sasquatch chronicles blog

A listener writes “My boyfriend introduced me to your podcasts more recently. I maybe had a sighting, but it was so fast I cant swear to it. 

Three of us were on vacation in Newfoundland about 15 years ago. My one girlfriend was driving that night, I was in the passenger seat, my son was in the back. We drove up to see the massive iceberg that became national news off the west coast. 

Driving back south late that night, north of Gros Morne Park, something ran across the road in front of us. I wasn’t driving, so I think I got a better look. I told my friend to stop, I wanted a better look. Whatever it was, it was gone. In fairness, I had a crappy flashlight. Have you ever gotten any other reports from that province? 

I’d have sworn I saw a gorilla, with longer hair. It was definitely on two legs, but not giant. It was maybe my height, I am 5’4″. 

While still up there, next chance we got to an internet connection, I looked at every source but I could find anything. Considering when this was, the internet was not quite so robust. More recently I have seen mentions of sasquatch, but more so legends rather than sightings. 

A little background on me, I just retired after 25 years as a federal police officer out of DC. I was with a department you will likely have never heard of. If you Google us, we are not the typical federal agency as we are actually police officers, policing. Before that, I spent 4 years in the Army. No shocker, as an MP. 

I grew up having spent most of my life in the woods; camping, hiking and such. I have traveled extensively across all of the US and Alaska, camping everywhere along the way. Internationally, I’ve traveled the same way. We are now currently in south western PA renovating my family’s farmhouse. I’ve never had my feet planted in one spot for this long. 

I became interested in your podcasts after a few odd thing having happened here. Its a remote location surrounded by farms and forested mountains. While we sat by the fire one night, we heard a fantastic set of screams from across the valley moving unbelievably fast. They sounded like the Ohio Howl, which I’m only now familiar with as of two months ago following what we heard. My boyfriend played that for me and wow it sounded the same. Obviously that is unrelated to my Newfoundland trip. With the screams, plus some odd tree things on the back of the property, I’m keeping my eyes open and trying to not rationalize everything.”

Rocky Mountain Sasquatch writes “Bigfoot Like Creatures traversing cliff faces and steep icy mountain sides at incredible speed.
Experience some of the most jaw-dropping alleged Sasquatch footage ever captured.

In this video, we break down multiple clips showing a mysterious upright figure moving with unreal speed across cliff faces, ridge lines, and steep snow-covered mountain slopes. From paraglider-shot footage to a helicopter flyover searching for tracks, we explore whether these sightings could be authentic Bigfoot encounters or something else entirely.

If you’re fascinated by Bigfoot evidence, ridge walkers, mountain sightings, and Sasquatch trackways, this is a must-watch.
Share your thoughts in the comments—what do you think was caught on camera?”

Bigfoot & Beyond writes “Cliff Barackman and Matt Pruitt discuss another gem from the Meldrum Archives regarding the 1967 Blue Creek Mountain tracks! The conversation delves into Ray Wallace’s shenanigans, John Green’s $100,000 challenge, Bob Timus’ early track finds, and more!”

UAMN TV writes “Earth Is Shared with Alien Civilizations … The late Robert Dean, a former NATO Allied Command Operations intelligence officer, reveals The Assessment—a cosmic-top-secret document concluding that Earth has been monitored for centuries by advanced non-human civilizations. Dean exposes near–WWIII incidents, hybrid-human origins, and why governments buried the truth.”

A listener writes “In April of 2021 what I believed existed became sight. I’m Native American and grew up on a reservation out in Florida. I still live there I’m just currently out in California for school, but that’s besides the point.

One Saturday evening while I was riding my atv in the woods, I suddenly got scared, like a sense of dread just came over me for no reason, my hair stood up on the back of my neck and the it seemed like my subconscious was telling me to turn around and go home. I was scared, but I knew where I was because I had driven these trails before and kept riding. Not a minute later, I came out to a clearing, and there standing maybe 15 yards from was a Skunk ape.

