Biologist Watches Bigfoot Practice Hunting

A biologist in West Virginia's mission goes awry when he encoujnters a bigfoot actively herding and hunting deer. But the bigfoot clearly wasn't hunting for food - it was hunting for sport. And bigfoot let the biologist know it knew he was watching.



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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I've spent most of my life in the woods, not for weak and camping trips or fall hunts,

(00:13):
though I've done plenty of those, too.
No, my work put me there, kept me there, seasoned after season, year after year.
I'm a wildlife biologist.
The kind they sent out to track herds, tag animals, and write the reports that nobody
but other biologists will ever read.

(00:33):
Most folks don't even realize we're out here, but we are.
Waiting creeks and hip boots, counting droppings, measuring brows lines on the saplings, and
setting up game cameras where no one's probably walked in a decade or more.
I've spent 20 years reading the woods like other people read a newspaper, and I'll tell

(00:54):
you something straight.
Once you know how to read it, the force talks.
It tells you what's come through and when.
It shows you where the deer bed down and where they bolt.
It'll even whisper about what's hunting them, if you know how to listen.
Most days that language is steady, predictable, a rhythm, nature's heartbeat doing what

(01:18):
it's always done.
But in the spring of 2019, something started to
sound wrong in that rhythm.
It began as a data problem.
I was working a stretch of forest outside Clay County, West Virginia.
It's rolling hollars and tight creek valleys that funnel deer through like cattle shoots

(01:39):
in the migration season.
My job was simple.
Monitor three main game trails that we'd been studying for years.
Nothing special.
These cameras, tracking collars, and a few ground surveys.
The first thing I noticed was the absence of any sign.
The ground was empty.

(02:00):
No fresh tracks.
No scat.
No rubs on the saplings.
I figured maybe the herd shifted roots.
Maybe some pressure from coyotes or a couple black bear had moved them.
It does happen.
But when I checked the camera cards, it didn't add up.
In every file, there was the same thing.

(02:22):
Deer scene, bunching tight together.
Posing mid-trail as if they were being pushed.
Then they exploded forward.
Sometimes two or three of them leaping off the frame at once.
Whatever was behind them never showed up.
But there had to be something there.
Had to be.
I know deer behavior.

(02:44):
And that wasn't some random spooking.
That was a herd trying to escape.
And then there were the cameras themselves.
Three of them were gone.
Not fallen or chewed on, but ripped clean off the trees.
Bolt-sheered, housings cracked.

(03:04):
Even the height of them told me something about this was all wrong.
One unit I mount at about seven feet.
It had been pulled down and crushed.
That's well out of the reach of any coyote, bobcat, or black bear.
And none could crush it the way I found it.
At that point I was thinking, "Poters."

(03:26):
Maybe somebody who didn't let me documenting activity up there on that ridge.
Maybe they were running dogs or baiting illegally.
But poters don't snap steel mounting brackets in half with their bare hands, or even with
some tools.
Just to leave it all behind for me to find.
And poters don't leave clawless, five-toed prints pressed down into the mud around the base

(03:52):
of the trees.
I took those pictures back to the office.
I wrote up a cautious note in my field report.
Unusual disturbance, potential, human interference.
And then I figured that would be the end of that.
But I couldn't stop thinking about those cameras.

(04:12):
Or the prints.
So a week later I was back there on that ridge again, alone.
The day I hiked in the sky was that heavy grey blue that usually means there will be rain
by evening.
The ground was soft from a storm the night before, which made for perfect tracking conditions.

(04:34):
I parked my truck a mile and a half from the ridge line and started the long climb up.
Almost immediately the forest felt wrong.
It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't lived in it.
But when the woods are off, you know.
There's a hush of strange stillness.

(04:54):
There are no songbirds, no squirrel chatter.
Even the wind seems to stay off the ridge.
The only sounds I had that day were my own boots in the leaf litter and the slow drip of water
off the hemlocks.
Half way up I found the first sign.
A doe carcass lying in a dry creek bed.

(05:17):
Nothing had eaten it.
The spine was snapped clean in two places like someone had folded her in half.
There were no bite marks, no claw raking.
Just catastrophic trauma.
I squatted next to the carcass and stared for a long time.
I've cataloged plenty of predator kills, coyotes hamstring and drag.

