Nov 17

Encounter In Daniel Boone National Forest

A listener writes “On Friday, October 1st, 2021, Charles and I traveled to the Daniel Boone National Forest in London, Kentucky for night-time wildlife viewing off the Rockcastle Narrows East (#401) trail. The Rockcastle Narrows is a section of the Rockcastle River before it flows into Lake Cumberland, it is a whitewater kayaker’s playground offering 7 quality rapids comprised of class 3 and 4 ratings.

The #401 trailhead is off Forestry Road 119, the trail begins on an old gravel road and continues West for some four tenths of a mile before making a left into the forest and on a narrow dirt trail ending at the Rockcastle Narrows. Rather than making the left onto the dirt trail, we continued straight on the gravel road for some 80 yards into an open field on the ridgeline. The open field has tall grass which serves as a perfect blind in camouflaging oneself from deer, black bear, and other wildlife.

We arrived shortly before dark and set up a Pulsar Helion 2 Thermal Monocular on a tripod. It got dark around 7:20 PM EST and we took turns manning the thermal monocular scanning 360 degrees looking for wildlife. I saw a few squirrels in the trees and that was about it.

And then it happened!

I was on the thermal and it was around 9:20 PM; I seen a very large bipedal figure crossing the old gravel road from the North and traveling South. The creature’s right foot was in the middle of the road when I first seen it and I said very loudly, “Charles – I’ve got one!”

As the creature’s left foot landed on the southern edge of the road, it turned its upper body and looked in our direction. I’m guessing it heard my abnormally loud utterance to Charles. It stopped behind a large oak tree which was some 120 ft away from us for a few seconds. It then ran toward us and stopped behind a set of trees about 90 foot away and on the edge of the road bed. The thermal monocular showed heat being emitted from all parts of the creature’s body, from head to toe.

The creature’s thighs were massive in size – in the realm of tree trunks. I could see hair from the top of its head down to its feet. And its chest and shoulders were enormous – guessing its shoulders were between 3.5 ft to 4.0 ft wide. Its chest muscles were large and well defined, they would make the world’s biggest body builders envious. The thermal image of the creature stood out like a sore thumb in the cool forest surroundings and provided a lot of detail. I stepped away from the thermal after the creature stopped 90 ft from us and Charles started viewing the creature while it stood behind the two forked trees looking in our direction.

I then noticed my body had just gotten a massive shot of adrenaline – definitely the biggest adrenaline rush of my life. Time slowed down and a one second felt like a minute. I have made two tethered parachute jumps, hundreds of SCUBA dives in the coastal rivers of South Carolina with little to no visibility underwater while in the proximity of large alligators. And all of the adrenaline combined from the parachuting and SCUBA diving did not come close to the amount of adrenaline that was being released in my body after seeing this creature. I was in complete and total shock in what I seen crossing the road but was in fear of how fast it closed the 30 feet in running toward us, it took less than one second. I was so fearful for our safety that I pulled my firearm and chambered a round as a precaution. I believed that I could no more than two or three rounds off if the creature were to charge and attack us.

Charles then said, “Look at how big its hands are” while looking through the thermal monocular. The creature had wrapped both its hands around the front of the trees while looking in our direction. Charles also noted the creature’s head was bigger than a watermelon. Some 10 seconds later, Charles said, “It just took off to the right and it is fuc**ing fast.” I then jumped on the thermal and started scanning to the right looking for the creature, a few minutes later I notice a large broken heat signature moving behind a group of pine and cedar saplings that was about 200 feet away from our position and in the forest.

I watched the broken heat signature moving behind the pine and cedar thicket for a couple of minutes and then I see the branches open up and the face of the creature is looking straight at us. I was able to see its large eyes and noticed it had no hair around its cheeks and no hair above its upper lip (Both were an orange/yellow color in the thermal – indicating faster heat loss when compared to the hairy areas which were red and retaining heat). The creature looked at us for 10 seconds and then the tree branches closed. A few seconds later, I could no longer see any heat signature behind the pine and cedar thicket. We had lost sight of the creature.

We stayed in the field for 20 minutes after losing the creature and decided to go back to the truck. While traveling back on the gravel road, we both used our headlamps and flashlights to scan into the forest looking for the creature. We would stop about every 100 yards and black out for a few minutes and use the thermal to look for the creature. We did not see the creature or any other wildlife while traveling back to the truck.

A few minutes after arriving back to the truck, we hear a very loud and long duration howl in the direction we just came from. This howl was very similar to the 1994 Ohio Howler YouTube video but the duration was a little shorter. About 15 or 20 seconds after hearing this howl, two whoops come from the opposite direction (Definitely a different creature on the other side of us). And we hear faint whoops coming from a third direction. Then we heard a deep grunting sound in the direction the previous howl came from. I believe there were three different creatures vocalizing while we were taking our hiking gear off at the truck.

There is only one way in and out of this part of the Daniel Boone National Forrest and we were going to be driving past the location of the first set of whoops we heard after arriving back at the truck. We got about a quarter of mile down the gravel road and hear a very loud bang. Something had hit the left side of the truck behind the passenger’s door about 1 foot and in the top radius of the truck bed. I was driving and floored it after hearing the bang. We stopped about four miles down the road, got out of the truck, and noticed a fresh dent which took the paint and primer off the impact area. We believe the second creature had thrown a rock at us as we were leaving.

We returned to this location the following weekend looking for foot prints in the sighting area but had no luck. We did measure the height where the creature was standing and looking at us 90 foot away and the creature was 7 foot 5 inches tall.

Prior to 10/1/2021 encounter, we had found several footprints on and off hiking trails and creek beds in this part of the Daniel Boone National Forest. The first footprint we found was a big footprint on the Rockcastle River about one year prior to our encounter. We both started looking for footprints every time we were out after finding this first one. We’ve also found juvenile footprints too, and on many occasions, the juvenile prints are inside a big footprint. In addition to footprints, we’ve also found many tree structures which I refer to as “TreePees.” The tree structures are very similar to native American teepee frames with the exception of some treepees having live saplings woven into dead logs.”

5 Responses to “Encounter In Daniel Boone National Forest”

  1. Daren c

    Absolutely love this podcast and Website. So grateful to our Fellow Americans that time the time to share their reap life events with us . Truly amazing this obviously is occurring regularly across our Country. I feel bad sometimes for the very much entertaining part , as I’m sure many of these encounters weren’t entertaining for the individuals living through them.

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