At first I thought it was a bear standing up but it was way too big so I thought it was a dead tree but then I realized that it had a face and was looking directly at me. This thing was huge, if I had to guess it was at least 8 feet tall and had massive shoulders. The whole sighting lasted probably 5 seconds but I couldn’t get out there fast enough. The entire ride home I thought it was chasing me and gonna kill me, even when I was back on paved road and going passed neighborhoods.”

A listener writes “I grew up in northwestern Illinois, out in the rural stretches, and had one of the strangest experiences of my life while deer hunting with my dad sometime around 2004–2005. It happened less than an hour from where I was raised. Back then my dad was a hardcore deer hunter, and we were always in the stand by 4:00 AM, no exceptions.

On this particular morning, sometime between twilight and sunrise, a rolling fog drifted through the timber. Nothing unusual about that except this fog was blinking. On… off… on… off. Not bright, not dramatic, but unmistakably pulsing. It lasted maybe five minutes. The fog would light up in this dull, muted way, then go dark again. The woods themselves weren’t lighting up just the fog.

We were miles from anything. The only visible light was a farmhouse about three-quarters of a mile away, and that light wasn’t blinking. There was no machinery, no traffic, nothing that could have caused it. And I’ve never seen fog behave like that before or since.

At first I didn’t mention it to my dad. Later that day, around noon when we met up for a lunch break, I finally decided to bring it up. I said, “Hey Dad, did you happen to see…” and he cut me off immediately, “Did you see the fog too?!”

My jaw practically hit the ground. We had both witnessed the exact same thing. We weren’t scared at the time, but looking back, it definitely carries an eerie, unsettled feeling. We’ve talked about it many times in the years since, and neither of us is any closer to an explanation now than we were back then.

I figured I’d share this in case you’ve ever heard of anything similar this strange “blinking fog.” I’d be curious if anyone else has reported something like it or if you have any insights at all.”

I have heard and read about this before, fog that appears to pulse with light is something a number of witnesses have described. In many cases, there are natural explanations:

1. Distant lights shining through shifting fog layers
2. Heat lightning diffused by heavy moisture
3. Aircraft beacons flashing behind low clouds
4. Subtle changes in fog density that create a rhythmic brightening effect

When fog moves in rolling, turbulent waves, it can catch and release light in a way that almost seems intentional or alive.

But there are also accounts that lean into the paranormal. In certain cryptid reports, ghost encounters, and high-strangeness stories, people describe fog or mist that:

1. Flashes for an instant
2. Appears and disappears in steady “beats”
3. Glows from within, as if it has its own internal light source

These types of stories turn up in Appalachian folklore, various UFO sightings, and notably ongoing accounts from Skinwalker Ranch.

On The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, investigators have repeatedly documented brief, pulsing flashes inside low clouds or pockets of fog lights that brighten, fade, or vanish in a pattern, sometimes appearing to blink in sync with the movement of the mist.

The original Sherman-family experiences also include descriptions of strange glowing orbs, lights that “zipped” away and disappeared, and atmospheric anomalies around the property among them, fog that seemed to flare or pulse with light.

History Channel coverage and related articles highlight multiple episodes where the team captures sudden flashes or oddly moving lights often on infrared that appear to brighten or vanish quickly. The show frequently presents these moments as lights interacting with low-lying mist, the mesa’s weather layers, or something not yet understood.

A listener writes “I’ve gone back and forth about writing to you because I’m not sure how relevant my experience really is but after hearing witnesses on your show describe encounters with dogman-type creatures, I can’t help wondering if what we saw might fit into that category.

My boyfriend, Brian, and I live full-time in a truck camper, traveling around the U.S. This happened in mid-July, when we were camped on BLM land past the Delta-09 Missile Silo, just outside Badlands National Park. It was a full-moon night, but we set up camp while there was still daylight. We made a fire, Brian cooked dinner and almost immediately after we arrived, I noticed something odd. A herd of cows in the distance suddenly came running over a hill, almost as if they were spooked.

