerned, but I was deeply bothered that the animal hadn’t run away. I suddenly got the feeling we were being followed. I started listening closely. The area was mostly hardwoods with enough underbrush to obscure views but not impede hiking. The ground was leaf litter interspersed with exposed, eroded, sandy rock. At first, I heard nothing, but then we hit an area of exposed rock, and I heard the faintest scritch scritch sound of footsteps on sandy rock. At first it was so faint I wondered if I was imagining it. I stopped. It stopped a step later. I walked, it scritch scritched. It wasn’t behind us. It was directly below us, close enough to hear, but I couldn’t see it. That was weird. It was clearly walking on two feet, and the sound was so faint, it had to be close for me to hear it (my hearing is bad). I should have been able to see it. I told Richard something on two feet was following us, possibly stalking us. I could tell he didn’t believe me. We continued to the cave. I heard the faint footsteps whenever we got to exposed rock. At one point, I heard what I’m positive was the sound of two small rocks tapped together very softly one time. The sound was in the air, not ground level. It creeped me out. It didn’t make sense for it to do that unless it was signalling another one. It was too purposeful for something being stealthy. If I’d known more about Bigfoots, I would have been terrified. As it was, I was very uneasy. Was it just curious? I didn’t think so. It felt sinister. That I couldn’t see something that sounded like it was only about 15 feet away, tops, really disturbed me.

    We managed to walk straight to the cave. I listened and looked for our stalker, but neither saw nor heard him. I wondered if he was using the cave for shelter. Was that why he was following us? I was too naive to be as worried as I should have been, but I didn’t like the situation. The entrance of the cave puts one at the top of a steep breakdown pile (like talus) in a roughly round-shaped entrance room that’s maybe 200 feet across and is dominated by the big breakdown pile. To get to the entrance, one climbs down into a cleft in the rock extending from the bottom of the bluff. Someone on the rock can look down into the cleft and the cave pretty easily (the entrance is wider than the cleft, but not down- climbable outside of the cleft), but because of the steep elevation drop in the cave and the sharp angle to the rock surface, you can’t see anyone on the rock outside if you’re more than a couple dozen feet down the breakdown. Yeah. That’s foreshadowing. So, Richard and I climbed down the breakdown pile and walked the circumference of the room. I was looking for foot prints, bedding, any sign of Bigfoots using the cave. Nothing. As we were returning to the side of the room where the passage lead deeper into the cave, I thought I heard foot steps outside the cave. Before I could ask Richard if he heard them, we both we heard voices outside the cave. We couldn’t make out what they were saying, but there were definitely voices. We waited to see who it was. I was relieved to have more people around. The voices stopped. No one came in. We started up the slope out of curiosity,, and we again heard someone walking around up there. I suddenly had a bad feeling about it. I kept reminding myself we’d heard people, but where were they? No one lived nearby, and the cave was way off the beaten path. It wasn’t hunting season. If they were there, they were almost certainly cavers, but no one came in. There was just the sound of someone walking around up there. I stopped Richard when we were about 60 to 70 feet from the entrance. I just had a feeling it was that stupid, sneaky Bigfoot that I was becoming more and more convinced was not a figment of my imagination.

    Cavers communicate over distances by yelling, “BO!” It’s easy to understand, carries well, and if you get caught trespassing, you can say you were looking for your dog, Bo. I thought we were both being cautiously quiet, but Richard suddenly yelled, “BO!” Seconds later, a football-sized rock shot 60+ feet through the air like a missile, directly at his head! He was looking at me and didn’t seem to see it. We both nearly tumbled down the breakdown pile when I shoved him out of the way just as he noticed it. It sailed through where his head had been a fraction of a second before, missing him by inches. With the size of the rock and the speed it was moving, I think it would have killed him if it had hit him in the face. (It occurred to me later that it was aimed like a line drive to his face, despite our being at least 30 feet lower in elevation than the cave entrance. Was it purposely aiming at his face because he had his caving hardhat on his head?) Shocked and furious, Richard yelled, “HEY!” Almost immediately, a rock a little larger than a softball came flying in, straight at his face again. Another very near miss. A couple seconds later, he had a third near miss when a similar sized rock actually fell out of the ceiling about 70 feet above him!!! We looked at each other and took off for the passage at the bottom of the room.

