BWBS Ep:128 The Ancient Watchers of Appalachia

In the shadow of the ancient Appalachian Mountains, where morning mist clings to valleys older than memory, something walks on two legs that shouldn't exist. Tonight's bone-chilling episode takes you deep into the heart of America's most enduring mystery, beginning with a terrifying encounter from 1879 when the Henderson family of Craig County, Virginia came face to face with an eight-foot-tall nightmare peering through their kitchen window.

This was no bear, no trick of the light, but something with eyes that held an intelligence both ancient and terrible. We journey back through centuries of horror, starting with the Cherokee people who knew these mountains harbored Tsul'Kalu, the slant-eyed giant with seven fingers on each massive hand. Their legends speak not of a simple beast but of a being with disturbing intelligence, one that could take human brides and transform into the horrifying Raven Mocker, capable of stealing hearts from living victims without leaving a single mark. 

These weren't campfire stories but warnings passed down with the deadly seriousness of survival knowledge, including the haunting tale of a Cherokee woman whose mysterious suitor turned out to be something that had to fold itself to fit inside her dwelling, its head scraping the rafters while its feet touched the opposite wall. As European settlers pushed into the wilderness, they encountered their own nightmares. We reveal the suppressed military records from the Civil War, when both Union and Confederate soldiers witnessed a massive figure walking among the battlefield dead at Droop Mountain, tenderly checking bodies and carrying wounded soldiers to safety with inhuman strength. 

The lumber camps of the late 1800s became theaters of terror, particularly the 1909 incident at Spruce Knob where something systematically destroyed an entire logging operation with its bare hands, tearing apart steam engines and leaving a message written in twisted metal and shattered wood that couldn't be clearer: leave these mountains or die.

The modern era brought no relief from the terror. In 1959, a one-room schoolhouse in Buchanan County became a prison of fear when something tried every door and window while eight children and their teacher huddled in terror, watching massive fingers with yellowed nails reach through a partially open window. The creature's face appeared at each window in turn, ancient and terrible, with glowing yellow eyes that showed an intelligence that made its interest in the children all the more horrifying.

The creation of the Appalachian Trail opened a new chapter of encounters, with experienced hikers and military veterans reduced to cowering in their tents as something massive circled their camps, attempting to speak in sounds that almost formed words, as if desperately trying to communicate across an impossible divide. The 1976 case of former Marine David Carpenter, who abandoned his thru-hike after something rehung his food bag fifteen feet higher than humanly possible, demonstrates that even hardened soldiers found themselves outmatched by whatever walks these ridges.

We explore the modern explosion of sightings, including the 2006 Hungry Mother State Park incidents witnessed by multiple families, where a creature showed particular interest in tents containing children, approaching with a curiosity that parents found more terrifying than any aggression. The narrative reaches into the digital age with thermal drone footage from 2023 showing multiple bipedal heat signatures moving through the forest canopy, communicating with each other using vocalizations that linguistic experts claim show patterns consistent with language structure.

Throughout this journey into darkness, we hear from the witnesses themselves, from nineteenth-century German settlers who watched in horror as something lifted entire roof structures off cabins, to modern researchers like Jeff Carpenter who looked into the eyes of these creatures and saw an intelligence that challenged everything he thought he knew about the natural world. The West Virginia Bigfoot Museum's collection of over three hundred footprint casts shows anatomical features that experts say would be nearly impossible to fake consistently across decades of hoaxes. But perhaps most chilling are the habituation sites, where property owners claim to have established ongoing contact with these entities, revealing not mere animals but beings with family structures, moral codes, and a culture that predates human presence in these mountains. 

One retired biology professor's five-year study suggests these creatures possess an intelligence that may equal or exceed our own, watching us from the forest edge with patience that spans generations. As we reach our terrifying conclusion, we're left with the understanding that every night in the six-hundred-thousand square miles of Appalachia, someone experience

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace.
Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world
refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they
know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we
share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot,

(00:23):
dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make
it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because
once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the
woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close and
remember some things in the woods don't want to be found.
Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads,

(00:46):
and let's head off into the woods if you dare.
The kerosene lamp flickered in the kitchen of the small cabin,
casting dancing shadows against the rough hewn walls outside Craig County, Virginia,

(01:12):
lay wrapped in the darkness of an October night in
eighteen seventy nine. The Henderson family had gathered for their
evening meal, the children's laughter mixing with the crackling of
the fire in the hearth. Mary Henderson was ladling stew
into bowls. When she noticed, at first a shadow that
didn't belong moving past the window. With deliberate slowness, she

(01:33):
froze the ladle, suspended in mid air, dripping gravy onto
the wooden floor. The shadow stopped through the wavy glass
of the window. Illuminated by the warm glow from inside,
a face appeared, but it wasn't a face, not a
human face eight feet up where no man's head should be.
Two eyes gleamed with an intelligence that was neither animal

(01:56):
nor entirely human. The face was covered in dark, matted hair,
and when it opened its mouth, revealing teeth that gleamed
yellow in the lamplight, Mary Henderson did something she had
never done in her forty three years of life. She screamed.
The sound shattered the evening calm, like breaking glass. Her husband, Thomas,

(02:16):
leaped from his chair, grabbing the rifle that always stood
loaded by the door. The children huddled together, the youngest
beginning to cry, but by the time Thomas reached the window,
the thing was gone, leaving only massive footprints in the
soft earth outside, footprints that measured eighteen inches long and
showed five distinct toes like a man's but three times

(02:39):
the size. This was the first documented encounter with what
would later be called Bigfoot in the Appalachian Mountains, but
it was far from the first time the creature had
been seen. For centuries before the Henderson's terrifying evening, something
had walked these ancient hills. The Cherokee called it Sulkalu,
the giant with slanting eye. The early settlers whispered of

(03:02):
wild men in the woods, and the fur traders spoke
in hushed tones of footprints that dwarfed even the largest
bear tracks. Tonight we journey into the heart of the
Appalachian darkness, where the line between legend and reality blurs
like morning mist on a mountain ridge. These are not
campfire tales meant to frighten children. These are the documented encounters,

(03:25):
the sworn testimonies, the experiences that have left grown men
shaking and forever changed. From the ancient Cherokee legends to
modern day hikers on the Appalachian Trail will uncover the
terrifying truth that has haunted these mountains for generations. Long
before European settlers carved their homesteads from the Appalachian wilderness,
the Cherokee people knew these mountains harbored something extraordinary and terrifying.

(03:50):
They called it Sulkalu, which translates literally to he has
them slanting, referring to the creature's distinctive eyes, though some
elders insisted it meant that the sloping of its massive forehead,
a feature that would be reported again and again in
modern bigfoot sightings. The Cherokee didn't speak of zul Kalu lightly.
This wasn't merely a story to frighten children into obedience.

