A listener writes “Wes, I am writing this after listening to several episodes of your podcast, the first I’ve ever listened to. I will try to make this make sense, but I’m just piecing this all together myself. A lot of what I’m going to say revolves around my son, who won’t discuss any of this anymore. Anyway, here we go!
My ex father in law has a small hay farm in Tillamook County. In the early 2000’s, I used to head over from the valley on my days off to help with hay. One particular sunny day, we hit a lull, waiting for the wind rows to dry so we could continue bailing. I took this opportunity to jump on the quad, and go up the old logging trail, that led up behind the old homestead on the property, as it’s surrounded buy timber on three sides and a river bordering the front of the property. It was mid July, quite warm, and around mid day. I thought maybe I’d run into elk(there’s a resident herd), deer or perhaps a bear(I’ve seen them near there). As I got to the top of the trail, I veered west and further down the trail into some thicker brush and trees, with plenty of sunlight still filtering through.
I crossed over an old culvert that a creek went through, that fed a small waterfall down below and behind the old house. Not long after crossing over the culvert, a feeling of dread came over me, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I can best describe it as my presence being wholly unwelcome. I stopped at a wide spot on the trail, with the intent of immediately turning around. Well, it was a large quad, and a not so wide spot as it turned out, and took some jockeying to get it spun around and headed back and away from this place. As I headed back the way I’d come, I had an overwhelming feeling that something was going to run up on me, pluck me right off that machine, and drag me away. I kept looking behind me thinking there would be something there, but never saw anything.
I pretty much sped back down into the open, 20 acre hayfields, and stopped right in the middle. I had spent some time in the woods dinking around, and fishing the rivers(a lot)but never experienced what I can only describe as a darkness being directed at me. For the duration of my time spent there over the next 9 years or so, I never ventured back up to that spot.
So fast forward to around 2012 and the Finding Bigfoot craze. My three kids all loved to watch it, and all three had spent time at the hay ranch in the woods where I had my “feeling” years before. My son spent the most time there, as he started riding on the tractor with his grandfather when he was very young. His grandfather mounted a folding stadium seat with a seatbelt to the left fender of the tractor, where my son would sit for hours riding with his grandfather, taking, baling, mowing, etc. Anyway, one day he tells me he thinks he saw Bigfoot at the ranch with his PaPa one day, a couple of years prior.
On a warm summers day, mid afternoon, while he was riding with his grandfather, and working the west field(a dirt road that runs the length of the property dissects in two halves) his grandfather says out loud, “What the fuck is that?”(grandfather is a gruff old guy and Vietnam Vet who operated on the Mekong Delta with the SEAL Teams, and who coincidentally has always maintained Bigfoot isn’t real), looking toward the east side of the field. On the east side there is a small finger that juts out into the field from the fence line against the woods where the grass grows tall and Alder trees established themselves, as the slope is too steep to safely operate machinery and its left to grow naturally. In the finger, my son said there was what looked like a man wearing all black, sitting on his haunches in the grass, watching them, I’m guessing this would be a little over 100 yards in distance. His grandfather keeps a scoped bolt action rifle on the tractor for coyote and elk poachers, but never picked it up to get a better look. My son told told me that he watched it for a while as the went back and forth, but eventually lost interest. He said that his grandfather on the other hand never took his eyes of the visitor. My son told me that eventually the man in black was gone.
I asked him if he and his grandfather ever discussed what they’d seen, he told they had not. The only thing he said his grandfather had said, was right as they were leaving for the evening, at that was, “If you ever tell anyone what we saw, you’re fucking crazy”. Everything about this story, as far as his grandfathers behavior, is spot on and what I’d expect. My son later tried to tell me it was made up, and quit talking about it.
For about the next year or so after he told me the story, and after his mom and I divorced, we would fish the river near the ranch often for steelhead, cutthroat trout and salmon. We normally fished within a mile either direction of it, and on two separate occasions we had some strange goings on. One late, sunny spring day, with little to no breeze in the air, myself and my three kids were around half a mile downstream fishing for whatever would bite, and caught a few small trout. My two younger daughters were making bracelets out of little flowers they’d picked, while me and the boy casted endlessly.
All of the sudden, from up the steep hill above us, we heard a thunderous crack and then boom, obviously a tree and fallen. It was pretty unsettling, and I looked over at my son whose eyes were as big as frisbees and with a panicked look on his face, he said, “Dad, it’s time to go”. I gathered everyone up and we left. A few weeks later while fishing early morning for steelhead, and within sight of the ranch, but slightly upstream of it , we had another incident. We were fishing two separate holes, separated by maybe sixty feet of heavily vegetated bank, when my son started yelling, “Dad! Dad! Dad!”. Thinking he had a fish on, I dropped my rod and rushed over to help, when I got there he was standing staring at the opposite bank where a small feeder creek dropped in. I asked what was going on, and he said that he heard a huge commotion coming straight down the hill, on the opposite side, branches breaking, etc.
All of the sudden a deer jumped out into the river right in front of him, then looked in the direction in which he just came. He then bounded back onto the bank and ran up river. My son said it sounded like a freight train was headed right at him. It was soon after this that let lost all fishing bravado, and for a while would never be out of sight of me at the river. I think he finally compartmentalized these things and put them away. He never mentions any of this anymore and has moved on.
I not longer fish the area, and haven’t for years. My son is an adult now and a farmer by trade, as far as I can tell, he rarely spends any time at the ranch anymore.
Thank You For Your Time”