(05:41):
Bears, they mall and tear.
But this wasn't any of that.
This was different.
It was efficient, mechanical, cold.
And then I saw those prints again.
Not one or two.
Dozens.
Chris crossing the creek bed.

(06:01):
Press deep into the mud.
Each was at least 16 inches long, five wide, heel to toe, perfectly straight lined.
Whatever made them had weight.
A lot of weight.
And it walked like a man.
I measured one.

(06:21):
19 inches from heel to toe.
Seven from ball to the outer edge.
Not a bear, not even close.
I should have turned around right there.
I know that now.
But curiosity is a dangerous thing when it mixes with professional pride.
I had built my career on solving mysteries in the woods.

(06:45):
And this was the biggest mystery I'd ever seen.
So I followed the prints.
They led me deeper into the ravine, down a narrow chute where the trees closed overhead
and the light there dimmed to a greenish gloom.
The deeper I went, the more uneasy I felt.
It wasn't just silence anymore.

(07:07):
It was absence.
It was like the force was holding its breath all around me.
I stopped at a bend where two game trails merged.
I found a scattering of deer pellets there.
A snap branch still wet with sap.
They had come through recently, very recently.

(07:28):
That's when I heard it.
A sound so low and deep I felt it in my chest before I understood what it was.
A huff.
This wasn't a snort like a deer and it wasn't the warning wolf of a bear.
This was heavier.
It was deliberate.
Like something exhaling through lungs, the size of oil drums.
My frozen.

(07:50):
The air suddenly felt colder.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
Slowly I scanned the tree line.
Then came the second sound, the one that still picks me up on some nights.
The sharp crack of a branch being snapped, followed by steady sounds of "thud, thud, thud."

(08:13):
The sound of heavy footfalls moving down slope.
I still couldn't see it yet.
But I knew it was big and close and getting closer.
That's when the deer appeared.
Half a dozen whitetails burst from the trees, thirty yards to my left, bounding down the

(08:34):
trail and blind panic.
They didn't even notice me.
Tails flagged, eyes wide, tongues lolling.
They were not spooked.
They were fleeing.
And behind them?
The timber exploded.
A tree about to stick as my thigh bent sideways like it was nothing.

(08:57):
A dark shape, massive, upright, fast, flashed between the trunks and was gone again.
The deer bolted past me, crashing through brush, scattering leaves and earth as they ran.
I've seen predators drive deer before.
The odys will work them toward a choke point, but this wasn't coordinated by a pack.

(09:21):
This was one thing, one, moving with a terrifying purpose, pushing them exactly where it wanted
them to go.
The noises grew louder and closer.
Branch is cracked under impossible weight.
My mouth went dry.
My legs, they wanted to run.

(09:42):
But my brain screamed, you're not moving.
And then, as if the woods themselves had parted for it, it stepped into view.
The first thing I noticed was its height.
I'm just a hair under six feet tall, and this thing towered over me by at least two feet.

(10:03):
It had broad shoulders like wide railroad ties.
Arms that hung down lower than they should.
It was covered in dark, shaggy hair, matted and clumped with mud, and helped me god.
So helped me god.
There were spots on it that looked matted with blood.
It was the smell that hit me next.

(10:24):
A stench of wet animal, iron, and heavy rot so thick I was gagging.
It turned its head towards me, and our eyes locked.
I stared down black bears at twenty yards.
I've had coyotes circle me at night.
Nothing in the wild has ever looked at me like that.

(10:47):
There was no fear in its gaze, no curiosity, no surprise.
It really wasn't sizing me up either.
No, the look it had was cold, deliberate, and knowing.
The creature shifted its weight, muscles rippling under that thick hide, and then with a speed

(11:08):
that seemed impossible.
It turned and banished back into the trees.
I didn't run.
I couldn't.
I just stood there frozen, heart slamming, breathing shallowly, staring at the spot where
it had been.
Part of me hoped that I had imagined it.

(11:30):
But then came the sound that proved I hadn't.
It was a deer, bleeding and panic.
Then there was a crash, and a thud so heavy the ground beneath me felt like it shivered.
And then came silence.
I crept forward, not brave, you see, I was just too dumb to stop myself.

