October 21, 2025 • 23 mins
When Bigfoot Warns You To Leave Because Others Are Near, You Should Listen.
You can call it bigfoot or sasquatch, but Wayne saw one while checking a salt block near a barbed-wire fence out in a back pasture. He saw it step out from the trees along the fence, and it began to make sounds at him - urging him to leave the area, presumably for his own safety.
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
You can call it bigfoot or sasquatch, but Wayne saw one while checking a salt block near a barbed-wire fence out in a back pasture. He saw it step out from the trees along the fence, and it began to make sounds at him - urging him to leave the area, presumably for his own safety.
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):
"You can call me Wayne. I'm a hands-on kind of guy. I need to feel a thing to measure
(00:14):
it and be able to catalog it and work with it, whatever it is. Stories, they're not my
thing. But that's all I have for you from my encounter. So that's what I will give."
My neighbor spread, let's call him Tom Miller. That's not his name, but it's good enough.
Now Tom's place sits two farms over from my land, just across a little valley where the
(00:38):
fog likes to lay most mornings. Tom had a beef herd of herfords and some baldies, and he
was real particular about them. Tim's back pasture is the high one, fences
or kept in good shape. They're forced strand with barbed wire. Top wire at about chest
tie on me. There's a salt block feeder about twenty yards just inside the fence, past
(01:02):
a bunch of hackberry by the fence as well. Now those cows hit that salt block hard. You'll
find it knows and pushed around all the time. This was a Thursday in late October. A good
cool day after some warm rainy days. Tom called me about four o'clock in the afternoon
(01:22):
and asked if I could swing by and make sure that the salt block and the feeder hadn't been
tipped. He was stuck up in Columbus, waiting on some parts to come in. They were supposed
to be there that morning, but were delayed, and they should still come in before closing.
If he had to, he said, he would stay over instead of making the drive home just to have to
(01:42):
go back the next day. "If it's down," he said, flip it over. Those heffers will have it
down in the mud again. I took my side-by-side out there. It was only a few months old, still
new to me, and I was still babying it. The same way you do a brand-new car for the first couple
months. Well, 'til it isn't new anymore. I knew the day would come that I would run it
(02:07):
into deep mud, and I wouldn't care. But that day was not today. We had had almost a week
of solid rain right before this turn in the weather, so I knew up there by the gates would be
a pure mud pit. The two track back there runs parallel to the fence for several acres.
I parked down from the top gate, because like I said, I was still babying it, and the closer
(02:32):
it was to the gate, the worse the mud pit would be. Plus it was a really nice day, and I didn't
mind the walk. I still would have parked outside the gate, even if there hadn't been any
mud. I don't like driving deep into the cattle know-how, unless I have no choice. So I parked
out there, and killed the engine, then walked up to the top gate. I was walking the maybe
(02:56):
fifty yards or so up to the gate. When I heard coyotes starting up over the far ridge, it was
a bit early for them, but there just background music out there. The cows were strung out near
the pond, tail-swishing heads up. The smell of the cows and the damp cooling pasture soil
was deep in my nose. From the gate I could see the salt block. It looked upright, scooted
(03:22):
if a little bit to one side. Passed that, feeder looked all right too, but I would walk out
and check it. I unlatched the chain on the gate, set it over the post knob, and swung the
gate open. It screeched like a little baby bandsheet. It always does. I closed the gate, latched
it back, and took a few steps in. And that was as far as I got. I stopped because of what
(03:48):
happened next.
First, a single sharp clack from the timber off to my left. It was clean and sharp, like
two hardwood blocks struck together. I've cut timber. I've heard windfalls and woodfall.
This was not that. There was no splintering sound, no crackle after. Just the hit, and then
(04:12):
pure stillness again. I thought maybe I should call out Tom's name on the off-chance somebody
was back in there, but that didn't make sense. No one cuts through the miller back fence
just to stand quiet and clap some wood together. I waited a couple more seconds to see if anything
else was going to happen. And when it didn't, I took a few more steps toward the salt block
(04:36):
in the feeder. That's when I heard a weird, strange sucking sound for lack of a better
description. It was like a heavy boot being pulled free of deep mud, and it was very close,
not far away at all. The hair stood up on my forearms. I looked past the hackberry trees
at the fence, and I saw something dark there where there shouldn't have been. It came
(05:02):
into view, piece by piece. I mean, the hackberry trunk cut it in half at first, then in thirds.
