Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I wanted to share a possible encounter I had in Vietnam. Earlier this year, I completed a four-day, three night backpacking trek through Son Doong Cave the largest cave in the world located deep within the remote Phong Nha–Kẻ Bàng National Park in central Vietnam.

While we never actually saw anything unusual, we heard unexplained noises, and more importantly, the behavior and comments from the guides and porters stood out as the most unsettling part of the experience.

The first night, at our initial campsite, I woke around 11 p.m. and noticed one of the porters standing near the cave entrance, slowly scanning the cave wall with a flashlight. Several people later reported hearing multiple loud “rock fall” sounds throughout the night. When we asked about it the next morning, the explanation we were given was that the sounds were caused by a porter slapping his sleeping mat against the ground, and that the flashlight was being used to scare water buffalo away from the cave entrance. Neither explanation matched what we heard or saw, and both felt deeply unsatisfying.

On the third day, we hiked into a section of the cave where the river runs underground, preventing the seasonal flooding found in earlier areas. Eventually, we reached a massive opening known as the “Garden of Edam” a lush, jungle-filled chamber with an opening high above, but no accessible route in or out on foot.

In addition to the entrance and exit used for the trek, there is a third, very large cave opening in this area. The guides told us they had never accessed it. At different times, they offered different reasons: once saying cave formations blocked entry, another time claiming the area was impassable due to heavy mud. I noticed extremely thick green vegetation stretching from the rim of that opening all the way upward into the canopy.

While in this jungle section, the guides pointed out bird carcasses and cracked snail shells they said they had found nearby.

That night, we camped just inside the entrance to the Garden of Edam. Before bed, the guides casually mentioned without being prompted that if we heard what sounded like a crying baby during the night, we should ignore it. At first, they said it was a large bird. Later, when I asked again, they changed the explanation to a giant flying squirrel call. That night was also the only time during the entire trek when the porters placed their tents on both sides of ours, essentially surrounding the group.

Once everyone went to sleep, I almost immediately heard a loud sound resembling two rocks being clacked together. This continued intermittently throughout the night, from roughly 11 p.m. until 4 a.m. When I asked the guide about it the next day, he suggested it was water dripping onto a metal stool an explanation that didn’t fit at all, as the sound was extremely loud and sharp, not anything like dripping water.

I also asked whether he had heard the “baby crying” sounds. He told me he had woken up around 3 a.m. and listened but hadn’t heard anything. Meanwhile, another person in camp reported waking up to use the bathroom during the night and seeing someone awake with a flashlight, seemingly watching over the camp.

After the trek, the guides shared a story about the first explorer of Son Doong Cave, which was only discovered in the 1990s. According to them, while he was exploring the cave, sticks began flying through the air and striking him. At first, he scolded his porters, thinking they were playing a prank until he realized it was a “monkey” throwing the sticks.

Our group was only the tenth to pass through the cave since flood season had ended, meaning that if anything lived in the unexplored cave area, it would have experienced months of complete isolation before suddenly being exposed to human activity again.

Based on everything that happened, I’ve begun to theorize that this may have been a Rock Ape encounter. If something like that exists there, I believe it primarily inhabits the cave entrance the guides claimed has never been accessed. From that location, it would have access to both the cave system and the surrounding mountains, where animals like goats, cattle, deer, and wild hogs are present. The environment would be ideal protected from the elements, cool in the summer, warm in the winter, constant access to water, abundant food, and very few humans.

I also suspect the cave team may be aware of its presence and have prepared explanations for tourists who report rock falls, rock clacking, or baby-like cries at night. This tour operator is the only group permitted to run expeditions through Son Doong, and they would be heavily incentivized to keep something like this quiet. Each expedition consists of around 30 people, so whatever is there likely wouldn’t risk a direct confrontation but it could certainly express displeasure through nighttime activity once the camp settled down.

I’m very curious if you’ve heard from other listeners about similar experiences in Vietnam. I know there were numerous Rock Ape reports from soldiers during the Vietnam War, and there was a fairly well-known footprint found within this same national park. Beyond that, I haven’t found much in my own research and that silence is almost as interesting as the experience itself.”