iNTO THE FRAY 512: Stranger Idaho

John Olsen returns to talk about book 9 in his Stranger Bridgerland book series. Titled, 'Stranger Idaho' it is chock full of true paranormal stories from the Gem State that include Wendigo's, UFOs, doppelgangers, LaLorna sightings, terrifying camping trips, time slips, and more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The infinite complaces people went to and pro fears about
their little affairs, serene in the assurance of their dominion
over this small binning fragment of solar driftwood, which, by
chance or design, man has inherited out of the dark
mystery of time and face.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
On this episode of Into the Fray, I welcome back
on with me in counter collector and author John Olson,
and today we are talking about his latest release, which
is book number nine in his Stranger Bridgeland book series.
And of course all of his books are filled with

(01:26):
nothing but true paranormal stories that John himself collects and
most of the time, I think every time you talk
to these people yourself, and this time the focus is
on the state of Idaho. First, John, welcome back, and secondly,
why Idaho.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Thanks for having me Shannon. It is always such a
blast to come on with you and Into the Fray.
I think it was eight or nine years ago you
were the very first person that had me come on
any show. So it's always such a pleasure to come
in once a year and talk about my new book.
And I just I so much appreciate you and the show.

(02:09):
So Kudo's on an amazing show and letting people like
me come on. The reason I picked Idaho, I usually
am going off of, you know how many stories I've
got in different places, and then kind of build off
of that. Last year was stranger Utah, which is where
I live, and it almost just seemed natural to go

(02:30):
to Idaho. That's where my wife Annie, not originally is from,
but that's where she was living when I met her.
And I have such an affinity for Idaho because I'm
a stone's throw from the border between Utah and Idaho,
and I spent a lot of time in the Tetons

(02:51):
and on a Snake river fishing, and so I really
consider Idaho my second my second home when it comes
to it. So it just felt really natural to go
from Utah to Idaho with the book series.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
I don't believe I've even driven through Idaho in any way,
shape or form, but I do know it is extremely beautiful.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yes it is. It's a lot like Utah in the
fact that you have such a diverse from mountains and
the Teetons and then desert in the far corner. So
in the same way, Utah does that very same thing.
So it's it's just it's fascinating and such a fun

(03:35):
place to just go. And like I say, I'm big outdoorsman,
so I've spent a lot of time up there fishing
and camping, and it's like, it's just such a beautiful state.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
I need a good fishing trip. To be honest with you,
I absolutely love going fishing. I mean, sure you can
go to Lake Meat and pull out a carp or something,
but you might even pull out a piece of a
body when you're talking about Lake Mead here so and
it's not really the kind of place versus Idaho that
I would choose to go. So all right, anybody that

(04:10):
has read your books knows that you collect these stories yourself,
or these encounters experiences. I tend to use the word story,
and people have said, don't use the word story because
it sounds like it's made up. They're not made up.
These are people's true encounters and experiences with the paranormal.
So you well speak to these folks, you take down

(04:30):
their encounter, You do not embellish in any way, shape
or form. And then at the end, which I really
personally love and I'm sure others, do you have your
author's notes where you will compare it to other encounters
you have seen online or taken down yourself or your
own thoughts on these encounter stories. And I know from
the looks of it, Book nine Stranger, Idaho is the

(04:52):
very same format, right.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yes, exactly, Yep. I've always felt like I need to
get it first person two for a couple reasons. One,
I want it to be almost like a documentation of
the paranormal world and the things that are going on.
And on top of that, it's just you know this,
when you're interviewing the person who's had the experience, nobody

(05:17):
can get you to that place like those people can.
The emotions come up, the feelings come up, and so
it just makes for a lot better storytelling when you
can talk to the person and understand you know exactly
where they're coming from.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh that is for sure. That is one hundred percent
for sure. So for this one, And I know that
some of these are names that you have they have said,
can you please change my name? Whatever the case might be.
Are these any folks that you or Annie have known
personally or stories that people have been sitting on for
a long time? You know how we love those that

(05:55):
they're like, you're the only person I've ever told this to.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
You know, there's a good mixture of all of those things.
When I when I go through and I collect stories,
I'll have people who, you know, they're excited to share
their story, and they're excited to you know, they're like, oh, yeah,
you can use my name and all of these things,
all the way down to the people who, like you say,
would like to stay have their anonymity, but they still

(06:21):
want their story told. And the stories too, come from
within the last year of me collecting to you know,
several years ago that I collected the story. I always
get releases obviously, and keep the releases and everything. But yeah,
it's just it's just a wild mix of all of
that together.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I always say this every time, but it's because
it's true. You send me the book and then I
look through it and I go, Okay, there's a lot
to choose from here, and I want to I'm like,
let's talk about them all, but we're not going to
do that, of course. But all right, besides the ones
that I chose, here's a quick little bullet point list
of the other encounters and experience is that are in

(07:01):
this book. We have ghosts, time slips, Win to Go,
doppel gangers, UFOs, mimics, yikes, mimics, Oh my gosh. I
love the skin Walkers, Lolorna, and the Idaho State Penitentiary,
and those are all in the group that I did
not choose. So if Dyke gives you a little snapshot