Then as it stepped into view, I had shoulders first, then the head over the right shoulder,
then the rest of it came all at once as it cleared the hackberry. It moved fluidly and
solidly. No jerky motions, no costume flapping around the legs are looking saggy. This was
(05:28):
as solid as solid gets. I know you're winning numbers. Everyone does. But I can only give
you guesstimates as I call them. It was taller than any man I personally known or work next
to. And I poured pads against some huge behemoths of boys who were built like they should be playing
(05:49):
for the NFL, and none of them came close to this size. Eight feet tall? I won't swear to
it, but I would testify that it was north of seven feet by a good margin. It was broad
across the shoulders in a way that I could see more than actually probably measure. The
first thing my body did was try to find a shape to match what I was seeing, and the nearest
(06:14):
my brain could offer up was refrigerator box with muscle. Now that's not elegant, but
there it is. Here was the color of wet walnut shells with a rusty color wherever the light
hit it. It lay flatter over the chest and the belly, but longer over the forearms. Face
(06:34):
wasn't all over furry, and there wasn't a really long jaw and mouth like you would see on
a dog or a bear. There was skin showing in a few places, more gray browning color than
brown, and it was like wet creek stones, rougher along the mouth, smoother around the eyes.
The brow came forward heavy, not knee and or thaw cartoon-like heavy, just shading the
(06:59):
eyes. The head didn't set up on the neck, not like
hours. It seemed to set down into the shoulders, trapezius muscles running up like ropes
and visible. I saw its eyes when it looked right at me. There was nothing unnatural about
them. They weren't glowing or any kind of a weird red color. They were a regular amber
(07:22):
brown color, like old beer bottles in the sun. The nose had a wide bridge and big nostrils.
In the mouth lines, they were wide and thick. I mean, really, there's nothing much I can
give you that doesn't sound exactly like every other big-foot description out there.
But it came out, and it stood near the salt block.
(07:47):
I knew the closed gate was a few feet behind me. Down the way I heard a cow blow, then
I saw in my periphery that it took two slow steps in my direction, then stopped. I went
over what I had on me, which was not much. A folding pocket knife, a phone, and nothing
else but my own pride. And for the record, pride is the least useful of all of those three.
(08:14):
So we're about twenty feet apart, maybe twenty-five feet. It doesn't matter. It was too close
for my liking. It lifted its chin a fraction and drew a slow breath in. The breeze shifted,
and I smelled it then. Wet leaves, damp earth, a sour hint like a deer bed that had been
laid in for a week straight. People talk about them smelling like skunk and garbage. I
(08:40):
didn't get that. Strong, yes. Unmustakable, yes, but not garbage and not skunk. I said,
"All right, all right." In the same voice I had used to calm my son when he was a fussy
baby and impatient for his bottle at 2am. I kept my voice soft and the rhythm steady. I didn't
(09:04):
raise my hands or looked too strongly into its eyes. I tried to take a neutral stance to
ratchet down any threat that could be building. It answered me back with a sound that's difficult
to explain. The mouth didn't open much at all. It was like a popping click sound cross
with a wet tongue slap, sort of like "clock" back behind the teeth. Then it bent at the waist.
(09:31):
Took a clot of dark pasture up in its left hand and lobbed it real low. This wasn't a
wind-up pitch. This wasn't a fastball. It was just a lazy underhand toss that hit short
and broke apart when it hit the ground. Grit peppered my shins through my jeans. The message
I got was plain. Get lost. This is mine. I did not turn and run. I may not have known much,
(10:01):
but I knew that would be the wrong thing to do. I eased back a few inches at time, step by
step. I said, "Okay, okay, I'm backing out." Because I was. And while I figured maybe
it could read my actions, for some reason I still had the need to say them out loud. It
(10:21):
tilled its head at me. And that's when I noticed the ears. Not round and high like a bear's
or a little and low like ours. These ears lay back into the hair. They were hard to see,
but one caught some light when it moved, and I could see the shape. It was like a thicken
pad stuck to the side of the head. I stepped back until my left calf touched the bottom fence
(10:47):
wire of the gate. Then I angled sideways, never taking my eyes off of it. I unlatched the
gate by feel and went through. The chain clinked into place on the gate latch. The cows
down the way were still huddled, watching. They shifted, two were bold and ventured forward,
(11:09):
their ears forward, their posture showing though, they were unsure. They were used to humans
being out there, and they usually came forward when they saw them. But this other thing standing
there clearly had them puzzled. So they stayed still and watched.