For the next several hours, as we ate and the sun went down, those cows made nonstop distressed sounds. We couldn’t see them, but we could hear them, and it was eerie. One of my dogs refused to get out of the truck as well, which was extremely unusual for her. Eventually, once the moon rose, the cows went silent. The night was beautiful, so we decided to take a moonlit walk along the dirt road with our other dog. We walked maybe half a mile and then laid down to look at the stars.

We’d been on the ground less than a minute when my dog gave an alert bark. We sat up, and about 60 yards ahead of us, we saw a large black figure. My first thought was that it was a cow until my eyes adjusted and I realized it had canine features. I tried to convince myself it was a coyote, even though it was far too big.

We aimed our flashlights at it, and that’s when everything turned strange. It had no eye shine at all. I’ve lived in the woods most of my life; every animal I’ve ever seen at night reflects light. But this thing’s eyes were just… black holes. The entire body almost seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. No matter how many times we shone our beams on it, no more detail appeared. It just stayed this pitch-black shape, panting loudly far louder than you’d expect from that distance.

I had the unsettling feeling that it was staring directly into my eyes and that it was intelligent, more so than any wild animal I’ve encountered. We yelled at it, but it didn’t flinch or move. A normal coyote would’ve bolted. I told Brian, “I don’t want that thing behind me,” which is not how I react to coyotes at all. We started heading back to camp me walking forward, Brian walking backward to keep an eye on it.

Later, when we talked it through, things got even stranger. There were two of them. I had been so fixated on the one in front of us that I completely missed a second creature off to our right closer, and according to Brian, noticeably larger. Brian isn’t someone who believes in Bigfoot, dogmen, skinwalkers, or anything of that nature, but he said it felt like the one farther away the one I was staring at was in control of the closer one, almost like an owner and a dog. He also said its legs looked blurry or formless when the light hit them, which matched what I felt but didn’t say out loud.

As he kept watch, both creatures followed us for about a quarter mile, staying just far enough back, until they finally slipped into the hills. Almost immediately after they disappeared, the cows started up again with the same panicked cries from earlier.

We’ve gone over this experience so many times, and we always land in the same place: those were not coyotes. They were something neither of us can explain.

So I’m reaching out to ask have you heard other reports of canine-like creatures with jet-black eyes and no eye shine? Does this sound more like something people attribute to a skinwalker, or is a dogman encounter a possibility? I know humans lack eye shine, but these things were absolutely not human. I haven’t been able to find anything online that matches, other than a general trend of strange reports from the Badlands.

I’d really love to hear your thoughts on what we might’ve seen.”

Stacy Brown writes “In the summer of 1977, the Stoeckman family experienced one of Florida’s most chilling Skunk Ape encounters ever recorded. What began as a quiet night at home quickly turned into terror when something massive approached their window… and wouldn’t go away. This case has been whispered about for decades — but tonight, we break down the full story, the eyewitness details, and why the Stoeckmans fled their home in fear. Was this the Florida Skunk Ape? A prowler? Or something far more dangerous hiding in the swamps? In this episode of The Bigfoot Underground, we dive into the history, the evidence, and the mystery surrounding the Stoeckman Encounter. If you enjoy deep-dive case files, Florida Bigfoot sightings, or unexplained encounters… this one is for you.”

Mysteries Unknown writes “Derek from Minnesota reveals a Dogman encounter that didn’t just happen once — it followed him across nearly two decades. When he was 12, Derek stepped outside and heard heavy breathing in the dark. His dog was losing its mind, staring past him toward something standing in the moonlight. What Derek saw when he turned around would haunt him for the rest of his life: a massive Dogman with piercing yellow eyes watching him from the treeline.

Nineteen years later, while hunting in the same Minnesota woods, Derek came face-to-face with the same creature. This time the Dogman stepped into his flashlight beam and screamed at him — a sound that shook him to the core. The creature stared him down before walking back into the woods, just like before.