(04:13):
It was a warning passed down through generations with the
gravity of survival knowledge. According to their oldest tales, recorded
as early as eighteen twenty three by European chroniclers, sul
Kalu stood between eight and twelve feet tall, covered in
dark hair that seemed to absorb light itself. But what
made him truly terrifying wasn't his size, it was his intelligence.

(04:37):
In one particularly chilling legend preserved by ethnographer James Mooney
in the late eighteen hundreds, a young Cherokee woman encountered
Sulkalu while gathering herbs near what is now the Tennessee
North Carolina border. She had ventured farther than usual, drawn
by a patch of rare medicinal plants that grew only
in the deepest hollows of the mountains. The afternoon sun

(04:59):
barely traded the canopy where she worked, and in that
green twilight, she didn't notice the silence that had fallen
over the forest until it was too late. The birds
had stopped singing, the insects had ceased their endless drone,
even the wind seemed to hold its breath. When she
looked up, Sulkalu was standing not twenty feet away, watching

(05:20):
her with those terrible, slanted eyes. The woman later described
the encounter to her tribe with a voice that shook
even years after the event. She said, his eyes weren't
like an animal's. They held a knowing, an ancient intelligence
that seemed to look not at her but through her,
as if he could see every thought, every secret, every

(05:41):
fear she had ever harbored. For long moments neither moved,
the giant's chest rose and fell with breaths that sounded
like wind through a cave. His massive hands with fingers
that ended in thick, yellowed nails, hung at his sides.
The woman noticed with mounting terror that he had seven
fingers on each other hand, a detail that would appear

(06:02):
in multiple Cherokee accounts over the centuries. Then Sulkalu did
something that transformed the encounter from frightening to nightmarish. He smiled,
not the bearing of teeth that an animal might display,
but a deliberate, knowing smile that suggested he understood exactly
what she was, how vulnerable she was, and how easily

(06:23):
he could end her life. But he didn't attack. Instead,
he turned and walked away, each footfall shaking the ground,
leaving Prince in the soft forest floor that remained visible
for weeks afterward. Prince that warriors would bring their children
to see, teaching them to recognize the sign of Zulkalu's passing.

(06:44):
Perhaps the most disturbing Cherokee legend of Zulkalu involves his
taking of a human bride, a tale that reveals the
creature's unsettling mix of human desires and inhuman nature. The story,
preserved in multiple versions throughout Cherokee territory, tells of a
young woman who lived with her mother in a small
settlement in what is now Jackson County, North Carolina. The

(07:08):
woman was known for her beauty, but had refused all suitors,
claiming none were worthy. One autumn evening, as she sat
in the ase, a small lodge separate from the main house,
she heard footsteps approaching. Thinking it was another unwonted suitor,
she called out that she would accept no visitors. The
footsteps stopped, but she heard a voice unlike any she

(07:29):
had known, deepest thunder yet strangely melodious, saying he brought
fresh meat for her family. The next morning, she found
an entire elk, freshly killed and cleaned, left at their door.
This continued for seven nights. Each evening, the mysterious visitor
would come speak with her through the walls of the
ase and leave fresh game. The woman's mother, initially suspicious,

(07:54):
grew to appreciate the provisions, especially as winter approached and
food became scarce, and the eighth night, the woman, overcome
with curiosity, agreed to let her visitor enter. What stepped
through the doorway had to duck and turn sideways to fit.
Sul Kalu filled the small space, his head brushing the rafters.
Even while sitting in the darkness with only the glow

(08:17):
of embers in the fire pit, the woman could make
out his massive form, but not his features clearly. They
spoke through the night, and she found him intelligent, even
gentle in his way. This continued for weeks. Sulkalu would
arrive after dark, they would spend hours in conversation, and
he would leave before dawn, always providing meat for the household.

(08:39):
The woman found herself looking forward to his visits. Though
she never saw him clearly in daylight. She noticed things
about him. His speech was refined but ancient, using Cherokee
words she had only heard from the oldest elders. He
knew the locations of every healing plant in the mountains,
every stream, every cave. Spoke of the mountains as if

(09:01):
he had watched them form. But the woman's mother grew suspicious.
One morning, she demanded to see this mysterious suitor, who
came only in darkness. The woman protested, saying Sulkalu had
forbidden it, but the mother insisted. That night, when Sulkalu arrived,
the woman tearfully explained her mother's demand. There was a

(09:22):
long silence. Then Sulkalu agreed, but warned that seeing him
would change everything. The next morning, the mother approached the
asi with a torch as recorded by Mooney. The old
woman came and looked in, and there she saw a
great giant with long slanting eyes, Sulkalu, lying doubled up
on the floor with his head against the rafters in

(09:43):
the left hand corner at the back, and his toes
scraping the roof in the right hand corner by the door.
The mother's scream could be heard throughout the settlement. She
ran crying, Uska set to you, a expression of utter
terror and disgust. Sul Kalu, enraged by her reaction, stood
to his full height, breaking through the roof of the assi.

(10:05):
He looked at the young woman with those terrible slanted eyes,
now filled with sorrow and fury in equal measure, and
spoke his last words to her. I will never let
your mother see me again, but you will know I
am always watching. He left then, heading towards Sunegunyi, his
dwelling place in the high mountains. But true to his word,

(10:26):
he continued to watch. The woman would find fresh meat
at her door. For the rest of her life, she
would glimpse massive footprints around her home after fresh snow.
Sometimes on still nights, she would hear his voice carried
on the wind, singing ancient songs in a language older
than Cherokee itself. She never married. She lived to be

(10:47):
very old, and on her deathbed she told her niece
that she could feel Sulkalu nearby waiting. The next morning
they found her body was gone. Only massive footprints led
from her deathbed into the forest, accompanied by a smaller
set of bare human feet. The tracks let up the
mountain until they simply vanished, as if the walkers had

(11:08):
stepped off the earth itself. Among the various forms Tzulkalu
could take, according to Cherokee tradition, the most terrifying was
that of the raven Mocker. This shape shifting version of
the creature combined all the physical tear of Bigfoot with
supernatural abilities that made it infinitely more dangerous. Standing seven
feet tall. Even in its human disguise, the Raven Mocker

(11:30):
could appear as an elderly man or woman walking among
the Cherokee people undetected. The most horrifying aspect of the
raven Macker was its method of killing. Unlike the physical
violence one might expect from such a powerful creature, the
Raven Macker killed through supernatural means. It would approach its victims,
usually the elderly or infirm, in human form. Then, through

(11:54):
some terrible magic, it would reach into their chest and
extract their heart without leaving a mark. The victim would
simply collapse dead with no sign of violence. The raven
mocker would consume the still beating heart, adding the victim's
remaining years to its own unnaturally long life. One account
from the eighteen forties, recorded by a missionary working among

