Archive 197 The Beast of Lookout Mountain

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
In nineteen ninety three, I formed a UFO discussion group
in eastern Kentucky, which, by unanimous membership vote, became the
Kentucky Skywatchers. Unbeknownst to us, the group was joined or
infiltrated by an undercover FBI agent. He was enthusiastic about
the topic and was pretty vocal participant in our discussions,

(00:29):
which could get heated at times. There were no obvious
signs that he was a government official. He was pretty
good at hiding his FBI affiliation, which I suppose is
part of the job description if you think about it.
When he stopped showing up for meetings, I wasn't surprised.
In these types of groups, people come and go. We

(00:52):
later discovered the cabinet where the membership forms of the
group were kept had been accessed in some of the
files that contained names, dresses, and phone numbers had gone missing.
One of our members was a woman who claimed to
be psychic. She was actually quite a character, and once
she started telling one of her many UFO encounters, we

(01:13):
let her have the floor. Now we were open minded
and offered such people respect and a measure of dignity.
She swore that somewhere near her home in eastern Kentucky,
that there was evidence of activity inside the top secret
underground weapons laboratory stationed amid the Long and Narrow Mountain Ridges.

(01:35):
She sensed strange vibrations, portraying herself as the eyes and
ears of an alien race from a distant galaxy. She
cautioned us that an invasion was imminent, but it would
not be an obvious one with advanced weaponry and spaceships
visible in the skies. Rather, she insisted, the invaders would

(01:57):
seize power quietly through manipulation of our infrastructure. They're going
to control us through our banking institutions. She warned. It
was an elaborate scenario she painted, and I have to
admit that part way through it, I started to lose
the plot, being psychic, or so she claimed she must have,

(02:19):
since our attention spans were waning. She reached for her
purse and from a side pocket pulled out a stack
of photo copies, and she passed them around the room.
It was basically her lecture on paper. She gave us
all ten minutes to read through it, and collected back
all the copies as if they were classified documents. As

(02:40):
the meeting concluded, I bagged up the coffee stained cups.
The woman leaned over to me, and she whispered, I
think there's a plant from the FBI here. Her skills
weren't good enough to pinpoint which one of us it was,
though perhaps our soon to be rogue undercover FBI agent
was the one after the meeting who walked the woman

(03:02):
to her car, where they engaged in an intense conversation.
It was the last time I saw either of them.
A few weeks later, I received word that the woman
had been killed in a single car accident down some
remote road near the mountains. I only knew her through
our group, but all of us were shocked by her

(03:23):
sudden death. Shortly after that, I was visited by two
FBI agents who asked a lot of questions pertaining to
the members of our UFO group. At one point, they
produced a photograph. It was a man from our meetings
who had escorted the woman to her car that night.

(03:44):
Instead of being dressed casually in jeans and a hoodie
as I remembered, the man in the picture was sporting
a suit, not unlike the two agents who were questioning me.
The nature of their inquiry implied they were looking at
this man as a murderer, inspecting the death of this
poor woman. Well, I told them what I knew, which

(04:04):
wasn't much. It was a hot topic at our next meeting.
People in our neck of the woods aren't real enamored
of the government, especially when they show up at your
door asking questions. We must have entertained one hundred conspiracy
theories before we adjourned. That night, I closed down the

(04:25):
group after suffering some financial setbacks. I lost my job,
which started a snowball that eventually resulted in my house
being foreclosed. I was audited in the accountant I employed
couldn't produce any of my records, and in the aftermath
it strained my marriage and I ended up in a
costly divorce. I borrowed enough money to keep my vehicle,

(04:49):
although the interest rate was exorbitant. My credit was shot
and I held on but barely. I'm older now my
life is much simpler than these days. I lived modestly
in a one room apartment, and I prefer to pay
my bills in cash. Each night before bed, I study

(05:10):
the alphorisms I keep inside my Bible on the nightstand.
Now I've learned to read around the coffee stains from
when I stashed them in the garbage bag on the
night that poor woman and the rest of them weren't
looking the beast of Lookout Mountain. As a child, I

