Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “It was 2018. My wife, our daughter, and I were on a two week holiday to Florida. The usual thing: fly into Orlando, stay at Universal, go to the parks, Disney etc. We had decided to hire a car instead of getting a bus or taxis everywhere.

Our daughter was young, so a car made sense. We hadn’t really got any plans to go outside of the Orlando area – although we kind of talked about driving down to the Everglades for a day. In the end, about halfway through our trip, instead of the Everglades, we decided to drive over to the gulf coast fir the day. We picked Anna Maria Island. No idea why. Just looked good on the map.

So, we set off, using the sat-nav on my wife’s phone. After a few minutes we were on a large motorway (freeway?) heading west. On the map, the road went almost entirely from Orlando to near Tampa. Driving was easy and relaxed. About an hour in – and I wish I could remember exactly where but all I can remember is the name Polk on a road sign either before or after the sighting – the landscape was all kind of scrub and swampy looking ground or grassland.

Not sure what you’d call it but here in the UK it would be scrubland and woodland. I happened to be looking across the other carriageway, which was mostly empty, to the scrubland beyond which had just opened out. There was a large patch of grass or swamp between two big stands of trees. About two thirds of the way across was a figure running. At first I thought it was a bit of a strange place to go for a run, then I realised the figure was a good distance away and was way too big to be a human being. The whole process of seeing this thing was one of ‘but….but….’ as each thought came into my head. Then I noticed it was all one colour, a kind of dark beige. You could see it was covered in long straggly hair. And then the way it was running didn’t look right.

Instead of it’s knees coming up like anyone running would do, the knees stayed low, making it look like it was cross country skiing. It wasn’t right at all. Then….it was moving, really moving. In the five to ten seconds I watched it it, it had easily covered a hundred meters and made it into the treeline.

Obviously, I was driving, and kept looking back at the road but was mostly looking back at the thing. I’m guessing the whole event lasted ten seconds as I wasn’t driving fast, the road was pretty clear, and I had a good clear view. Whatever it was was about two hundred yards away. There were a couple of vehicles driving on the other carriageway and I’d be absolutely amazed if no-one else saw it.

At the time, I didn’t say anything to my wife. I mean, driving along in a foreign country and suddenly going on about monsters wouldn’t make for a great holiday. And in the moment I was just so shocked and puzzled that I didn’t even think about saying anything until afterwards. I wish she’d seen it instead of looking ahead, especially as I had to look past her to see it.

And that’s it. The rest of the day I kept asking myself what I’d seen. At first I thought it was someone in a monster suit, but they had to have been seven or eight feet tall. And they had to have been able to run like that. It was so so strange. I’ve never seen anything run like that. The arms didn’t really come up much, like it wasn’t making a huge effort. But it really was shifting. Considering the type of ground it was on, even Usain Bolt couldn’t have dressed up and run that fast.

In the few weeks afterwards I thought about it a lot. The whole thing doesn’t make sense. But I’m sure I wasn’t hallucinating. I wasn’t tired, the sun wasn’t in my eyes, I don’t do drugs and I don’t drink. I just can’t explain it.

And that’s it, Wes. I still think there must be a rational explanation for what I saw but I haven’t been able to find it.”