(07:21):
of the kind of things that you can look forward
to in this book, So well, John, let's dive in.
The first one that I chose is titled My Last
Coyote Hunt.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yes, so this one is. I think that this is
one of the only bigfoot stories I ended up, you know,
putting in the book, which is really interesting because Idaho
has a lot of bigfoot stories. When I do my book,
I like to have a good mixture of everything in there,
and so between me and Annie, we have to pick
and choose and go through and this one stood out

(07:54):
to me just because of the interaction in it. I
interviewed Adam. It has been several years ago. He and
his brother JT. Grew up in Idaho. Their dad had
been a big outdoorsman, but his dad passed away when
they were both very young, and so him and his
brother wanted to continue on the tradition, but they kind

(08:16):
of had to teach themselves and do it all on
their own. But in doing so they became very close,
the two of them. And one of the things that
they really liked to do was was coyote hunt. And
when you're doing kyote hunting, you have to pick your spots,
and people are very secretive about where they go, and
they had a place that they really liked to go,

(08:38):
and it was divided by some lowlands and farmland that
went up into the mountains. One morning, they got up early,
they drove edg to drive quite away, as you know,
they stopped and got breakfast really early in the morning,
and then they got up there and they set up

(08:59):
in an area where they can see where the coyotes
tend to come through. They sat there for quite a
while where they could overlook the area with kind of
the mountain behind them and the trees behind them and
to their right, and they sat for a long time
and nothing. They'd heard nothing. He brought out his fon call,

(09:20):
which is it's a baby deer in distress call. It's
for predators to bring in predators. So he started blowing
that and they were listening and still nothing. And they
were like, well, we're gonna give it. We'll give it
another fifteen to twenty minutes and then we'll head out
if we don't if we don't hear anything, And so

(09:41):
he blew the fon call again, and all of a sudden,
down through the trees came just this horrible racket. Something
huge was coming down through the trees towards them, and
you know, he looked at his brother. His brother's eyes
were big, His eyes were big, and they were just

(10:02):
sitting there trying to figure out what the heck this was.
And the first thing that popped into their mind because
they're not where they were doing. Where they were hunting
isn't super far from Yellowstone and Montana, where there are
grizzly bears, and so their first thought is that, holy cow,
this is a grizzly that's coming in on us. It

(10:25):
came down and they couldn't get a good look at it,
but they could see the fur through the trees. He
was thinking, Okay, great, this is a grizzly. What and
the crap are we gonna do? And then him and
his brother were kind of just looking at each other
trying to figure out what to do. And this thing
was about less than fifty yards right around fifty yards

(10:46):
from them, and it started going back and forth through
the trees. It started making a weird, deep chattering type noise.
I'm almost like talking, but something that they never heard before.
And as they watched, they realized it was on two feet,
it wasn't on four four legs. And he looks at

(11:10):
his brother and they're like, they're like, yeah, this isn't
this is not a grizzly. Very obviously at this point
it's a sasquatch, even though you know, they'd never seen
anything before or anything only heard of sasquatch. About that time,
the wind had shift and they got hit in the
face with this really bad ranset kind of smell, which,

(11:33):
as you know, Shannon is associated with sasquatch at times
as well. And they're looking at each other trying to
figure out what to do. This creature is obviously very angry,
giving off really angry vibes, walking back and forth, chattering, huffing.

(11:53):
All of a sudden, it goes down to the ground
and comes up and a boulder about the size of
a basketball goes flying over their head and down the ravine.
And at that point, the shear fact that it had
the strength to throw something that big that far. They

(12:14):
both kind of snapped too, and without even making, you know,
telling each other, they both took off running as fast
as they could down down the trail, down towards their vehicle.
I asked him if they thought it was falling, if
he thought they was following them, and he's like, all

(12:34):
I could hear was my heavy breathing and my foot
falls and my brother's footfalls. And I have no idea,
you know, if it followed us or what. And they
got back to the car really upset, obviously, And yeah,
he they never did go back to that area, and
I and it took him. I don't think they ever

(12:55):
did go not only in that area by a coyote
hunting forever. I think it took him five years before
they decided to do anything like that again at all,
and never went back to that area. So what I
really like about that story, and when I talk to him,
is it's got a lot of very classic bigfoot kind
of behavior with the chatter that they talked about and

(13:19):
throwing a rock. And I, you know, when I've talked
to several people who've talked about the throwing the rock
kind of thing. It's very obvious that they could have
been hit. He could have hit them with that if
he wanted to. It was mostly get out of here
or I'm angry kind of thing. But yeah, it's pretty

(13:39):
cool story. I really like that.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, it's one of those things where you may have
ticked a bigfoot off if you have pacing, chattering and
rock throwing, right, And that's the problem, because here's yet
another example of your call blasting for one creature and
you get another.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
M yep, exactly, and and you know, I've had an experience.
It wasn't a bigfoot, but I was on a deer
hunt and I was using a phone call. I was
during the bow hunt, and just to see if I
could bring because you can bring in deer when you
do that as well. And nothing came in. But when
I turned to leave going up the trail, a great,

(14:23):
big mountain lion had walked down behind me and had
sat on the ledge behind me, and I never knew
he was there. Oh my god. And if a mountain
lion can do that, I can only imagine, you know,
what sasquatch, who's you know, much more intelligent, could get
away with in the mountains as well, that is terrifying.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
How far away from it were you?

