Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “Hey, Wes. I’m a long time listener and newer member as of a couple years ago. I’ve been on the fence about sharing my encounter, only because I’m not entirely sure if it was a bigfoot or not. I never actually saw a creature, or anything for that matter, but it was a terrifying experience nevertheless. I originally found your show in the aftermath of my experience when I was looking up strange animal sounds on youtube and came across one of your podcasts. I’ve been hooked ever since.

My experience happened on a backpacking trip with my buddy in late April/ early May (so about this time) in 2016 in the Mark Twain National Forest at a place called Berryman campground. We weren’t in the campground itself, we were hiking through the loop trail that is about 30 miles long.

We had been to this exact trail before and even stayed at our same campsites that we had set up in the past. We usually would complete the trail in 3 days. This time, I wasn’t able to get enough time off of work and was only able to stay one night. The campsite we were at is twelve miles in, if you take the trail counter clockwise. We had hiked in that day, and just enjoyed being in the woods without any strange occurrences throughout the afternoon/ night.

I woke up early the next morning, planning to hit the trail early and get back to my car. I had packed up and started hiking out around 4:30AM. I got close to the halfway point, around 5-6 miles and decided to stop for breakfast. It was about 7AM at this point, and I had planned on cooking one of those dehydrated meals, but decided to just eat some granola bars and make coffee or tea instead just to save time.

After I had finished my breakfast, I picked out a tree to relieve myself at, and my encounter started. As I was doing my business, I got the sudden and intense feeling that I was in trouble or danger, as if someone had just flipped a switch in my psyche. My heart rate and breathing increased dramatically and I began scanning the area around me. At this point I hadn’t yet heard, seen, or smelled anything. Nothing at all gave me any indication that I should be scared, but I was absolutely terrified.

I quickly zipped up my pants, grabbed my backpack and got back on the trail. The overall feeling of dread continued for maybe a mile at most. During that period, off to my right, deeper into the center of the woods, it seemed like I would hear periodic whispering. It was quiet enough that I wasn’t sure if I had actually heard it. I stopped two or three times trying to listen, but with the feeling still lingering and intensifying when I would stop, I just kept hiking. Not only did I feel scared, but I was somewhat disoriented, and felt almost drunk. I don’t know if it was from adrenaline or something else was affecting me.

After that mile or so, the trail comes to a portion where it has a couple S shaped curves. If you were to lay your hand flat out on a desk and trace around your pointer, middle, and ring finger, It’s kind of like that. The “fingers” were hills tall enough that you can’t see to the next turn at any time, probably 15-20ft. The spaces in between your fingers were deeper gullys, about the same height. I hadn’t heard any of the strange whispers for probably a 1/3 of a mile or so, and I even started feeling a little better and the sense of dread was starting to diminish.

As I came up around what in essence was the middle finger, based on my description, was the first time I without a doubt heard something. It was plain as day. This something sounded like it was around the next turn or “ring finger” section. It’s hard to explain and I can crudely imitate the sound, but it doesn’t do it justice. But what I heard was absolutely spoken words. It sounded like it said “Ashawa” is how I’d spell it, but if it was sounded out would maybe be more like UH-shaw-Wuh. The voice was unbelievably deep and sounded like nothing I’ve heard before or since. After that it made some more monkey-like whoops.It sounded like it said “HEY-WUH” There was a short delay and there was what I considered a response to it. It sounded like a different entity all together just because of the vastly different sound of the voice. The best thing I’ve been able to compare it to is if a chimpanzee tried to imitate the old school dial up tone.

Once I heard all this, I stopped dead in my tracks. Since this sounded like actual speech, vowels and consonants (although nothing about it was recognizable) my brain convinced me that these were just people up ahead. This was during some portion of turkey hunting season, so again my brain tried to make me believe these were hunters or something. It doesn’t make sense in hindsight, but it was the only thing I could think of. Hunting there is obviously illegal, but there’s a lot of folks around there that poach and so on.

I shouted out “Hey, are you guys up there.” To which I heard a startled grunt or huff, I’m not really certain. I was about to say “I don’t have my hunter orange” (although it’s only mandatory in the rifle portion of deer season in my state) Anyways, I didn’t get out any more than the word “I” When this thing let out the most ungodly scream I’ve ever heard. I’d equate it to a roaring, hollering, belch. I know that’s probably a weird description, but I add belch in there because there was this unbelievable release of air from its lungs. The main, what I’m assuming was a bigger male animal, screamed for probably ten seconds straight. About halfway through that, the other one joined in. The second one was more of a high pitched woman-like scream. I didn’t really feel the scream in my chest like some people say, but I attribute that to these things, whatever they were, being behind the hill in front of me.

I was still just frozen with fear, and then I heard these animals start running. They only took two to four steps and I was pretty convinced they were running in my direction. I didn’t know what else to do,so I threw my backpack to the ground and climbed this big tree to my left right off the trail. I climbed as high as I could, to the point I thought the branches might break under my weight.

I felt like I was in the tree for hours. It was probably only 5-10 mins at most. I was still scared, but the feeling of dread was totally gone, but there was a lingering disorientation. It was soon after I started hearing birds again. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t heard any wildlife once I had stopped for breakfast, despite hearing birds and squirrels digging through the leaves before that.

I figured if the wildlife came back, whatever was there must be long gone, so I climbed down, grabbed my pack and literally ran the entire way back to my car. I’ve never ran such a continuous distance in my entire life. Where we park theres a small turn off spot from the two lane highway with a connector trail that’s part of the Ozark Trail I believe. Anyways, I got back to that portion and was still running. I either slipped or tripped on something and pretty much face planted into the ground. There’s a small little creek that flows along this portion of the connector. I crawled over to try and wash my arms and face off and ended up puking. Could’ve been just from running like crazy or again an effect of that strange feeling I felt.

I just sat by the creek for a while and gained my breath back. After that I just walked back to my car and left. I was in a bit of a stupor for probably the next 24hours. I didn’t really talk or eat, I was just so engrossed by my experience. It was only once my buddy texted me saying he made it back to his car that I kind of snapped out of it. I felt terrible because I had totally forgotten about him in there and didn’t try to warn him or anything.

I don’t know what I really would’ve said, but I still felt like an ass. I’ve since told him about my experience and we’ve talked about other things he’s experienced in the woods (not during that excursion, but other times.) He never experienced anything strange during his days/ night there by himself, thankfully.

IN conclusion again, I’m not sure what it was since I never saw anything, but after listening to as many bigfoot podcasts and encounters as I could find, I think I had a run in with old Momo- the Missouri monster!

Thanks for all that you do. I love your podcast and it’s given me untold days of entertainment these last 7 years. If you have any questions or insight, I’d love to hear about them. As I said I had been on the fence about sharing just because of the inconclusive nature of it all, but I’d love to hear any insight you may have from all the other people you have spoken to.”