    The passage entrance was a short climb down over rocks into a passage that was only a couple feet wide with a ceiling height that varied from 3 to 5 feet, getting lower as you went further in. About 30 feet in, the passage made a 90-degree turn and continued, opening out to a small room before continuing to the bottom of the cave. About the time we crawled past the turn, we heard someone coming down the breakdown pile, moving slowly and not very quietly. It sounded like more than one person, but it could have been one person who wasn’t coming straight down. When it sounded like he was about halfway down, he started bellowing, “HEY-EH!” loudly, over and over. It sounded angrier and angrier, like the more it yelled, the more worked up it got, and the faster it started moving. No voice is that loud in a cave, especially with that much rock and twisting passage between us. It had some serious lung power! I think it was echoing the “HEY!” Richard yelled after the first rock. We normally draw the word out a little. That would sound like an extra “eh” to someone unfamiliar with the word. It was bizarre. Dear God, was a Bigfoot really following us into the cave?! I was getting really nervous, but Richard thought a group of cavers had suddenly shown up, and apparently not the ones who just tried to kill him.

    Before long, we heatd someone at the entrance to the passage. It sounded like he was coming in! Lots of small rocks falling and muffled scraping that went on too long for a human. Huddled quietly in the small room, ready to run for the bottom of the cave, we quietly listened, trying to figure out what was going on. The sound of someone in the climb-down finally stopped, replaced by the sound of small rocks being thrown down the passage. Every few minutes, we heard brief conversation, but always too muffled to hear the words or identify the number of speakers. It was confusing me. I didn’t know Bigfoots talked. I did know a human couldn’t throw a football-size rock that far with that speed and accuracy and almost no arc for 60+ feet, and the bellowing had been way too loud, too resonant, especially for the amount of rock and twisting passage between us. The angry “hey-eh'” was weird. Who says that? At one point, when it had been quiet for a while, I tried to sneak a little closer to see if I could hear anything., but I didn’t turn my light off soon enough, and enough light must have been visible for it to see around the corner. The rocks came fast and furious for a while. We hadn’t continued to the bottom of the cave because we wanted to keep tabs on where it was, but we were getting cold and had to move. We spent the next five or six hours cowering in the bottom of the cave, debating what we’d just experienced. I think it was one, possibly more, Bigfoots. Richard decided it was spirits and something in the realm of the paranormal. We eventually realized if we didn’t leave the cave soon, we’d have a long, scary walk back to the trucks in the dark. It was gone when we got out, and we made it back to the trucks without a problem.

    In retrospect, I think we surprised it when we came upon it from higher on the hillside, and it ticked him off. Maybe we caught him napping. Maybe he didn’t expect us to get off the old logging road and walk straight toward him. I’ve noticed the ones that live back in the coves were always more aggitated on those rare occasions when we came down from the top of the hill instead of up from the bottom. There’s also the possibility he guessed where we were going based on where my friend had gone some weeks before and was lying in wait to follow us, though it doesn’t seem as likely. I don’t think he was using the cave. There wasn’t any sign of it. So, that’s the story of what I believe was my first Bigfoot encounter. We startled something. It stealthily stalked us; threw two rocks at my friend’s head; followed us into a cave, bellowing angrily; seems to have tried to squeeze itself into a small passage after us; threw rocks down the passage; and finally left. There was no threat display, no warning. He wasn’t trying to chase us off, though he might have thrown the rocks to keep us in the cave.

  13. Shirley S

    It might not have fit. The passage was two feet wide or so at its widest, and the ceiling varied from 3 feet to 2 feet. It would also mean it would leave the daylight from the entrance behind. It sure sounded like it was trying to get in there, though!

  14. Stacey H

    I lived right at the Bankhead National Forest edge for 20 years. There are quite a few well documented sightings from all around it. I lived on the outskirts of Athens, Alabama, just north of the Tennessee river, and several creeks were within walking distance of my house. I had neighbors who had sightings. One family had a small farm, and had issues with livestock harassment and theft.
    That area remains very active because of the National Forest, the land set aside for Redstone Arsenal and all of the river bottoms both east to west. I still listen up for reports from Mentone to Muscle Shoals, and all the way up into Tennessee. I think that the boogers population has actually increased there. The sightings seem widespread and more abundant to me.

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