SO EP:634 Creepy Bigfoot Stories

In this episode, we explore three unsettling encounters from the Pacific Northwest wilderness that challenge our understanding of what lives in the deep forests. Our first account comes from an experienced hunter who discovered that some meetings in the woods feel less like chance encounters and more like carefully arranged appointments. The second story follows a photographer documenting abandoned settlements who learned that not all forgotten places are truly empty.

Finally, we hear from a property caretaker who uncovered the terrifying truth behind an elderly woman's final months of fear. Each story reveals a different facet of wilderness encounters, from the mysteriously peaceful to the genuinely predatory.

These accounts remind us that the boundary between civilization and the wild is thinner than we might imagine, and that some residents of the forest have been watching us far longer than we've been watching them.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
on here, something just because my dog. Something killed your dog.
My dog. We're flying through the or over the tree.
I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm
really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what

(00:38):
are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
around out here? Did you see what it was?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Or was it was?

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Standing enough. I'm out here looking through the window now
and I don't see anything. I don't want to go outside.
Jesus Quice, you better hello, get the Boddy out here
when I'm out there.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
I thought of a.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Bench about tex forty nine.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Easy him out there. Yeah, I'm walking right head Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
I've never told anyone this story, not even my wife.
Some things feel too fragile to share, like they might
dissolve if exposed to skeptical air. But I keep thinking
about it, especially when I'm alone in the woods. This
happened three years ago during hunting season. I had permission
to hunt on private land about forty miles east of Bellingham,

(01:33):
old growth forest that backed up against the Cascade foothills.
The landowner, an elderly man named Frank, had one rule
stay away from the clearing on the north ridge. He
said it was unstable ground, dangerous for walking. I figured
it was just liability concerns. I'd been hunting that property
for two weeks without seeing much deer sign everywhere, but

(01:56):
the animals themselves seem to have vanished tracks in the
mud near water sources, rubs on trees where bucks had
scraped their antlers, fresh droppings that couldn't have been more
than a day old, but no deer. It was like
they'd been spooked by something and moved deeper into the
forest beyond the areas I was permitted to hunt. The
first week, I'd stuck to the established trails, following the

(02:19):
rough map Frank had drawn from me on the back
of an envelope. The property was larger than I'd expected,
maybe three hundred acres of mixed terrain, old growth douglas
fir on the higher elevations, thick stands of alder and
maple in the creek bottoms, and open meadows where logging
operations decades ago had left clearings that were slowly growing back.

(02:40):
I'm not a novice hunter. I've been tracking deer through
Pacific Northwest forests for twenty five years, since my father
first took me out when I was twelve. I know
how to read sign, how to move quietly through underbrush,
how to position myself downwind and wait with the kind
of patients that separates successful hunters from weekend warriors who
make too much noise and go home empty handed. But

(03:04):
this property felt different from the start. The deer sign
was there, but it was old, not ancient, but not
fresh either, like the animals had been using these trails
and feeding areas regularly until recently, then suddenly stopped. I
found several spots where groups had bedded down for the night.
Circular depressions in the grass still visible, the vegetation pressed

(03:27):
flat in the distinctive patterns deer make when they settle
in for sleep. But these spots had the feel of abandonment,
like camp sites that had been vacated in a hurry.
On what would be my last morning, I decided to
hike deeper than I'd gone before, following an old logging
road that petered out into deer trails. The road was

(03:47):
more of a suggestion now, two parallel ruts barely visible
under years of fallen leaves and encroaching vegetation. Frank had
mentioned it during our initial conversation, said it led back
to an area that had been selectively logged in the
eighties before he'd bought the property. The timber company had
taken out the biggest trees, but left the forest largely intact.

(04:10):
I started hiking before dawn, using my headlamp to navigate
the first mile of established trail. The October morning was
crisp but not cold, with a low fog that hung
in the valleys and turned the forest into something out
of a fairy tale. My breath came out in small
puffs that dissipated quickly in the still air. I was
carrying my thirty hot six, a rifle I'd owned for

(04:32):
fifteen years and trusted completely. The scope was zeroed perfectly,
and I had four rounds in the magazine plus one
in the chamber. The forest felt different that morning. Not quiet,
that's too simple. It felt arranged, like someone had been
through ahead of me, adjusting things, Branches that should have
been hanging down were pulled aside. Fallen logs that blocked

(04:55):
the trail had been moved, not dragged, but lifted and
placed with care, the kind of precision that takes time
and thought. At first, I assumed other hunters had been
through improving the trail for easier passage, But as I
walked deeper into the woods, I realized the modifications were
too subtle, too careful for human work. A branch pulled

(05:17):
aside and secured with what looked like natural twist in
the wood. A fallen log rolled precisely far enough to
clear the path, but not far enough to look obviously moved.
Small stones placed to create stable footing across a muddy section,
but arranged so naturally they could have been deposited by erosion.
I found myself moving without making noise, though I hadn't

(05:38):
consciously decided to be stealthy. My boots found soft ground
between the twigs, my jacket didn't catch on branches. It
was like the path was being prepared for me As
I walked, each step falling into place with an ease
that felt almost choreographed. The old logging road curved gradually upward,
following the contours of a ridge that Frank's hand and

(06:00):
drawn map showed as the eastern boundary of its property.
I could see blazes on trees marking the property line,
old cuts in the bark that had healed over but
remained visible as raised scars. The road ended abruptly at
what must have been a loading area, a flat space
carved out of the hillside where logs would have been
stacked waiting for transport. From there, a network of deer