Speaker 3 (14:46):
So I finally got up to leave and I walked
started walking up the trail. It was in August, so
there was a lot of dust, and that's when I
saw the footprints and they were huge, and he had
walked down the trail. When I was blowing the FHON call.
He come down the trail and then he was probably
ten to fifteen feet tops behind me. Oh I'm watching

(15:08):
and I never saw him, just the tracks because his
tracks were covering mine. It was very obvious he'd walked
down and then gone over to a ledge that was
behind me and sat there while I was blowing the call.
So I'm really lucky actually that he didn't come closer
to try and figure out what it was. Maybe he
had winded me and then left. But yeah, it's that

(15:30):
was really scary because I was all alone up there,
probably nobody for miles and miles from me, So definitely scary.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, that's that's a huge bag of nope, no, thank you. Yeah,
that's humbling, right, Yeah, yep.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
Well, when you're in your twenties, you feel like you're invincible,
so you know, you do things like that where you
don't worry.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
But yeah, nope, all right, this next one is definitely
gonna also be a nope. It's called camping in Hell.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yes, I really liked this story and when I got
up from Barbara and she was telling me about it,
it's got such a creep factor to it. So she
grew up and lives near Rexburg, Idaho. And when she
was in her she was about twenty four years old, roughly,

(16:20):
she said. Her and her husband name, his name is Kurt.
They used to go everywhere hiking and just enjoying the
outdoors before they had kids and they had, you know,
more adult things going on in life. They would go
whenever they could. They drove about three hours away to
a new spot and way up into the mountains. They

(16:43):
hiked back in. Took them about three hours two to
hike back into this area that they were camping. The
day was really kind of normal, but there was one
point where they were hiking and they just got this
creepy feeling that something was watching them. They kind of
looked at each other and both got that feeling, and

(17:04):
then it slowly went away and they brushed it off.
Even though that's that's a very creepy thing, and that
happens at times. They kind of brushed it off and
spent the day, got back to camp, you know, had dinner,
they enjoyed the fire, and then you know, went to bed.
The middle of the night, Barbara wakes up to the

(17:28):
sound of something kind of scratching on the tent, and
so she wakes up and the sound is coming from
the tent like directly behind her, so she can't see
what's going on or on behind her, but she locks
eyes with Kurt, who's been awake apparently, and his eyes

(17:50):
are huge. She's kind of looking at him, and he
gives her the you know, the let's be quiet kind
of sim you know, symbol, and she's like, what the
heck is this behind me? And then this voice of
a little kid comes from directly behind her and it

(18:13):
says and it's says, can you let me in your
tent please? And chills run down her spine. She's like,
she looks at her her husband like, you know, is
that a little kid outside? And what's funny is her
husband shakes his head like knowing the question, like, no,
this is not a kid out there. There's a little

(18:35):
bit more scratching on the tent, and then the little
boy's voice comes again and says, I'm so hungry and cold,
won't you please help me? You know, this creepy little
kid voice, and he keeps adding please, and she's just frozen. Finally,
after this goes on a little bit, she kind of

(18:56):
turns so that she can see out, you know, see
that side the tent, and from what little light there
was from the moon, it's very obvious. It's a huge
shadow that's cast over the top of the tent. It
is very obviously not a kid. And they're trying to

(19:18):
be She's trying to be quiet, and she said she
can feel like just the hot tears running down her
face because she's so scared and yet trying to be quiet.
And then after a few more things, the voice is like,
I know you guys are in there, and then it's quiet,

(19:39):
and then then the little kid's voice goes, you two
are no fun, and then she hears heavy footsteps leaving camp.
So they kind of huddle together in the dark until
the sun comes up. Neither of them get any sleep,
which I can obviously imagine when they get out in

(20:02):
the morning to investigate, there are enormous footprints, but they're
not barefoot prints like you would see with a sasquatch.
They almost like a flat sole hue, but they're like
eighteen inches, like huge, and so as quick as they
can they pack up and leave, they head out. But

(20:23):
when I was talking to her and talking to her
about this is the only experience she's ever really had
with the paranormal, and just talking to her and going
through things, I just wonder if it's not something along
the lines of those the creatures that like to lure
people into the forest by mimicking kids or women's voice,

(20:47):
or some sort of fae like a troll or something
along those lines. I just don't quite know, because this
one's just so it has elements of other paranormal ex
experiences that I've interviewed people about mixed together, so it's
it is definitely one of the creepier ones that I've
ever interviewed somebody about.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, that one is extremely unique because the second there's
displeading from a quote unquote child. I was thinking black
eyed kid, but then there's this huge shadow, and that's
not the normal mo of a black eyed child or
kid to go into the middle of the woods and
do their thing, but who knows.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
Right, Yeah, it had a lot of different elements to
it that that matched other things, but not I mean,
you don't necessarily find all of those things together, like right,
a large creature, but yet it was obviously wearing something
on its feet or its feet were just that way
where it wasn't you know. Yeah, it's it's just got

