October 16, 2025 • 33 mins
Hired to guard a secret “herb” farm deep in a Northern California national forest, a night watchman hears chewing on the ledge above his post—then a red-haired face rises into his flashlight and waves a pine limb like a warning.
He took a high-paying night shift guarding a clandestine 'herb' farm in 1998 Northern California. Security rings, hidden tree stands, and coded walkie signals keep rivals out—until a guard is found brutally killed under silent, impossible circumstances.
Days later, tortured screams ripple across the forest while every guard checks in accounted for. Alone at his southwest overlook, our witness hears deliberate footsteps above and behind him on an unreachable outcrop, sloppy chewing, and low, throaty vocalizations. When he flashes a pocket light, he locks eyes with a red-haired sasquatch. What follows is panic, politics, denial—and a countdown to escape. Told anonymously by Nance Warren, this true-style testimony blends cartel-adjacent tension with a terrifying, realistic Bigfoot sighting in a national forest. If you crave authentic sasquatch stories with high stakes, vivid detail, and no campfire clichés, this episode delivers.
This episode originally aired on Buckeye Bigfoot's YouTube channel on September 22, 2023
If you have an encountery you'd like to share, email it to: Contact@buckeyebigfoot.com
If you've enjoyed this episode, there are hundreds more on the youTube channel.
Find us on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@BuckeyeBigfoot
He took a high-paying night shift guarding a clandestine 'herb' farm in 1998 Northern California. Security rings, hidden tree stands, and coded walkie signals keep rivals out—until a guard is found brutally killed under silent, impossible circumstances.
Days later, tortured screams ripple across the forest while every guard checks in accounted for. Alone at his southwest overlook, our witness hears deliberate footsteps above and behind him on an unreachable outcrop, sloppy chewing, and low, throaty vocalizations. When he flashes a pocket light, he locks eyes with a red-haired sasquatch. What follows is panic, politics, denial—and a countdown to escape. Told anonymously by Nance Warren, this true-style testimony blends cartel-adjacent tension with a terrifying, realistic Bigfoot sighting in a national forest. If you crave authentic sasquatch stories with high stakes, vivid detail, and no campfire clichés, this episode delivers.
This episode originally aired on Buckeye Bigfoot's YouTube channel on September 22, 2023
If you have an encountery you'd like to share, email it to: Contact@buckeyebigfoot.com
If you've enjoyed this episode, there are hundreds more on the youTube channel.
Find us on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@BuckeyeBigfoot
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Tonight's encounter comes to you from long ago.
(00:03):
We're pulling this one out of the vault.
[Water sounds]
First off, I need to tell you that there will be some things I cannot explain or that might
not make sense to you.
And even though it's been 25 years, I'm still being very careful with what I say, and not
(00:28):
because of the Sasquatch.
There will be some things that I can, and I will explain to you, and some things I did
not know about the situation at the time, and I never wanted to know.
And before I say anything else, I will tell you that I only have knew how things would
be when I agreed to a long-time friend's proposition who said that his uncle had a business,
(00:54):
and we could make some extra money with it.
He said that as long as he vouched for me, his uncle was sure to hire me.
Now my friend, his uncle, and my parents, as a matter of fact, they were all in the United
States illegally from Mexico.
But unlike them, I was not.
(01:16):
I am an American citizen as I was born here.
Now I had heard what my friend's uncle's business was and what he was into.
And when I said that, my friend said, "No, not that.
It's something else but a side business of it."
He assured me.
I would not be doing any selling or any handling of the so-called recreational items.
(01:42):
I would be guarding where it was growing.
Now that sounded easy enough, and it paid very well.
I needed the money you see because I was heading off to college that fall.
And while I had some scholarships, I was going to have to fund everything else myself.
So I said yes.
Now all right.
(02:02):
Let me tell you people, this is Nance talking to you.
This is not the writer.
I have to keep this channel safe.
So there are some things that I have changed some of the words that the writer had used.
I'm doing that to keep my channel safe.
Now for the green recreational plant that some people like to inhale, and you all know
(02:23):
what I'm talking about, I'm going to refer to it as flower or flowers, and where it grows
will be the flower fields.
Okay?
All right.
Let's move on.
He goes on to say that this was in Northern California, and that's the only reference to
location I will give.
(02:45):
Before I get to the full Sasquatch bit, I have to give you some things about how things
worked around there.
Well, what few things I knew that is.
The flower farm I worked on was not the only one.
I was aware of many growing in the nearby areas.
Some were ours, and some were not.
(03:07):
They belonged to rival groups.
We were in the middle of a national forest, like many other flower fields were, and probably
still are to this day.
The guards for the flower farm were set out all around the farm in rings, spaced about
50 yards apart, and the circles radiated out from our field.
(03:29):
I believe at one point our farthest lookouts were in trees about a quarter mile away.
Oh, and the further you went out from the farm, the farther apart the guards were.
Now when I mentioned these guards in the outer ring being up in trees, I'm meaning that
these trees had been trimmed to accommodate a permanent type of camouflage stand.
(03:53):
Think of it as a very tiny treehouse that you would have a very hard time seeing from
the ground.
But they could see you a long distance away.
I was told that they had done as much as possible to divert the casual hiker in another
direction, and they would actually engage them if they saw them.
(04:17):
Now how they actually diverted people, I don't know.
But while there I did hear a few tales of how more than one hiker over the years had refused
to be diverted from the area, and I heard things did not go well for those hikers.
(04:37):
But that's all I heard.
I never heard any more specifics than that.
I did not want to hear it, but I did not doubt the truth of what they were saying.
My guard station was on the second ring out from the flower field, albeit at a far-flung
edge.
It was not a perfect circle.
(04:58):
We'll just say that.
I worked the night shift, which I thought would be easier, but in many ways it was much,
much worse.
Not the least of which because of who I was partnered up with for the guard station, I'm going
to call him Carlos.