(06:22):
trails led in different directions. I chose the one that
seemed most heavily used, though even that showed signs of
recent abandonment. The trail was clear enough, a narrow path
worn smooth by decades of hoofs, but spiderwebs stretched across
it at face level and fallen branches hadn't been disturbed
by passing animals. The deer trail led to a stream

(06:44):
I wasn't expecting too wide and fast flowing to be
on any of the maps I'd studied. The water was
clear enough to see smooth stones on the bottom arranged
in patterns that looked intentional spirals, mostly concentric circles. Some
of the arrangements were clearly natural, the result of current
and gravity working on rocks over time, but others seemed

(07:06):
too precise, too geometric, to be accidental. I stood at
the edge of the stream for several minutes, trying to
decide if I was seeing things. The patterns could have
been coincidence, the way the human brain imposes order on
random arrangements. But the more I looked, the more convinced
I became that someone had been here, someone with time

(07:26):
and patience and a particular esthetic sense. That's when I
noticed the smell, not the usual forest smells of rot
and moss and damp earth. This was something else, clean
but wrong, like wet concrete, like the inside of a
cave that's never seen sunlight. It wasn't overpowering, just present

(07:48):
enough to register as out of place. I've spent enough
time in the woods to know the normal range of odors,
decomposing leaves, animal scat, the green smell of growing things,
the mineral scent of water over rocks. This was none
of those. Across the stream, maybe sixty yards away, something
moved between the trees, not walking exactly, more like flowing

(08:11):
from one spot to another, the way shadows move when
clouds pass overhead. I raised my rifle instinctively, then felt foolish.
There was nothing to aim at, just the suggestion of
movement in my peripheral vision. The movement stopped, and I
realized I was being watched, not the way deer watch you,
alert and ready to bolt. This felt patient, analytical, like

(08:36):
being studied by someone who had all the time in
the world to reach conclusions. The sensation was so strong
it was almost physical, like pressure against my skin. I've
been watched by bears before, and by mountain lions I
never saw, but knew we're there. This was different, more focused,
more intelligent. I sat down on a fallen log and waited.

(08:59):
I'm not sure why, maybe because standing felt like I
was trying too hard, like I was performing being human.
The watching sensation didn't fade, but it changed quality, less clinical,
more curious, like the initial assessment had been completed and
now came the longer study. The stream gurgled softly over
the arranged stones. Somewhere upstream, a raven called once and

(09:24):
fell silent. The fog was beginning to lift, filtered sunlight,
creating columns of light between the trees. It was beautiful
in the way that only deep forests can be. But
there was an edge to it, a sense of being
in a place where normal rules might not apply. I
stayed there for maybe twenty minutes, listening to the water

(09:44):
and feeling the weight of observation. Eventually I heard branches
moving on the far side of the stream, deliberate movement,
heavy but careful. Something large was walking parallel to the water,
pacing back and forth like it was thinking. The sounds
were regular, methodical step pawse step step, pause, like someone

(10:08):
measuring distance or working through a problem. Then the pacing stopped.
I looked across the stream and saw it standing there,
maybe forty feet away, not hiding behind trees, but not
trying to be seen either, just standing in a small
gap between two large Douglas furs, perfectly still. It looked
like a person wearing a heavy coat, but the proportions

(10:30):
were wrong, the shoulders too broad, the arms too long.
The head sat differently on the neck, tilted forward in
a way that seemed uncomfortable for a human. It was
covered in dark hair or fur, but not uniformly, lighter
patches on what might have been the chest and face,
darker along the arms and shoulders. The face was in shadow,

(10:52):
but I could see eyes reflecting the filtered sunlight, like
an animal's eyes, but larger and set closer together than
seemed right. It was watching me with the same patience
i'd felt earlier, like we were both part of some
agreement I didn't remember making. There was no aggression in
its posture, no sense of threat. If anything, it seemed curious,

(11:13):
tilting its head slightly as it studied me. We looked
at each other for what felt like a long time.
I wasn't afraid, which should have been strange, but somehow wasn't.
Fear would have been the normal response any hunter encountering
something this far outside the normal range of forest animals
should feel at least some anxiety. But sitting there by

(11:34):
the stream, watching this thing watch me felt completely natural,
like this was how things were supposed to happen, Like
I'd been walking toward this moment my entire life without
knowing it. I found myself thinking about the arranged stones
in the stream, the modified trail, the careful way the
path had been prepared. This wasn't a chance encounter. Something

(11:56):
had been guiding me here, creating the conditions for this meeting,
with the same patience it was now showing and studying me.
The creature took a step to its left, never breaking
eye contact, and I saw how it moved, not like
a human in a bulky coat, but with a fluidity
that suggested the bulk was natural, not artificial. The step

(12:17):
was careful but confident, like someone who knew exactly where
to place their feet without looking down. It took another
step parallel to the stream bank, and I realized it
was circling, not stalking. There was nothing predatory about the movement,
more like someone walking around a sculpture in a museum,
viewing it from different angles to get a complete understanding,

(12:39):
I stayed sitting on the fallen log, letting it circle.
The smart thing would have been to leave, to back
away slowly and hike out to my truck, but the
encounter felt too important to abandon, too much like a
test I hadn't known I was taking. The creature completed
about a quarter circle before stopping again. From this new angle,
I could see more of its profile. The head was

(13:02):
definitely wrong for a human, too large to forward thrust.
The arms were proportionally longer than they should be, hanging
down past where the hips would be, but the overall
impression was still man like, bipedal, intelligent. It raised one arm,
the movement slow and deliberate, and placed its hand against