(05:31):
felt there was something very special about the nights of
the full moon. For two days before and two days
after the night of peak fullness, the natural world is
aglow with the blue silver illumination that is fascinated mankind
for thousands of years in the days when superstition ruled

(05:53):
the mind of man, our ancestors assigned great powers to
this other worldly life and the unfailing cycle of the
blue white orb which produced it. Because we have a
weakness not shared by the predators of the night, we
naturally fear the things that come out to hunt in
the darkness. Human beings have eyesight that evolved for daylight activity,

(06:19):
not foreseeing the details hidden in the shadows of a
forest after the sun goes down. Therefore, we have an
innate fear of the darkness and the beasts that inhabit it.
There are those among us who seem to lack this fear,
at least they give the appearance of not being afraid.
Those are individuals who will have the opportunity to see

(06:42):
what I have seen. Only recently have I developed a
deeply felt well. I started to say, respect, let's call
it what it is. It's fear, that's right. I now
fear the things that I know to be out there
in the dark. We've all heard the stories of werewolves

(07:02):
and their remarkable abilities and characteristics, at least the ones
that Hollywood has bestowed upon these terrifying creatures of legend.
I will now tell you about my experiences with the
things in the dark. These are my only encounters with
what I believe to be one of these nocturnal beasts.

(07:25):
I pray they are my last encounters. It was early
spring and the nights on Lookout Mountain in Alabama were
cool enough to be uncomfortable without a jacket. It was
a kind of night that you can see your breath
as you exhale. I owned a four wheeler, and I
frequently rode the south ridge of Lookout Mountain. I especially

(07:48):
enjoyed riding trails in the thousands of acres of woods
near my home on the nights of the full moon.
The silver light shining through the trees on the narrow
wine roads and trails is usually bright enough that headlights
are optional at low speeds. Riding by moonlight had always

(08:09):
been a special experience, and I looked forward to it,
but the events of two separate nights this year would
change that forever. It was a Friday night and I
had worked later than usual, which caused me to miss
connecting with my riding buddies as was the usual routine.
This was before cell phones were common and very few

(08:31):
of my friends had one, Plus where we rode, a
signal was hard to find on a good day. I
had called but had reached no one, so I would
have to catch up with them on the trail. It
was well after dark and the moon was high in
the night sky. I grabbed my cooler and shoved off,

(08:51):
hoping to link up with my friends and have some fun.
After a short ride on the paved road, I climbed
a steep bank off the road to access the trail
where I expected to find everyone. Fifteen minutes of bouncing
over rocks and roots found me past the roughest part
of the trail, and I was now slowly rolling along

(09:13):
on a smooth, sandy road without my headlights, when something
roughly the size of a coyote dashed quickly across the
road in front of me, moving left to right. It
was no more than a flash and a tangle of shadows.
I hit the brakes and I shut off the engine
so I could listen for whatever it was as it

(09:34):
continued its flight through the undergrowth. The natural predators in
these parts are not generally large enough to be a
threat to humans, so I was not alarmed. There are
black bears and mountain lions here, but we see them
so rarely that no one worries about them. I sat
silently on my four wheeler, listening, looking, and hoping to

(09:58):
hear or see if whatever had dashed across the road
was being followed by another similar creature, or possibly being chased.
After a minute of silent vigil, I stepped off my ATV,
thinking whatever it was was long gone. I opened my
cooler and I took out my first beer for the evening.

(10:20):
I popped the top and took a long drink. Coffee
would have been a more practical choice on the cool
spring night, but the beer tasted good that night. The
whipperwheels were out early this year, and the night air
was filled with their unmistakable calls. These woods at night
are such a sensual place. Your pupils dilate to take

(10:43):
in the maximum amount of light. Your hearing seems to
become more acute. Even your sense of smell now picks
up things that ordinarily it would not. One's mind could
quite easily run away with itself on a night like this.
To my left, some distance off the road, I could

(11:04):
hear movement in the thickly matted leafy ground cover of
this dense hardwood forest. I first assumed it was a
raccoon or a possum rooting for grubs in the foot
deep leaf cover. After only seconds of listening, I could
make out distinct footsteps. They were the same noises a

