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August 9, 2025 • 14 mins
STORY TIME: If The Sign Says Danger Keep Out Maybe You Should Listen!


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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I stumbled upon the area while photographing and cataloging wild
mushrooms of Michigan for ms U, a job I believe
is the best in the world, at least for me.
I love the forests. The deeper in the least amount
of people, the better. I must confess that I've ignored
a lot of signs that say private property because I

(00:22):
know the owners and they're happy to have someone checking
on their places. Up north. I'm also used to forcing
my way through thickets of thorny wild raspberries, poison ivy vines,
and swamps. So were prepared with a machete and made
my way through, photographing and cataloging each bit of fung guy.

(00:44):
I never got lost, and that day I carried a compass,
a cell phone, survival gear, and more. For example, on
the first day, I came to the area where Devil's
House should be. It didn't show up on any map,
and I counted on GPS. Still nothing. I pulled into

(01:05):
a gas station and realized I was in the general
area of Devil's House. I pulled into the only business
I'd seen along this two lane blacktop and asked a
man sitting on a lawn chair. He looked to be
I don't know, one hundred years old. I asked if
he could help me out. He gave me a long look.
All he said was danger keep out. I'd heard of

(01:29):
Devil's House when I was a kid. My great uncle
Tracker the only name I knew him by. I called
him Uncle Tracker. Actually Scout told Gramps that although he
guarded the area, he never knew what he was guarding,
so he figured maybe he was for weapons storage. Someone
picked him up every morning from a corner near his home.

(01:50):
He still lived with your great aunt Sadie back then,
and she claims to be part of Chippawa and told
my grandfather about it. I feigned sleep, as ten year
olds do, and listened. He started out and said it
was during the Vietnam War, but he was stationed stateside
guarding a compound in the middle of nowhere, Michigan. They

(02:12):
used that joke too often. I learned later that the
locals call it Devil's House, a translation from the Chippewa,
and was warned to stay away from it and to
obey any sign that says danger keep out, Uncle Tracker said.
A driver dressed in military garb arrived confiscated my watch,

(02:33):
my knife, my walkie talkie, then entered a windowless van.
Curious as ever, I made a game of counting the
minutes it took to arrive at the site. I also
took note of scents and sounds, but there were very few,
except when we passed the town bakery. When the van
finally stopped, I disembarked, the driver returned my items. The

(02:55):
first thing I saw was a large sign that said danger,
keep out. My post was in front of a fenced
in metal building hut. There were no windows and only
one entry door. I walked to the perimeter once an
hour and recognized every type of flora, rock and tree
in the area, especially an enormous sugar maple that had

(03:17):
to be at least two hundred years old. I was
so bored that I named her Sugar, and I used
to talk to her. I'd leaned back against her and
eat my lunch. It was about ten yards from the fence,
so I still saw it. One day, a sergeant drove
up and, not seeing me, started shouting my name. I

(03:38):
raced to my post, and he gave me hell and
even threatened a court martial. He was older and pudgy
and turned bright red, so I was kind of afraid
he might have a stroke. Then he grabbed my arm
and pulled me to that familiar sign and made me
read it out aloud, danger keep out. I found myself

(03:58):
in family territory on my last assignment. It was near
my great grandparents and grandparents farm, and although they had
passed away, one of my cousins and his wife now
lived there, and I planned on visiting them at the
end of my assignment. I was prepared with bare spray
and expected they would avoid me. There's only one venomous

(04:20):
snake in Michigan, photographed and catalog by a coworker years earlier.
They're shy, They're rarely seen, as the flight is their
method of survival. So it wasn't careful, not really, not
particularly fearful spending so much time among them, as I
would among many people that I'm aware of. Four days

(04:41):
was the length of this paid assignment I was on,
and I found the valued and very edible morals. Luckily,
no one came back this far to harvest them. Always
leave some behind, so there will be more formed by
the spore. It's sad, but people because of ignorant or
maybe greed. They'll find them and take them all. I