The thing out there took two long strides forward, quickly covering the distance that I had
(11:32):
vacated by backing away. It wasn't a charge, it was just eating up the distance steadily.
As it walked forward, I was stepping backward. But of course it covered more ground in two
steps than I did in four. It came right up to the fence about ten feet from where I stood.
(11:53):
Put its right hand down on Tom's top wire. I watched the wire dip a good inch, and I
knew that wire. Twelve and a half gauge, strung very tight just last spring with a stretcher
in two come-alongs. That wire will sing if you pluck it hard. But it didn't sing much
(12:13):
under my hand, no matter how hard I plucked. But it was strung very tight. Now under this
creature's hand, it dipped and hummed. It bounced its hand on the wire a couple of times,
looking at me. It was trying to tell me something, I guess. The top barb grazed some hair, and
(12:36):
I saw two short strands hang there for just a heartbeat before they floated away in the
breeze. Now we were less than ten feet apart with just the fence between us. Me on the
outside, him on the inside. That close, I saw the hair turn with every muscle movement.
I saw the anatomy under the fur. This was not costumer fluff. The thigh was thick, and
(13:04):
when it shifted weight to the ball of its foot, I saw the calf bulge like a runner's.
I never got a real look at the toes, and I probably couldn't have even if I had tried.
The grass was too tough to there, but I did see the foot set flat, heel and forefoot taking
weight together. Another sound came then, far left from in the trees, two soft knocks with
(13:30):
a space between. After two seconds it was answered with a low, almost sub-vocal growl, from
far away on my right, maybe thirty yards up the fence. I can't swear there were two more
out there, but I really believed there were. I kept my eyes on the one right in front of
me. It made the weird mouth-popping sounds again, this time three soft pops in a row. They
(13:56):
weren't loud, it was the kind of voice you would use when you don't want to spook a skittish
horse. It was looking right at me as it did it. I got the sense I was being told one more
time to get out of there, and like it was doing me a great favor by telling me. I backed
up on the two-track, working my way carefully so I didn't fall on the mud. I walked down
(14:21):
to where I'd left the side by side, keeping the big foot inside all the way. It walked
with me most of the way, probably a good thirty yards parallel, with me on the rough two-track,
and it inside the pasture fence, one hand trailing lightly on the wire. Its eyes flicking
between me and the cows in the pasture. A white-faced heifer balled and tried to walk forward.
(14:49):
The big creature turned its head toward the cow enough that I could see the jawline cleanly.
There was a break in the hair around the jawline. It went vertically. It was a clean line with
a band of skin underneath. It was a scar. If you've seen someone who's had stitches across
an eyebrow, and the hair there never grew back, and you could see the ridge scar, it was just
(15:14):
like that. It was very noticeable. When the hackleberry stood between us again at a slant
along that part of the fence, it suddenly stopped. We looked through the trees at each other,
our distance widening because of the trees. I could see the side by side up ahead on the
two-track. I looked over, as I had been the whole way, and suddenly I couldn't see it.
(15:41):
I stopped and looked for it frantically. I needed to see where it was. What if it had come
over the fence and had come up right behind me? It was about a half-second of pure panic
then I saw it. It was hanging back on the other side of the thin line of trees, but it was
still watching me. I felt like I was back in college and just got thrown out of a bar,
(16:06):
and the bouncer standing there at the doorway telling me, "Don't come back, buddy." Honestly,
I wasn't planning on it. But I backed away, still not wanting to turn my back, not till I
was nearer my side by side. By that time I could no longer see it. I got on my side by
side, fired it up, and headed down that two-track. I'm not a drinker, and I didn't drink at all
(16:32):
that night for sure, but I did go sit on the porch with some coffee. I sat there with the
lights off long after dinner, just thinking, "My wife asked if I checked Tom's salt-block
and theater." I told her it was fine, and that was truthful, at least. Sometime after dinner,
as I was sitting out there, Tom called. My wife brought the phone out to me. He said he
(16:56):
just got home and he wanted to thank me for looking after the cows and the feeder. I wanted
to say something right then, but not there on the phone. I slept okay that night. Right
after breakfast in the morning, I called Tom. "Hey, you got a minute?" he said he sure did.