(13:23):
the trunk of a tree. The hand was huge, dark
furred on the back, with fingers that looked strong enough
to tear bark. But it touched the tree gently, almost caressingly.
Then it began to move again, continuing its circle. I
watched it move around me for what must have been
ten minutes. Sometimes it was clearly visible between the trees,

(13:45):
sometimes just a shadow moving behind underbrush, but I never
lost the sense of being observed, of being the center
of its attention. It was learning me, I realized, taking
my measure in some way I didn't understand. Only it
completed the circle and returned to its original position across
the stream. We looked at each other again, and I

(14:06):
had the strangest sense of communication, not words, not even
thoughts exactly, but some kind of understanding passing between us, recognition,
maybe acknowledgment that we had seen each other and found
no threat. Then it took a step backward into the trees,
not fleeing, just retreating with the same deliberate care it

(14:26):
had shown when circling. I caught glimpses of it moving away,
a shoulder here, the swing of an arm there, until
it was gone, But the watching feeling continued for several
more minutes, fainter but still present, like it had withdrawn,
but was still keeping an eye on me from a
greater distance. I sat by the stream for another hour,

(14:48):
but gradually the feeling of observation faded. Whatever had been
studying me had reached its conclusions and moved on. The
forest began to feel normal again, just trees and water
and and the ordinary sounds of birds and small animals
going about their lives. And stay tuned for more sasquatch
ot to see. We'll be right back after these messages.

(15:13):
When I finally stood to leave, I noticed something I'd
missed before. On my side of the stream, maybe twenty
feet upstream from where I'd been sitting, someone had built
a small cairn, five smooth stones stacked in a precise pyramid,
the kind of marker hikers sometimes leave to mark trails
or indicate water sources. But this one wasn't marking anything obvious.

(15:35):
It sat by itself in a small clearing, clearly visible
from where I'd been sitting, but not from the deer
trail that had brought me here. I walked over to
examine it more closely. The stones were perfectly balanced, each
one chosen for its size and shape to create a
stable structure. The bottom stone was flat and broad, the
others progressively smaller toward the top. It would have taken

(15:58):
time and care to build, and considerable thought about balance
and proportion. But what struck me most was its position.
The cairn sat exactly where someone would place it to
be visible from the fallen log where I'd been sitting,
like a calling card, like someone saying they had been here,
had anticipated this moment, had prepared for it. I didn't

(16:20):
disturb the cairn, but I studied it carefully. The stones
were all local granite and sandstone from the stream bed,
smooth and water worn. The construction was recent enough that
no moss had grown on the joints, but not so
recent that it could have been built while I was
sitting twenty feet away. Someone had prepared this beforehand, knowing

(16:41):
or hoping that I would be here to see it.
The hike back to my truck took twice as long
as the hike, in partly because I was moving more carefully,
paying attention to details I'd missed in the pre dawn darkness.
The modified trail was even more obvious now that I
knew what to look for. Dozens of small adjustments each
it was one, subtle, but collectively creating a path that

(17:02):
was easier and quieter to follow than it should have been.
Near the old logging road, I found another cairn. This
one was older, moss growing in the joints between stones,
but the construction was identical to the one by the stream,
same proportions, same careful balance. It sat beside the trail
in a spot where it would be visible to anyone

(17:23):
walking back toward the main road, but easy to miss
if you weren't looking for it. When I finally hiked
back to my truck, Frank was waiting for me in
the parking area. He looked concerned, studying my face as
I approached. He asked if I'd gone up to the
north ridge. I told him no, which was technically true.
I'd been east of there, following the stream. He seemed relieved,

(17:46):
mentioned that the area had unstable ground, dangerous for walking.
Then he paused, looking at something over my shoulder. Frank
told me that folks go missing up there, sometimes not often,
but enough to worry about it. They usually turn up
a day or two later, confused, don't remember where they've been.
But they come back different, he said, calmer, like they'd

(18:09):
figured something out. I asked him if he'd ever seen
anything unusual on his property. Frank was quiet for a
long moment, studying my face. He said, I look different, calmer,
like I'd figured something out too. I didn't know what
to say to that. He continued, saying that some people
come back from the woods different than they went in,

(18:31):
usually for the better in his experience, like they made
peace with something they didn't know they were fighting. He'd
owned the property for thirty years, he said, and he'd
learned to recognize the signs. Then he asked me about
the cairns. The question caught me off guard. I hadn't
mentioned finding them, hadn't even been sure what they were called.

(18:51):
But Frank seemed to know exactly what I'd seen. He
told me the cairens had been appearing for as long
as he'd owned the property, always in the same style,
always carefully constructed, always placed where people would find them
if they were paying attention. He tried removing them once
years ago, but they came back not in the same spots,

(19:12):
but new ones would appear elsewhere on the property. Eventually
he'd stopped trying to get rid of them. They weren't
hurting anything, and the people who found them always seemed
to come back from their hikes more settled, more at peace,
like they'd had some kind of experience out there that
was good for them, even if they couldn't explain what
it was. Frank had his own theory about what was

(19:33):
happening on his property, but he didn't share it with
me that day. He just said that some places are special,
and smart people learned to respect that instead of trying
to understand it. I've thought about that conversation many times since,
about the arrangement I seemed to have stumbled into, and
whether I'm supposed to go back and honor whatever understanding
was reached that morning. Sometimes I think I will. Other

(19:56):
times I think the encounter was complete, as it was
perfect in its brevity. But I keep that section of
forest in my mind like a bookmark, holding my place
in a story I'm not sure I understand yet. And
sometimes when I'm out hunting in other places, I find
myself looking for cairns, small stacks of stones that might