(21:52):
a lot of different elements, which which is one of
the reasons that I love that story, just because I've
never really got many stories or I don't have any
other stories that match every single one of those criteria
criteria like that.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, that one really got my brain going because then
I'm going, well, hey, I guess at least it was
physically touching the ground. It wasn't floating there because they
found footprints. But I don't know what's what's the worst
element out of the whole thing, the size of it,
depleting the actual speaking to these these folks and there

(22:25):
was the interaction there because they didn't come out, and
it goes, oh, you guys are no fun, so it
just leaves oh creepy.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, yeah, because it's it makes me think, when you know,
when I'm moless over what's weird about it is it's obviously,
like you said, a physical thing, and it's enormous, so
it would have no problem getting into the tent if
it wanted to. So it makes you wonder if it
doesn't have is it like the Black Eyed Kids where

(22:53):
it has to be invited in or was it just
there to just cause straight feet? Because I do believe
when I you know, with all of the things and
all my people I've interviewed, and I think there are
entities and things out there that almost seem to feed
on emotion and fear itself. And I'm wondering if that's

(23:16):
what that was all about, causing fear just so that
they could absorb that. I don't know, I'm kind of
speculating that that was one thought that I had had.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Do you recall or did you speak to Barbara and
Kurt on because obviously they seem to enjoy camping. Did
they Did they stop going camping after this?

Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah? It took them several years to go back, and
and she said when we did, I remember she was
saying it was in designated camping areas first, with other
other folks around.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
Yeah, three miles back, no, yeah, no more going back
in the middle of nowhere, because yeah, it's super creepy,
but yeah, they I can only imagine having that kind
of interaction.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
I'm not sure if i'd ever go back into the woods.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah it's time for glamping in the middle of the
city or something.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
I don't know, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
I've seen some of those in New York City. They
do that next to some peers. They just clear out
a swath of land and they have glamping centers there,
I guess. So, yeah, that's what you would do after
an encounter with whatever in the world that was. That
is a very unique one. This next one is so
cool and also extremely unique. I love this one. It's

(24:35):
called Dirt Road to Oblivion.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yes, I like this one too. I'm kind of partial
to his stories like this. I'll get into it and
then I'll kind of talk a little bit more about it.
But this was from Robert and when he was in
high school. It was the nineties and he was dating
this gal named Carol, and he lived in Boise, the

(24:58):
Boise area, and him and Carol had been dating for
quite a while and he planned this really nice date
night and first they went and got dinner and they
ate it in the park and they went for a
walk and then, as you know, the sun went down
and it was getting dark. He had a favorite place

(25:19):
that kind of overlooks the whole city kind of Boisee
and the valley, and so they, you know, they drive
up there. Part of it's on a dirt road and
it's kind of windy. He's been there a lot of
times before, so he knows where he's going. But they
pull off and they're trying to get up over this
little knoll where you can actually see the valley. And

(25:41):
as they're going, you can see they could see the
lights of the city and everything kind of reflected up
into the sky. As they pull up over the hill,
all of a sudden, there's a loud kind of hiss
and pop. And he said it was so strange because
it was almost, you know, in your ears, almost like

(26:02):
when your ears pop when you go to elevation, but
there was a weird hiss to it. There's just a
crunch kind of underneath his car, and all of the
lights go out in front of them in the valley
are gone. You know. He looks at Carol and she
looks at him, and he's like, I have no idea
what just happened. So he fumbles into his in his

(26:25):
glovebox and he has a flashlight, and he tells her,
you know, I'm going to check the car to make
sure I didn't just blow up something in the car.
He gets out of the car and the car is
no longer on the road. It's on a sagebrush hill.
They were just on the road and before and now

(26:48):
they're not on a road there there the sounds when
the sound of the pop happened. Suddenly they're not on
that road anymore. He's looking out over the valley because
he's thinking, well, maybe the power went out everywhere, but
in them with the moon and everything, it's very obvious
that he's overlooking just a valley of trees, the river, sagebrush.

(27:16):
There's you know, there's supposed to be a farm right
below where they were pulling up with some fields, and
then it went off into the valley. For those of
you that know Boise, you know how it flows from
the north to the south from the mountain and the
hill and then you got Boise and then flatlands after that.
But there isn't anything out there except for sagebrush and trees.

(27:40):
And he can see the river in the distance. Oddly enough,
down there, about a mile or so away is a
campfire he can see, so he knows that you can see.
He can see light. It's not like there's something between
him and the city, because he's like, that's weird. That's
a bonfire and some sort of camp way down there.

(28:03):
And he's just getting this obviously really weirded out feeling
because he thought, did I go the wrong way? And
he's like, no, we saw the lights of the city
right before they disappeared. And so he gets back to
the car and Carol is freaked out because she's like
what is going on? And he's like, well, I'm gonna

(28:25):
try something, and he throws the car in reverse and
backs up over the sagebrush because there was a big
sagebrush that he had parked on, and as he does,
there's that hiss and pop again, and all of a
sudden they're back on the road and the city is
right there below them. He is just like they neither

(28:49):
one of them can figure out what's going on. Carol
is very freaked out. He is very weirded out, and
he takes her home, but he well before that, he's like,
I want to check and see what's going on. And
she grabs his arm and says, don't get out of
the car, and he goes, I promise, I just want
to look and see. And so he gets out of
the car with the flashlight and there's no sage brush.

