Apr 5

It Just Stood There

I have been a Police Officer since 2003, I also Volunteer on my local Fire Dept and Ambulance and have been doing so for a few depts since 2004, until recently I haven’t told anyone much of what I have witnessed.

First incident happened at Many Point Scout Camp, if you’re not familiar. Many Point is 2 hours East of Fargo ND or about an hour North of Detroit Lakes MN.

I grew up in central MN and I spent a lot of time outdoors hunting, fishing and generalized wondering the woods. When I joined the Scouts We spent a lot of time camping, summer, winter we went camping alot. After joining the Boy Scouts I started going to Many Point Scout Camp for a week every summer.

Our leaders would tell us to make sure we had no food in our tents as there were the occasional black bear that could wander into our camp along with the normal skunks and raccoons. They had a skunk stuffed animal on a stick that they would come around about 20 mins after we turned in and would stick it into the tent and scare us. We were told that if we see a bear, we may not even know what it is, because where we live there are no bears and it may just appear as a black hole in the trees.

At the camp, you were given 1 army tent and 1 army cot, 2 scouts per tent. I was sleeping and awoke for some reason, then the tent shook because something had hit the tent guidewire. I then heard a sniffing my head was 6 inches away from the door and I just froze. Soon the door flap was moving and something poked through, now it was dark and I could see nothing. I first thought it was a scout leader trying to scare us again, but it was too late and the next morning when we woke up we found a bear had found someone pop and candy stash.

Later that day I was walking to some activity with a friend, when we saw a black bear about 30 feet away, we backed away and everything was good. Towards the end of the week we sat around a campfire and one of the leaders was telling ghost stories and was talking about a wild man and towards the end of his story another leader jumped out of the trees with a gorilla mask on and scared the crap out of us. So that leads to the end of the week, This takes place around 1993, there was an order of the arrow ceremony that was taking place. At the camp they have an outside amphitheater type place where you sit on a hill and all the scouts are in attendance, it is done at night and it was kinda a thing. I remember I was kinda ticked because I wasn’t chosen this year to get this award.

So we are in our camp about ½ hr before the ceremony and the Scoutmaster had all the scouts start walking to the location this was held, being butthurt, I stayed back. After about 5-10 mins I realized I was alone in camp by myself and figured I’d hustle down because that bear may come back. I was walking on this trail, the trail to get to this location is well used and goes right past the parking lot, then over a road to the location. You are a little higher than the parking lot and it goes down. I got to the part of the trail that is by the parking lot, I noticed one of the buses moving side to side, slowly being rocked.

I kept walking as I was about 50 ft away from it, and when I got even to the bus I looked, I saw something through the bus windows. Whatever it was blocked up 1 full window and ½ a window on either side and then the bus stopped moving. I slowly continued walking towards the road. When I got to the road, I took a few steps to try and see if whatever it was, was a bear or what. When I got far enough over, I saw something that was standing still, almost as tall as the bus. It just stood there, I didn’t see a face just a silhouette as this was a poorly lit parking lot. I had a feeling like I should be here, so I turned and ran to the trailhead and down to my scout troop. I just thought it was a really big bear as I was told your brain won’t be able to identify a bear. I sat for the ceremony and when it was all said and done we left, When walking back I looked again and I didnt see anything strange. That was the only time anything happened at Many Point Scout camp that I really couldn’t point and say 100% it was a bear or other animal. Recently I checked and the top of the window is about 8ft up and the windows are about 2 ft wide.

In 2004 purchased a place in West Central MN, it was almost my dream place. A 16 acre farm site, with a barn, 2 grain bins, machine shed ect. The Farm had an old Barn that was set up for Cows. The main floor was your typical barn with stalls and a milk room, you had to climb a ladder and it was a hay loft. Looking at the barn when you came up the driveway you are looking at the front, the main door to the barn, hay loft doors above. The A side is the front side you’re facing, B is to your left, C is to your right and D is the rear. The B side had the open entrance for the livestock with another smaller opening to the loft maybe 5X5. The interior barn had a skinny built in ladder to the hayloft and a hole in the floor to shovel Hay to the Pens. After moving into the farm I was excited, This had 9 Acres tillable and about 2 acres of trees.

After moving in, I had done work around the area, the barn had not been used in a few years for its intended purpose however when I initially looked at the property I noted that there was alot of hay left up in that barn, alot was loose but there were still square bales up there. I found out that the last owners kids would use the hay loft as a hang out and there was a rope tied to a beam that was used as a swing and young me thought that would be fun to do.

I had decided after a few months to throw a party, in preparation for this party I decided to go check out the hay loft and see if there was anything I could set up for my guests. I recall climbing the ladder and seeing that there was racoon crap on the bottom, I had gone and got my gun to take care of any issues that popped up.

I climbed the ladder with my pistol, had hit the lights for the loft,and when I got towards the top my head hadn’t quite cleared the hay to see into the loft and I heard a low guttural growl. I thought to myself, “Thats a big pissed off Coon”, As I started to climb up this small entrance to the loft I heard the growl again and said “Im gonna get ya coon”, at this point I felt this odd feeling of “I should leave” but this is my property and Im gonna go clear this loft. I continue up this entrance and I hear the growl again and a square bale flew over my head and hit the wall, falling down covering the hole. I said some choice words and quickly left.

I went back into the house and my wife at the time asked how the hay loft was coming. At the time I thought whatever this was, was spiritual. I said to her “I dont know whats up there but I think its some pissed off ghost or demon”. My ex looked at me with this look on her face like she didn’t believe me. A few weeks later my ex told me she was talking to the woman who use to live there. She said that her son would go play up there with his friends and a few times he heard a growl that stopped him from going up there. I never had any other issues but looking back and hearing others stories I figured I would include this.