(20:16):
mean someone else has been invited into an arrangement they
didn't know they were seeking. I never did see a
deer on Frank's property, but I stopped hunting there. Not
because the hunting was bad, but because it felt wrong
to carry a rifle into a place where I'd been
trusted with something much more valuable than any animal I
might kill. The season ended without me filling my tag,

(20:37):
but for the first time in twenty five years of hunting,
I didn't care. The second account I want to share
comes from a photographer who'd been documenting abandoned places in
the mountains. Her encounter was different from the hunters, less
about mutual understanding and more about witnessing something that wasn't
meant to be seen. I'd been documenting abandoned settlements across

(20:58):
the Pacific Northwest for three years when I found the
logging camp. My project focused on places that had been
swallowed back by wilderness, homesteads, mining towns, forgotten communities that
existed now only as foundations, and rusted machinery slowly disappearing
under ferns and moss. The idea had started during my

(21:19):
first year out of art school, when a friend mentioned
an old mining town near Mount Baker that had been
abandoned since the nineteen twenties. I hiked up there with
my camera, expecting to find a few tumble down buildings,
maybe some interesting textures for a black and white series. Instead,
I found something that felt like archaeology, not just old buildings,

(21:40):
but evidence of lives interrupted, of people who had simply
walked away from their homes and never returned. There was
something haunting about these places that went beyond their visual appeal.
They felt like puzzles with missing pieces, stories that ended
mid sentence. I became fascinated with the question of what
causes people to obey and in not just individual buildings,

(22:02):
but entire communities. Economic collapse was the usual explanation, but
the more sites I visited, the more I suspected there
were other factors. Places that felt wrong somehow. Even decades
after the last residents had left, the logging camp sat
in a valley forty miles from the nearest road, accessible

(22:22):
only by a network of old service trails that my
GPS insisted didn't exist. I'd found references to it in
historical society records. Pacific rim Logging Operational from nineteen sixty
two to nineteen sixty seven, abruptly closed due to operational difficulties.
No details beyond that, just a notation that the site

(22:44):
had been abandoned, with equipment and structures left in place.
Getting permission to access the site had taken months of
research and phone calls. The property had changed hands several
times since Pacific Rim had abandoned it, and the current
owners lived in California and seemed only vaguely aware of
what was on their land. Eventually, their property manager gave

(23:04):
me permission to hike in and photograph, with the understanding
that I was doing so at my own risk. The
hike took most.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Of a day.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
The service roads were barely passable, more suggestion than reality
after decades of weather and washouts. I had to park
my truck eight miles from the site and walk the
rest of the way, carrying sixty pounds of camera equipment
in a backpack design for serious wilderness photography. I reached
the valley on a Tuesday morning in late September, hiking alone,

(23:33):
as I always did. Solitude was essential for this kind
of work, not just for practical reasons, but because these
places seemed to reveal themselves differently when you were alone
with them. Groups of people changed the energy somehow made
the sites feel like tourist destinations rather than archaeological mysteries.
My camera bag held two film bodies loaded with black

(23:56):
and white stock, the digital camera I used for reference shots,
and enough batteries and memory cards for three days of shooting.
I preferred to work slowly, revisiting locations multiple times to
understand how light moved through them at different hours. The
best images often came on the second or third day,
after I'd had time to see pass the obvious compositions

(24:16):
and find the details that told the real story. The
camp exceeded my expectations. Fifty five years of growth had
softened the edges but left the bones intact. Rusted caterpillars
and log loaders sat exactly where they'd been parked, their
operator seats now cushioned with moss. The bunk house still
had windows, though half the glass was gone. Someone had

(24:39):
left coffee cups on the mess hall tables, and they
were still there, filled with forty years of decomposed leaves.
But it was more than just the preservation that struck me.
It was the completeness of the abandonment. In most sites
I'd photographed, there were signs that people had returned at
some point to salvage valuable equipment, to strip anything worth selling,

(25:02):
to satisfy curiosity about what they'd left behind. Here, everything
was exactly as it had been when the crews walked away.
Tools hung on hooks in the maintenance shed, personal belongings
sat on shelves in the bunk house. Even the camp's
diesel generator was still there, though it was now more
rust than metal. What struck me immediately was how quiet.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
It was.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
Not the normal quiet of deep woods, where you could
still hear birds and wind and the small sounds of
animals moving through undergrowth. This was different expectant. I spent
the first day establishing angles, walking the perimeter, understanding the
relationship between the structures and the trees that were slowly
reclaiming them. The light was perfect, overcast but bright, eliminating

(25:49):
harsh shadows while maintaining detail in both the darkest corners
and the brightest highlights. The camp was larger than I'd
expected from the historical records. In addition to the main structures,
bunk house, mess hall, equipment sheds, there were smaller buildings
scattered throughout the site, a first aid station, a communication

(26:09):
shack with radio equipment still mounted on the walls, individual
cabins for supervisors and specialists, even a small building that
seemed to have served as a library, with books still
on shelves and a reading chair positioned near a window.
Each building told part of the story of sudden departure, meals,
interrupted work left half finished, personal possessions abandoned as if

(26:32):
their owners had simply vanished mid task. In the mess hall,
I found a newspaper dated two days before the camp's
official closure, folded to the sports page, as if someone
had been reading it over breakfast. In one of the
supervisor cabins, a chess game sat on a small table,
pieces positioned mid game, white apparently winning. The photographs I

(26:54):
made that first day were technically successful, sharp, well composed,
properly exposed, but they felt like documentation rather than art.
Pretty pictures of decay, the kind of thing that might
work in a gallery but wouldn't capture the real mystery
of the place. That evening, I made camp and a
clearing about a quarter mile from the logging site. Standard

(27:15):
protocol for wilderness photography lightweight tent camp stove enough food
for three days. I'd done this dozens of times in
equally remote locations, but as darkness fell, I found myself
checking and rechecking the tent zippers, making sure my headlamp
was within easy reach. The sound started around midnight. Not

(27:36):
forest sounds, I knew those well enough to sleep through them.
These were strange mechanical sounds, the hydraulic whine of heavy equipment.
I lay in my sleeping bag listening to what sounded
like metal clanking against metal, muffled voices calling instructions I
couldn't quite make out. At first, I assumed there was
another logging operation somewhere nearby, maybe on an adjacent property.