(17:17):
So I met him up at the top gate. I took a thermos of fresh coffee and I had two paper coffee
cups for us. I poured a seat, check up. We hung there at the fence, careful at the barbed
wire, and we talked over sips of coffee. I told him about the day before. He listened. Tilted
the brim of his hat like he always does when he sorting something out and he said, "Well,
(17:42):
let's go have a so look." The mud was all dried up a lot more that day than before, but the
ground was still top-soft. We went over a lot of the ground where I knew it had been standing
or walking. The brittle grass was flattened down, and there was a faint outline that could
have been a print, but it was hard to say. Inside the fence I looked for more tracks, but
(18:07):
nothing was clean. Pasture grass doesn't give you clear marks, and where the grass had been
worn away by cow traffic, well, any prints that might have been there had been worked
over by the cows over the last day and night. But every now and then we could see a few
indents in the ground and in the grass, and they ran in a line. They were broken, yes,
(18:31):
but they were more than a hint or just some coincidence. Even Tom eyed them and thought so.
The distance between the obvious heel dips, if that's what they were, it was long. Tom
put his boot heel in one and tried to stretch to the next. He's a shade shorter than me,
(18:51):
but he was not a small man. He laughed without any mirth, and he said, "Nope." We checked the
salt block tray. It had a faint smear of mud on the rim like something dirty had brushed
up against it. The salt block had a new scuff along one corner, deep indentations. Now
(19:12):
that could have been from cow teeth, and it could have been something else. Cows will jaw
a block until the corners are smooth as river stone. Still, the scuff didn't look like
the others all around the block. Tom looked at them and looked at me, and he didn't say
the word that I wasn't saying either. We walked the fence another thirty yards up one way,
(19:37):
then back down the other. About twenty yards up, two grass tuffs were mashed in a slant where
something heavy had cut the corner and stepped off the grade. We didn't see any more up there
because we didn't linger. On the way back to the gate, Tom said, "You going to tell anybody
(19:57):
about this?" Now I knew he didn't mean talking to the sheriff. He meant the kind of anybody
that starts coming around with thermal cameras and YouTube channels. I said, "No, I wasn't.
I knew that was the kind of attention that tends to leave ruts and empty cans and trash
all over people's private property." So he nodded like he'd already guessed what I would
(20:21):
say. Then he said, "Well, I'll make sure I keep the grandkids off the backside for a while."
I said that sounded like a real good idea, which it was, whether you believed in Bigfoot or
not. And I really haven't told many people. I'm telling you, because when we met at the
Bigfoot Festival last year, you told me you wanted the plain truth of what I saw when
(20:46):
I told you about all of this. I'm sorry, it's taken me so long to get it to you. I'm
no scientist. I can call it a Bigfoot or a Sasquatch. Maybe I'm right. Maybe I'm wrong.
But what I know for certain is this. A tall, powerfully built, hair-covered figure with
(21:07):
a face you could read stood at Tom Miller's salt block right before dusk, bounced to
heavy wire that I can barely pluck, and smelled, well, like I don't know what. And it was clearly
telling me to leave. Now why? I don't know. But I have a feeling that it was doing me some
kind of a favor. Like a kid telling you you'd better get on home before their mean dad gets
(21:32):
home from work. I asked Tom if he'd had any trouble with his cows, and he said he hadn't.
He did have a calf go missing at calving time. But that does happen. Could have been coyotes.
Could have been lots of things. He said they still go to the pond just the same. They walk
(21:53):
the fence when he rides out for his fence checks, and the fences stay unbroken. I asked him if
he believed me one time. He looked at me, pushed his hat up off his brow and said, "Yeah, I
do." I waited for him to say something else, but he didn't. I said, "Just yeah?" He looked at me
(22:17):
and nodded. Then finally he said, "Yeah, see years ago, and I mean ages ago. I thought I saw
something back down the creek way. I was with my brother in a cousin. We were just teenagers.
One of them saw anything, but I know what I saw. It had eyes, and it was watching us."