His father later admitted he had seen the creature the same night Derek saw it as a kid. And when Derek returned to the location and set up trail cameras, something ripped them down. A massive paw print was left at the base of the tree.”

The Confessionals writes “What if the most famous “miracle” in Catholic history wasn’t the Virgin Mary at all, but a UFO event the Vatican never wanted you to question? L.A. Marzulli joins Tony to expose the Fatima apparitions through eyewitness testimonies the Church buried: spinning silver discs, atmospheric distortions, mass paralysis, exploding windshields, and a craft hovering over the apparition site, nothing like the Mary of Scripture.

As they unravel this “miracle” through the lens of modern UAP disclosure, the patterns match today’s sightings with chilling precision, revealing Fatima as a test run for the great deception. From there, the conversation turns to another suppressed mystery: the Shroud of Turin, the artifact skeptics dismissed until physics, forensic imaging, and radiant-energy theories began proving its authenticity. Together, these events form a single prophetic thread, supernatural phenomena the world is finally being primed to reinterpret. With disclosure accelerating, LA warns: if Fatima was the dry run, the real deception is next.”

The Confessionals: Fatima Exposed

Paranormal Portal writes “One of the biggest surprises of my personal paranormal journey is the revelation that the “Bigfoot Phenomena” wasn’t a regional event in the Pacific Northwest, but literally a global phenomenon. There are quite literally hundreds of various names coined by regional populations for experiences with the Bigfoot phenomena.

On this episode, I am joined by Bryce Edwards of Southern Illinois. He has several experiences with what he has coined the “Pond Creek Monster”. Bryce shares the many various encounters he and his family have experienced in Southern Illinois. ”

Paranormal Portal: The Pond Creek Monster

Telus Storyhive writes “Okanagan Sasquatch Stories explores tales of mysterious Sasquatch encounters, sightings, and lore from the Kelowna and local Okanagan region of BC.”

Okanagan Sasquatch Stories

A listener writes “First off, I’m a huge fan of the show. Thank you for everything you’ve done over the years to bring this topic to the public in such a clear, thoughtful way.

On October 4th, 2025, I was in LaGrange County, Indiana for a family reunion. My wife, our two sons, and I live in Ohio, but her family has relatives in the area, so we made the trip out. The reunion was held on a family farm and basically turned into a big group camping trip. Most of us slept in tents in a wide, cleared area near a bath house and a pavilion where everyone gathered to eat, drink, and play music.

Late that night, after my boys were asleep, I was talking with a few relatives when I noticed a quick flash of movement behind us. I got up and chased after it, only to realize it was a coyote slipping around the camp almost certainly searching for food or checking things out for its pack. Once the excitement wore off, I headed to the tent and went to sleep.

It was a clear night with no rain in the forecast, so we’d left the rain fly off to enjoy the sky. At 4:40 a.m. on the 5th, I woke to the sound of light footsteps outside our tent. I put on my shoes and stepped out to look around. Nothing, no movement, no eye-shine. Before heading back in, I walked over to the bushes to relieve myself.

Back in the tent, I decided to stay awake for a few minutes and listen. I’ve heard plenty of coyotes while backpacking, so I was alert and curious. At 4:45 a.m., a huge chorus of howls and yips erupted from the woods to the west. Moments later, I heard what sounded like a single lone howl answering from the southeast.

A few minutes after that, from that same southeast direction, came a loud, sharp KA-WHAM. It was incredibly clear. I’ve been shooting since my early teens I know gunfire and this was not a rifle, pistol, or shotgun. It also didn’t have the character of a breaking branch. It sounded exactly and I mean exactly like the wood knocks you’ve described on the show: a powerful, clean strike, as if someone swung a Louisville Slugger into a tree with tremendous force. I knew immediately what it resembled.