(12:16):
the Cherokee, tells of a raven mocker encounter in what
is now Cherokee County, North Carolina. An elderly woman named
Ayana had been caring for her sick grandson when a
stranger appeared at her door during a severe thunderstorm. The
man was tall, though stooped, with apparent age, and asked
for shelter from the storm. Following Cherokee customs of hospitality,

(12:38):
Ayana invited him in. As the night wore on, Ayana
noticed disturbing things about her guest. His shadow on the
wall didn't match his form. It was massive, with long
arms that reached nearly to the floor. When he thought
she wasn't looking, his eyes would gleam with a red light,
like coals in a dying fire most uns. When lightning flashed,

(13:02):
she swore she could see through his human disguise to
something huge and covered in black fur. Recognizing the danger,
Ayana pretended to fall asleep while keeping one eye slightly open.
She watched in terror as the stranger stood, his form
seeming to unfold and expand until his head touched the ceiling.
The raven macher approached her grandson's sleeping form, one massive

(13:26):
hand reaching toward the child's chest, but Ayana was ready.
She had placed a charm under the boy's blanket, a
piece of wood from a tree struck by lightning, known
to the Cherokee as powerful protection against evil spirits. The
moment the raven Mocker's hand neared the charm, it recoiled
with a shriek that sounded like a combination of a

(13:46):
raven's call and a man's scream. The creature fled the cabin,
but not before Ayana saw its true form, seven feet
of black fur, solid white eyes, and hands that ended
in claws. The next morning, she found massive footprints outside,
but they led only a few yards from the cabin
before simply disappearing, as if the creature had vanished into

(14:08):
thin air. As European settlers pushed into the Appalachian Frontier,
they encountered something that challenged their understanding of the natural world.
The year seventeen seventy four marked one of the earliest
recorded encounters between settlers and what the Cherokee had long
known as Zulkalu. A group of German settlers establishing a

(14:29):
small community in what would become Pendleton County, West Virginia,
experienced a series of terrifying events that nearly caused them
to abandon their hard won homesteads. Johann Zimmerman, a Lutheran
minister who kept detailed records of the settlement's early days,
wrote extensively about what he called der Ville de Mont,
the wild Man. His journal, preserved in the West Virginia

(14:52):
State Archives, provides a chilling account of their first winter
in the mountains. November fifteenth, seventeen seventy four. The Lord
tests our faith in ways we could not have imagined.
For three nights now something has circled our cabins after dark.
It walks upright like a man, but stands taller than
any man God has made. Stay tuned for more Backwoods

(15:15):
Bigfoot stories. We'll be back After these messages, young Heinrich
saw it clearly two nights past. Covered in dark hair
like a bear, but with the face of something between
man and beast. It stood at the edge of the forest,
watching his cabin for hours. When Heinrich's wife lit a

(15:35):
candle to tend to their baby, the creature's eyes reflected
the light like a wolf's, but red as blood. The
encounters escalated quickly. Livestock began disappearing, not killed and partially eaten,
as a bear or wolf might do, but carried away entirely.
A full grown pig weighing over two hundred pounds vanished

(15:56):
from a locked pen with only massive handlike princes in
the mud to show what had taken it. The settlers
found the pen's heavy wooden gate not broken, but lifted
off its hinges and set aside, suggesting an intelligence that
understood human construction. But it was the night of November
twenty second that truly terrorized the settlement. Zimmerman's account continues,

(16:19):
the devil himself visited us this night. The creature came
into the settlement proper, walking between the cabins as bold
as you please. Frau Miller saw it through her window,
She says, it stopped and looked directly at her, and
its eyes showed an ungodly intelligence. It reached out one
massive hand and touched her window, leaving a print that

(16:39):
covers nearly the entire pane. The print remains there still,
for no one dares to clean it away. Five fingers
it has, like a man, but each the thickness of
three of mine together. The terror reached its peak when
the creature attempted to enter the Schultz family cabin. Their
door barred with a heavy oak beam held against the

(17:00):
creature's initial attempts, but then, according to multiple witnesses, it
began to speak, or attempt to speak. The sounds it
made were described as words trying to form in a
throat not made for human speech. The family huddled in
terror as the creature tried different approaches, at one point
attempting to lift the entire roof off the cabin before something,

(17:22):
perhaps the crowing of a rooster announcing the approaching dawn,
caused it to abandon its efforts and retreat to the forest.
By the eighteen thirties, settlements had spread throughout the Appalachian region,
but the mountains still held vast stretches of untamed wilderness
in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. A series of
encounters in eighteen thirty two created such panic that the

(17:45):
governor considered sending militia to investigate. The trouble began in
late September when a circuit rider named Reverend Thomas Whitfield
disappeared while traveling between settlements. His horse was found wandering
near what is now the town of and A Vista,
its saddle torn and covered in what appeared to be coarse,
dark hair. Search parties found Whitfield's Bible and personal effects

(18:08):
scattered along a game trail, but of the reverend himself
there was no sign. Two weeks later, Whitfield stumbled out
of the forest, emaciated, his clothes in tatters, and his
mind seemingly broken. He spoke of being carried through the
forest by something that walked like a man, but was
no man. He claimed the creature had taken him to

(18:29):
a cave high in the mountains, where he saw things
that challenged his faith in God's ordered creation. He spoke
of bones, human bones arranged in patterns, and walls covered
in crude drawings that seemed to depict the creature's kind
watching human settlements from the forest. Most disturbing was Whitfield's
claim that the creature had tried to communicate with him,

(18:51):
drawing symbols in the dirt and making gestures that suggested
it understood his purpose as a minister. It knew what
the Bible was, Whitfield insisted to anyone who would listen,
it took my Bible and held it with a reverence
that troubled me more than if it had torn it apart.
It pointed to the cross on the cover and made
sounds of sorrow. Whitfield never fully recovered his sanity. He

(19:16):
spent his remaining years in the care of relatives, often
waking the household with screams about the giant's eyes watching
him through the windows. During this period, settlers often confused
different cryptid encounters, and the line between various mountain monsters
became blurred in the retelling. The wampus cat, another creature
from Cherokee legend, was sometimes conflated with Bigfoot sightings, creating

(19:40):
hybrid accounts that mixed elements of both creatures. One such
confused account from eighteen forty seven in what is now
Wise County, Virginia, describes a creature that seemed to combine
characteristics of both legends. A family named the Carters reported
seeing a massive, catlike creature that walked on two legs,
stood nearly eight feet tall, and had human like hands.

(20:03):
The creature allegedly stalked their homestead for weeks, leaving both
huge humanlike footprints and claw marks on trees around their property.
The Carter family's teenage daughter, Elizabeth, claimed the creature would
watch her, specifically following her when she went to fetch
water or tend the garden. She described feeling its eyes
on her constantly and hearing it call out in a

(20:25):
voice that sounded almost like a woman crying. One night,
she said she woke to find the creature's face pressed
against her bedroom window, its breath fogging the glass. But
instead of the catlike features her parents described, she saw
something more human, ancient, covered in hair, but unmistakably intelligent,
and she insisted sad. The American Civil War brought thousands

(20:49):
of soldiers into the Appalachian Mountains, and with them came
a new wave of encounters with the mysterious Giant of
the Hills. Military records from both Union and Confederate forces
contained references to the wild Man or the mountain devil,
though many of these reports were suppressed or dismissed by
officers who feared the stories would further demoralize already struggling troops.