(29:12):
It's back on mist litle dirt road. It's the sage
brush is all gone. The valley is back to normal
with the lights and everything. And so he kind of
he takes takes Carol home and and they both kind
of really scratch their head and trying to figure out
what the heck happened. And as I talked to him

(29:34):
and then he was asking about it, I explained to
him that I have I've interviewed other people who have
had experiences where they either see through to the past
or see through to a different time. What made his
experience interesting to me is that it seems like that
him in the car and Carol did physically somehow go

(29:59):
through something and were actually back there, not that they
were just witnessing it like it was a mirage or
a window back through part time. Somehow, it seems like
they almost went back there. I honestly think that they're
really lucky that they made it back. And that makes
me wonder too with people that go missing, and there's

(30:22):
a lot of different, you know, situations in that if
there's instances where people have done that and then not
made it back, and so it just opens up a
whole world of strange and bizarre. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Absolutely, what if he would have tried to drive forward
instead of backward? Would they have been stuck there forever?

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Right?

Speaker 2 (30:43):
And then what else came to mind was who was
down at that campfire or bonfire? And if he could
get down there, would they even know what a car was?

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Right exactly? Yeah? And and how would that have gone?
You know? Yeah? How does that work? Is it? Again?
It's that whole with how everything works. Did he The
other thing that comes to mind as well is maybe
he didn't go back in time. Maybe he went through

(31:14):
a portal and he saw what the valley was like
if say, the Black Plague had wiped out Europe completely
and America stayed wild all the way up till now.
You know, you just it's you could really go down
a huge rabbit hole about what it was that he saw.
Was it back in time? Was it a different dimension?

(31:35):
Was it? It's that's what's so cool about the paranormal
and these experiences, is you get thinking out of the
box and just wondering what the heck it was.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
I love that one. I'm so happy that Robert decided
to share that encounter with you.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, me too, it was It was great. Yeah, that one.
It's just it's so out there and so weird, which
was makes me, you know, definitely choose stories like that
for sure.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Well, up next we have Shadow Run.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Yes, so this one actually I like it. It's Annie's
favorite one out of this book, and she had a
good idea which I'm gonna it's something that I hadn't
thought of that I'll mention at the end of the
story about it. So Kip and his girlfriend again, this
is another one where they go hiking in the mountains
and go on a hike and go for big camp.
They went up into the Salmon Challis National Forest outside

(32:32):
of Challis, Idaho, which, for those viewers that don't know,
this is a very wild, very primitive area. Again, they
hiked back in. It's another place where they you know,
they spent the day, had a good time. They were
at the bottom of a canyon camping and just having
a great, good fun time. They enjoyed the outdoors as well.

(32:55):
It's amazing to me. I know you've noticed this too,
but a lot of the stories that I get are
from the outdoors in the wilderness. There's there's a weird
theme to that. I guess. I don't know. But in
the middle of the night they went to bed and
Kip was having this dream that he was being chased

(33:16):
through the forest by something, and he says he remembers
vaguely about it just being a big something and is
being a very vivid dream. Well, he gets woken up
by Jill who is shaking him awake, and when he
comes to takes him a minute to wake up from

(33:38):
this really vivid, you know, scary nightmare. Jill is like,
what is that sound. There's something, you know, something going on,
and he's listening and way up the canyon he can
hear something coming down the canyon and at first he
thinks it's a microburst. He can hear trees breaking limbs

(33:59):
and everything, and he's sitting there listening and it's getting
louder and louder, and then the fear hits him. He's like,
oh my gosh, it's so loud. This is could be
cattle that because in the summertime, a lot of times
the ranchers will take their cattle into the mountains and

(34:22):
leave them. He's like, is this a stampede coming down
through here? Is it a rock slide? Because it was
extremely loud. So he's yelling at Jill to get her
shoes on. He's like, we've got to get out of
this little canyon, and she's frozen, like he can't get
her to get her shoes on, and it's very obviously

(34:45):
now too late. Like whatever it is is right outside
the tent, and he sticks his head outside of the tent.
He's expecting to see, like I said, cattle or a
rock slide, or even like a day Loosually, if there
was like a rainstorm further up the canyon, this was water.

(35:05):
And what he sees is just dozens and dozens of
these little about four foot tall Dado people. They almost
look like kids because they're so small. But it's dark outside.
But even though it's dark and it's nighttime, it's he

(35:27):
can see that the color of them is almost like
the absence of light, so dark, it's the absence of light,
so that they even stand out against the dark and
the shadow of the night outside, but he can see
they all have red eyes, almost an ember type glowing eyes,

(35:50):
and they are all running past the tent and it's
enough to make the ground shake, you know, tree limbs,
they're knocking over, they're running down, and he slides back
into the tent and just holds on to Jill as
this goes on. And he didn't know how long it lasted,
because when you're in that kind of deep fear state,

(36:14):
time is is weird. It can seem a lot longer
or shorter. But they finally all make it past, and
then he can hear them heading further down the canyon
and out again. They sit through the night and they
get out, and I remember asking him about footprints and