That wasn't his name, but it is good as any.
(05:20):
Now Carlos was in the actual group, we'll call it, from Mexico, and had been most of his life.
You know, and by group I mean the organized kind of group.
I've actually heard its name in the news many times over the years, but not necessarily
in relation to the flower fields.
(05:43):
He was related distantly by marriage to my friend's uncle, but he was so stupid, he took
liberties that my friend would never dream of taking.
My friend's uncle was not THE boss, but he was up there in the ranks, and he ran about
half the flower fields that group had in California.
(06:04):
I keep getting lost telling this story.
I am so very sorry.
It has been so long since I've allowed myself to think about anything from this time that
every time I do things come up to the surface all at once.
Carlos was terribly bold, as I just mentioned.
He would often step away as he called it from the post at night, and he would disappear
(06:29):
for hours, leaving me alone in the darkness.
The difficulty was I couldn't tell on him because no one likes a snitch less than those
organized groups.
Then again, the catch-22 was, if you didn't tell a boss something was going on, and they
(06:49):
found out about it, and they found out you had a knowledge of it, well that was a pretty
bad situation to be in, too.
I couldn't tell, and I was going to be in trouble if I didn't.
I couldn't win, and I knew it, so I just hoped for the best and kept my mouth shut.
I was very upset when Carlos would pull his disappearing acts, and one night I was upset
(07:15):
in particular because we had all just been told to be extra vigilant.
It seemed that one of those rival groups might be making a play for our flower fields,
and they would have struggles like that from time to time, all out many wars I was told.
You see, one in the guards in one of the outer circles in a tree stand had been killed,
(07:41):
but it wasn't just that he had been killed.
It was how he had been killed that made everyone suspicious and more than a little nervous.
Initially, we were not officially told anything about his death other than he had been
killed, and then the bosses would follow it up by saying they were sure it was a rival.
(08:03):
Their only evidence that it was probably a rival was because it seemed to be a silent
kill.
You see, despite what movies portray, those guarding flower fields do everything they can
not to use a fire arm that draws attention and not the kind they want.
(08:24):
Now the thing is, it was days later before I learned the truth, and I only found out because
the guy who was my replacement was the brother to the guy who was the dead man's replacement,
and he was the one who actually found his body.
The story that I was told is that the dead man's body was found several hundred feet away
(08:48):
from the tree that he was supposed to be in.
He said, "The man's head had been ripped off and was placed neatly on a fallen tree near
the route that the men used to go back and forth, and the head had been placed carefully
so that it faced the direction that the men would come in from.
(09:10):
The body itself was close by, and the man said the arms and the legs that were still attached
were bent and broken in unusual angles.
One arm had been ripped completely off.
The torso of the body, he said, looked lumpy and misshapen.
He described it as a lump of dough that someone was in the process of kneading and walked
(09:34):
away.
I asked about the head and the arm being torn off.
I said, "Did he mean to say they had been chopped off or hacked off?"
My replacement guy said that his brother was very clear.
He saw tears and rips.
Nothing had been cut or hacked.
(09:56):
We talked about how this could have been done without anyone in any of the outer stands
and security rings hearing anything happening in the night.
We wondered how they got him to come down out of the tree in the first place because we
all knew they were not allowed to come down, not even for a call of nature.
(10:17):
To this day, I'm not absolutely certain that it couldn't have really been a rival that
did that to that man.
But if so, it doesn't really fit.
You see, there were no other moves before or after that for a long while.
Nothing I heard about anyway.
And there hadn't been any unusual tensions.
(10:38):
It just seemed out of place.
Personally, I do think it was a Sasquatch.
But I still can't tell you how or why that guy came down out of that tree or how he was
gotten down out of the tree or how or why no one else heard anything that night.
(10:58):
But other than a Sasquatch, I have no better explanation.
I had just heard all of those details, and then that very night Carlos pulls his little
disappearing stunt within the first half hour of guard duty.
I was beyond pissed and scared.
But there was nothing I could do.
(11:20):
I didn't even have a tree to hide in.
We were stationed on the ground with a good line of sight down the southwest.
Even here, I'm hesitant to give too much detail about the topography, which has made writing
this email very difficult.
And it might help understanding later events if I could, but I'm far too fearful.
(11:43):
For all I know, they are still growing in that area of California.
They may not be, but I really don't want to take the chance.
So there I am, all alone, listening to everything in the darkness.
Now I should add that we did have walkies with one-eared headsets at the time, and really
for that time it felt like pretty darn advanced stuff.
(12:07):
We would key the mic more often than we'd talk to each other.
We had signals to ask or talk if it was safe to talk, but the walkie had been silent all
night.
Then I suddenly start to hear a very faint sound.
To me it sounded like footsteps, but they were pretty far off, but in the darkness you
can hear a long way.
(12:27):
But I couldn't tell if it was too legged or four legged, so I kept listening.
If it was too legged, I would keen alert sequence on the walkie.
If someone was out there, we could be about 95% sure that it wasn't any of us.
You see, all the security shifts started and ended at the same time, just for that reason.
(12:50):
So for most of the night, no one should be out there walking around.
Well, no one except for Carlos, but I think that man walked on air because I never heard
him come back until he was almost right next to me.
More than a few times he scared the heck out of me by showing up in the darkness, seemingly
out of nowhere.
(13:10):
Now, between that and the fact that the specific topography in the direction of the sounds were
coming from, well, I was pretty certain it could not have been Carlos out there because he
started out and left in a different way.
And to get from where he headed when he left to where the sound was coming from now,
(13:32):
it would have been near impossible, especially in the darkness.
And to go around the only way possible to get there, it would have taken several hours.
So I knew it wasn't Carlos.
Just trust me on that.
As I listened, I could tell it was coming closer.
(13:52):
Then the walking sound stopped abruptly.
I just shrugged my shoulders and figured that it was some animal that had found a place
to bed down for the night.