(28:00):
Sound can travel strange distances in forest valleys, especially at
night when temperature inversions create acoustic tricks. But as I
listened more carefully, I realized the sounds were coming from
the direction of the abandoned camp. I unzipped my tent
fly and stuck my head out. The night was clear,
stars visible between the trees, and I could see the

(28:22):
camp's location as a darker area in the forest below.
No lights, no sign of actual activity, but the mechanical
sounds continued for another twenty minutes before gradually fading away.
By the time I'd pulled on boots and grabbed my camera,
the sounds had stopped. The silence that followed was even
more complete than before, not just the absence of machinery,

(28:44):
but the absence of any sound at all. No insects,
no night birds, no small animals moving through the underbrush,
just absolute quiet that felt almost solid, like something pressing
against my ear drums. I walked to the logging site
in the gray pre dawn light, expecting to find fresh disturbance,

(29:05):
tire tracks, equipment moved, some sign that people had been working. Instead,
everything was exactly as I'd left it the day before,
the same rust stains, the same moss growing in the
same patterns on the same surfaces. Even spider webs I'd
photographed were still intact, undisturbed by any human activity. But

(29:26):
the silence was different, now heavier, more complete, and there
was something else, a sense of presence that hadn't been
there the day before. Not threatening exactly, but watchful, like
the place was now aware that I was there. I
spent the second day shooting details the way morning light
caught cobwebs and broken windows, the patterns that decades of

(29:49):
rain had carved into metal surfaces, the delicate skeleton of
a desk chair slowly dissolving under the weight of accumulated seasons.
The images were some of the best I'd ever made,
but the work felt like performance, like I was being
evaluated and stay tuned for more sasquatch ott to see.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
After these messages, everything about the camp seemed designed to
be photographed. The way rust had spread across metal surfaces
created perfect textures for black and white film. Broken windows
framed views of forest that looked like carefully composed landscapes.

(30:29):
Personal objects had been positioned or had fallen in ways
that created narrative without being overly obvious about it. But
it was more than just photogenic decay. There was an
intentionality to the way things had been left, as if
the camp's abandonment had been staged for maximum visual impact.
Tools arranged just so, furniture positioned to catch light and

(30:52):
interesting ways. Even the way vegetation had grown back seemed
deliberately esthetic, creating foreground and background elements that any photographer
would appreciate. Late in the afternoon, while shooting inside the
mess hall, I noticed impressions in the dust. The building's
floor was covered with decades of accumulated debris, fallen leaves,

(31:13):
dirt tracked in by animals, dust from deteriorating ceiling materials.
But in several places the debris had been disturbed in
patterns that suggested someone had walked through the room recently,
not my own footprints. I recognized the tread pattern of
my hiking boots from earlier photographs. These were different, large,
indistinct shapes that suggested someone had walked through the room barefoot.

(31:37):
The marks formed a rough circle around the space, as
if someone had been walking the perimeter, studying the walls
and corners. I knelt beside the clearest impression and held
my hand next to it for scale, even allowing for
the way accumulated debris might spread and blur the edges.
Whoever had made these marks had been moving on feet
considerably larger than mine. The deepest impression showed what looked

(32:00):
like individual toe marks, as if someone had paused and
shifted their weight while examining something closely. I photographed the
impressions methodically, using my macro lens to capture what details
I could. The debris was too loose and varied to
hold clear prints, but there were definitely patterns, areas where
something heavy had compressed the accumulated matter, swirl marks where

(32:24):
feet had pivoted, even what looked like a handprint on
a dusty table, larger than a normal human but unmistakably
hand shaped. When I looked up from my camera, there
was someone standing in the doorway. The figure was silhouetted
against the afternoon light, making details impossible to see. Tall,
broader through the shoulders than seemed normal, but unmistakably watching me.

(32:48):
I raised my camera instinctively, then stopped. Something about the
gesture felt wrong, like photographing would break an unspoken rule.
We looked at each other for what felt like several men. Finally,
the figure stepped back from the doorway and was gone.
I remained kneeling beside the dust impression for a long time,
trying to process what I'd seen. Not the visual details,

(33:12):
those had been too indistinct to analyze, but the presence itself,
the weight of being observed by something that understood exactly
what I was doing here and why. When I finally
stood and walked to the doorway, there were no new
marks outside no broken branches or disturbed ground that would
indicate which direction the figure had gone, just the sense

(33:34):
that someone had been there and had chosen to leave
rather than intrude further. I spent the rest of the
afternoon exploring the camp's outer buildings, but my concentration was shot.
I kept finding myself looking over my shoulder, not from fear,
but from a growing awareness that I wasn't alone in
this place. Someone else was here, someone who moved with

(33:55):
perfect quiet and seemed to understand the layout of the
camp better than I did. That night, I lay awake
listening to sounds that might have been wind in the trees,
or might have been something large moving carefully through the
forest around my camp. The mechanical sounds didn't return, but
there were other noises. Footsteps on fallen leaves too heavy