(11:53):
I crept forward and I peered through the brush.
What I saw made my knees go weak.
I was within maybe twenty feet of the creature.
It was ahead in the clearing, crouched over a young buck beside a fallen log.
I imagined the deer had tried to leap the log, just hadn't made it.

(12:14):
Looking at the situation in my mind's eye, I imagined that the big fit caught it mid-air,
snatched it right out of the air as it was leaping, kind of like a dog catching a frisbee,
and it slammed it to the ground.
Well, that's what the scene looked like anyway.
The deer was still alive, kicking weakly, but alive.

(12:37):
Then the big fit pressed down with one massive hand, pressed right against the deer's chest,
and then leaned with all of its weight.
Faintly I heard small snapping noises.
Then the deer stopped struggling.
Then the most chilling thing happened.
The big fit looked right at me.

(13:00):
It stared at me with purpose for a long time.
My blood rang colder than it already was.
That big fit looked at me in a way that no animal had ever looked at me before.
It was deliberate, calculating, knowing, predatory.

(13:20):
Its eyes were dark and deep set beneath the heavy brow, but they weren't empty pools
of blackness.
Those eyes, there was a calculation there, a cold and certain knowledge.
I know I should have turned and run, but I couldn't.
I was rooted to the ground, eyes wide, looking at it, looking at me.

(13:44):
The creature, the big fit though I still wasn't using that word at that time, though I knew
that's what it was.
The big fit rose to its full height.
The dead buck dangled from one hand as if it weighed nothing.
With its other hand it wiped the back of its wrist across its mouth, smearing blood into

(14:05):
the tangled hair on its chest.
Then it turned and walked away with the deer as if it weighed no more than a ragdoll dangling
from its hand.
And it walked.
Long, slow strides deeper into the timber, dragging the deer by one leg, the carcass
leaving a thin smear of red along the trail as it went.

(14:29):
I should have left then.
That was my chance, and I did know that.
But yet there was something in me, something, call it stupidity, call it obsession, but it
wouldn't let it go.
So I followed once again.
I stayed back maybe twenty-twenty-five yards far enough that I could still duck behind

(14:52):
cover if it should turn and look.
The forest grew darker as I went along.
The canopy of trees here was thick.
Woven with old growth pines and hemlocks that had stood probably since before my grandfather
was born.
The ground there was soft and spongy, blanketed with needles that muffled my footsteps.

(15:15):
It stopped in a clearing ringed with dead fall and dropped with the deer.
Then it crouched beside the carcass and started doing something that at first I couldn't
understand.
It wasn't eating it, and it wasn't examining the kill.
It was arranging it.
The buck was positioned quite deliberately, chest toward the tree line, legs folded under

(15:41):
as if it was merely resting.
Then it stepped back and stood still listening, waiting.
I crouched low, trying not to breathe too loud, every muscle in my legs beginning to burn.
That's when I heard it.
Movement.
Not from the creature and not from me, but other deer.

(16:03):
There was a small group that was edging along the tree line drawn down by, I don't know
if it was instinct, scent, curiosity.
He was the smell of the blood.
And the bigfoot?
It was waiting, and it was ready.
It didn't charge them.
It didn't roar.
It circled wide, keeping downwind, slipping from trunk to trunk in complete silence.

(16:30):
I lost sight of it several times and only caught glimpses when it stopped and paused.
I would catch a flash of dark hair of the glint of an eye.
It was driving them, not scattering them like a predator would, but hurting them.
And then it struck.
The lead doe had stepped into the clearing, nose down, sniffing the carcass.

(16:54):
Two more followed.
The bigfoot moved in from behind, silent as a shadow.
Then he ruptured from the underbrush with a guttural bellow that froze the animals where they
stood.
The first deer bolted left, straight into the bigfoot's reach.
The single arm swung out, catching the doe broadside with a crack that echoed through

(17:17):
the trees.
It dropped to the earth like a sack of grain.
Another doe leapt forward, but it was already too late.
The creature grabbed it by the neck mid-leap and slammed it to the ground so hard, the breath
left my chest in sympathy.
That's when I understood this bigfoot.