He was all quiet for about a half an hour or so.
Then I about jumped high enough to touch heaven itself when I heard screams in the darkness.
(14:12):
And now here's the really terrible thing.
In the back of my head, I really thought, well, somebody just got caught by a guard and they
were about to die a really ugly death.
But there hadn't been any keymikes saying that anyone was approaching or any alert signals
at all.
(14:33):
All of a sudden there was a flurry of mics being keyed up.
Everyone is asking for status of everyone else, and who is in trouble?
One by one we all cleared our status.
None of us knew what the screams were, but we had ascertained it wasn't any of us.
(14:55):
And all of us were thinking about the guy who had been killed just days before.
One of the things we all wondered was, how did no one hear anything at all that night?
Because like I mentioned, in the darkness out there, sounds can travel a very long distance.
Someone should have heard something.
(15:19):
And now we were hearing something, but all of us were accounted for.
After a while, a boss gets on the walkie.
We all had to answer him verbally with a set of answers.
We did this to make sure that a rival hadn't overtaken a security position, taken a walkie,
or somehow learned our basic mic-keying sequences.
(15:43):
There were more security protocols, but I don't A, remember them all, and B, don't care
to recount them all even if I did.
What I was waiting to hear was Carlos' answer.
Could he?
Because if he didn't, we were in some trouble.
But he did answer.
I don't know where he went every night.
(16:03):
I was just thinking God right then that he was close enough, and still had his walkie with
him and on that he answered.
Because if he hadn't, I know things would not have gone well for me, because I hadn't
reported him as being gone.
These screams that we heard, they were like someone being slowly tortured.
(16:25):
We had all heard big cats before when we were up there.
This was not that cadence.
It was not the way they sound.
It was not the quick growl of a cat.
This was long and drawn out and repeated.
It was something else.
(16:46):
Here a while, everything did quiet down.
But none of us were any the wiser as to what it was.
Two nights after that, and we're still all on edge.
There had been all week reports of other strange goings on all around the different security
circles.
It seemed everyone was seeing or hearing something in the night, and everyone was scared.
(17:12):
It was all being passed off, though, as all of us just being tight-nerved.
But on this one night, everything started out just as usual.
I show up for my shift, as does Carlos.
Then within a half hour of shift start, Carlos leaves.
I sat in the darkness sweating.
(17:33):
I was working so hard at listening to the darkness.
I began to hear a walking sound again.
Only this time it was coming from above and behind me.
Now listen, I thought long and hard, but I guess here I do need to say something about the
(17:53):
topography.
You see my post of that circle overlooked the southwest slope of a mountain that was mostly
forested.
We were not at the top of the mountain, but I won't say we were at the middle either.
Our area had been crafted very carefully just for us.
You see, it was not a natural area, per se.
(18:16):
Behind us was a wall that went up to an out-crop that actually jutted out over our position,
which was nice when it rained.
Where we were had been level flat, big enough for our area, and they left the bushes at
the front to grow to hide our position.
(18:36):
So if you stood above us on the out-crop, you could not look down and see us.
We were further back than the out-crop.
You would have to hang over the edge, and maybe you could see us.
If you were below us, you would only see bushes up there.
If you were looking across the way with binoculars, you probably still could not see us, unless
(18:58):
you kind of knew what to home in on.
I only tell you all of this because when I say that footsteps were above and behind me,
well, that's the only way it makes sense.
So I'm hearing the walking in the footsteps.
They sounded pretty heavy.
I listened as they walked very slowly to the edge of the out-crop above me.
(19:22):
I backed up and I held my breath.
And it sound silly even to me, but I was afraid at the time to key my mic.
I thought whoever was up there would hear the clicks and the darkness.
I should have signaled long before they got that close, I know.
I'm still not sure why I didn't, other than in the back of my head.
(19:45):
I knew that it should be almost impossible to get to that area where the out-crop was,
unless you were a skilled climber.
And no one would do it in the darkness, no matter how skilled you were.
I sat still and listened.
I heard a weird shuffling sound and some light grunts.
(20:08):
Then I heard after a minute what sounded like "eating."
The sound was very sloppy and big.
Like there was a big mouth making chewing motions and slapping its tongue all around.
This went on for maybe two or three minutes.
And then I hiccuped.
I couldn't help it.
(20:28):
What has happened to me for as long as I can ever remember?
My mom said I did it when I was a baby.
If I get scared, I get the hiccups.
I did everything I could to stifle it and stop it.
But it was useless.
I backed up as far as I could because I heard whoever it was suddenly shuffling around.
(20:51):
I thought they were standing up.
But I quickly found out.
That's not what they did.
Above me I suddenly hear a talking noise coming down at me.
I say talking noise because I don't know what else to call it.
Voice isn't the right word.
It was nothing like a human voice and it didn't sound at all like any animal voice if you
(21:14):
want to call it that.
Maybe I should say it was a vocal noise of some sort.
Whatever it was, it was right above me.
I looked up in the darkness and I squinted.
I could almost make out the shape of something looking over the edge of the outcrop down at me.
(21:35):
It was hard to see, but the shadow was just a shade darker than the sky above it.
I believe it was laying down and it was now looking over the edge of the outcrop down
to where I was.
I had the distinct sensation.
(22:01):
I am still hiccapping and looking up.
Now I remember and I key out the walkie in a distressed sequence with my location number
so they all knew who it was and where I was.
I didn't know what else to do.
I thought that was a person up there, but at the same time I wasn't sure.
Now, right now, all of you listening are wondering why I wasn't firing away blindly at it,
(22:27):
aren't you?
Well, we were armed, that's true.
But I had been warned to not use my weapon unless I had absolutely no other choice.
The last thing they wanted us to do was to announce our position with gunfire, either to authorities
or other rivals or the miscellaneous hiker.