(22:40):
The creek way that he was talking about is now owned by that cousin, but way back then
it was his grandfather's land. Now all of that was once his grandfather's, but it's been
split through many inheritances. So yeah, he said, "I believe you." Because nobody ever
believed me, but I darned for sure know what I saw, and it's no stretch for me to believe
(23:04):
they could be down this way as well, even if I ain't seen them down here. Tom looked at
me with a steady look as ever I've seen, and I believed him. I do believe him, and he
believes me. As for you, well, you can believe or not. That is up to you.
.
"You can call me Wayne. I'm a hands-on kind of guy. I need to feel a thing to measure
(00:14):
it and be able to catalog it and work with it, whatever it is. Stories, they're not my
thing. But that's all I have for you from my encounter. So that's what I will give."
My neighbor spread, let's call him Tom Miller. That's not his name, but it's good enough.
Now Tom's place sits two farms over from my land, just across a little valley where the
(00:38):
fog likes to lay most mornings. Tom had a beef herd of herfords and some baldies, and he
was real particular about them. Tim's back pasture is the high one, fences
or kept in good shape. They're forced strand with barbed wire. Top wire at about chest
tie on me. There's a salt block feeder about twenty yards just inside the fence, past
(01:02):
a bunch of hackberry by the fence as well. Now those cows hit that salt block hard. You'll
find it knows and pushed around all the time. This was a Thursday in late October. A good
cool day after some warm rainy days. Tom called me about four o'clock in the afternoon
(01:22):
and asked if I could swing by and make sure that the salt block and the feeder hadn't been
tipped. He was stuck up in Columbus, waiting on some parts to come in. They were supposed
to be there that morning, but were delayed, and they should still come in before closing.
If he had to, he said, he would stay over instead of making the drive home just to have to
(01:42):
go back the next day. "If it's down," he said, flip it over. Those heffers will have it
down in the mud again. I took my side-by-side out there. It was only a few months old, still
new to me, and I was still babying it. The same way you do a brand-new car for the first couple
months. Well, 'til it isn't new anymore. I knew the day would come that I would run it
(02:07):
into deep mud, and I wouldn't care. But that day was not today. We had had almost a week
of solid rain right before this turn in the weather, so I knew up there by the gates would be
a pure mud pit. The two track back there runs parallel to the fence for several acres.
I parked down from the top gate, because like I said, I was still babying it, and the closer
(02:32):
it was to the gate, the worse the mud pit would be. Plus it was a really nice day, and I didn't
mind the walk. I still would have parked outside the gate, even if there hadn't been any
mud. I don't like driving deep into the cattle know-how, unless I have no choice. So I parked
out there, and killed the engine, then walked up to the top gate. I was walking the maybe
(02:56):
fifty yards or so up to the gate. When I heard coyotes starting up over the far ridge, it was
a bit early for them, but there just background music out there. The cows were strung out near
the pond, tail-swishing heads up. The smell of the cows and the damp cooling pasture soil
was deep in my nose. From the gate I could see the salt block. It looked upright, scooted
(03:22):
if a little bit to one side. Passed that, feeder looked all right too, but I would walk out
and check it. I unlatched the chain on the gate, set it over the post knob, and swung the
gate open. It screeched like a little baby bandsheet. It always does. I closed the gate, latched
it back, and took a few steps in. And that was as far as I got. I stopped because of what
(03:48):
happened next.
First, a single sharp clack from the timber off to my left. It was clean and sharp, like
two hardwood blocks struck together. I've cut timber. I've heard windfalls and woodfall.
This was not that. There was no splintering sound, no crackle after. Just the hit, and then
(04:12):
pure stillness again. I thought maybe I should call out Tom's name on the off-chance somebody
was back in there, but that didn't make sense. No one cuts through the miller back fence
just to stand quiet and clap some wood together. I waited a couple more seconds to see if anything
else was going to happen. And when it didn't, I took a few more steps toward the salt block
(04:36):
in the feeder. That's when I heard a weird, strange sucking sound for lack of a better
description. It was like a heavy boot being pulled free of deep mud, and it was very close,
not far away at all. The hair stood up on my forearms. I looked past the hackberry trees
at the fence, and I saw something dark there where there shouldn't have been. It came
(05:02):
into view, piece by piece. I mean, the hackberry trunk cut it in half at first, then in thirds.
