A listener writes “I am a 46 year old Native American woman married to a 47 year old Hispanic male It is a very rural area. We live in a small Spanish Land Grant in New Mexico. For geographical reference I live right next to a mesa with a ditch separating us from our nearest neighbors who are about 100 yds to our north and about 300 yds to our south.
Late on Thursday evening I was doing my nightly routine in the bathroom, this was after 11 pm MST. When the water shut off the whole house was pretty quiet. My big Mastiff/German Shepherd mix Layla was inside in her kennel for the night along with my two chihuahua mixes. We do have a rooster named Mary (lol I know he’s a guy but we named him before we knew he was a rooster and not a hen) and six chickens and a duck. They were all in their coop. One thing about Mary is that he will crow all day and night. It does not matter if there are other dogs or coyotes around, this one is a mean one. He has been so quiet no fight to get into his coop for over a week. He will not crow until we let him out of the coop in the morning and this is very unusual for him. He has become so tame since this has happened.
When I was getting ready to leave the bathroom I heard “whoooop, whoop, whoop” noise and wood hitting together shortly after that, maybe four hits. At this time I could hear my big dog stand up and move around in her kennel and start whining. The two littles started whining as well. Then I heard “Whoop, Whoop” (two shorter whoops) follow.
I was so freaked out I sat on the edge of the tub and tried to process what I just heard.
The lights in my kitchen and living room were on at the time. I went in and turned off the lights and left my outside light on. I tried to look outside using the full moonlight to see if I noticed anything. Needless to say, I was shook. I checked on my son who was fast asleep in his room.
I decided to go to bed and try to get some sleep. I am a very heavy sleeper so I usually do not hear anything at all once my head hits the pillow. On this night every little noise woke me up. As I was laying there I just realized we do have one or more around our town.
We had to leave town this past Saturday after I heard the whoops and I asked my sister if she could house sit for me to take care of our animals. She told me that Saturday night around 11 pm she heard two whoops. She is a cop and had her rifle just in case but she said my big dog was really uneasy again.
This encounter made me remember a few instances where I remember things happening that made sense. Back on 12/24/2015 we were on the way back home from midnight mass. We were traveling on a two lane road back to our home and on one turn there is a steep slope kind of sandy kind of rocky if that makes sense on the one side (the side we were on) and on the other a steep hill with lots of rocks and trees. There was a car in front of us and my son was in his truck behind us. My husband, myself and our two younger children were in our car. The car in front of us slowed down and we were wondering why, then we had to brake because there was a big figure that ran very fast up from the sloped side, across the road and up the hill to our left very easily and that terrain was pretty rough to move that fast. It was pretty big but it was carrying an animal of some sort. We both asked one another if we just saw that and the car in front of us had to have seen it too because they were driving really slow at that time. My older son said he saw something run across the road in front of us.
Now back to about a month ago I was going to bed, just turned off the light in my room and I heard four loud wood knocks. I didn’t think much of it, but it was in the back of my mind. Now hearing the whoops, I know that was it or them at that time too.
I have always believed they were around and I respect their boundaries. I always thought it would be cool to see one. Just hearing that has changed my mind so fast. It was super scary for me and I would be ok living the rest of my life never seeing one especially that close to my home. I did let my 12 year old son know what I heard and he said he hears the tree knocks all the time. I asked him why he never said anything and he told me he didn’t want me to freak out cause look how I am freaking out now lol. My husband on the other hand kinda laughed at me and said it is because I listen to your podcast and I was probably imagining it. I did get upset with him and told him I heard what I heard and he can’t say that I imagined it if he saw what we did back in 2015. He agreed and said I have lived here for 47 years (his whole life) and he has never heard of sasquatch hurting anyone around here. He said if they are around then they probably have been here longer than us and we just need to leave them alone.
Just wanted to share my story.”
Janna F
Bring your dogs Inside! Give your chickens to a place that is safe and loves animals
Charles R
I agree with Janna F. They represent a very low threat to you and family, except for being scared and being scared in itself is certainly cause for concern. Do everything you can to protect your outside animals. Usually they are not afraid of any dog, but probably are alamed by the noise a dog can make that would then send an alarm to the humans inside. On the other hand they do love to eat chickens. Back in 2013 south of me about 25 miles just outside of New Lebanon, OH, a family lost all 24 chickens over a few days, from their 5 foot heigh corral, that was guarded by 2 miniture donkeys with large hoofs. The dang Bigfoot even tore the wings off every time and left them in the corral. They were not the only people in this area that actually saw the Bigfoot. And somehow, this family was visited by personnel from Wright Patterson AFB telling them, all this was caused my an escaped Asain Monkey.