(21:13):
One of the most detailed accounts comes from a Confederate
deserter named James McAllister, who fled his unit in eighteen
sixty three and attempted to hide in the mountains of
what is now West Virginia. McAllister was eventually captured, and,
while awaiting execution, told his story to a chaplain, who
recorded it in detail. McAllister had been hiding in a
cave system near what is now Pocahontas County when he

(21:35):
first encountered evidence of the creature. He found massive footprints
in the mud near a stream and noticed that something
had been watching his makeshift camp. Trees bore claw marks
at a height no bear could reach, and branches were
broken in ways that suggested something of enormous weight had
passed through. On his fourth night in the mountains, McAllister

(21:56):
was awakened by breathing, deep rhythmic breathing that seemed to
come from just outside his cave. He lay frozen in
terror as something massive moved in the darkness beyond his
dying fire. Then came the smell, a mixture of wet dog,
skunk and something else, something wild and ancient, that made
his stomach turn. The creature entered the cave. McAllister could

(22:20):
see its outline against the stars, impossibly tall, having to
stoop even in the high ceiling cavern. It moved toward
his supplies, and McAllister heard it, examining his belongings with
what sounded like curiosity. His rifle loaded and within reach
might as well have been a thousand miles away, for
all the good it would do him. He knew, with

(22:41):
a certainty that came from somewhere deeper than thought, that
shooting this thing would only make his death worse. The
creature found his hardtack and salt pork, sniffed them, then
did something that McAllister would remember until his dying day.
It laughed, not a human laugh, but something that was
unmistake acably laughter, nonetheless, a rumbling sound that seemed to

(23:03):
express amusement at these paltry human provisions. It took the
food and left, but not before pausing at the cave entrance.
McAllister swore the creature looked back at him, knowing full
well he was awake and terrified, and made a gesture
that seemed almost like a mock salute, before disappearing into
the night. In November eighteen sixty three, following the Battle

(23:25):
of Droop Mountain in West Virginia, both Union and Confederate
forces reported seeing something that defied explanation. The battle had
been fierce but brief, leaving dozens dead on the mountain side.
As night fell and both armies settled into uneasy camps,
centuries began reporting a massive figure moving among the dead
on the battlefield. Private William Hensley of the twenty eighth

(23:48):
Ohio Infantry wrote to his wife, after the fighting today,
we saw something that has shaken me more than any
Confederate charge. A giant figure, perhaps eight or nine feet
tall and covered in dark hair, walked among the fallen.
It stopped at each body, Union and Confederate alike and
did something I cannot properly describe. It seemed to be

(24:10):
checking them, touching them gently, almost tenderly. When it found
one still living, young Thompson from Company B, it picked
him up as easily as I might lift a child,
and carried him toward our lines, setting him down where
our pickets would find him. Then it vanished into the darkness.
Confederate soldier Marcus Conway recorded a similar account. The thing

(24:33):
on the battlefield was no man. It stood taller than
any man could, and moved with a strange grace despite
its size. I watched it through my field glasses as
it went from body to body. At one point it
stopped and looked directly at me, though I was hidden
and several hundred yards away. Its eyes caught the moonlight

(24:53):
and glowed like a cat's. It raised one hand, a hand,
not a paw, so what seemed like acknowledgment, then continued
its grim work. What makes these accounts particularly compelling is
that they were recorded independently by soldiers from opposing armies
who had no opportunity to coordinate their stories. Both described

(25:15):
the creature's apparent concern for the wounded and its mysterious
behavior among the dead. As the lumber industry pushed deeper
into the Appalachian wilderness in the late nineteenth century, logging
camps became hot beds of bigfoot encounters. The isolated camps
carved out of virgin forest seemed to attract the creature's attention,
whether out of curiosity, territorialism, or something else entirely. In

(25:40):
eighteen ninety seven, a lumber camp on the Gauley River
in West Virginia experienced a series of encounters that nearly
shut down operations. The camp foreman, a tough Scotsman named
Duncan MacLeod, kept a detailed log that provides one of
the most comprehensive accounts of sustained Bigfoot activity. It began
with tool going missing. Axes, saws, and other equipment would

(26:03):
disappear overnight, only to be found days later in impossible places,
balanced in the tops of trees, arranged in patterns on
the forest floor, or modified in disturbing ways. One crosscut
saw was found bent into a perfect circle, something that
would have required enormous strength and deliberate intent. The lumberjacks

(26:24):
began hearing vocalizations at night, long mournful howls that didn't
match any known animal, followed by what sounded like language,
though in no tongue any of them recognized. Some of
the men claimed they could almost understand it, that it
seemed to be on the verge of making sense, like
hearing a conversation in the next room through a thick wall.

(26:45):
Then came the night watches. The creature or creatures, as
multiple witnesses suggested there might be more than one, would
stand at the edge of the firelight, just visible as
massive silhouettes. They would watch the camp for hours, occasionally
making gestures that seemed to be attempts at communication. One logger,
a former teacher named Harrison Watts, tried to establish contact

(27:09):
by drawing simple pictures in the dirt where the creatures
could see them. The next morning, he found his pictures
had been modified. The simple human figures he'd drawn now
had additional details, including what appeared to be representations of
the creatures themselves standing much taller than the humans. The
most terrifying lumber camp incident occurred in nineteen o nine

(27:30):
near Spruce Knob, West Virginia. A small logging operation had
set up camp in an area the local Cherokee descendants
had warned them against, saying it was Tulkalu's territory and
that no good would come of cutting trees there. The
loggers dismissed these warnings as superstition. But within days of
beginning operations, they knew something was wrong. Trees they had

(27:53):
marked for cutting were found torn from the ground, roots
and all, and thrown considerable distances. Equipment wasn't just missing,
it was destroyed, twisted, and broken by something with enormous strength.
The camp cook, an elderly man named Samuel Foster, was
the first to see the creature clearly. He was preparing

(28:14):
breakfast before dawn when he noticed eyes watching him from
the darkness beyond the cooking fire. As he later testified
to investigators, it stepped into the light and I saw
it was like a man, but huge, maybe ten feet tall,
covered in reddish brown hair, matted and wild. Its face
God helped me. Its face was almost human, but the

(28:37):
eyes were wild, angry. It looked at me, then at
the pots of food, then back at me. I understood.
I pushed a pot of beans toward it and backed away.
It took the pot, a cast iron pot that took
two men to lift, one full in one hand, and
disappeared into the forest. But the creature's visits became increasingly aggressive.