(22:50):
Because like I said, even in the wilderness, you can hear everything and there are more
years and you can imagine who can go report things.
Now suddenly, the shadow is back above me again.
I feel a whoosh and I realize I almost got hit with something.
Then I realized it's a large tree branch that still had needles on it.
(23:12):
I felt them as it went by me again and touched me.
Whoever it was or whatever it was was leaning over the outcrop and it was waving a big tree
limb around like it was trying to reach me.
Then it's focalizing at me again.
It was a very throaty vocal sound and it sounded more urgent.
(23:35):
Maybe it was mad or maybe it was trying to get me to do something.
The shadow I see is very large.
Now, we're not supposed to, but I had a very small flashlight on me.
I fished it out of my pocket.
Clicked it on.
Shined it upwards.
First, all I saw was the pine branch swinging back and forth.
(24:01):
Then I see a hairy hand holding it.
On the next whoosh of that pine branch, I do a sidestep and shine my light right up
unobstructed.
I see the face that I can only identify as a Sasquatch.
It was a red color fur all over it.
(24:23):
It closed its eyes and tried to turn from the light.
It dropped the branch and scooted backwards away from the edge of the outcrop as if I had
burned it with the light.
"Oly bleep," I said to myself, and I think I said it out loud.
I knew what that was.
(24:43):
I pressed myself against the wall that went up to the rock crop.
I was hiccuping wildly still and I just couldn't stop.
It was making it hard to draw a breath in and it sounded ridiculous in the darkness I'm
sure.
I could barely get what I had just seen above me.
The truth is, I had thought of a thousand different ways that I could die while doing that job.
(25:10):
But being ripped apart had not entered my mind until the last week.
But being ripped apart by a Sasquatch had not entered my mind until that very moment.
I pulled my rifle around and I flicked the safety off.
I didn't care what the rules were.
I figured this was an emergency.
(25:30):
If that thing stuck its head over the ledge again, it was going to lose its head.
I listened, but all I heard was some shuffling noises up there.
Then there came another of one of those vocal screams and it screamed its weird noises
like it was mad at me again.
Then I heard it breaking branches and leaving the area where so it seemed.
(25:55):
In my head I was trying to picture where it was going, how it was getting there.
Because I knew the topography a little bit up there and I knew that a person couldn't
do what it sounded like it was doing.
When the other guards get to that area, I do tell them exactly what happened and exactly
(26:16):
what I saw.
I was so shook up, I had not even thought about how to explain Carlos not being there.
So here's how it went down.
They got there and I told them what happened and what I saw.
They sure did not believe me.
I was called stupid and worse.
I was told that I'd probably fall asleep.
(26:38):
Then they made jokes about me particking of the flower fields, which is strictly forbidden.
You don't drink.
You don't do any of those things at all while you are on guard duty for one of those special
groups down in Mexico unless you have a death wish.
Then one of them asked me, "Hey, where's Carlos?"
(27:01):
I was still hiccoping wildly.
So I acted like it was all the hiccups and I couldn't answer suddenly.
Then I tried to get out that I didn't know.
I lied and said that he left when all the commotion started.
And again, Carlos hadn't gone far that night because he came around the route to the watch
area and announced that he had just gone up to see if he could find a way up there to see
(27:23):
who was doing that.
There was silence because no one believed him.
Again, the topography tells all of us or it did that night that someone being up there
wasn't likely and it was even less likely that Carlos could have possibly tried to go
up there.
Funny thing is, they poked a lot of fun at Carlos after that.
(27:47):
The leaving that whatever had happened that night when it started that he ran like a chicken
because he was scared and he left me alone to face it.
So on the one hand, Carlos went down in a lot of their estimation and while I hadn't
exactly gone up in their estimation because of the story I told them, I wasn't quite on
the level with Carlos of running scared.
(28:10):
So the thing is they all knew there were some lies and untold things going on.
But not one of them called us on it.
There are so many ins and outs of how it all shook out after this event.
There were discussions with bosses and there was just a lot of things going on.
It was a complicated political landscape out there at the time.
(28:35):
It was a minefield.
Somehow I navigated it.
I held on for the rest of my time.
I don't know how they do things today with flower fields.
I don't know if back then other flower fields handled things the way we did.
It was my one and only time working for such an organization and I don't care to ever
(28:59):
do it again.
The only time they would almost think that what I told them was true was when we talked about
the other things that had been happening and about the man who had been ripped apart.
And I really did and do believe a Sasquatch is what killed that man.
I still don't know how, but I think it was a Sasquatch.
(29:22):
And I was terrified the remainder of my time there.
But that was not a job you just decided to quit one day.
They knew and had agreed to when I was leaving.
So I stuck it out.
I only had three weeks to go and then I was off to college down in Southern California.
But the rest of that summer the stories told again and again were not favorable to either
(29:48):
me or Carlos and boy did they tell stories.
It was pretty difficult too because the friend, the one who got me that job, he seemed
a bit cooler towards me after that as if I had impugned his integrity there.
I don't know it might have been something else.
He was a strange one as I later found out that too is another story unrelated.
(30:16):
Also Carlos did not leave very often after that.
And when he did he didn't leave at night for nearly as long.
I never did find out where he was going in the darkness on those nights.
Secretly I hope that if there was a Sasquatch out there and had ever got hungry I hope
it would run across Carlos and eat him.
(30:38):
See another unrelated story that I won't go into but I will say Carlos was a terrible, terrible
person for so many things and the world would have been better off without him.
I have since been told that most times they do not ever let guards walk away from flower
(31:00):
farms like that.
There's too much risk you could tell someone something.
Maybe it was because I had never caused trouble, maybe because his uncle liked me, maybe because
I was a good kid from the neighborhood they had known for twenty some years.
I don't know why but they let me leave when my time was up which is what we had agreed
(31:22):
at the beginning of the summer.
And I never really talked about it, the flower farm or the Sasquatch and even now I almost
never talk about it.