(36:36):
stuff like that, and he said, I really couldn't see
any footprints, but it was very obvious that something had
run through because there were broken branches. So whatever they
were was a physical type creature, but a shadow type creature.
The other thing that he mentioned is as they were
coming through and they were in the cruxt of this stampede,

(37:02):
he said, there was a sound of static in the air,
almost like when you know, back in the day when
you turn the television to a channel that wasn't there.
It was there was a heavy static and it was
very similar to that kind of sound when they were
coming by, mixed in with the heavy rush of them

(37:24):
going by. And what I find interesting about that is
in one of my other books, I talk about a
gentleman who was hunting and he comes across a creature
that gave off that static type sound that he passed
out to. And so again this had elements of all
different kinds of things like shadow creatures and you know,

(37:48):
a physical creature. But when Annie was editing and going
through and she came to me and we were talking
about this, she said something that I hadn't even thought
of to talk to Kip about. She goes, what were
they running away from? And it kind of hit me like,
oh my gosh, what if they were running away from something,

(38:09):
something worse than whatever they were. But yeah, it's it's
just kind of again it's a head scratcher of were
they coming going, were they running from something? What were
they It's just really weird.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, and that static sound that you bring up. You know,
one of my very few own experiences is of shadow
people running in the woods. So I'm sure it was
no surprise to you that I chose this one. But
I do wonder if I wasn't on my FourWhere alaer,
because they were about thirty feet away, would I have
heard some kind of a static sound. And of course

(38:47):
they weren't turned towards me, thank goodness. I suppose they
didn't interact with me. I didn't see any red eyes.
But the fact that because something that I have remarked
on in my own is the fact that it's seem
like they I was just glimpsing another realm of some sort.
They weren't really seeming to interact with their environment, meaning

(39:09):
that they didn't have to hop over or dodge the
trees or anything like that. But in this case, they
were big time interacting with the environment that they were in.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, exactly, they were affecting their environment. And then you've
got that sound like you talked about as well. The
other thing that stands out to me is the vast
majority of people that I have interviewed who have encountered
shadow creatures in the forest. Those shadow creatures tend to
be bigger or much larger than ones that people interact

(39:43):
with in say the city or in the street. Those
seem to be human type size, you know, around an
adult size, where a lot of people that I talked to,
when when they interact with them or have an encounter
in the woods, they're extremely big, like sometimes twenty feet tall,
but these were small, rather like you know, kids four

(40:05):
feet tall. And so that's another thing that makes me
scratch my head. But just when I think maybe I
have a little bit of a clue on what's going on,
I'll interview somebody else that throws another wrinkle in and
then I'm like, I got to figure out.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yep, that's why I'm in that same boat. Every time
I talk to me, I'm like, I'm flip flopping on
something that I previously held as a thought on that subject. Yeah,
which I think is important to do. Just we have
to stay fluid in this, I think, because we don't know.
And I love Annie's point of view with that. That
did not cross my mind either. Yeah, what in the
world were they running so fervently away from?

Speaker 3 (40:45):
Right? Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that that they
might have been running away from something, And if they were,
it had to have been worse than them.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
So thankes. And I think anytime that you're talking about
something with red eyes, I don't I immediately just go,
that's probably not something great. So I'm assuming those little
guys weren't that great. So whatever they're running from is
more not great than they were. So yeah, So last

(41:13):
but not least, and let me just say this before
I say the title of this encounter story. You have
collected some of my all time favorite whatever you want
to call them, brownies, trolls, little person people encounters of
all time period and this is yet another one to

(41:35):
add to the list. And like I said, last but
certainly not least is this little dude. And it's titled
Trull Yes.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
And so what's really fascinating about this story too? I
interviewed this gentleman. How it's been a couple of years ago.
I'm trying to remember. Everything kind of molds together. But
he never signed my release. And as I was made
this and it was doing this book and it's in Idaho,
and I want to have, you know, a little bit

(42:06):
of everything in there. I wanted to put this story in,
but I didn't have his release. I hadn't heard from
him for a while, and I reached out a couple
times to contact him and he never got back with me,
and so I was like, okay, well, I'll just have
to go without it. And probably like two days before
I was handing this all over to Annie, he emailed

(42:27):
me back and said, Okay, here it is. And I
was just over the moon because it's such a weird,
cool story. And again I like to have a little
bit of everything in it. And as you know, fay
stories or little creatures or whatever are just really rare.
I just don't get a ton of those stories compared
to the others. So this one was from Arthur. He

(42:48):
grew up and again this is not his name. He
definitely wanted it changed. He grew up in a farming
community in Idaho in the sixties and seventies, and his
dad had a little farm. They were surrounded by little
farms and you know, just not a lot to do
at the time, and and him and his friends love

(43:10):
to just go fishing down to the creek. And so
him and his two buddies go spend the day fishing.
He got his chores done early, and they right take
their bikes. They've got their old bikes, and they ride
off and and go fishing for the day. Well it's
starting to get late, and he knows, you know, it's
time to get home, and so he's he was he's

(43:30):
about twelve years old, eleven twelve years old, and him
and his buddy, he had a buddy named Ed and
one that was named Sam. And they finished up and
they get heading home. And at one point Sam and
Ed live this direction and he lives this direction, and
so they split, you know, they break up. At that point.
The son's just starting to go down and as he's