Realizing something was very close, I somehow managed to calm myself and focus on what was happening. I personally believe these beings may be able to sense intention or emotion in ways we don’t yet understand. So I “projected” a thought, asking whatever was out there to make the sound again. I held that intention for a few minutes, but no second wood knock came.

Then, several minutes later, from the west the direction of the earlier coyote chorus I heard a deep, controlled vocalization that rose and fell in pitch. It lasted maybe five seconds, but it was unmistakably clear. It was nothing like a cow bellow; it sounded like something huge, but capable of much finer control over its voice.

I was thrilled. I knew what I’d heard, and I was confident about what made those sounds.

Around 6:00 a.m. my older son woke up, and we went to the pavilion to get something to drink. A cousin of my father-in-law joined us, and I asked if he’d heard any loud noises during the night. He hadn’t. I asked whether any nearby farmers let their cattle roam at night I was still searching for any alternate explanation for that vocalization. He said there were cattle around, but the way he answered struck me as uneasy. I don’t think he was lying; it just felt… odd.

I asked as many people as I could that morning if they’d heard anything. The only real confirmation I got was from my sister-in-law, Casey, who said she’d heard a lot of coyote activity. No one else mentioned hearing the wood knock or the deep vocalization. Maybe I was simply the only person awake and listening at that moment. I guess I’ll never know. But I do know I was clear-headed, sober, and fully aware of what I heard.”

The show will be up shortly. I had some technical issues and almost lost the whole file but I think I was able to recover it. It will be posted by 5:30PM PST at the latest.

John writes “A lady friend and I had rented a log cabin that sat high on a mountain near the Tuskegee River, just southeast of Bryson City, close to Whittier, North Carolina. We chose the place because it was remote.

We arrived Friday morning and spent the whole day out sightseeing. By the time we got back to the cabin, it was around 10:30 p.m. She went into the kitchen to fix a late supper. I had the TV on in the living room and a fire going in the fireplace.

Then she suddenly called out to me, saying something was on the porch. The cabin had a big wraparound porch, so I walked into the kitchen and looked through the small window there. I didn’t see anything and told her it was probably just a raccoon or a deer some small critter nosing around. I went back to the living room and sat down.

Just a few minutes later, we heard something get knocked over on the porch. She got scared and came into the living room with me. We stood near the fireplace listening, and then we heard the boards on the porch creaking under something heavy. The cracking of the wood sounded like whatever was out there was larger than a deer.

That’s when the fear really kicked in.

I moved a chair against the front door, pressing it against the doorknob. She turned off some of the lights. Then we heard these deep, heavy grunts nothing like I’d ever heard. My pistol and my phone were sitting on a table by the window.

She walked with me to the table. We stood there listening. Another loud grunt came from just outside. A large lamp pole out front lit the entire area, giving us a clear view of anything that stepped into that glow.

Then it stepped into the light.

The creature came right up to the window. The top of the window was taller than me and I’m six feet and this thing had to bend down to look inside. When it turned its head toward us, its eyes picked up the outside light and reflected with an orange glow. It just stood there, staring in at us for what felt like three or four minutes. I could not move.

I finally picked up my pistol from the table and when I picked it up, the creature hesitated for just a moment. Then it turned and took off up the mountain beside the cabin. We heard the brush and bushes thrashing as it moved away.

We turned on every light in the cabin, locked every door, and just stood there shaking. I don’t ever want to see anything like that again not that close. I don’t know what it was, but I believe it was some kind of creature… a Bigfoot. The face had a nose not quite human and a heavy brow. No neck. Massive shoulders and long arms. From about the waist up was all we could see. It was dark, almost black, but I will never forget that face. It looked somewhat human, but clearly wasn’t. It showed no expression at all just those orange-lit eyes staring in.

We barely slept. She cried and wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to step outside until daylight not knowing if there were more of them.