And I never will.
When I do talk about it I only mention a Sasquatch I never mention the whole setup for a lot of
(31:43):
reasons.
As for me now I've actually gotten three different degrees to my name, not to tut my own horn
and I now work for a large firm in Chicago.
I will do nothing to jeopardize that.
I have a great life.
So please understand, I will not give you any more detail.
(32:04):
I am using a throw away email to send this.
I will never get a reply from you and I will never answer any questions that you might have.
I value my life as it is now and simply that it exists.
I don't fear talking about the Sasquatch.
I fear that organized group from Mexico.
(32:26):
You see I know they're still very active, I do know that.
My friend and his uncle, well they've long since given up the ghosts due to a lot of their
activities.
So I couldn't call in a favor to shield me if I wanted to.
Not that I really had any favors to begin with.
Maybe it was trying to help me by lowering a limb, that Sasquatch I mean.
(32:50):
Maybe it thought I was stuck out there then again thinking about that other man.
Maybe it was trying to knock me off the ledge.
Who can say?
But I let that flower farm.
And since then I have never spent much time anywhere that doesn't have some concrete
within sight.
(33:12):
Never mind National Forces.
You're going to have to sign me anonymous.
Thanks for watching.
Tonight's encounter comes to you from long ago.
(00:03):
We're pulling this one out of the vault.
[Water sounds]
First off, I need to tell you that there will be some things I cannot explain or that might
not make sense to you.
And even though it's been 25 years, I'm still being very careful with what I say, and not
(00:28):
because of the Sasquatch.
There will be some things that I can, and I will explain to you, and some things I did
not know about the situation at the time, and I never wanted to know.
And before I say anything else, I will tell you that I only have knew how things would
be when I agreed to a long-time friend's proposition who said that his uncle had a business,
(00:54):
and we could make some extra money with it.
He said that as long as he vouched for me, his uncle was sure to hire me.
Now my friend, his uncle, and my parents, as a matter of fact, they were all in the United
States illegally from Mexico.
But unlike them, I was not.
(01:16):
I am an American citizen as I was born here.
Now I had heard what my friend's uncle's business was and what he was into.
And when I said that, my friend said, "No, not that.
It's something else but a side business of it."
He assured me.
I would not be doing any selling or any handling of the so-called recreational items.
(01:42):
I would be guarding where it was growing.
Now that sounded easy enough, and it paid very well.
I needed the money you see because I was heading off to college that fall.
And while I had some scholarships, I was going to have to fund everything else myself.
So I said yes.
Now all right.
(02:02):
Let me tell you people, this is Nance talking to you.
This is not the writer.
I have to keep this channel safe.
So there are some things that I have changed some of the words that the writer had used.
I'm doing that to keep my channel safe.
Now for the green recreational plant that some people like to inhale, and you all know
(02:23):
what I'm talking about, I'm going to refer to it as flower or flowers, and where it grows
will be the flower fields.
Okay?
All right.
Let's move on.
He goes on to say that this was in Northern California, and that's the only reference to
location I will give.
(02:45):
Before I get to the full Sasquatch bit, I have to give you some things about how things
worked around there.
Well, what few things I knew that is.
The flower farm I worked on was not the only one.
I was aware of many growing in the nearby areas.
Some were ours, and some were not.
(03:07):
They belonged to rival groups.
We were in the middle of a national forest, like many other flower fields were, and probably
still are to this day.
The guards for the flower farm were set out all around the farm in rings, spaced about
50 yards apart, and the circles radiated out from our field.
(03:29):
I believe at one point our farthest lookouts were in trees about a quarter mile away.
Oh, and the further you went out from the farm, the farther apart the guards were.
Now when I mentioned these guards in the outer ring being up in trees, I'm meaning that
these trees had been trimmed to accommodate a permanent type of camouflage stand.
(03:53):
Think of it as a very tiny treehouse that you would have a very hard time seeing from
the ground.
But they could see you a long distance away.
I was told that they had done as much as possible to divert the casual hiker in another
direction, and they would actually engage them if they saw them.
(04:17):
Now how they actually diverted people, I don't know.
But while there I did hear a few tales of how more than one hiker over the years had refused
to be diverted from the area, and I heard things did not go well for those hikers.
(04:37):
But that's all I heard.
I never heard any more specifics than that.
I did not want to hear it, but I did not doubt the truth of what they were saying.
My guard station was on the second ring out from the flower field, albeit at a far-flung
edge.
It was not a perfect circle.
(04:58):
We'll just say that.
I worked the night shift, which I thought would be easier, but in many ways it was much,
much worse.
Not the least of which because of who I was partnered up with for the guard station, I'm going
to call him Carlos.
That wasn't his name, but it is good as any.
(05:20):
Now Carlos was in the actual group, we'll call it, from Mexico, and had been most of his life.
You know, and by group I mean the organized kind of group.
I've actually heard its name in the news many times over the years, but not necessarily
in relation to the flower fields.
(05:43):
He was related distantly by marriage to my friend's uncle, but he was so stupid, he took
liberties that my friend would never dream of taking.
My friend's uncle was not THE boss, but he was up there in the ranks, and he ran about
half the flower fields that group had in California.
(06:04):
I keep getting lost telling this story.
I am so very sorry.
It has been so long since I've allowed myself to think about anything from this time that
every time I do things come up to the surface all at once.
Carlos was terribly bold, as I just mentioned.
He would often step away as he called it from the post at night, and he would disappear
(06:29):
for hours, leaving me alone in the darkness.
The difficulty was I couldn't tell on him because no one likes a snitch less than those
organized groups.
Then again, the catch-22 was, if you didn't tell a boss something was going on, and they
(06:49):
found out about it, and they found out you had a knowledge of it, well that was a pretty
bad situation to be in, too.
I couldn't tell, and I was going to be in trouble if I didn't.