(05:02):
also discovered turkey tales that are lovely orange, caused by
a parasite that lives on them. There were many oysters
and black trumpets. I was tempted to fry up some morals,
but a harvesting or touching any of the fungi or
flora is strictly forbidden. On the third day, my luck
began to run out. Clouds move in and it was

(05:25):
putting off this very fine mist. I doned my parka
and I continued. Then I stepped over a large rock
and right into a tangled ropey wild grape vines. Slipped
on the wet moss under them and twisted my ankle.
I hobbled to a nearby stream and soaked my foot
in The extremely cold water. Not helped ease the pain

(05:47):
and kept my ankle from swelling. I made the best
of it, jotting down notes, listening to the symphony of
peepers and warblers and wrens squawk of a blue jay.
A dough walked up to the opposite side of the
stream and drank and drank, not even noticing me, and
it sauntered off. After a while, my leg felt better.

(06:07):
I put my sock and shoe back on and climbed
the bank. I noticed something white and rusty that didn't
really look like a work of nature, so I picked
it up. I planned on disposing of it properly, but
it was a sign that a large branch had knocked over.
I cleared the mud and leaves off of it, and
there it was, and it read danger keep out. I

(06:29):
propped the sign up as best I could and chuckled
at the need for this sign in such an unpopulated area.
I mean, I knew it was federal land, but there
wasn't any public parking. I pulled my truck into a
void in the foliage and I parked. I'd spent several
days over the past month searching this remote place, and
I hadn't encountered one other living soul. So I shrug

(06:52):
it off, thinking about how old the sign must be.
You know, it's probably from an old farm or summer
home in the area. I notice rather new looking signs, though,
that give me a sense of unease because they're also
saying danger keep out. All the luck, all the good
luck I'd experienced over the past decade, it seems had
finally run out. I tried to ignore my injury, but

(07:15):
soon you know, my calf is swelling and it's sore.
I couldn't really continue. I had lost my bearings, so
I checked my cell phone, but I had no signal.
Looked at my compass and the needle just spun like
the second hand of a watch. Fatigue and the leg
pain set in more strongly, so I found a suitable campsite.

(07:36):
It pull off my backpack, popped up my small, one
person tent, and then I was able to find enough
dry wood under piles of leaves and large branches to
ward off carnivores and give a little heat to the thing.
Eight a few protein bars, and I crashed. However, several
hours later, this sound wakes me up, and I crawl

(07:56):
out of my sleeping bag and I step out into
this chill. There's last stars out. Then I hear the
sound again, and this time the hair on the back
of my neck stands up and I listened to this
distinct sound. It's an infant's cry. I pulled on my boots.
Thankfully my ankle allowed that again. The cries of this

(08:17):
very upset infant it's wailing out there somewhere, maybe north.
What the hell was an infant doing here in nowhere Michigan.
I pulled on my headlight and grabbed my machete by
instinct and took a few steps. But even the most
modern overbright led lights weren't really able to cut through

(08:37):
the dense foliage. So I start calling out. I'm asking
who's there, but it's just silence. A few seconds later,
that infant cried again, and now it's almost hysterical. I
moved forward and come upon another. Cutting my way through
the sound. I stopped and heard not only the baby,
but the voices of at least three children calling out,

(08:58):
saying help us, please, come help us, and wondered if
they'd stumbled into the reason for this danger keep out
sign mess that I keep finding. I ran the few
yards back to camp and I gather up my gear.
I leave the tent sleeping bag, I put out my fire.
I'd heard about people, you know, being lured by muggers

(09:19):
and car thieves by sounds like this, but it sounded
very real and very urgent. I mean, this baby kept crying,
it was actually screaming. At this point, I ran top
speed into an electric chain link fence that threw me
back a few feet. This was a much higher voltage
than the twelve volt cattle fence. I sat up. I
was a little dazed. I was a little confused. I