Then as it stepped into view, I had shoulders first, then the head over the right shoulder,
then the rest of it came all at once as it cleared the hackberry. It moved fluidly and
solidly. No jerky motions, no costume flapping around the legs are looking saggy. This was
(05:28):
as solid as solid gets. I know you're winning numbers. Everyone does. But I can only give
you guesstimates as I call them. It was taller than any man I personally known or work next
to. And I poured pads against some huge behemoths of boys who were built like they should be playing
(05:49):
for the NFL, and none of them came close to this size. Eight feet tall? I won't swear to
it, but I would testify that it was north of seven feet by a good margin. It was broad
across the shoulders in a way that I could see more than actually probably measure. The
first thing my body did was try to find a shape to match what I was seeing, and the nearest
(06:14):
my brain could offer up was refrigerator box with muscle. Now that's not elegant, but
there it is. Here was the color of wet walnut shells with a rusty color wherever the light
hit it. It lay flatter over the chest and the belly, but longer over the forearms. Face
(06:34):
wasn't all over furry, and there wasn't a really long jaw and mouth like you would see on
a dog or a bear. There was skin showing in a few places, more gray browning color than
brown, and it was like wet creek stones, rougher along the mouth, smoother around the eyes.
The brow came forward heavy, not knee and or thaw cartoon-like heavy, just shading the
(06:59):
eyes. The head didn't set up on the neck, not like
hours. It seemed to set down into the shoulders, trapezius muscles running up like ropes
and visible. I saw its eyes when it looked right at me. There was nothing unnatural about
them. They weren't glowing or any kind of a weird red color. They were a regular amber
(07:22):
brown color, like old beer bottles in the sun. The nose had a wide bridge and big nostrils.
In the mouth lines, they were wide and thick. I mean, really, there's nothing much I can
give you that doesn't sound exactly like every other big-foot description out there.
But it came out, and it stood near the salt block.
(07:47):
I knew the closed gate was a few feet behind me. Down the way I heard a cow blow, then
I saw in my periphery that it took two slow steps in my direction, then stopped. I went
over what I had on me, which was not much. A folding pocket knife, a phone, and nothing
else but my own pride. And for the record, pride is the least useful of all of those three.
(08:14):
So we're about twenty feet apart, maybe twenty-five feet. It doesn't matter. It was too close
for my liking. It lifted its chin a fraction and drew a slow breath in. The breeze shifted,
and I smelled it then. Wet leaves, damp earth, a sour hint like a deer bed that had been
laid in for a week straight. People talk about them smelling like skunk and garbage. I
(08:40):
didn't get that. Strong, yes. Unmustakable, yes, but not garbage and not skunk. I said,
"All right, all right." In the same voice I had used to calm my son when he was a fussy
baby and impatient for his bottle at 2am. I kept my voice soft and the rhythm steady. I didn't
(09:04):
raise my hands or looked too strongly into its eyes. I tried to take a neutral stance to
ratchet down any threat that could be building. It answered me back with a sound that's difficult
to explain. The mouth didn't open much at all. It was like a popping click sound cross
with a wet tongue slap, sort of like "clock" back behind the teeth. Then it bent at the waist.
(09:31):
Took a clot of dark pasture up in its left hand and lobbed it real low. This wasn't a
wind-up pitch. This wasn't a fastball. It was just a lazy underhand toss that hit short
and broke apart when it hit the ground. Grit peppered my shins through my jeans. The message
I got was plain. Get lost. This is mine. I did not turn and run. I may not have known much,
(10:01):
but I knew that would be the wrong thing to do. I eased back a few inches at time, step by
step. I said, "Okay, okay, I'm backing out." Because I was. And while I figured maybe
it could read my actions, for some reason I still had the need to say them out loud. It
(10:21):
tilled its head at me. And that's when I noticed the ears. Not round and high like a bear's
or a little and low like ours. These ears lay back into the hair. They were hard to see,
but one caught some light when it moved, and I could see the shape. It was like a thicken
pad stuck to the side of the head. I stepped back until my left calf touched the bottom fence
(10:47):
wire of the gate. Then I angled sideways, never taking my eyes off of it. I unlatched the
gate by feel and went through. The chain clinked into place on the gate latch. The cows
down the way were still huddled, watching. They shifted, two were bold and ventured forward,
(11:09):
their ears forward, their posture showing though, they were unsure. They were used to humans
being out there, and they usually came forward when they saw them. But this other thing standing
there clearly had them puzzled. So they stayed still and watched.