I couldn't win, and I knew it, so I just hoped for the best and kept my mouth shut.
I was very upset when Carlos would pull his disappearing acts, and one night I was upset
(07:15):
in particular because we had all just been told to be extra vigilant.
It seemed that one of those rival groups might be making a play for our flower fields,
and they would have struggles like that from time to time, all out many wars I was told.
You see, one in the guards in one of the outer circles in a tree stand had been killed,
(07:41):
but it wasn't just that he had been killed.
It was how he had been killed that made everyone suspicious and more than a little nervous.
Initially, we were not officially told anything about his death other than he had been
killed, and then the bosses would follow it up by saying they were sure it was a rival.
(08:03):
Their only evidence that it was probably a rival was because it seemed to be a silent
kill.
You see, despite what movies portray, those guarding flower fields do everything they can
not to use a fire arm that draws attention and not the kind they want.
(08:24):
Now the thing is, it was days later before I learned the truth, and I only found out because
the guy who was my replacement was the brother to the guy who was the dead man's replacement,
and he was the one who actually found his body.
The story that I was told is that the dead man's body was found several hundred feet away
(08:48):
from the tree that he was supposed to be in.
He said, "The man's head had been ripped off and was placed neatly on a fallen tree near
the route that the men used to go back and forth, and the head had been placed carefully
so that it faced the direction that the men would come in from.
(09:10):
The body itself was close by, and the man said the arms and the legs that were still attached
were bent and broken in unusual angles.
One arm had been ripped completely off.
The torso of the body, he said, looked lumpy and misshapen.
He described it as a lump of dough that someone was in the process of kneading and walked
(09:34):
away.
I asked about the head and the arm being torn off.
I said, "Did he mean to say they had been chopped off or hacked off?"
My replacement guy said that his brother was very clear.
He saw tears and rips.
Nothing had been cut or hacked.
(09:56):
We talked about how this could have been done without anyone in any of the outer stands
and security rings hearing anything happening in the night.
We wondered how they got him to come down out of the tree in the first place because we
all knew they were not allowed to come down, not even for a call of nature.
(10:17):
To this day, I'm not absolutely certain that it couldn't have really been a rival that
did that to that man.
But if so, it doesn't really fit.
You see, there were no other moves before or after that for a long while.
Nothing I heard about anyway.
And there hadn't been any unusual tensions.
(10:38):
It just seemed out of place.
Personally, I do think it was a Sasquatch.
But I still can't tell you how or why that guy came down out of that tree or how he was
gotten down out of the tree or how or why no one else heard anything that night.
(10:58):
But other than a Sasquatch, I have no better explanation.
I had just heard all of those details, and then that very night Carlos pulls his little
disappearing stunt within the first half hour of guard duty.
I was beyond pissed and scared.
But there was nothing I could do.
(11:20):
I didn't even have a tree to hide in.
We were stationed on the ground with a good line of sight down the southwest.
Even here, I'm hesitant to give too much detail about the topography, which has made writing
this email very difficult.
And it might help understanding later events if I could, but I'm far too fearful.
(11:43):
For all I know, they are still growing in that area of California.
They may not be, but I really don't want to take the chance.
So there I am, all alone, listening to everything in the darkness.
Now I should add that we did have walkies with one-eared headsets at the time, and really
for that time it felt like pretty darn advanced stuff.
(12:07):
We would key the mic more often than we'd talk to each other.
We had signals to ask or talk if it was safe to talk, but the walkie had been silent all
night.
Then I suddenly start to hear a very faint sound.
To me it sounded like footsteps, but they were pretty far off, but in the darkness you
can hear a long way.
(12:27):
But I couldn't tell if it was too legged or four legged, so I kept listening.
If it was too legged, I would keen alert sequence on the walkie.
If someone was out there, we could be about 95% sure that it wasn't any of us.
You see, all the security shifts started and ended at the same time, just for that reason.
(12:50):
So for most of the night, no one should be out there walking around.
Well, no one except for Carlos, but I think that man walked on air because I never heard
him come back until he was almost right next to me.
More than a few times he scared the heck out of me by showing up in the darkness, seemingly
out of nowhere.
(13:10):
Now, between that and the fact that the specific topography in the direction of the sounds were
coming from, well, I was pretty certain it could not have been Carlos out there because he
started out and left in a different way.
And to get from where he headed when he left to where the sound was coming from now,
(13:32):
it would have been near impossible, especially in the darkness.
And to go around the only way possible to get there, it would have taken several hours.
So I knew it wasn't Carlos.
Just trust me on that.
As I listened, I could tell it was coming closer.
(13:52):
Then the walking sound stopped abruptly.
I just shrugged my shoulders and figured that it was some animal that had found a place
to bed down for the night.
He was all quiet for about a half an hour or so.
Then I about jumped high enough to touch heaven itself when I heard screams in the darkness.
(14:12):
And now here's the really terrible thing.
In the back of my head, I really thought, well, somebody just got caught by a guard and they
were about to die a really ugly death.
But there hadn't been any keymikes saying that anyone was approaching or any alert signals
at all.
(14:33):
All of a sudden there was a flurry of mics being keyed up.
Everyone is asking for status of everyone else, and who is in trouble?
One by one we all cleared our status.
None of us knew what the screams were, but we had ascertained it wasn't any of us.
(14:55):
And all of us were thinking about the guy who had been killed just days before.
One of the things we all wondered was, how did no one hear anything at all that night?
Because like I mentioned, in the darkness out there, sounds can travel a very long distance.
Someone should have heard something.
(15:19):
And now we were hearing something, but all of us were accounted for.
After a while, a boss gets on the walkie.
We all had to answer him verbally with a set of answers.
We did this to make sure that a rival hadn't overtaken a security position, taken a walkie,
or somehow learned our basic mic-keying sequences.
(15:43):
There were more security protocols, but I don't A, remember them all, and B, don't care
to recount them all even if I did.