(34:16):
and regular to be animals, the creak of metal underweight,
as if someone was testing the structural integrity of the
camp's buildings. Around three in the morning, I heard something
that made me sit up in my sleeping bag. Someone
was humming, not a tune I recognized, but definitely humming,
a low, melodic sound that seemed to come from the

(34:36):
direction of the camp. It lasted for maybe five minutes,
stopping and starting as if the person was working while
they hummed, pausing to concentrate on difficult tasks. When morning came,
I found new arrangements around my camp site, small stacks
of stones that hadn't been there the night before, branches
arranged in geometric patterns. Nothing threatening or obviously communicative, but

(35:00):
clear evidence that someone had visited while I slept. I
broke camp earlier than planned, but not from fear, from
a growing sense that I was trespassing on something more
complex than simple abandonment. The camp wasn't empty. It was
inhabited by someone who had chosen to remain invisible, and
MY presence was disrupting routines and relationships I didn't understand.

(35:24):
The hike out took longer than the hike, in partly
because I was carrying exposed film I didn't want to damage,
but mostly because I kept stopping to look back. Not
from nostalgia, but from the sense that I was being
watched as I left. Someone was making sure I actually departed,
following me at a distance to confirm that I was
really going. The photographs from that trip became the centerpiece

(35:47):
of my exhibition six months later. Critics praised their haunting
sense of presence, their suggestion of inhabitation beyond human occupation.
The gallery statement mentioned the mystery of sudden abandonments, the
way some places seemed to resist being forgotten. I never
mentioned the dust impressions or the figure in the doorway,

(36:07):
but I titled the series current Residents. The title puzzled
some viewers, who assumed it referred to the animals and
plants that had moved into the abandoned structures. But I
knew it meant something else, someone who had never really left,
someone who was still there, maintaining the camp in their
own way, for reasons I couldn't guess. I've never returned

(36:29):
to the logging camp, though I sometimes think about it
late at night, about someone humming while they worked in
the darkness, keeping something alive that everyone else had given
up for dead. Sometimes I wonder if I documented an
abandoned place at all, or if I was simply allowed
to photograph someone's temporary absence while they remained hidden, waiting

(36:49):
for me to leave so they could continue their caretaking
in private. The exhibition was successful enough to fund my
next project, but I've never found another site quite like
the logging camp. Most abandoned places feel genuinely empty, truly forgotten,
But that camp felt like a pause, not an ending,
like someone had simply closed the door for a while,

(37:11):
knowing they'd be back. The photographer's story stayed with me
for a long time after she told it. There was
something almost respectful about her encounter, a sense that she'd
been allowed to witness something extraordinary, then trusted to leave
without causing harm. But not all these encounters are so measured.
The third and final account I want to share is

(37:32):
the darkest of them all. It came from a man
who'd worked as a caretaker on an isolated property in
the Cascade Foothills. Unlike the previous stories, his experience shows
what can happen when these encounters turn threatening, when curiosity
becomes obsession, an observation becomes stalking. I'd been taking care
of the Brennan property for twelve years when Missus Brennan died.

(37:55):
The family asked me to stay on through the estate sale,
maintaining the grounds and keeping an eye on things while
lawyers sorted through decades of accumulated possessions. The house sat
on forty seven acres of mixed forest in the Cascade Foothills,
isolated enough that I sometimes went weeks without seeing another person.
The work suited me perfectly. After twenty years in construction,

(38:18):
dealing with contractors and deadlines and the constant pressure to
finish jobs faster and cheaper, the solitude of the Brennan
property felt like luxury. Missus Brennan had been easy to
work for, with clear expectations and a respect for craftsmanship
that had become rare in my experience. She paid well
on time and never second guessed my decisions about what

(38:40):
needed doing. Most of my work involved basic maintenance, mowing
the areas around the house that she wanted kept clear,
repairing storm damage, keeping the driveway passable during winter. The
property had been in her family since the nineteen forties,
and Missus Brennan had grown up there before moving to
Seattle for college and career. She'd returned after her husband died,

(39:02):
spending her retirement years creating what was probably the most
spectacular private garden in the region. The greenhouse was her masterpiece.
She'd built it herself over the course of several years,
starting with a simple kit structure and gradually expanding it
until it covered nearly a quarter acre behind the main house.
It wasn't just a greenhouse. It was a climate controlled

(39:23):
ecosystem where she grew orchids and exotic ferns, plants that
required constant attention and precise conditions. I'd helped with the construction,
mainly the heavy work of pouring concrete pads and installing
the larger structural elements, but the real work, the design
of the ventilation systems, the installation of the misting equipment,

(39:45):
the careful calibration of temperature and humidity controls that had
been all her She understood plants in a way that
seemed almost supernatural, able to diagnose problems with a glance
and devise solutions that worked perfectly. What I didn't know
until after she died was how terrified she'd become during
her final months. After the funeral, her niece Rebecca, drove

(40:08):
up from Portland to begin the process of clearing out
the house. The family had made it clear they had
no interest in maintaining the property. Rebecca was a software
engineer with two young children and no time for rural
real estate management. The plan was to sell everything as
quickly as possible and split the proceeds. Rebecca stayed three
days sorting through rooms that hadn't been touched in years,

(40:31):
then hired an estate sale company to handle the rest.
I was to keep an eye on things until the
property sold, making sure nobody stole anything valuable and preventing vandalism.
It was temporary work, but it paid well enough to
cover my expenses while I looked for something permanent. The
estate sale people came the following week, tagging furniture and

(40:52):
organizing Missus Brennan's collections. She'd been a careful curator of
beautiful things, antique furniture, Native American pottery, first edition books,
botanical illustrations that were probably worth more than most people realized.
The house was full of items that would bring good
money from the right buyers. They left the greenhouse alone.

