Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “Hello Wes, I have been listening to the podcast for several years, and things that I learned from other people’s observations has answered some questions that I had about the situations that happened to me as a teenager.

Now forward to 1984, I was 14, I would go out to my grandparents farm to ride three wheelers or do woodworking. I didn’t hunt that much, but was familiar and joined hunts occasionally. On this particular day, which was in the fall around mid afternoon, I decided to go squirrel hunting on my own with an “over-under” .22 on top with a 20 gauge on the bottom. I went behind the house, crossed the fence, got compelled to step up onto an old downed tree, where the bark had peeled away from the log, so I kicked the bark away and underneath was a bull snake that startled me, and I jumped off the tree.

It wasn’t but mere moments later, I got the clear sense that I was being watched and even knew the direction it was coming from, even though I didn’t see anything. Where I was, was like a plateau and around 10 to 15 feet above a creek, which varies in width and depth averaging 6 foot across and 1 foot deep, that ran just inside the woodline with a steep, nearly 90 degree bank on the house side and a varied 35 to 45 degree incline on the opposite side.

It was from this creek area I got this feeling, knew it was a predator and what came to mind was a timber wolf, although I knew they were rare to nearly non-existent in the area by that time. So, I started heading North, paralleling the fence line and the creek. When I started walking in that direction, I heard movement in the creek water. As I walked, I would tilt my head in that direction to try to listen to the movement and see if I could hear anything else amongst the sloshing of the water. About 60 yards later, there was a ravine, with a slope of about 60 degrees, that went all the way down to the creek and parted the trees to give a clear 6 to 8 foot window view of the creekbed about 50 feet away at that point. When I got to that spot, the animal was just ahead of me enough that I didn’t see the front half of the animal, which was on all fours, completely black in color, even had shine to it’s coat in the sun, with the musculature of a thoroughbred race horse. And I remember the back muscles being like a bodybuilder where they make the spine look deeper into the body because of the bulging.

It confused me, with it being on all fours, my mind immediately came to the conclusion that it must be one of my Grandfather’s Appaloosa horses named “Midnight” because of being sold black in color, but didn’t understand how she would have gotten down there, because the horses had no direct access to the creek and were never seen traipsing into the timberline.

I didn’t smell anything, don’t remember hearing much, maybe breathing, but over time, some details I can no longer confirm because I don’t want suggestion to add or alter what I do remember.

Even though my head was trying to convince me that what I saw was a horse, my gut kept telling me I was being stalked and I was in danger. I then began thinking about what I was going to do, which the one thing that clearly came to mind was to continue my direction for about 10 more paces and then abruptly make an about face and beat feet back to the house, which is exactly what I did.
After getting into the house, I went to the front living room and looked out the window where the horses typically hung out, and there they were, including Midnight. The time frame would make it impossible for the horse to make its way back to that location from where I had seen the animal from the creek.

Now, bigfoot didn’t come to mind until years later after hearing encounters where people stated that they do travel on all fours sometimes, and how your conscious seems to be talking to you like a separate person in your head warning you of danger, which luckily, I listened to.

I never discussed this incident with anyone until last summer 2020 with my wife, which I thought I would get the rolling eyes, but I didn’t. She just listened.

One of the things that confused me up until recently was how on Earth would it have gotten there with all the open space between sections of woods here in Illinois, but after looking at google maps, it stared me in the face. It was the Illinois River.

Your recent podcast Ep:726 talking to the guy North of Springfield,IL. got me to write to you, and I would like to note that the Illinois River winds down right into the area he is located.

There were other times when riding around on the three wheeler, where I would suddenly get a creepy feeling, but see or hear nothing, but my conscious would tell me I’m in danger, so I would make a sharp change in direction, somehow knowing something was anticipating where I was going, to give it the slip and high tail it back to the house. I got that creepy feeling at least once when passing by the wild raspberry patch that was along the dirt road leading from the house out to the fields.

The location looks a little different now that my grandparents passed 20 years ago, with most of the fence lines gone and no one farming the fields. It also looks like the timber has grown up closer to the house since then, and the family doesn’t own the property anymore.

I would like to also note that my grandfather started keeping a loaded 10 gauge at the backdoor and a 30-06 rifle at the front door around this same time, and when I asked him about it, he said they were to knock off coyotes that were running deer, but now that I’m older, I’m not so convinced about that explanation.”