Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “In 2016 I was hiking the Appalachian Trail, going shelter to shelter for the most part and tent camping some depending on how wore out I was and how far it was between shelters. It was the beginning of the AT in Georgia heading into North Carolina.

There’s a shelter called Plumorchard Gap Shelter, I think it’s the last shelter in GA, I stayed in one night. Once I got there I was doing my routine of getting my bag and pad out to claim my spot in the shelter and getting my bottles to refill water along with preparing my dinner. A couple guys shuffled in as the daylight started to fade. As night fell we got a fire going and the three of us were sitting around talking about typical trail stuff while eating dinner. At some point around the fire I began to feel this kinda fearful feeling, not long after I began to have this weird feeling, something smacked either the top or back of the shelter and we all kinda jumped. After the initial shock of it we all just blew it off as something falling out of one of the trees. A few minutes later after we’d forgotten about it something else smacked the shelter again, at this point we got up and began shining our lights into the woods around us but saw nothing. It definitely had us all a little spooked but nothing happened after that before we took it down for the night. Around 3am that night we were woken up after another loud pop on the shelter happened and then this 10-15 second long yell that turned into a scream rang out through the woods from behind the shelter. We all three sat up freaked out, whispering to each other what was that!?!? We all reached in our bags for our guns and sat there for a while scared to move or make a sound. After a few, when nothing else happened we all eventually laid back and fell asleep, all with our pistols tucked into our sleeping bags with us out of fear of what had taken place. In the morning we had a chat about what we heard and one of the guys just blew it off as stuff falling out of the trees and a screech owl. I was more skeptical thought maybe a fox or some cat, but the bangs on the shelter, especially the one right before the scream, didn’t make sense to me. I think the fear of what was going on caused this guy to rationalize it as something he could explain. It was only one loud scream that night along with the bangs on the shelter. There are very similar screams in the beginning of Episode 471: The moments that change your life, I remember the first time I listened to that episode I got chills and it brought back that same sense of fear I had that night.

A few days later after crossing into North Carolina and getting to Carter Gap Shelter there was a bigger group of people that were staying at this shelter and that night we’d built a pretty big fire that we sat around conversing, eating and sharing a swig of some spirits. It wasn’t enough to get drunk or anything but I just wanted to be transparent that this night I had a couple sips of whisky. About an hour after that and eating dinner I began having that similar feeling I’d had a few nights back at Plumorchard Shelter. I didn’t say anything but it definitely made me more aware of my surroundings and I was paying attention to the others around the fire. There was about 5 of us left shooting the shit and I noticed one of the other guys had started looking around suspiciously, so I asked him what was up. He just told me that he had a weird feeling for a minute but it was nothing. I had gotten up to relieve myself a few minutes later when I noticed what looked like 4 headlamp lights maybe a 1/4 mile off in the wood line. I mentioned it to the group and it was just blown off as night hikers. I thought ok, I still felt uneasy but it seemed like a feasible explanation. A half hour passed and the feeling never really went away and being curious I checked again where I saw the lights and they were still in the same place, but instead of 4 there were now 6 and they weren’t moving really. At least not like a group of night hikers should be if they were actually hiking. I stood there watching for 15 minutes or so and saw what seemed like 2 lights change into 4 making 8 all together. I checked a few times over the next couple hours before crashing that night and they never moved location and the last time I checked there was 10. They were bluish white and when I stood there looking across to the ridge where they were it was kinda like they slightly moved up and down, left and right but never changed position on the mountain. They were always in the same area. The next morning I checked the map for the position where I saw the lights against where the trail comes into the shelter area and then leads off heading northbound on the AT I realized there was no mapped trail or roads going in or out of that area, it was just a valley and ridge going west across the blue ridge mountains.

I did have one other moment after that at Albert mountain fire tower not far outside of Franklin, NC. I was gathering wood for the fire at dusk down the hill on the trail at the base of the mountain and just couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched and having this fear that made my neck and head tingle. I never saw anything but kept hearing what sounded like branches popping off in the forest. I just grabbed what I had up and ran back up the trail to the fire tower lookout to my campsite. I never felt comfortable in that area whatsoever. It was a truly uncomfortable feeling. I know it’s not that interesting but it was definitely a 20-30 mile area of trail that gave me a weird feeling that I haven’t had anywhere else in the woods on any other trail.”