Fast Forward to 2016, I am working in south eastern mn. I was renting a farm place with the hopes to purchase it. South Eastern MN is called the “Driftless Area” Basically during the last Ice age parts of MN, IA,IL and most of WI were not covered by Glaciers. The Mississippi river flows through this part. When I first moved down there, it was very beautiful with the bluffs. Coming from central MN, it was almost a different country, there were no straight roads. To go 5 miles could take 20 mins, but it was very beautiful.

This house was situated in the base of these bluffs. The county road was about 200 ft away from the house, 50ft to the left of the house was trees, behind the house was pasture land that was well overgrown about 4 acres of pasture, about 300 ft behind and to the left of the house was a barn that the far side had collapsed and it was wide open. There was another house ¼ mile away and a hog farm behind it about ¼ mile or so. It was beautiful and I initially wanted to purchase the place, more so for the location as the house wasn’t much to be envied. When initially looking at this place, the woman who owned the house was sure to talk about the beams her husband had installed in the living room on the ceiling and how the house had been added to since 1868 and they haven’t had any issues but the house seems to make noise during different times of the years. I would come home from my shift around 2-3am and I would let my dogs out, they would just go within 10 ft of the house, do their business and come back in.

Most of the summer things were good without issue. I would sit out on the front porch and look at the stars and listen to the wildlife. One day I noticed there was a dead buck in the pasture off the driveway, this was a 10 pt buck a decent size about 75 ft from the county road and 20ft from my driveway. To get to this buck from the county road, you have to walk down a steep ditch about 15 ft, then cross a barbed wire fence, then walk up another steep 6ft incline, or you drive on my driveway, walk down a 8ft incline to the fence and up another 4 ft incline. This was all on the property I rented. So I noticed this buck monday when I went to work around 4pm, I saw it there at 2am when I came home, I woke up the next day around 9am, I was going to go check out this buck and call the county to come take it, when I got out there the deer was gone. There was no sign of it, no drag marks, the fence was still in good shape, I called the county to see if they had picked up the deer and they said they did not pick it up. I thought that was odd and chalked it up to some poachers took it for the antlers.

I did start to notice at night on occasion there would be loud bangs on the house, Some nights it would happen a half dozen times and some nights not at all. This would only happen late summer into fall, and chalked that up to the house like the lady said being cobbled together and the temp differences causing these loud pops and bangs.

One night I was sitting outside and heard coyotes within a half mile of my house, about 30 mins later I heard a ruckus behind the house and this doe comes running right past me in a dead sprint and continues over the county road and to the trees on the other side of the field. I figured the Coyotes were chasing her however no Coyotes followed her.

One night around 130, I was letting my dogs out before bed. Again earlier in the evening I had heard Coyotes yipping. I turned on the back porch light which lights up a bit of the back, there was also a yard light about 50 yards away but that wasnt that good when letting out the dogs. I heard this weird noise coming from the rear of the pasture, It was like a low rumble. I happen to grab my rifle that happened to be a few feet from me in the kitchen and went back outside. I then hear what sounded like a bull dozer coming down the bluff with trees popping and breaking, I got this feeling of “oh Crap” i looked and saw my dogs had went in the house. This pasture had not been maintained for 2 years or so, so the grass/weeds was 4-6ft tall. I hear the grass moving as something is running full tilt at me. I am 75ft from the fence separating the pasture from my yard, I have my rifle and a flashlight at the ready. I see this deer clear the grass off to my right and jump the fence, this doe was running full tilt at me, her mouth was open I could hear her breathing, she was foaming and going hard. She was running right to me and passed me about 5 ft away. I thought WTF crazy friggen deer, then I heard the grass moving in the pasture. I shined my flashlight and about 150ft I saw this brown hump cruising through the grass, I wasnt sure what this was, but it was moving faster than anything I know of through tall grass, with downed fencing and rough ground, didnt know what it was and it eventually made it out of my flashlight reach. Thats when I heard another low rumble off to the top of the bluff in the trees, I decided it was time to get back in the house.

We would continue to hear Coyotes and the occasional deer sprinting across the yard, that fall, seeing all the deer I thought to try to hunt this area. This would have been a few weeks after the bulldozer incident, My daughter and I thought because of all the deer we would just go hunt the property. So we started walking to the old barn but I got this strange feeling of not being welcome, so I went over to a tree stand on the other side. My daughter and I did not see 1 deer the entire season. This place that had deer running all over, some mornings there would be deer in the yard and we didn’t see 1. I only stayed at this place for 1.5 years as the woman sold it out of the blue to someone one dec.

My son was about 4 at the time and we would watch finding bigfoot, he would do his howls out the door during the day and I never once put 2 and 2 together, I saw a deal about some “researchers” doing their thing in a park in IA which wasn’t too far from where I was and thought that’s neat, but never did I think about it being what I saw.

What made me think of sasquatch wasn’t some time later. After listening to many of your interviews I just started putting things together.

2 Responses to “It Just Stood There”

  1. Ric M

    Is he going to be a guest on the show? I liked the story he told! I want to say thank you for job as a cop. I know you have a tough and often thankless job! I support the boys in blue! God bless you Sir, and God bless all my fellow SC podcast fans! … Oh yeah, you too Wes!

    • m99

      That’s the best bean dip I’ve ever had! ???? What a nice commentary. Very well said. God Bless you too. And yes, we support the LEO’s, and in particular the Sherriff’s Dept.’s.

Leave a Reply