What I was waiting to hear was Carlos' answer.
Could he?
Because if he didn't, we were in some trouble.
But he did answer.
I don't know where he went every night.
(16:03):
I was just thinking God right then that he was close enough, and still had his walkie with
him and on that he answered.
Because if he hadn't, I know things would not have gone well for me, because I hadn't
reported him as being gone.
These screams that we heard, they were like someone being slowly tortured.
(16:25):
We had all heard big cats before when we were up there.
This was not that cadence.
It was not the way they sound.
It was not the quick growl of a cat.
This was long and drawn out and repeated.
It was something else.
(16:46):
Here a while, everything did quiet down.
But none of us were any the wiser as to what it was.
Two nights after that, and we're still all on edge.
There had been all week reports of other strange goings on all around the different security
circles.
It seemed everyone was seeing or hearing something in the night, and everyone was scared.
(17:12):
It was all being passed off, though, as all of us just being tight-nerved.
But on this one night, everything started out just as usual.
I show up for my shift, as does Carlos.
Then within a half hour of shift start, Carlos leaves.
I sat in the darkness sweating.
(17:33):
I was working so hard at listening to the darkness.
I began to hear a walking sound again.
Only this time it was coming from above and behind me.
Now listen, I thought long and hard, but I guess here I do need to say something about the
(17:53):
topography.
You see my post of that circle overlooked the southwest slope of a mountain that was mostly
forested.
We were not at the top of the mountain, but I won't say we were at the middle either.
Our area had been crafted very carefully just for us.
You see, it was not a natural area, per se.
(18:16):
Behind us was a wall that went up to an out-crop that actually jutted out over our position,
which was nice when it rained.
Where we were had been level flat, big enough for our area, and they left the bushes at
the front to grow to hide our position.
(18:36):
So if you stood above us on the out-crop, you could not look down and see us.
We were further back than the out-crop.
You would have to hang over the edge, and maybe you could see us.
If you were below us, you would only see bushes up there.
If you were looking across the way with binoculars, you probably still could not see us, unless
(18:58):
you kind of knew what to home in on.
I only tell you all of this because when I say that footsteps were above and behind me,
well, that's the only way it makes sense.
So I'm hearing the walking in the footsteps.
They sounded pretty heavy.
I listened as they walked very slowly to the edge of the out-crop above me.
(19:22):
I backed up and I held my breath.
And it sound silly even to me, but I was afraid at the time to key my mic.
I thought whoever was up there would hear the clicks and the darkness.
I should have signaled long before they got that close, I know.
I'm still not sure why I didn't, other than in the back of my head.
(19:45):
I knew that it should be almost impossible to get to that area where the out-crop was,
unless you were a skilled climber.
And no one would do it in the darkness, no matter how skilled you were.
I sat still and listened.
I heard a weird shuffling sound and some light grunts.
(20:08):
Then I heard after a minute what sounded like "eating."
The sound was very sloppy and big.
Like there was a big mouth making chewing motions and slapping its tongue all around.
This went on for maybe two or three minutes.
And then I hiccuped.
I couldn't help it.
(20:28):
What has happened to me for as long as I can ever remember?
My mom said I did it when I was a baby.
If I get scared, I get the hiccups.
I did everything I could to stifle it and stop it.
But it was useless.
I backed up as far as I could because I heard whoever it was suddenly shuffling around.
(20:51):
I thought they were standing up.
But I quickly found out.
That's not what they did.
Above me I suddenly hear a talking noise coming down at me.
I say talking noise because I don't know what else to call it.
Voice isn't the right word.
It was nothing like a human voice and it didn't sound at all like any animal voice if you
(21:14):
want to call it that.
Maybe I should say it was a vocal noise of some sort.
Whatever it was, it was right above me.
I looked up in the darkness and I squinted.
I could almost make out the shape of something looking over the edge of the outcrop down at me.
(21:35):
It was hard to see, but the shadow was just a shade darker than the sky above it.
I believe it was laying down and it was now looking over the edge of the outcrop down
to where I was.
I had the distinct sensation.
(22:01):
I am still hiccapping and looking up.
Now I remember and I key out the walkie in a distressed sequence with my location number
so they all knew who it was and where I was.
I didn't know what else to do.
I thought that was a person up there, but at the same time I wasn't sure.
Now, right now, all of you listening are wondering why I wasn't firing away blindly at it,
(22:27):
aren't you?
Well, we were armed, that's true.
But I had been warned to not use my weapon unless I had absolutely no other choice.
The last thing they wanted us to do was to announce our position with gunfire, either to authorities
or other rivals or the miscellaneous hiker.
(22:50):
Because like I said, even in the wilderness, you can hear everything and there are more
years and you can imagine who can go report things.
Now suddenly, the shadow is back above me again.
I feel a whoosh and I realize I almost got hit with something.
Then I realized it's a large tree branch that still had needles on it.
(23:12):
I felt them as it went by me again and touched me.
Whoever it was or whatever it was was leaning over the outcrop and it was waving a big tree
limb around like it was trying to reach me.
Then it's focalizing at me again.
It was a very throaty vocal sound and it sounded more urgent.
(23:35):
Maybe it was mad or maybe it was trying to get me to do something.
The shadow I see is very large.
Now, we're not supposed to, but I had a very small flashlight on me.
I fished it out of my pocket.
Clicked it on.
Shined it upwards.
First, all I saw was the pine branch swinging back and forth.
(24:01):
Then I see a hairy hand holding it.
On the next whoosh of that pine branch, I do a sidestep and shine my light right up
unobstructed.
I see the face that I can only identify as a Sasquatch.
It was a red color fur all over it.
(24:23):
It closed its eyes and tried to turn from the light.
It dropped the branch and scooted backwards away from the edge of the outcrop as if I had
burned it with the light.
"Oly bleep," I said to myself, and I think I said it out loud.
I knew what that was.
