A listener writes “Hi Wes, I have been listening to your podcast for a few years now and find it very interesting, honest, and even scary at times. I have thought about sharing a few experiences with you for years, but I have always put it off. Lately, though, I noticed some of my experiences happened in the same tri-state area as several of your recent episodes — the Tri-state area of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri
For most of these experiences, I have either told no one about them or started telling someone, only to be criticized or laughed at, so I backed off. Like many people, I worried about ridicule and about people thinking I was crazy.
First, I want to take you back to the mid-to-late 80s. I remember being in the 5th grade (my memory aligns with the house we lived in on Sycamore Street). We lived in a small town in Cherokee County, Kansas, near the borders of Missouri and Oklahoma. My mother’s side of the family has Cherokee heritage, and she often talked about it. One day, my brother and I were playing on the edge of town near an old abandoned railroad bridge (no bridge anymore, just a 30 + foot cliff on each side). There was a shallow stream below, with woods grown up thick along the banks, and we spent a lot of time there, climbing around, skating on ice in the winter, looking for rocks, and just being kids. Back then in the 80s, nobody watched kids as closely. haha
One day I will never forget, my brother and I were playing near the old railroad bridge area and he decided to go home, but I wasn’t done playing in the water with rocks. I stayed behind, squatting near the stream, digging through wet rocks and gravel with my hands. About 30 minutes later, I heard my mother yelling for me at the top of the cliff. I looked up and saw her standing at the top of where the old bridge used to be. I still remember how wrong the whole scene felt. She was gripping a large knife at her side and yelling hard enough that her voice echoed down toward me.
She screamed for me to come home NOW and told me to never stay there again without my brother because the “hairy man” would get me. That phrase has stayed with me my whole life!!!
I remember climbing up toward her, feeling confused and uneasy. I had never seen my mother look that frightened before. Her eyes kept scanning around the trees and brush while she rushed me home. To this day, I still wonder what she meant by “hairy man,” but oddly enough, I do not remember ever asking her about it. Now, fast-forward a few years. We had moved to another house in the same small town, about a mile east, near an active railroad track. I would have been in junior high at this point. The house’s layout and lighting allowed me to see well the night of my encounter. My bedroom was off the dining room, but my brother’s room was an addition built onto mine, so you had to walk through my room to get to his.
One evening after dark, I was standing in my brother’s room talking to him. His bedroom light was on, but my room was completely dark. You know how when a light is on inside, the windows in that room turn almost mirror-like, but in my room, I could see outside clearly.
I had three windows across the north wall of my bedroom. As I stepped out of my brother’s doorway and looked toward those windows, my eyes locked onto the far west window, which was the farthest away from me, about 15 feet. There was a face there. Large, dark, and pressed close enough to the window that I could make out some details. “Its” face filled the whole window. What hit me first were the large nostrils. My attention went straight to the nose’s size and shape. My whole body locked up. I just stood there staring for several seconds, too scared to move. Then I quietly walked through my room (furthest from the window) into the dining room and sat there alone, trying to calm down and figure out what I just saw. I kept my eyes on the window as I moved through the room, it didn’t move. I felt like my brain did a flip flop. I felt very blank and could not wrap my head around the face.
The next day at school, I made the mistake of telling a couple of friends that I had seen a huge face outside my window with large nostrils. They laughed and joked that I saw a “pig man.” After that, I shut up about it and hoped no one remembered I’d said anything. I still do not know why I never told my mom or brother. And I still have not told anyone, except now in this email.
Around that same time, I also started hearing banging on the outside of the house, seemed like the same wall of my bedroom. Usually, just after I crawled into bed and the house was quiet. Just one or two hard sudden thuds against the siding, every once in a while. Loud enough to make me tear up and hide under the covers. I would pull the blankets over my head and lie there frozen, listening, hoping it would stop, and trying to fall asleep as fast as possible. Sometimes I heard what sounded like people talking quietly outside, but I always just passed it off like someone was playing a radio. This went on and off for at least a year. I begged my mom to get curtains for my windows, and she finally did, but I was still scared to get close to the windows when it was dark outside.”