(29:00):
It would throw rocks, some weighing hundreds of pounds into
the camp at night. It would scream for hours, a
sound the loggers described as combining the worst aspects of
a woman's scream, a bull's bellow, and something all together inhuman.
The breaking point came on the night of October thirteenth,
nineteen o nine. The creature entered the camp while the

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men slept and went to the equipment shed. What followed
was described by survivors as sounding like the devil himself
tearing apart the world. The creature systematically destroyed every piece
of logging equipment. Saws bent and broken, axes shattered, the
steam engine that powered the mill torn apart with bare hands.

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When the men emerged from their tents, they found the
creature standing in the ruins of their equipment, holding the
camp's American flag, which it had torn from its pole.
In the flickering light of their lanterns, they watched as
it methodically tore the flag into strips, all while maintaining
eye contact with the terrified loggers. The message was clear,

(30:03):
leave stay tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be
back after these messages they did. The camp was abandoned
that very night, the men fleeing with only what they
could carry. The company never returned to the area, writing
off the loss rather than risk another encounter. As Appalachia

(30:24):
entered the modern era, the creature, known to the Cherokee
as Sulkalu, gained new names in southwest Virginia, particularly around
the town of Norton. It became known as the wood Booger,
a local term that would eventually become so associated with
the creature that Norton would later establish an official Woodbooger
sanctuary and annual festival. The nineteen fifties brought a wave

(30:47):
of sightings that coincided with the expansion of coal mining
operations in the region. Miners working the night shift in
the mountains around Norton began reporting encounters with something massive
and bipedal. Unlike the often aggressive encounters of earlier eras,
these meetings seemed characterized by mutual wariness and sometimes an

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almost playful curiosity from the creature. Jack Mullins, a coal
miner who worked the Big Stone Gap area, had multiple
encounters throughout nineteen fifty seven. His first came when he
was walking to his truck after a late shift. I
heard footsteps matching mine, he recalled years later. When I stopped,
they stopped when I walked, they walked, but they were heavier,

(31:31):
much heavier. The ground actually shook a little with each step.
I finally got the courage to turn around with my headlamp,
and there it was, maybe thirty feet behind me. The
biggest living thing I ever saw had to be nine
feet tall, covered in dark hair, and it was just
following me, like it was curious where I was going.

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Mullins claimed the creature followed him several more times over
the following months, always maintaining the same distance, never threatening,
but never letting him get a clear look at its face.
I got the feeling it was studying me, he said,
learning my routine. Maybe it sounds crazy, but I started
leaving food out for it, sandwiches, apples from my lunch.

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They'd always be gone the next night, and sometimes I'd
find things left in return, unusual rocks, perfectly straight sticks,
once a handful of wild mushrooms that my wife said
were the expensive kind restaurants wanted. One of the most
frightening encounters of this period occurred at a one room
schoolhouse in Buchanan County, Virginia. The school, which served a

(32:37):
remote mountain community, had stayed open late for a Christmas
pageant rehearsal on December fifteenth, nineteen fifty nine. Eight children,
ranging in age from seven to fourteen, were present, along
with their teacher, Miss Catherine Lowry. As the rehearsal ended
around eight p m. And parents began arriving to collect
their children, they found the school house in chaos. The

(33:00):
children were huddled in the corner crying, while Miss Lowry
stood guard at the door with a poker from the
wood stove. She was shaking so badly she could barely
hold it. According to the testimony given to the sheriff,
something had begun circling the schoolhouse just after dark. At
first they thought it might be a bear, but bears
didn't walk on two legs for extended periods, and bears

(33:22):
certainly didn't try door handles. The creature had systematically tested
every window and door, its face appearing at each one
in turn, a face Miss Lowry described as ancient and terrible,
with eyes that glowed yellow in the darkness. The most
terrifying moment came when the creature found a partially open
window in the cloakroom. Little Bobby Henderson, aged seven, was

(33:46):
the first to see the massive, hair covered arm reach
through feeling along the wall. The fingers, Bobby said, were
like a man's, but much longer, with thick, yellowed nails.
The hand found a coat hanging on a peg and
pulled it out through the window. They heard the creature
examining it, sniffing it. Then it tried to push its
head through the window to look inside. That's when I

(34:09):
saw its face clearly. Miss Lowry later told investigators it
wasn't an ape. It had features that were almost human,
a nose not a snout, and its eyes. God helped me.
Its eyes showed intelligence. It was looking at the children
with what I can only describe as curiosity, But when
it saw me raising the poker, it showed its teeth,

(34:31):
huge yellow teeth, and made a sound I'll never forget,
like a growl and a scream mixed together. The creature
eventually retreated when car headlights appeared on the mountain road
parents arriving to pick up their children, but it didn't
go far. Parents reported seeing a massive figure standing just
inside the tree line, watching as they loaded their terrified

(34:54):
children into vehicles. One father, attempting to show bravery, took
a few steps toward it with his hunting rifle. The
creature responded by picking up a rock the size of
a watermelon and crushing it with its bare hands, letting
the fragments fall to the ground, a clear demonstration of
its strength and a warning to stay back. The completion

(35:15):
and rising popularity of the Appalachian Trail brought a new
type of witness to bigfoot encounters, long distance hikers who
spent weeks or months in the wilderness. These witnesses were
often experienced outdoors people, familiar with the local wildlife, and
not prone to panic. Their encounters carry a particular weight
of credibility. In May nineteen seventy six, a through hiker

(35:38):
named David Carpenter was making his way through Virginia when
he had an encounter that made him abandon his attempted
through hike. Carpenter was an experienced outdoorsman, a former Marine
who had served in Vietnam, and not someone easily frightened.
He had set up camp near Thunder Ridge and the
Blue Ridge Mountains, well off the main trail, in a
secluded spot he thought would give him privacy. As darkness fell,

(36:01):
he began to feel uneasy, a feeling he recognized from
his combat experience as the sensation of being watched by
hostile eyes. He tried to dismiss it as paranoia, but
his instincts had kept him alive in worse places than
these mountains. Around midnight, the feeling intensified. Then came the
smell that distinctive odor witnesses consistently described as a mixture

(36:24):
of wet dog, skunk, and something wild and musky. Carpenter
slowly reached for his knife, the only weapon he carried,
and waited. I heard breathing, he later wrote in his
abandoned trail journal, discovered by another hiker weeks later. Heavy
rhythmic breathing circling my tent. Whatever it was, it was big.