The thing out there took two long strides forward, quickly covering the distance that I had
(11:32):
vacated by backing away. It wasn't a charge, it was just eating up the distance steadily.
As it walked forward, I was stepping backward. But of course it covered more ground in two
steps than I did in four. It came right up to the fence about ten feet from where I stood.
(11:53):
Put its right hand down on Tom's top wire. I watched the wire dip a good inch, and I
knew that wire. Twelve and a half gauge, strung very tight just last spring with a stretcher
in two come-alongs. That wire will sing if you pluck it hard. But it didn't sing much
(12:13):
under my hand, no matter how hard I plucked. But it was strung very tight. Now under this
creature's hand, it dipped and hummed. It bounced its hand on the wire a couple of times,
looking at me. It was trying to tell me something, I guess. The top barb grazed some hair, and
(12:36):
I saw two short strands hang there for just a heartbeat before they floated away in the
breeze. Now we were less than ten feet apart with just the fence between us. Me on the
outside, him on the inside. That close, I saw the hair turn with every muscle movement.
I saw the anatomy under the fur. This was not costumer fluff. The thigh was thick, and
(13:04):
when it shifted weight to the ball of its foot, I saw the calf bulge like a runner's.
I never got a real look at the toes, and I probably couldn't have even if I had tried.
The grass was too tough to there, but I did see the foot set flat, heel and forefoot taking
weight together. Another sound came then, far left from in the trees, two soft knocks with
(13:30):
a space between. After two seconds it was answered with a low, almost sub-vocal growl, from
far away on my right, maybe thirty yards up the fence. I can't swear there were two more
out there, but I really believed there were. I kept my eyes on the one right in front of
me. It made the weird mouth-popping sounds again, this time three soft pops in a row. They
(13:56):
weren't loud, it was the kind of voice you would use when you don't want to spook a skittish
horse. It was looking right at me as it did it. I got the sense I was being told one more
time to get out of there, and like it was doing me a great favor by telling me. I backed
up on the two-track, working my way carefully so I didn't fall on the mud. I walked down
(14:21):
to where I'd left the side by side, keeping the big foot inside all the way. It walked
with me most of the way, probably a good thirty yards parallel, with me on the rough two-track,
and it inside the pasture fence, one hand trailing lightly on the wire. Its eyes flicking
between me and the cows in the pasture. A white-faced heifer balled and tried to walk forward.
(14:49):
The big creature turned its head toward the cow enough that I could see the jawline cleanly.
There was a break in the hair around the jawline. It went vertically. It was a clean line with
a band of skin underneath. It was a scar. If you've seen someone who's had stitches across
an eyebrow, and the hair there never grew back, and you could see the ridge scar, it was just
(15:14):
like that. It was very noticeable. When the hackleberry stood between us again at a slant
along that part of the fence, it suddenly stopped. We looked through the trees at each other,
our distance widening because of the trees. I could see the side by side up ahead on the
two-track. I looked over, as I had been the whole way, and suddenly I couldn't see it.
(15:41):
I stopped and looked for it frantically. I needed to see where it was. What if it had come
over the fence and had come up right behind me? It was about a half-second of pure panic
then I saw it. It was hanging back on the other side of the thin line of trees, but it was
still watching me. I felt like I was back in college and just got thrown out of a bar,
(16:06):
and the bouncer standing there at the doorway telling me, "Don't come back, buddy." Honestly,
I wasn't planning on it. But I backed away, still not wanting to turn my back, not till I
was nearer my side by side. By that time I could no longer see it. I got on my side by
side, fired it up, and headed down that two-track. I'm not a drinker, and I didn't drink at all
(16:32):
that night for sure, but I did go sit on the porch with some coffee. I sat there with the
lights off long after dinner, just thinking, "My wife asked if I checked Tom's salt-block
and theater." I told her it was fine, and that was truthful, at least. Sometime after dinner,
as I was sitting out there, Tom called. My wife brought the phone out to me. He said he
(16:56):
just got home and he wanted to thank me for looking after the cows and the feeder. I wanted
to say something right then, but not there on the phone. I slept okay that night. Right
after breakfast in the morning, I called Tom. "Hey, you got a minute?" he said he sure did.
