A listener writes “When I was about 12 years old I was deer hunting with my Dad in Salt Fork State Park. Now, I would like to preface this by saying prior to this experience my father had always told me there was nothing to be afraid of in the woods but everything out there was to be treated with respect.
We had stayed the night prior at the privative campground there at Salt fork, I believe it is now known as sasquatch ridge or something like that. We got there after dark parked and the plan was to sleep in the back of the pickup we had a truck with a cap. We settled in and fell asleep, sometime in the middle of the night I was awoke to my dad snoring. I lay there trying to fall back asleep and I begin to hear footsteps and then the sound of something running it’s hand down the side of the cap. I looked up and could see a massive dark shape along side of the truck. It was really intense, I pulled the blanket over my head. I remember hearing a kind of low grunt then footsteps. The next thing I remember I was waking up to the alarm on my dad’s watch going off.
We got everything around and went out to where we was hunting. We sit on the side of a hill where 3 Hollers come together. At about 830 or so a decent buck came strolling down the path in the bottom of the holler. I took aim and shot him. He ran up the opposite side of holler just out of sight and fell down. Dad said let’s just let him lay and see what else might come in, we can go get him in a bit.
So sometime later we decide to go up and collect the deer. We gather up our gear and head up the opposite side of the hollar. As we crest the hill I see the deer then I see this thing step out from behind a tree behind where the deer was laying. I stop and was trying to figure out what exactly I’m looking when dad crests the hill behind me.
This thing is standing there over top of deer, it was kinda rocking back and forth looking at us. It didn’t seem to know quite what to do. It started making this low growl type noise. Dad steps in front of me and says no no no…it’s his deer now and kinda pushes me behind him. We back up slowly keeping it in our view. It almost seemed to be trying to be intimidating us. We made our way out the woods, we didn’t speak the whole way home. We had intended to hunt the rest of the day and the next but for some reason dad just drove home. We never spoke about what had happened. I brought it up once and dad just changed the subject. I’ve told this to a few researchers but so far I have yet to have anyone tell me what exactly I saw that day or for that matter why. If you would like more information, you can contact me. I’m not looking for anything but closure and maybe someone else’s perspective as to what exactly it was.”