(36:46):
The footfall shook the ground slightly. It stopped at the
front of my tent, and I could see its shadow
through the fabric. Massive, probably eight or nine feet tall.
It just stood there, breathing for what felt like hours.
The creature then did something that transformed the encounter from
terrifying to surreal. It spoke, or attempted to speak. Carpenter

(37:10):
described it as sounds that were almost words, like someone
with a severe speech impediment trying to form sentences. I
swear I heard it trying to say hello or something similar.
The effort it was making was obvious, and somehow that
made it more terrifying than if it had just growled.
The creature eventually moved away, but Carpenter didn't sleep the

(37:31):
rest of the night. At first light, he found enormous
footprints around his campsite and discovered that his food bag,
which he had hung properly in a tree, had been
taken down, examined, and re hung fifteen feet higher than
he had placed it, at a height no human could
reach without equipment. In the summer of nineteen eighty four,
multiple hikers reported being followed by something large through a

(37:55):
particular section of the trail in North Carolina, near the
Tennessee border. The reports were so consistent that the Forest
Service quietly investigated, though they never made their findings public.
The encounters followed a pattern. Hikers would become aware of
something paralleling them through the forest, staying just out of
sight but making no effort to conceal the sound of

(38:16):
its movement. Some reported hearing vocalizations, long mournful calls that
seemed to be answered from different directions, suggesting multiple creatures.
At night, the stalking would intensify, with the creature or
creatures coming close enough to camp sites that hikers could
hear breathing in movement just beyond the reach of their lights.

(38:37):
Sarah Mitchell, a section hiker from Ohio, had the closest encounter.
She had stopped to filter water at a stream when
she noticed the forest had gone silent. Looking up, she
saw what she first took to be a bear standing
in the stream about fifty yards upstream, But bears don't
stand upright for extended periods, and bears don't have arms

(38:57):
that hang to their knees. It was washing something in
the stream, she reported to rangers, using its hands like
a person would, rubbing something between its palms under the water.
When it noticed me, it didn't run or act aggressive.
It just looked at me for a long moment, then
held up what it had been washing. It looked like
roots or tubers of some kind, as if showing them

(39:20):
to me. Then it turned and walked into the forest
on two legs, never dropping to all fours. The three
sided shelters along the Appalachian Trail became focal points for
encounters in the early nineteen nineties. The creatures seemed particularly
interested in these structures, perhaps recognizing them as human gathering places.

(39:42):
Multiple reports described creatures approaching shelters at night, sometimes touching
the structures, other times simply observing the occupants. The most
dramatic shelter incident occurred at the Punch Bowl Shelter in
Virginia in October nineteen ninety three. Six hikers were sharing
the shelter during a cold snap when they were awakened
by something shaking the entire structure. One of the hikers,

(40:06):
a journalist named Tom Warren, managed to activate his tape recorder,
capturing audio that would later be analyzed by supposed bigfoot researchers.
On the tape, heavy footfalls can be heard approaching the shelter,
followed by what sounds like hands slapping against the wooden walls.
Then comes vocalization, a series of whoops and calls that

(40:26):
no one could identify as any known animal. Most disturbing
is a section where the creature seems to be mimicking
the hiker's earlier conversation, reproducing the rhythm and tone of
human speech without forming actual words. The hikers huddled together
in their sleeping bags as the creature circled the shelter repeatedly.
At one point, a massive hand reached around the edge

(40:48):
of the open front, feeling along the floor. One hiker
described fingers as thick as broom handles, exploring the shelter's entrance.
The hand withdrew when one of the hikers screamed, but
the creature remained nearby for the rest of the night,
occasionally making low, rumbling vocalizations that the hikers described as
almost conversational in tone. Jeff Carpenter, a North Carolina native

(41:12):
and experienced woodsman, represents the modern face of Appalachian bigfoot encounters.
His transformation from skeptic to believer, documented through multiple sightings
and research efforts, provides some of the most compelling recent evidence.
Carpenter's first encounter came in twenty fifteen while he was
hunting in Jackson County, North Carolina. He was in a

(41:33):
tree stand before dawn when he heard something large moving
through the forest below. Assuming it was a bear, he
waited for it to pass, but what emerged from the
pre dawn darkness walked on two legs. It was massive.
Carpenter told a packed library audience in twenty nineteen, at
least seven and a half feet tall, covered in dark
brown hair. But what struck me most was how it moved, fluid, graceful,

(41:59):
almost despite its size. It walked directly under my stand,
and I could smell it, that distinctive odor everyone talks about.
It paused right below me, and I swear it knew
I was there. It looked up and our eyes met
The intelligence in those eyes. It wasn't looking at me
like prey or a threat. It was assessing me, categorizing me.

(42:24):
The creature moved on, but Carpenter was forever changed. He
began researching, connecting with others who had encounters, and documenting evidence.
He collected over three hundred foot print casts from across
the Appalachian region, noting consistent anatomical features that would be
difficult to fake, dermal ridges, foot flexibility, and a distinctive

(42:46):
mid tarsal break not found in human feet. A pair
of hikers backpacking the Appalachian Trail in Macon County, North Carolina,
reported one of the most detailed recent encounters. After setting
up camp for the night, they heard a howl that
lasted ten to fifteen seconds, unlike anything they could attribute
to known wildlife. Over the next two hours, they heard

(43:08):
responses from multiple directions, suggesting a group of creatures communicating
across the ridges. The next morning, they found evidence that
transformed their fear into fascination. A game trail crossed the
main trail, marked with footprints that were clearly bipedal, roughly
eighteen inches long with the stride length of nearly five feet.

(43:29):
The prints showed clear tow impressions in what appeared to
be a mid tarsal break. Following the trail in both
directions they found where something had gripped trees for support
on steep sections, leaving marks too high for a human
to make without equipment. The proliferation of trail cameras and
smartphones has paradoxically both increased and complicated modern bigfoot research.

(43:52):
While there are more alleged photos and videos than ever,
the ease of creating hoaxes has made authentication increasingly difficult.
In twenty nineteen, a husband and wife claimed to photograph
a massive creature near the New River Gorge region of
West Virginia. The image shows what appears to be an
eight to nine foot tall bipedal figure with a cone

(44:12):
shaped head and massive muscular build Unlike many blurry blobsquatch photos.
This image shows clear detail, including what seems to be
facial features and body proportions inconsistent with a human in
a suit. The couple, who wished to remain anonymous, described
their encounter. We were photographing the sunset when my husband

(44:33):
noticed a movement on the opposite ridge. Through the telephoto lens,
we could see this thing moving through the trees. It
wasn't trying to hide. It was walking in the open,
occasionally stopping to look around. At one point, it seemed
to notice us and stood still, looking directly at us
for maybe thirty seconds. That's when I got the photo.