(41:13):
Too specialized, they said, not worth the effort to catalog.
The plants had value, but only to serious collectors who
would know how to care for them. Most of the
specimens would die if moved to ordinary greenhouse conditions, and
the equipment was too specific to have much resale value.
Rebecca gave me the key and told me to use
my judgment about what to do with the plants. Anything

(41:35):
I could save would be a bonus, but the family's
main concern was clearing the property for sale. If the
plants died, they died, it wasn't worth the expense of
finding specialized homes for everything. That's how I found myself
walking into the greenhouse on a Thursday morning in October,
trying to decide what could be saved and what should

(41:55):
be left to die. The space was larger than it
looked from outside, extending back into what had once been
a carport before Missus Brennan enclosed it and integrated it
into the main structure. The air was thick and warm,
heavy with the smell of soil and growing things. Automatic
misters kept the humidity constant, and grow lights supplemented the

(42:16):
weak autumn sun filtering through glass panels overhead. I'd been
in the greenhouse many times over the years, usually to
help Missus Brennan move heavy pots or repair equipment, but
I'd never really looked at the plants themselves, never tried
to understand what she'd created here. Now, walking slowly between
the benches, I was struck by how alien they seemed.

(42:39):
This wasn't just a collection of exotic plants. It was
a complete ecosystem, carefully balanced and maintained. Orchids with petals
that looked like they were made of leather, their roots
extending into precisely calibrated growing medium ferns with fronds that
moved in the still air like they were reaching for
something specific. Bromeliads that collected water in their centers, creating

(43:02):
tiny pools where specific insects lived and bred. At the
far end of the greenhouse, beyond the last row of benches,
Missus Brennan had created what looked like a living room.
Two comfortable chairs faced each other across a small table,
surrounded by her most exotic specimens. Books about botany and
plant care were stacked on shelves built into the plant benches.

(43:25):
A thermist sat on the table next to a notebook
filled with Missus Brennan's careful handwriting. I'd seen this set
up before, but had always assumed it was just Missus
Brennan's way of creating a peaceful space where she could
sit and enjoy her plants. Now, looking more carefully, I
realized the chairs were positioned defensively. One faced the greenhouse entrance,

(43:46):
where someone could watch for anything approaching the other faced
the back wall, which was made mostly of glass, and
looked out into the forest. I opened the notebook and
found detailed observations about plant growth, watering schedules, notes about
which specimens were thriving and which needed different conditions. The
entries were dated and organized the work of someone who

(44:07):
approached gardening as a serious science. But mixed in with
the horticultural data were entries that made my hand shake.
The first unusual entry was dated about eight months before
Missus Brennan's death. It came again last night, same as before,
just standing there at the window watching. I pretended to sleep,

(44:27):
but I could feel it staring. When I finally looked,
it was gone. Found the motion sensor light had been
turned off. I know I left it on. I flipped
through more pages, finding similar entries scattered among the normal
gardening notes, references to things moved in the night, garden
tools found in different locations than where she'd left them,

(44:49):
the greenhouse door unlocked when she was certain she'd locked it.
One entry, written about six months before she died, was
longer and filled with fear. I'm sure now that it's
been coming inside, and stay tuned for more sasquatch ot
to see.

Speaker 5 (45:04):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 4 (45:05):
After these messages, the orchid bench was rearranged, not damaged,
but different, like something large had been examining them. Touching
them left marks in the soil around the pots, handprints,
I think, but too big, much, too big. Another entry

(45:27):
from just three months before her death. I don't sleep anymore.
It knows I'm watching tonight. It stood right at the
glass for almost an hour. I could see the outline
against the outdoor light, tall, much taller than any person
should be. The way it moved when it finally left wrong,
all wrong. I've called the sheriff twice, but what can

(45:51):
I tell them that something visits my greenhouse at night.
The entries were dated over several months, the most recent
from just one week before or Missus Brennan's death, Each
one more frightened than the last. I flipped through pages
of growing terror, Missus Brennan's careful handwriting becoming more erratic
as her fear increased. I closed the notebook and looked

(46:13):
around the greenhouse with new attention. The chairs weren't positioned
for relaxation. They were positioned for surveillance. The careful arrangements
missus Brennan had made weren't about plant care. They were
about creating clear sight lines, eliminating hiding places, making sure
nothing could approach without being seen. Now I understood why

(46:34):
the greenhouse felt wrong. It wasn't a sanctuary. It was
a place where Missus Brennan had spent her final months
in terror, trying to protect herself from something that visited
in the darkness. I spent the rest of the morning
trying to focus on the plants, but I kept thinking
about those notebook entries. Missus Brennan had been sharp right
up until the end. Her lawyer had confirmed that when

(46:57):
discussing her will. These weren't the confused amblings of someone
losing her mental faculties. These were the careful observations of
someone documenting a horror she couldn't explain to anyone else.
As I worked, I gradually became aware that I was
being watched. Not the comfortable feeling of missus Brennan's presence,
but something else, something patient and calculating, studying me the

(47:21):
way a predator studies prey. I was photographing some of
the more valuable orchids for insurance purposes when I heard
the sound tap, tap, tap, rhythmic, deliberate knocking on glass,
but not random. It was testing one panel, then another,
like something was checking for weaknesses. I looked up from

(47:42):
my camera, scanning the greenhouse walls. I was alone in
the space and there was no wind strong enough to
drive branches against the windows. The tapping came again, three
measured strikes on the east window, the same window Missus
Brennan had written about. I walked to the end into
the greenhouse and peered through the glass. The forest beyond