We stayed up the entire night in fear. When the first light of morning came, I stepped onto the porch to look around. A huge flower pot one of those big, heavy ones had been knocked over, dirt spilled everywhere. I tried to look for tracks, but the night’s rain had washed everything out.

We packed up and left that morning.”

Jacob writes “I work construction, houses, cabins, tiny homes, all that. My crew was on a job building a remote cabin near the Idaho Wyoming border. That weekend we got assigned a night shift. We rolled in on a Thursday evening, worked until around five in the morning, and then had the next shift starting the following day at 5 p.m.

So after that first shift I headed back to what you’d call the trailer park, basically a bunch of company camp trailers where all the workers stayed. I ate, crashed, and honestly got the best sleep I’d had in a long time.

When I woke up, I drove back to the site for my next shift. Everything felt normal until about two in the morning. I had to use the blue box port-a-potty and since construction guys basically live on gas station food and caffeine, we kept them set a ways off so they wouldn’t stink up the workspace. These ones were maybe 20–30 yards from the tree line.

I didn’t think anything of it. I’m in the woods all the time hunting, fishing, whatever so nothing out there usually bothers me.

Well, I finish my business, and as I’m zipping up, I glance toward the trees. That’s when I saw it, something walking past the tree line. I don’t know if it felt me looking at it or what, but it stopped dead and stared straight at me.

Adam writes “This incident happened in Vermont and he said “In July 2017, I was attending college, making use of my GI Bill before it went to waste. I had signed up for some summer classes to earn extra credits. On the last day, the class wrapped up early, and I was heading home. The day was scorching hot but beautiful, not a cloud in the sky.

I prefer the back roads long, winding paths over straight main roads. There’s something almost meditative about slowly cruising through them. That day, I puttered along at about 20 miles per hour, as I usually do. If someone approached, I’d pull over and let them pass, then keep enjoying my slow drive.

At that time of year, the road crew had been cutting out the edges of the road to create drainage ditches after the winter melt. The freshly carved ditches were deep and wide. As I came around a bend, I noticed three kids sitting in the ditch, two girls and a boy.

I’d driven this road countless times. I knew people who walked, ran, and biked along it, but I’d never seen these kids before. They looked unkempt. Two of them a boy and a girl sat on one side of the ditch facing me, while the other girl sat closer to the roadside, facing them. I waved, and the girl next to the boy waved back.

One girl caught my eye. She seemed to be wearing a makeshift outfit, like a burlap sack with holes cut for her head and arms. Her hair was long and brown. The boy had blondish hair and was dressed in a button down shirt, gray trousers, and suspenders. All three were barefoot. I felt like something was off about these kids.

After the wave, I continued driving glancing at the rearview mirror. Suddenly, they got up and started running toward my car. My heart sank. I was doing about 40 miles per hour and somehow, these kids were keeping pace with me. I had an overwhelming dread come over me. It was just kids but I thought “If these kids catch me, I’m done”.

They seemed to move in a formation, two visible in the rearview mirror and one in the side mirror. I didn’t have air conditioning, so the windows were down. I couldn’t hear footsteps, but I could hear the children chattering. I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

The road sloped slightly downward, then curved up to the left, with a graveyard to the right, something I hadn’t even noticed until later. My eyes were glued to the kids. Then, in unison, they made an impossible right angle turn and shot up the hill to the left. I couldn’t comprehend the speed they moved faster than anything I’d ever seen.

By now, I was doing 60 miles per hour and I am about a mile from my house. The whole encounter left me shaken. It was without a doubt the strangest thing I have ever witnessed. After looking into it, the only thing that even remotely fits what I saw are the Black-Eyed Kids, I don’t have any other explanation. I never saw those kids again and I do not think they were actual kids.”

In this video Chris Spencer shares his most recent audio capture, comparing it to audio recorded in 2022 and to known gorilla vocals. Use of headphones is encouraged for the best experience.Olympic Project Audio Update.

From The Shadows writes “Bigfoot and Orbs have been paranormal mysteries for Sherman and his family on the their Alabama property for years.