(09:40):
still heard the baby, though, and then more please from
the young children, help us, help us please. I stood
up and looked more closely at the fence. It was
at least ten feet tall and topped with razor wire,
and on it hung another sign danger keep out. But
that baby kept crying. It was just a ahead of me,
so I continued toward it. Then I stopped because I

(10:04):
wasn't quite sure what I saw. At least a dozen
pairs of small, glowing red orange eyes were staring back
at me. I turned on my flashlight and I pointed
at these beings. Uns all I could say about them.
They were humanlike, you know, but they were small. I mean,
the tallest one would have been up to my knees.
They start laughing, and then they start spitting at me

(10:27):
through the fence, making sure not to touch it. These
were not children. They had unusually high foreheads, large bulbous noses,
and a slit of a mouth. One of them laughed
and I saw two rows of large pointed teeth. Several
made guttural growls open their mouths, and also mimicked a

(10:48):
crying infant. My heart nearly failed me as two large,
strong hands grabbed my arms from behind. My flashlight clattered
to the ground, and then someone else yanked my rifle.
Handcuffs were secured to my arms behind my back. I
grew up in a very tough neighborhood, you know, and
served two tours in the Middle East. But this experience,

(11:10):
this entire thing, was the most startling and terrifying experience
I had ever endured. They marched me along the edge
of that fence to a narrow gate and into a
room that was so bright it hurt my eyes. A
large man stood in silhouette in front of them, and
he asked me to state my business, and I pointed
to my pack. Honestly, I was just too stunned to

(11:32):
even speak. They checked my ID, then they removed the
flash drive from my camera threw it back into my backpack.
They confiscated my field notebook, and I started to complain
about all this, but then I realized that's not going
to help, so I decided it was better to keep quiet.
I was finally able to speak though at one point,

(11:53):
and I told them about my purpose so far back
in this forest, but they said nothing. They just hustled
me into this jeep. The engine was running, and they
drove me back to the motel that I stayed at. Well,
then two large guys they opened my truck. They lifted
me out and threw me into it, from the jeep
to the truck. As I gobbled down my steak and

(12:15):
eggs in the diner, an elderly man asked me about
the military escort, and I asked him who he was
and how he knew about what happened even so far
back in the forest. Well, he told me about the
little creatures sometimes known as the pudwudgies, but this was
not their real name. They're small humanoids that inhabit and

(12:37):
heave inhabited that forest for hundreds or thousands of years.
The government guards them against people, but also protects us
from them. They're carnivores. They'll eat anything, including humans. They're
also tricksters. They will lure people to them, like that
fake baby crying, or maybe even a wounded dog. Whatever

(12:58):
they think a human or any any mammal would respond to.
They live in burroughs underground, and they'll rush out from
every direction to circle their prey and then kill them
with very sharp spears, some with the teeth of bears
or wolves. He told me he wasn't afraid of talking
about them, as they are well known locally, and he

(13:19):
was too old to care what the government might do
to him. We don't talk about it, but I felt
sorry for you, you know, being so young and all.
After a few of them pugs, we called them kidnap
babies and children. Back in the late eighteen hundreds, the
government and some of the Pugs leaders, they make a
treaty and actually have kept it all these years. Those

(13:43):
in the fence that you saw went outside their reservation,
I guess you'd call it, and are kept until one
of their elders come to get them and take them back.
They do live peacefully among themselves, but they have such
a blood lust for humans that they have to be contained.
I mean, no one can get back there, especially in
today's world with all the cameras and cell phone cameras

(14:06):
and everything. And then the man just apologized, He apologized
that I had to go through any of that, but
I was glad he gave me an answer. He did
say though, that hey, next time, just turn back from
any of those signs that you see that say danger,

(14:26):
keep out. You don't really know what's beyond that sign.
The end, thank you for being here, and thank you
for listening. We all have the questions. That's why we
stay curious.
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