(24:43):
I pressed myself against the wall that went up to the rock crop.
I was hiccuping wildly still and I just couldn't stop.
It was making it hard to draw a breath in and it sounded ridiculous in the darkness I'm
sure.
I could barely get what I had just seen above me.
The truth is, I had thought of a thousand different ways that I could die while doing that job.
(25:10):
But being ripped apart had not entered my mind until the last week.
But being ripped apart by a Sasquatch had not entered my mind until that very moment.
I pulled my rifle around and I flicked the safety off.
I didn't care what the rules were.
I figured this was an emergency.
(25:30):
If that thing stuck its head over the ledge again, it was going to lose its head.
I listened, but all I heard was some shuffling noises up there.
Then there came another of one of those vocal screams and it screamed its weird noises
like it was mad at me again.
Then I heard it breaking branches and leaving the area where so it seemed.
(25:55):
In my head I was trying to picture where it was going, how it was getting there.
Because I knew the topography a little bit up there and I knew that a person couldn't
do what it sounded like it was doing.
When the other guards get to that area, I do tell them exactly what happened and exactly
(26:16):
what I saw.
I was so shook up, I had not even thought about how to explain Carlos not being there.
So here's how it went down.
They got there and I told them what happened and what I saw.
They sure did not believe me.
I was called stupid and worse.
I was told that I'd probably fall asleep.
(26:38):
Then they made jokes about me particking of the flower fields, which is strictly forbidden.
You don't drink.
You don't do any of those things at all while you are on guard duty for one of those special
groups down in Mexico unless you have a death wish.
Then one of them asked me, "Hey, where's Carlos?"
(27:01):
I was still hiccoping wildly.
So I acted like it was all the hiccups and I couldn't answer suddenly.
Then I tried to get out that I didn't know.
I lied and said that he left when all the commotion started.
And again, Carlos hadn't gone far that night because he came around the route to the watch
area and announced that he had just gone up to see if he could find a way up there to see
(27:23):
who was doing that.
There was silence because no one believed him.
Again, the topography tells all of us or it did that night that someone being up there
wasn't likely and it was even less likely that Carlos could have possibly tried to go
up there.
Funny thing is, they poked a lot of fun at Carlos after that.
(27:47):
The leaving that whatever had happened that night when it started that he ran like a chicken
because he was scared and he left me alone to face it.
So on the one hand, Carlos went down in a lot of their estimation and while I hadn't
exactly gone up in their estimation because of the story I told them, I wasn't quite on
the level with Carlos of running scared.
(28:10):
So the thing is they all knew there were some lies and untold things going on.
But not one of them called us on it.
There are so many ins and outs of how it all shook out after this event.
There were discussions with bosses and there was just a lot of things going on.
It was a complicated political landscape out there at the time.
(28:35):
It was a minefield.
Somehow I navigated it.
I held on for the rest of my time.
I don't know how they do things today with flower fields.
I don't know if back then other flower fields handled things the way we did.
It was my one and only time working for such an organization and I don't care to ever
(28:59):
do it again.
The only time they would almost think that what I told them was true was when we talked about
the other things that had been happening and about the man who had been ripped apart.
And I really did and do believe a Sasquatch is what killed that man.
I still don't know how, but I think it was a Sasquatch.
(29:22):
And I was terrified the remainder of my time there.
But that was not a job you just decided to quit one day.
They knew and had agreed to when I was leaving.
So I stuck it out.
I only had three weeks to go and then I was off to college down in Southern California.
But the rest of that summer the stories told again and again were not favorable to either
(29:48):
me or Carlos and boy did they tell stories.
It was pretty difficult too because the friend, the one who got me that job, he seemed
a bit cooler towards me after that as if I had impugned his integrity there.
I don't know it might have been something else.
He was a strange one as I later found out that too is another story unrelated.
(30:16):
Also Carlos did not leave very often after that.
And when he did he didn't leave at night for nearly as long.
I never did find out where he was going in the darkness on those nights.
Secretly I hope that if there was a Sasquatch out there and had ever got hungry I hope
it would run across Carlos and eat him.
(30:38):
See another unrelated story that I won't go into but I will say Carlos was a terrible, terrible
person for so many things and the world would have been better off without him.
I have since been told that most times they do not ever let guards walk away from flower
(31:00):
farms like that.
There's too much risk you could tell someone something.
Maybe it was because I had never caused trouble, maybe because his uncle liked me, maybe because
I was a good kid from the neighborhood they had known for twenty some years.
I don't know why but they let me leave when my time was up which is what we had agreed
(31:22):
at the beginning of the summer.
And I never really talked about it, the flower farm or the Sasquatch and even now I almost
never talk about it.
And I never will.
When I do talk about it I only mention a Sasquatch I never mention the whole setup for a lot of
(31:43):
reasons.
As for me now I've actually gotten three different degrees to my name, not to tut my own horn
and I now work for a large firm in Chicago.
I will do nothing to jeopardize that.
I have a great life.
So please understand, I will not give you any more detail.
(32:04):
I am using a throw away email to send this.
I will never get a reply from you and I will never answer any questions that you might have.
I value my life as it is now and simply that it exists.
I don't fear talking about the Sasquatch.
I fear that organized group from Mexico.
(32:26):
You see I know they're still very active, I do know that.
My friend and his uncle, well they've long since given up the ghosts due to a lot of their
activities.
So I couldn't call in a favor to shield me if I wanted to.
Not that I really had any favors to begin with.
Maybe it was trying to help me by lowering a limb, that Sasquatch I mean.
(32:50):
Maybe it thought I was stuck out there then again thinking about that other man.
Maybe it was trying to knock me off the ledge.
Who can say?
But I let that flower farm.
And since then I have never spent much time anywhere that doesn't have some concrete
within sight.
(33:12):
Never mind National Forces.
You're going to have to sign me anonymous.
Thanks for watching.
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