Sherman shares some his own experiences as well as some he has been told, including a friend being hit with a rabbit while hunting when the rabbit was thrown by a Bigfoot!”

From The Shadows: Bigfoot Hits Hunter With a Dead Rabbit

Salish Sasquatch shares an encounter from Virgil Samson, who describes his encounter “I was in my hunting blind and I was sitting there when I suddenly heard what sounded like people talking. I kept looking around, trying to figure out who could possibly be out there. We were ten miles from anybody, there shouldn’t have been another soul around.

I leaned out of the blind and realized the voices, or whatever they were, were coming from my left. Since I was turkey hunting, my first thought was that maybe other hunters had wandered in. I was actually getting ready to go down there and tell them to leave.

As I sat there listening, I noticed movement coming from my left toward my right. Something stepped out. At first I thought it was a hunter, then I thought maybe someone in a ghillie suit. Then I wondered if it was a bear but it was way too tall. And that’s when it hit me, Oh my God… this is what my grandfathers always talked about. This is a Bigfoot.

I started to panic. I reached for my shotgun, then froze and told myself, No. Don’t grab the gun. Just stay still. Don’t move.

When it emerged from the trees, it was facing north. I was looking west toward Mount Adams. It made this odd sound a kind of low mrr followed by a chirp, like it was trying to mimic some kind of animal. I can’t even recreate it. It did it three times from the hillside.

It only stood there for about a minute before ducking back into the trees. I watched it move away through the brush until it disappeared. It was gone for maybe two minutes. The whole encounter was around seven minutes, but I probably only saw it for three.

Then I saw movement again. It came out in the exact same spot and did the same thing, rose up just a couple feet above the brush, looked up the hill, and made that mrr-chirp sound three more times. I never saw its arm move, but I saw a flick of its wrist. The whole time, it never looked at me—not once. Its focus was completely on that hillside.

Then I noticed more movement from the same area it had first appeared, and that’s when I realized, there were two of them. The second one came out just like the first, ducking under the same low branches.

That’s when the panic really set in. Oh my God, there’s two of them. I just kept repeating to myself, Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. Stay completely still.”

Watch the full video below

Xpeng Motors unveiled its new humanoid robot, IRON, during the company’s “AI Day” event in Guangzhou, China, in November 2025. The moment it walked onto the stage, its posture, gait, and overall presence appeared so strikingly human that social media immediately exploded with accusations that the “robot” was really just a person in a suit.

To shut down the rumors, Xpeng’s CEO, He Xiaopeng, ordered a bold on-stage demonstration. In front of the live audience, an engineer sliced open IRON’s synthetic outer “skin and muscle” on its leg, revealing the metal framework, servos, and wiring beneath while the robot remained powered on. After the cutaway exposed its mechanical inner structure, IRON calmly walked across the stage again, confirming it was a machine and not an actor.

The rumors had stung the team. According to He Xiaopeng, some doubters dismissed the robot simply because it was built by a Chinese company implying the realism couldn’t have been domestically engineered. The “cut-open leg” moment, he said, was the final proof they needed.

By design, IRON features a humanoid spine, bionic muscle systems, and a fully flexible outer skin. It boasts 82 degrees of freedom, allowing highly detailed joint movement including fine motor control in the hands and runs on custom AI chips meant to merge advanced robotics with artificial intelligence.

While not intended for home use, Xpeng plans for IRON to serve in roles such as showroom assistants, guidance staff in office buildings, or other commercial and industrial tasks.

Xpeng’s dramatic demonstration blurred the line between a “human-looking robot” and a person in costume, highlighting just how far humanoid robotics have advanced. It also revealed how deeply perception, skepticism, and the uncanny valley affect public trust enough to push a company into performing a literal onstage “dissection.”

As robots become increasingly lifelike, the IRON incident raises larger questions about ethics, transparency, and how society should respond when machines begin to resemble us a little too closely.