(11:26):
man would make while walking through the leaves. It certainly
was not a possum. The spot where I had stopped
was sheltered. On each side, short needle pines spaced close
together obscured my view on both sides of the road.
The fifteen foot stretch of pines, almost like a tunnel,

(11:47):
shaded the road from the moonlight. I listened as the
footsteps came closer. It had to be a hunter, so
I made some noise to alert him to my position.
I didn't want to be mistaken for game, and I
spoke up, don't shoot, partner, I'm standing right on the
road in front of you. The footsteps stopped abruptly, followed

(12:11):
by several seconds of silence, during which I expected to
hear a man's voice reply telling me that he wasn't
going to shoot me. That never happened. I spoke up
again to confirm my presence, and still I got no reply.
I knew someone was there, but for whatever reason, they
refused to respond. My concern was growing. It's not unheard

(12:37):
of that marijuana growers will guard their grow in this area.
The month of April is a bit early in the
growing season for this to have been likely, but I
wondered if I was about to meet one of these guys.
I heard a twig snap to my left. I began
talking to reassure whoever it was that I meant them

(12:58):
no harm, and I walk slowly towards the twig snap.
I came to the end of the short needle pine thicket,
where the moonlight was bright and I could see better
into the woods. I heard it breathing, and when I
looked in that direction, I saw the steamy exhaust. When
it exhaled, it was panting. Fifty feet in front of me,

(13:22):
A dark form of an animal crouched. It was motionless
and in front of me, and the steam from its
exhales was rising above its head. I froze. My eyes
began to adjust to the moonlight, now illuminating the woods.
Two pointed, fur covered ears were visible. Its head turned

(13:45):
ninety degrees, and the silhouette of a large canine muzzle
became apparent. The ears moved in a manner of a
horse as it seemed to scan the immediate area for sounds.
I'll never forget those ears. The steam from its breathing,
illuminated by the bright moonlight, rushed from its snout and

(14:06):
drifted upward. My legs suddenly felt weak. The beer can
slipped from my hand and hit flatly on the sandstone
road with a clank, causing it to shoot a stream
of foam into the air, which lapped over into the
woods in the direction of this thing. The beast rose

(14:26):
to an upright position on two legs, revealing its height.
It was bigger than me, much bigger. It was staring
straight at me. It paused long enough to issue a
deep growl and calmly strode away into the woods with
the same rhythmic leaf crunching footsteps I had heard moments earlier.

(14:50):
I was terrified. Tears poured from my eyes. I ran
for the four wheeler, jumped aboard, and hit the starter.
In a flurry of lightning fast moves, I rode away
at full throttle, like the devil was chasing me. I
don't remember driving home, but I know I covered that
eight miles in record time. When I slid to a

(15:13):
stop in my driveway, I jumped off the four wheeler
and ran into the house, locking all the doors and windows.
Never had I felt the way I felt that night.
I didn't sleep at all. Rather, I sat in my
living room with my shotgun in my lap until dawn.
I contemplated calling the county Sheriff's office to report what

(15:35):
I had seen, but I knew that I would sound
like a nutcase. I picked up the phone several times,
but I never made the call. Over the following days,
my mind replayed the events of that night over and over,
each time with the unsettling conclusion that I had seen

(15:56):
what had to be a werewolf. Either I had seen
one or I was delusional. I had always been the
guy that made fun of people who said they saw
werewolves and ghosts. I never believed that stuff. If what
I saw was a werewolf, why didn't it attack me?
It had every opportunity to make a meal of me,

(16:18):
or to slaughter me for the fun of it. I
can't imagine that it was some trickster that took me in.
It looked and sounded way too real. Besides, most trail
riders are armed, and a joke like this could get
a prankster shot. What I saw was a large, fur

(16:39):
covered animal that walked primarily on two legs. It had
very long arms in the head of a canine. Having
considered this incident time and time again, I know what
I saw and will always believe that it was a werewolf.
I'm now an undoubting believer in the existence of werewolves,