(44:55):
Then it simply turned and walked into the heavier forest,
disappearing in despite its size. Stay tuned for more Backwoods
Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. The opening
of the West Virginia Bigfoot Museum in Sutton has created
a central repository for encounters and evidence. The museum's founders,

(45:17):
Laurel and David Pedolichio, initially skeptics themselves, have documented hundreds
of encounters from locals and visitors. The most convincing stories
aren't the dramatic ones. David Pedolichio, explains, it's the matter
of fact accounts from people who have lived in these
mountains for generations. They talk about seeing these creatures the
way they'd talk about seeing a bear. Unusual, noteworthy, but

(45:41):
not unbelievable. Some families have stories going back over a century,
passed down through generations. One such generational account comes from
the Reynolds family of Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Four generations
of the family have reported encounters on their property, which
borders the mononga hell A National Forest. The consistency of

(46:02):
these reports across decades, same locations, similar behaviors, consistent physical descriptions,
provides compelling evidence of an ongoing presence. Hungry Mother State
Park in Virginia became the site of one of the
most witnessed bigfoot encounters of the modern era. In July
two thousand and six. Multiple park visitors reported seeing a large,

(46:24):
hair covered bipedal creature over the course of a single weekend.
The first sighting came from a group of campers who
were sitting around their fire when they noticed eye shine
at the edge of the woods, too high to be
a deer, too steady to be an owl. As they
watched the eyes moved, revealing they belonged to something standing
at least seven feet tall. The creature stepped partially into

(46:47):
the firelight, revealing a massive, hair covered form, before retreating
into the darkness. The next morning, a group of canoeists
on the lake reported seeing something large moving up a
hillside on two legs. Managed to capture a few seconds
of shaky video showing a dark figure ascending the steep
slope with surprising agility. Park rangers investigating the reports found

(47:09):
numerous footprints in areas where something large had pushed through
the underbrush. Most disturbing was the account from a family
camping with young children. They reported that the creature had
approached their campsite in the early morning hours and had
seemed particularly interested in their tent, where the children were sleeping.
The father described hearing breathing outside the tent and seeing

(47:30):
a large shadow moving around their sight. When he unzipped
the tent to investigate, he found himself face to face
with the creature, standing less than ten feet away. Its
face was almost human, he reported, but covered in hair
except around the eyes and mouth. It didn't seem aggressive,
more curious. It tilted its head like it was studying me.

(47:53):
Then one of my kids made a noise inside the tent,
and its attention shifted. That's when I got scared. The
way focused on the tent where my children were. I
stood up, trying to make myself look bigger, and said no, firmly,
like you would to a dog. It looked at me
for a long moment, then turned and walked away, not ran,

(48:14):
walked like it was making a choice to leave, rather
than being frightened away. The Beast of Gum Hill gained
national attention when it was featured on Animal Planets Finding Bigfoot,
but the actual encounters were far more terrifying than what
made it to television. The area around Gum Hill in
southwest Virginia had been experiencing encounters for years, but the

(48:36):
two thousand and nine incidents were particularly intense. Local resident
Mike Johnston had multiple encounters on his property that bordered
the Jefferson National Forest. It started with missing livestock, chickens
vanishing from locked coops, a goat disappearing from a fenced
area with no sign of how it was taken. Then
came the night visits. It would come around two or

(48:59):
three am. Johnston recalled, you'd hear it before you'd see it.
Heavy footsteps, breathing that sounded like a big bellow's. It
would circle the house, tapping on walls, sometimes pushing on
doors and windows, like it was testing them. My dogs,
big brave hunting dogs, would cower and whimper, refusing to
go outside. The encounters escalated when Johnston installed motion sensor lights.

(49:24):
The first night after installation, the lights triggered repeatedly, showing
glimpses of something massive moving around the property. Johnston, watching
from his bedroom window, saw the creature clearly in one
of the floods of light. It was at least eight
feet tall, covered in dark hair except for its face
and palms. The face the face was almost human, but

(49:47):
not quite right. The proportions were off, jaw too heavy,
brow too pronounced, but the eyes were intelligent. It saw
me watching and did something I'll never forget. It smiled,
not a friendly smile, but like it was amused by
my fear. Then it reached up with one hand and
twisted the motion sensor light until it pointed away the

(50:09):
strength required to do that. The light was mounted twelve
feet up on a pole. One of the most recent
and thoroughly documented encounters occurred at a shelter along the
Appalachian Trail in Virginia. A group of five through hikers
had taken refuge in the shelter during a severe thunderstorm.
What happened that night was captured partially on audio by

(50:29):
one hiker's smartphone and corroborated by all five witnesses. The
encounter began around eleven PM when the hikers heard something
large approaching through the storm. They initially assumed it was
a bear seeking shelter, but what appeared at the shelter's
opening was no beaar. Standing in the frequent lightning flashes
was a creature they estimated at over eight feet tall,

(50:51):
so broad it nearly filled the shelter's entrance. The creature
stood there, water streaming off its hair, seemingly studying the
terrified hikers. One hiker, a former EMT named Rachel Torres,
described the encounter. It wasn't aggressive, but it wasn't afraid either.
It stood there for maybe five minutes, just watching us.

(51:13):
The smell was overwhelming, wet dog mixed with something wild
and musky. What scared me most was its breathing, deep controlled,
almost like it was trying to calm itself or us.
The creature eventually reached into the shelter with one enormous arm,
not aggressively but exploratively, feeling along the floor. When its

(51:35):
hand encountered a backpack, it carefully examined it, showing a
delicate touch inconsistent with its massive size. It then withdrew
and made a series of vocalizations, not screams or howls,
but what the hikers described as conversational sounds, as if
it was talking to someone outside. The audio recording captures

(51:56):
these vocalizations, along with what sounds like responses from it
least two other creatures outside the shelter. The conversation, if
that's what it was, continued for several minutes before the
creatures moved away into the storm. The acceptance and even
celebration of bigfoot in Appalachian culture represents a significant shift
from the terror of earlier encounters. Towns like Mary in

(52:20):
North Carolina and Norton, Virginia now host annual Bigfoot festivals,
drawing thousands of visitors and generating significant tourism revenue. At
these festivals, the mixing of serious researchers with enthusiastic believers
and curious skeptics creates a unique atmosphere. Witnesses who might
once have kept silent for fear of ridicule now share

(52:42):
their encounters openly. The twenty twenty two Maryan Bigfoot Festival
featured over sixty speakers sharing personal encounters, many of them
multi generational residents of the Appalachian region. Doctor Jeff Meldrum,
a professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University
and one of the few academics to seriously study bigfoot,

(53:03):
attended the festival and examined evidence from local encounters. His
assessment of footprint casts from the region showed consistent anatomical
features that would be difficult to hoax, features that suggested
a real biological entity. The establishment of multiple Bigfoot museums
across Appalachia has created repositories for evidence and encounter stories.