(43:53):
going home through the fields and well it's it's the
dirt road that goes, you know, between the fields and everything,
and you get these little gullies out there everywhere where
you know, you go down and that's where the ditches
or a spring, and that's how they feed the farms.
And on about the second one, he's going down the

(44:14):
dip and he says, with his old bike, he tried
to go as fast as he could down one side
so that he didn't have to pedal hard going up
the other side. And as he's going down the dip,
this rock comes flying out from the brush and it
hits his front tire and turns it to the side,

(44:34):
and he goes right over his handlebars. Throwing, you know,
his fishing pole, his fishing tackle, everywhere. He skins up
his elbows and his knees. And he's sitting there and
he's just he's kind of cussing under his breath. Is
he's hurt. He's trying to he's thinking where did this
rock come from? And he starts hearing this little deep

(44:58):
laugh slash gar coming from the brush. He's like, I
wonder if it's another kid. I wonder if it's somebody
you know that's playing a trick on me. And he
said he's always had a temper growing up. And so
without thinking, he jumps up and runs into the brush

(45:20):
to find who threw this rock at him. And as
he breaks through the brush, right there there's the ditch
that runs from a cul de sac type pipe that's
in the hill. Standing there, facing away from him into
the pipe is this little guy. He's like maybe three

(45:43):
feet tall. He's got overalls on his hands and feet.
He got bare feet and hands. I'm picturing like almost
like a Hobbit type creature. And he stops dead in
his tracks. The little creature it's stopped, and then it
turned to look at him and had freckles. It was

(46:05):
close enough that he could see I had freckles, brown,
scruffy hair, kind of a big round kind of nose,
and he it just really, you know, he's frozen, because
this is not what you expect to see, is something
like this. And the little guy laughs and grins and

(46:25):
laughs at him again. And then the little guy he
points at his knee and then points at at Arthur's knee,
and Arthur looks down at his knee and he's got
his leg and there's a good stream of blood that's
run down his leg. And he turns back and the
little he sees just as the little guy disappears into

(46:45):
the into the cul de sac, giggling again, and he
kind of finally comes to and out of this surreal
thing that just happened. He runs back, gets his bike
and pedals home. He's late. His dad's mad at him.
He doesn't. The funny thing is when his dad's want
to know what's going on, he just says, well, I hit,

(47:08):
you know, I hit a rock and went over and
dumped my stuff and I was hurt and I left
all my stuff there. And even though he knows what
he saw, he never tells his dad because his dad
is a very gruff, no nonsense farmer from you know,

(47:28):
the fifties, sixties, you know, World War two vet and
he's afraid he's gonna get a whooping because his dad's
gonna be like, well, you're lying, and so he never
tells his parents. His dad drove back, got his stuff
for him, brought it back, and just the way his
dad looked at him, his dad knew he wasn't telling

(47:49):
him the whole story, which it adds to this story
and the way Arthur is telling me this. He's Arthur's,
you know, much older guy now and he's a very
no nonsense, just old Idaho farmer. But it's just the
whole thing is it's not only weird and strange because
you do have it's either a brownie or a duinde,

(48:12):
something of those nature. But to have that out there
in the middle of Idaho and have him have that
experience where it played a trick on him, but then
let him see it because a lot of times they
don't have to let you see them. It's almost like
he's like he's showing himself to Arthur, saying, yeah, go

(48:33):
ahead and tell people. Nobody's gonna believe you. Kind of
a thing. And so again, I just I love when
I can get stories like this that are just they're
so rare, but I've been able to have a few
of them in my stories. I love to try and
get one in every one of my books, but it
doesn't always happen, just because it's so rare. But yeah,

(48:53):
it's just one of those out there kind of tales.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
The fact that you brought up exactly where my mind was.
It kind of was going, who knows what these are?
Where they come from? Where do they go? If they're
always in the physical world? Can they pop in and
out of portals? But it is like it meant to be.
He meant for Arthur to see him, pretty much. And

(49:20):
it reminded me so much of the Encounter story of
the person camping who fell asleep reading a book and
they had been hearing things all night, and then they
wake up and they see this little dude reading their book,
holding and reading their book, which means that it had
come up close, grabbed the book and was sitting on
a log reading this friggin book. And I'd never forgotten

(49:42):
that one, and it reminded me a lot of that.
It's just it's their choice that you see them.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Right exactly, Yeah, And I don't know how they choose
who they're gonna let see them. And you know what's
really interesting to me, Shannon, is a a lot of people,
even you know, people who've seen ghosts or UFOs, they
tend to kind of scoff a little bit at the Fay, which, honestly,
when I first started this, I never thought in my

(50:11):
wildest dreams I would find that. But I go back
to I was watching a show with Josh Gates when
he went to Iceland to look for gnomes and he
made a big joke out of it and everything. But
in that country, they will literally move a road around,
a rock, a pile of rocks because they believe in

(50:34):
the country that is where they live and we're not
going to disturb them. And so just depending upon where
you are in the world, there is that belief and
it actually goes down through Most people's ancestors around the
world have these stories of the Fay and they're very similar,
and they were separated by thousands and thousands of miles