(17:17):
So I met him up at the top gate. I took a thermos of fresh coffee and I had two paper coffee
cups for us. I poured a seat, check up. We hung there at the fence, careful at the barbed
wire, and we talked over sips of coffee. I told him about the day before. He listened. Tilted
the brim of his hat like he always does when he sorting something out and he said, "Well,
(17:42):
let's go have a so look." The mud was all dried up a lot more that day than before, but the
ground was still top-soft. We went over a lot of the ground where I knew it had been standing
or walking. The brittle grass was flattened down, and there was a faint outline that could
have been a print, but it was hard to say. Inside the fence I looked for more tracks, but
(18:07):
nothing was clean. Pasture grass doesn't give you clear marks, and where the grass had been
worn away by cow traffic, well, any prints that might have been there had been worked
over by the cows over the last day and night. But every now and then we could see a few
indents in the ground and in the grass, and they ran in a line. They were broken, yes,
(18:31):
but they were more than a hint or just some coincidence. Even Tom eyed them and thought so.
The distance between the obvious heel dips, if that's what they were, it was long. Tom
put his boot heel in one and tried to stretch to the next. He's a shade shorter than me,
(18:51):
but he was not a small man. He laughed without any mirth, and he said, "Nope." We checked the
salt block tray. It had a faint smear of mud on the rim like something dirty had brushed
up against it. The salt block had a new scuff along one corner, deep indentations. Now
(19:12):
that could have been from cow teeth, and it could have been something else. Cows will jaw
a block until the corners are smooth as river stone. Still, the scuff didn't look like
the others all around the block. Tom looked at them and looked at me, and he didn't say
the word that I wasn't saying either. We walked the fence another thirty yards up one way,
(19:37):
then back down the other. About twenty yards up, two grass tuffs were mashed in a slant where
something heavy had cut the corner and stepped off the grade. We didn't see any more up there
because we didn't linger. On the way back to the gate, Tom said, "You going to tell anybody
(19:57):
about this?" Now I knew he didn't mean talking to the sheriff. He meant the kind of anybody
that starts coming around with thermal cameras and YouTube channels. I said, "No, I wasn't.
I knew that was the kind of attention that tends to leave ruts and empty cans and trash
all over people's private property." So he nodded like he'd already guessed what I would
(20:21):
say. Then he said, "Well, I'll make sure I keep the grandkids off the backside for a while."
I said that sounded like a real good idea, which it was, whether you believed in Bigfoot or
not. And I really haven't told many people. I'm telling you, because when we met at the
Bigfoot Festival last year, you told me you wanted the plain truth of what I saw when
(20:46):
I told you about all of this. I'm sorry, it's taken me so long to get it to you. I'm
no scientist. I can call it a Bigfoot or a Sasquatch. Maybe I'm right. Maybe I'm wrong.
But what I know for certain is this. A tall, powerfully built, hair-covered figure with
(21:07):
a face you could read stood at Tom Miller's salt block right before dusk, bounced to
heavy wire that I can barely pluck, and smelled, well, like I don't know what. And it was clearly
telling me to leave. Now why? I don't know. But I have a feeling that it was doing me some
kind of a favor. Like a kid telling you you'd better get on home before their mean dad gets
(21:32):
home from work. I asked Tom if he'd had any trouble with his cows, and he said he hadn't.
He did have a calf go missing at calving time. But that does happen. Could have been coyotes.
Could have been lots of things. He said they still go to the pond just the same. They walk
(21:53):
the fence when he rides out for his fence checks, and the fences stay unbroken. I asked him if
he believed me one time. He looked at me, pushed his hat up off his brow and said, "Yeah, I
do." I waited for him to say something else, but he didn't. I said, "Just yeah?" He looked at me
(22:17):
and nodded. Then finally he said, "Yeah, see years ago, and I mean ages ago. I thought I saw
something back down the creek way. I was with my brother in a cousin. We were just teenagers.
One of them saw anything, but I know what I saw. It had eyes, and it was watching us."
(22:40):
The creek way that he was talking about is now owned by that cousin, but way back then
it was his grandfather's land. Now all of that was once his grandfather's, but it's been
split through many inheritances. So yeah, he said, "I believe you." Because nobody ever
believed me, but I darned for sure know what I saw, and it's no stretch for me to believe
(23:04):
they could be down this way as well, even if I ain't seen them down here. Tom looked at
me with a steady look as ever I've seen, and I believed him. I do believe him, and he
believes me. As for you, well, you can believe or not. That is up to you.
.
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