(53:25):
The West Virginia Bigfoot Museum houses one of the largest
collections of footprint casts in the world, along with hair samples,
audio recordings, and detailed encounter reports spanning over a century.
David Pedlichio, co founder of the museum, has noticed patterns
in the encounters the creatures seemed to follow seasonal patterns,

(53:45):
moving to higher elevations in summer and lower in winter.
They're most active during the full moon. They seem particularly
interested in children, not in a threatening way, but with
what witnesses describe as curiosity or even pert detectiveness. We
have multiple accounts of creatures leading lost children back toward
trails or roads. While mainstream science remains skeptical, some researchers

(54:10):
have undertaken serious studies of the Appalachian Bigfoot phenomenon. Environmental
DNA sampling in areas of frequent sightings has yielded interesting,
if inconclusive results, unknown primate DNA that doesn't match any
catalog species but is too degraded for definitive analysis. Doctor
Esteban Sarmiento, a primatologist who has examined bigfoot evidence, notes

(54:34):
the footprint evidence from Appalachia shows features consistent with an
adapted bipedal primate, not human, not known ape, but something
in between. The mid tarsal break, the foot flexibility, the tosplay.
These aren't features you can easily fake, especially consistently across
hundreds of sample spanning decades. Audio analysis of recorded vocalizations

(54:58):
has revealed complay patterns suggesting language like communication. Scott Nilson,
a retired Navy linguist, analyzed recordings from the Appalachian region
and concluded these vocalizations show patterns consistent with language, not
random animal calls, but structured communication with syntax and rhythm.

(55:19):
Whatever is making these sounds has the physical capability for
complex vocalization beyond any known North American animal. The COVID
nineteen pandemic, which drove more people into outdoor activities, corresponded
with a spike in bigfoot sidings across Appalachia. With trails
less crowded during lockdowns, serious hikers reported more encounters in

(55:41):
previously safe areas. A park ranger in Virginia, speaking on
condition of anonymity, revealed, we've had reports for years, but
twenty twenty to twenty twenty one was different. Multiple credible witnesses,
including other rangers, reported sidings. We found footprints, hair samples,
and even what appeared to be basic tools sticks modified

(56:03):
for specific purposes. The government's official position is that these
animals don't exist, but those of us who work these forests,
we know something's out there. In twenty twenty three, a
team of researchers using thermal drones captured footage of multiple
large bipedal heat signatures moving through the forest canopy in
ways inconsistent with known animals. The figures appeared to be

(56:27):
communicating with each other across distances using what seemed to
be a combination of vocalizations and gestures. Modern Cherokee descendants
maintained that Sulkalu never left Western civilization, simply stopped seeing him.
Elder Mary Crow, a keeper of traditional stories, explains, your
people want proof, evidence, something to put in a museum,

(56:50):
But Sulkalu exists in the space between worlds physical when
he chooses spirit when he doesn't. He's not an animal
to be cataloged. He's an ancient being, older than these
mountains current shape. This indigenous perspective offers a different framework
for understanding the encounters, rather than a biological anomaly to

(57:11):
be captured and studied. The Cherokee see soul Collu as
a guardian of the natural world, appearing more frequently as
that world comes under greater threat. Perhaps the most intriguing
modern development is the emergence of habituation sites, locations where
property owners claim to have established ongoing, peaceful contact with
bigfoot creatures These claims, while controversial even within the bigfoot community,

(57:36):
suggest a more complex relationship between humans and these entities.
One such site in West Virginia, monitored by a retired
biology professor, has yielded remarkable claims. The professor, who wishes
to remain anonymous, says, they're not animals in the way
we understand animals. They have culture, family structures, and what

(57:57):
appears to be a moral code. They've learned to trust
me over five years of careful, respectful interaction. What I've
learned challenges everything I thought I knew about primate evolution
and intelligence. As we reach the end of our journey
through the shadowed valleys and misshrouded peaks of Appalachia, one
truth becomes clear. Something walks these ancient mountains that defies

(58:20):
our understanding. Whether it's the Cherokee's soul Colu, the settler's
wild man, or the modern world's Bigfoot. The consistency of
encounters across centuries suggests a phenomenon that transcends simple misidentification
or folklore. The witnesses from terrified pioneer families to modern
PhD researchers share common elements in their accounts that are

(58:43):
difficult to dismiss. The footprints documented in their hundreds show
anatomical features that would require elaborate hoaxing skills to fake
consistently across decades. The vocalizations analyzed by linguists and acoustic
experts suggest communication and beyond any known animal's capability. The
behaviors described curiosity, intelligence, even compassion paint a picture of

(59:09):
something more than a mere undiscovered ape. But perhaps most
compelling is the fear of These encounters instill not just
the primal fear of a large predator, but something deeper.
It's the fear of the almost human, the uncanny valley
made flesh and standing eight feet tall outside your tent.
It's the terror of realizing that we may not be

(59:30):
alone in these forests, that something watches us with intelligence
equal to or perhaps exceeding our own. As night falls
across the Appalachian Mountains tonight, as it has for millennia,
something moves through the darkness between the trees. It knows
the old paths, the secret caves, the hidden valleys where

(59:51):
humans rarely venture. It watches our lights from the forest edge,
perhaps curious, perhaps contemptuous, perhaps simply patient. Stay tuned for
more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages.
The next time you find yourself in the Appalachian wilderness,

(01:00:12):
pause and listen. Beyond the normal forest sounds, the rustling leaves,
the calling birds, the scurrying small creatures, you might hear
something else. A branch breaking under enormous weight, a vocalization
that doesn't quite fit any animal you know, the sensation
of being watched by eyes that hold an ancient intelligence.

(01:00:34):
And if you're very unlucky, or perhaps very fortunate, depending
on your perspective, you might find yourself face to face
with the truth that has haunted these mountains since before
recorded history. The truth that we are not alone, The
truth that something else calls these ancient hills home, The
truth that in the deepest, darkest corners of Appalachia, monsters

(01:00:57):
are real. Sleep well tonight if you can, and remember
when you hear something outside your window, when your dog
whimpers and refuses to go outside, when you catch a
glimpse of movement in the forest that doesn't match any
animal you know, Remember that the creatures of legends still
walk among us. They always have, they always will. The mountains. Remember,

(01:01:20):
even if we choose to forget, and in that remembering,
in that ancient knowledge held in stone and stream and
shadowed valley, sulklu endoors watching, waiting, walking the ridgelines under
stars that have seen his kind for longer than human
memory can fathom. The story doesn't end here, It never ends.

(01:01:42):
Every night, somewhere in the six hundred thousand square miles
of Appalachia, someone has an encounter that will haunt them forever.
Someone sees eyes reflecting their flashlight at an impossible height.
Someone hears vocalizations that will echo in their nightmares. Someone
finds footprints that shouldn't exist. And the mountains keep their
secrets as they always have, as they always will, until

(01:02:06):
the day when the veil finally falls and we discover
that the real terror isn't that monsters exist. It's that
they've been watching us all along, learning, adapting, and waiting
for the moment when humanity is ready to accept that
we were never alone in these hills. That moment may
be closer than we think. Listen to the mountains. They're

(01:02:27):
trying to tell us something, but are we brave enough
to hear? Did the game the sw