(50:58):
and oceans, and yet they still talk about the same
type of creatures, which to me has to scream to
the fact that they exist in some sort of realm.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah. I love that about Iceland. That's in their laws.
So if you you're doing that, here are the guidelines
and criteria that you must follow or else, well basically,
or else the other realm will be very ticked off
at you.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
Mm hmm yep. And what's really interesting about that too.
With that, Josh Gates, they went out and they hooked
up their cameras and did their investigation, and even though
they didn't catch anything on the cameras, one thing that
they had happened that I thought was hilarious is on
their cameras they talk about the fact that the cord
on the back of the cameras you have to push

(51:46):
those in and turn them to get them to lock
into place. And something was going around all night and
pushing it in and turning it and popping it back out,
and they never got a picture of what it was.
But they're like, you have to have opposable thumbs to
be able to push this in, turn it and pop
it out. And I thought, yeah, that's exactly. You know,

(52:08):
somebody was definitely out there because they went in kind
of mocking and making jokes, but not that they got proof,
but something like that, you know, you gotta lead a
little bit of credence to see it.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Isn't that funny? They have a whole crew out there
specifically to try to catch stuff. They they are not
of the chosen, but people like Arthur and others sometimes unfortunately,
and you know, because that would be a life changing
sighting I would imagine, and yet again another out of
doors story that might just change what you'd love to

(52:42):
do outdoors, right unfortunately, So who knows why some are
chosen and some are not. But before you go, let
everyone know where to find you. Of course, all of
your books, including this latest release, Stranger Idaho.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Yeah, so you can find all of my books, including
Stranger Idaho on Amazon. They are all on kindle, soft back,
and audible. And yeah, so all nine is are available
there whether you like to listen, read on your kindle,
or have like me, I like to have a solid
poppy in my hand kind of a dale. They're all

(53:22):
available there and you can contact me. Anybody can contact
me at Strangerbridgeland dot com. I still collecting stories. I'm
starting to narrow down. I know, I barely finish this one,
and now I'm narrowing down what state I want to
do next, so it'll depend on what stories I get
the next little while. But yeah, I just love to

(53:43):
hear you know. If any of your listeners or anybody
out there have stories, please contact me. And yeah, again,
it's such a pleasure to come on and talk to
you again. Shannon, you are you are Annie and I
is one of our best friends. We just love you
to pieces and we think you do such an amazing job.
So thank you.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
Thanks John. I love you guys too, And honestly, I
hope that for the next eight or nine years and
more that I will be here for you to come
on and share more encounter stories and you have more
people getting in touch with you so that you can
keep writing these books, because there's some of my absolute
favorite encounter stories that I've ever heard, or some of

(54:23):
the ones that that you have put in your book.
So thanks again for coming on, John, and I look
forward to the next state that you're going to cover.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Thank you so much, appreciate it. Sandon, Well, I'm so so.

Speaker 5 (54:38):
I was given a name by my parents my business.

Speaker 6 (54:41):
I was out of college.

Speaker 7 (54:42):
I've done these things as my profession, my producing at
the blog but it says, forget, that's.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
Some of your story.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
That's all gone, that's all about and I want.

Speaker 6 (54:54):
To see the million.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
What nobody knows where that is because we don't know.

Speaker 5 (55:02):
Ourselves except through listening to arecas.

Speaker 7 (55:06):
And consulting our members. But then that's a really and
that again leads uspect.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
This question.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
What are you?

Speaker 4 (55:16):
That is the meaning.

Speaker 7 (55:19):
We shall see how they play with the success or
buy the coms to get you to come out on
your show and find.

Speaker 6 (55:28):
Out it will be very old.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
M hm.

Speaker 8 (56:01):
It's it's as stas puss Puss Puss Puss.

Speaker 6 (56:57):
Spots might send me.

Speaker 7 (57:20):
For example, are quite divided on us. They will say, no,
we don't believe literally in reincarnation that after your funeral
grow you will suddenly become somebody different to being somewhere else.
They will say, reincarnation means this that if you sitting
here now are really convinced that you're the same person

(57:43):
that folded at the door half an hour ago, you'll
be recompeted if you are liberates now that you're not.
The past hasn't been tested, the future doesn't existence.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
There is only the present.

Speaker 6 (57:59):
That's the am.

Speaker 5 (58:02):
Said Master do get display said.

Speaker 6 (58:06):
String.

Speaker 5 (58:07):
It does not become something because there is something.

Speaker 6 (58:12):
An entry springs.

Speaker 8 (59:00):
Its puss puss, puss.

Speaker 6 (59:40):
Puss.

Speaker 8 (59:49):
Stats puts.

Speaker 5 (01:00:04):
Ts has the same idea in his point four Days,
where he says, when you've settled down in the train
and can read your newspaper and so they were not
the same person, that's a while ago.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
And live the plan.

Speaker 7 (01:00:20):
If you think you are, you are linking your moments
up in the change. And this is what buying to
the wheel of boland when you know that every moment
of which you are is the only moment this consints.
And the Master will say to somebody, I can have.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
A walk across the room and it can't be back,
and he says, where are your foot?

Speaker 5 (01:00:45):
They've gone?

Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
So where are you?

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
Who are you? When we are asked who we are,
we usually give

Speaker 7 (01:00:52):
A kind of recipation of an instrm instry inst