(48:03):
looked normal, Douglas firs and madrones, understory thick with salal
and Oregon grape. Nothing moving except a few birds picking
through the fallen leaves. But as I watched, I noticed
something that made me step back from the window. The
ground between the greenhouse and the trees was covered with
a pattern of broken branches and disturbed soil. Not random

(48:25):
forest debris, but deliberate arrangements. I went back to missus
Brennan's notebook and read through the entries again, paying attention
to details I'd missed the first time. She documented a
pattern of escalation. At first, the visitor had stayed at
the tree line, watching from a distance then it had
begun approaching the greenhouse, testing the windows and doors. Finally

(48:47):
it had started coming inside. What terrified me most was
realizing that Missus Brennan's death had ended the surveillance. Whatever
had been watching her was now free to explore the
property without resistance, and I was alone here, just as
isolated as she had been. I spent the rest of
the afternoon sorting plants, but my concentration was shot. Every

(49:09):
sound made me look up, Every shadow that moved made
my heart race. I kept thinking about Missus Brennan's final entries.
As I prepared to leave, I made sure to lock
the greenhouse carefully. Missus Brennan had written about finding it unlocked,
despite being certain she'd secured it. I wanted to test
whether that had been failing memory or something else. That evening,

(49:31):
from my cabin a quarter mile down the hill, I
could see the greenhouse glowing softly through the trees. Missus
Brennan had kept the grow lights on timers to maintain
the proper light cycles for her plants. At nine pm,
the lights went out automatically, but around midnight I thought
I saw movement near the building. Not lights exactly, but
the suggestion of something large moving around the perimeter. The

(49:54):
movement was deliberate, methodical, like something conducting a thorough inspection.
I didn't sleep that night. Every sound in the forest
seemed amplified, potentially threatening. I found myself checking and rechecking
the locks on my cabin doors, wishing I'd thought to
bring a weapon from the main house. In the morning,
I found evidence that my fears had been justified. The

(50:17):
greenhouse door was standing open, despite the fact that I'd
locked it carefully the night before. The lock itself wasn't broken,
it had been turned. Inside the greenhouse, one of the
chairs had been moved, not drastically, but enough to be noticeable.
It had been turned to face the door, positioned where
someone could watch for anyone entering. The notebook was still

(50:38):
on the table, but it had been moved slightly. I
stood in the greenhouse for a long time that morning,
trying to decide what to do. Missus Brennan had lived
with this terror for months, documenting each escalation, each new
violation of her sanctuary. Now that she was gone, whatever
had been stalking her was turning its attention to the
next human on the property. I called Rebecca and told

(51:01):
her I'd changed my mind about staying on as caretaker.
The isolation was getting to me. I said I needed
to find work closer to town, somewhere with more people around.
Rebecca was annoyed, but agreed to hire a security service
to check on the property until it sold. I would
stay for one more week to transition everything to the
new arrangement. That night, I packed everything I could carry

(51:24):
and prepared to leave in the morning. But as I
was loading my truck, I realized I couldn't abandon missus
Brennan's notebook. It was the only record of what had
happened here, the only evidence that her fear had been real.
I drove back to the greenhouse one last time to
retrieve it. The building was dark, the automatic lights having
turned off hours earlier. I used my flashlight to navigate

(51:48):
between the plant benches to the sitting area where I'd
left the notebook. It wasn't there. I searched the entire area,
moving chairs, checking under the table, even looking among the
plant pots in case it had somehow fallen. The notebook
was gone. As I prepared to leave empty handed, my
flashlight beam caught something that made me freeze in the

(52:09):
soil around one of the larger plant pots. Someone had
left a clear handprint, much larger than any human hand,
with fingers that were too long in joints that bent
in ways that didn't look right. Next to the handprint
pressed into the soft soil like a signature. Was Missus
Brennan's notebook open to the final entry, the one about

(52:29):
something sitting in her chair learning her routines. I left
the notebook where it was and ran for my truck.
I never went back to the Brennan property, never collected
the final week's pay. Rebecca owed me some things aren't
worth any amount of money. The property sold three months
later to a developer who planned to clear most of
the forest for luxury homes. I read about it in

(52:52):
the local paper, along with a small item mentioning that
the greenhouse had been destroyed by vandals before the sale
could close. The police had no suspects and no explanation
for who might have systematically destroyed every piece of equipment
and killed every plant inside. But I knew it hadn't
been vandals. Whatever had stalked Missus Brennan had finally claimed

(53:12):
her sanctuary, completely, erasing the last traces of human presence.
From the place it had made its own. I've never
driven past the old Brennan Place, though I sometimes see
the luxury homes that were eventually built there, advertised in
real estate magazines, beautiful properties with spectacular forest views, perfect
for buyers who want privacy and isolation. I wonder if

(53:36):
the new owners have noticed anything unusual. Strange sounds in
the night, the feeling of being watched from the tree line,
objects moved when no one is around. I wonder if
they found missus Brennan's notebook, with its careful documentation of
escalating terror. And I wonder if they're smart enough to
leave before they become the subject of new entries written

(53:58):
in soil and shadow by something that has learned patience
and is always always watching.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
They say, you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay,
and I don't want.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
To be.

Speaker 5 (54:17):
World up it.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
Try this job, that chart everything, Come ride right.

Speaker 5 (54:47):
Back, Joy for me, Joy staying right.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
Come in right away, stas inside and stays still start

(55:16):
sat stands still, side still, stay still.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Still, games and still stays us gas and things in

(56:03):
fast used to past instance