(17:01):
and that fact would be confirmed a few months later.
By September, I had changed my writing habits. I didn't
write at night. One Saturday night when my friend Larry
called to tell me that he was in the woods
and his ATV had quit on him. To my dread,
he was close to the location where I had seen

(17:23):
this creature. I almost made an excuse to get me
off the hook, but this particular friend had pulled me
out of bad spots before with no hesitation, and I
felt obligated to be there for him. I told him
that I could be there in an hour. I was
apprehensive about going back at night. I had not told

(17:45):
my writing buddies about what I had seen because I
knew they would rib me until the day I died.
They had noticed that I spent a lot of less
time in the woods than I normally did, and had
asked why I didn't ride at night now. Rather than
fess up to my unbelievable encounter, I made lame excuses,

(18:06):
jokingly allowing the conversation to move on. I wanted to
tell someone what I had seen, but I didn't feel
that they would take me serious, so I kept it
to myself. I got dressed in warm clothing and strapped
on my forty caliber and stuff two magazines in my pocket.

(18:27):
The equipment I needed to retrieve a disabled four wheeler
was sitting at the ready in a watertight box in
my garage. I strapped the box on the back of
my four wheeler and made ready to head for the
eight mile long trail that would take me to my
friend's location. I could not believe I was really going

(18:47):
back there, but I couldn't leave him stranded, and he
didn't know what I knew. The moon was bright again,
and clouds moved silently across the sky, dragging their dark
shadows over the mountainous terrain and adding a creepy element
of mystery that began to play on my mind. The

(19:09):
closer I got to the area where I had seen it,
the more apprehensive I became. I stopped long enough to
chamber around in my pistol, and I put it back
into my holster. Before I continued, I topped a rise
in the road and I caught a glimpse of a
fire ahead. Larry had started a fire. Somehow that fact

(19:32):
gave me a measure of comfort. As I approached the fire,
it occurred to me that if I could see it
from a distance, other eyes could also see it. That
removed the comfort factor. I could see more than one
person standing there. Larry had not mentioned that there was
someone with him. Maybe some help had already arrived. The

(19:55):
more the better, as I saw it. I rolled down
the rough, narrow road and stopped about ten feet from
the fire. I shut off the engine and remained seated
on my four wheeler. Susan, Larry's girlfriend, rushed over and
threw her arms around me, greeting me as their hero
and rescuer. She was relieved that I had arrived, to

(20:19):
say the least. I moved near the fire, warming my
hands and asking what the problem was. Larry indicated that
the chain had broken and he didn't have a replacement
or any of his tools. I didn't see his four
wheeler anywhere, and I asked about that. He grinned and

(20:39):
said that that was the other thing. He had not
set the brakes while working on the chain, and it
had rolled off the road into a steep ravine. We
walked over to the spot where it left the road,
and he pointed down into the darkness and said, it's
down there. My flashlight is bright, but it only dimly illuminated.

(21:00):
The machine lodged against a tree halfway down the slope.
It was a job for a wench or a bunch
of strong men. Realistically, the two of us could not
extract this ATV from its precarious resting place. I expressed
this to Larry, and he was not happy about the
prospect of leaving a rather expensive machine in the woods overnight.

(21:24):
I assured him that no one would notice it that
far off the road and it would be safe until
the next day. We were going to need a wench
attached to a truck to get this thing up the hill.
Susan was standing by the fire. As we walked back
towards her. Suddenly there was a horribly loud howl coming

(21:45):
from the ridge above us. My heart began to race.
Susan rushed Larry and clung to him as though the
devil himself had walked by. Larry's expression was that of
unwonted surprise and fear. The sound came from a big animal,
and it was too close. We gathered around the fire

(22:06):
and we listened. Not wishing to frighten Susan. I jokingly
urged our hasty departure while I was experiencing flashbacks of
my first encounter. My hand rested on my pistol. Larry
sensed that I was only half joking and agreed with
the suggestion of a prompt exit from the area. Actually,

(22:29):
he looked more puzzled than frightened. I was keeping an
eye on the woods around us again, I suggested that
we leave immediately. Susan agreed with my assessment of the
situation and became insistent that Larry speed up the process
by leaving their cooler and other gear. To our right

(22:50):
was a thicket of dense growth, from which, during a
moment of silence, came the sound of footsteps. I pulled
my pistol and started telling them the abrit abreviated version
of the story of what I had seen very near
this place just months earlier. Susan was almost in tears
and begging to leave immediately. I completely agreed with her.