(17:38):
It wasn't just hunting.
This was not a hunt.
This was a slaughter.
I don't know how long I was crouch there watching it work.
Maybe 30, 40 seconds.
Maybe upwards of three minutes.
I don't know, but it felt like hours.
Every instinct in me screamed that I needed to go to get out of there.

(18:00):
I knew I really wasn't hidden.
But if that bigfoot decided that I was going to be part of this call, there wouldn't
be a darn thing I could do about it.
Then as if hearing my thoughts, it turned, and directly looked at me.
Those black eyes locked onto me from across the clearing.

(18:21):
My stomach dropped.
It took one slow step forward than another.
Then it let out a sound, a deep, rolling growl that started somewhere low in its
chest, and crawled right into my bones.
I stood up slowly.
My knees felt weak, but I raised my hands anyway, palms out, like that was going to mean

(18:45):
anything.
My mouth was dry as sand.
I don't remember deciding to speak, but words came out anyway.
"I'm leaving," I whispered.
"I'm gone, okay?
I'm out."
The bigfoot tilted its head just slightly.
Then it took another step.

(19:07):
Then another.
Each one was a deliberate, patient step.
I could tell it knew I was terrified.
And for what it's worth, it liked it.
I backed away, careful, not to turn my back, stumbling over roots and dead fall.
My back pack snagged on a branch, and I very nearly lost my footing.

(19:31):
That tiny mistake made the bigfoot pause just for a second.
And then it started forward again, but faster now.
I didn't wait this time.
I ran.
I don't remember making the decision.
My body just moved.
Branches slapped my face.

(19:52):
Thorns ripped at my sleeves, and I could still hear it behind me.
Not sprinting or chasing blindly, but stalking me.
It really wasn't trying to catch me.
I don't believe it was.
I believe it was pushing me, hurting me.
Use whatever word you like.
And at the same time, it was telling me.

(20:13):
It could have me if it wanted me.
And I believed it.
I don't know how far I ran.
Maybe a half a mile, maybe more?
I tricked once and went down hard, scraping my palms raw on the rocks and the dirt.
When I looked back, I saw it.
Just a silhouette now.

(20:34):
Massive and unmoving, standing in the middle of the trail.
I stood up, chest heaving, looking at the bigfoot in the distance, wondering how this
was going to end.
It was a pass of maybe two seconds.
Then it slowly and deliberately turned around and began with very heavy steps back up the

(20:55):
trail.
I watched it for the space that it took to make two or more steps.
Then I forced my rubbery, shaking legs to carry me out of there.
The hike back to my truck felt twice as long as it had on the way in.
Every sound, every tweak of a tree, every rustle of a leaf, made me whip my head around.

(21:18):
By the time I broke out of the woods and into the clearing where I had parked, my legs
were trembling so badly.
I could barely keep my footing.
I reached for the door handle of my truck and I froze.
There was a handprint smeared across the driver's side window, wet and muddy, fresh.

(21:39):
It was huge, easily twice the size of mine, with the fingers far too long and thick.
And of course, did I mention it was fresh and wet.
My heart stopped.
It had followed me.
It had somehow flanked me and beaten me here.
It left this message for me, again telling me.

(22:02):
If it had wanted me, it would have taken me.
I don't remember getting into my truck.
I remember fumbling with my keys and breathing some relief when the engine started.
I remember the sound of gravel spitting from the tires as I tore down that force road,
faster than I ever had in my whole life.

(22:24):
I never went back to that particular ridge.
I filed a final report and I said, "Unexplained predation patterns, possible human interference."
That's all I wrote.
I left out anything that mentioned prints, fur.
I left out deer herding and slaughter.

(22:45):
I left out that the thing that hunted me was like no predator I'd ever studied or encountered.
But I do think about it all the time, actually.
I think about how deliberate it was.
How efficient.
How it didn't just kill.
It managed those animals.

(23:06):
It planned.
It used strategy.
And I think about those deer.
They weren't just food.
It's like they were practice.
And every once in a while late at night when the woods outside my cabin fall silent and
the wind stops moving through the pines.

(23:27):
I wonder if it's still out there.
Somewhere deeper in those hills, just refining the hunt, perfecting it.
But for what, though?
Because I imagine that if one day it decides that the next part of the food chain is what
it wants to control, well, that would be us, wouldn't it?

(23:49):
For all I know, it already has.
.