(23:14):
I just wasn't as dramatic about it. We stacked one
behind the other on my four wheeler, with Larry up
front driving. I took the rear position, thinking that it
would offer the best position to shine a light behind
us and allow me to shoot anything in pursuit if
it became necessary. The box trapped on the back made

(23:35):
things a little cramped, but oddly gave a measure of
comfort as my back pressed against it. We began to
move away from the fire, and I was constantly twisting
and turning to maintain vigilance of the area, still dimly
lighted by the fire. I swung my flashlight back and
forth to illuminate anything that might be approaching. We quickly

(23:59):
moved up the rough slope from the fire in the
direction of home. As we approached a rock outcrop that
spanned the road, Larry gave it some throttle to increase
the engine power to get us over the rock. Suddenly,
the engine went dead and we rolled back a short
distance and we stopped. Larry had forgotten to open the

(24:21):
gas pitcock, which I had closed out of habit. He
quickly opened it and restarted the engine. As I looked
back towards the fire, I could see a large figure
moving about in its dim yellow orange light. We moved forward,
and as we topped the slope, I grabbed Larry's arm
and got him to stop. We were about fifty yards

(24:44):
from the fire, and at our position on the high
ground we could see the creature clearly. The three of
us stared in disbelief as the upright, hair covered manlike
creature leaned its head back and let out another bone
chilling howell. I could see the same fur covered ears

(25:04):
and the wolf likes now that had haunted my dreams
since April. The howls subsided and we saw the beasts
look in our direction and it began to move towards us.
Larry gunned the engine. Our retreat was like a blur.
I remember slowing down only once, about two miles away

(25:26):
from our starting point. Larry shouted and asked if I
could see anything behind us, while Susan pounded on his back,
insisting that he speed up. I wasn't seeing anything, and
I assured them that we were safe and that it
would be advisable to slow down and proceed with caution.
I wanted us out of those woods in one piece.

(25:48):
An accident would have been a big problem. We arrived
at my house and a spirited discussion began. As soon
as Larry shut off the engine. We hearded in. I
had to warm up and sort out the facts. Larry
and Susan had questions. I had no believable answers. I

(26:10):
explained the details of my previous encounter, and our conclusion
was that there was a werewolf in the woods near
our homes. If it wasn't a werewolf, I don't know
what to call this thing. Susan assured us that she
would never trail ride again. Larry retrieved his ATV the
next day while accompanied by five other well armed men,

(26:34):
and immediately put it up for sale. I still own
my ATV, but rarely use it, and only in the daylight.
In all the years I have been riding trails, I
have never seen, or for that matter, heard of, such
an animal. I don't know if I'm glad I saw it,
or if I would prefer to have remained blissfully ignorant

(26:56):
of its presence. I do know my feelings about outdoor
activities have changed. I know I'll never camp out on
that mountain again. I know I'll never walk in the
woods unarmed again. The thought of that thing is always
with me now. I'm like a five year old when

(27:17):
the sun goes down. I even get the creeps when
a window shade is open after dark. I often wonder
if others have seen it. I've heard nothing about it.
If they have, then again they may be doing what
I did, keeping their mouth shut for fear of ridicule.
I feel that I should warn anyone going into the

(27:40):
woods of what I saw. But I've only told a
few people and they're still making fun of me. I
shouldn't care if they laugh. I should tell everyone, because
I'm going to feel responsible if someone is hurt or
killed by this thing. The thought of organizing a hunt
to eliminate this terrifying threat has crossed my mind, but

(28:01):
I'm not that brave. An undeniable truth that can be
drawn from this story is just because you've never seen
it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Stay out of
the woods after sunset. It's very unlikely that there's only
one of these things. It most likely has relatives.