August 13, 2025 • 43 mins
Tonight's story comes from a mother named Sarah who reached out to me through a mutual acquaintance after years of keeping silent about what happened to her family in the remote forests of Alabama. When she first contacted me, she could barely get through the telling without breaking down, especially when describing the night she heard her own voice calling her youngest son into the darkness—while she was standing right beside him.
Sarah and her two boys, ages ten and twelve, fled to an inherited cabin in the Bankhead National Forest to escape an abusive relationship. What should have been a healing retreat in nature became a two-month ordeal that defies conventional explanation. The creatures that stalked her family didn't just throw rocks or make strange vocalizations—they learned. They studied. They mimicked the family's voices with perfect accuracy, always trying to lure one of them outside.
What makes Sarah's account particularly disturbing is the apparent intelligence behind these encounters. These weren't random animal behaviors but calculated attempts to separate and take her youngest son, Ben. The female creature that Sarah describes seemed to be mourning a lost child of her own, leading to questions about what these beings actually are and what they truly wanted with a human boy. The historical pattern Sarah uncovered in old newspaper archives—children vanishing in that exact area for decades—adds another layer of horror to her experience.
Each disappearance left behind the same massive footprints that were always dismissed by authorities. Some reports even describe tall, hair-covered figures seen with smaller companions that looked almost, but not quite, human. Three years later, Ben still dreams about the "forest mommy" who called to him.
At sixteen, he's drawn to wooded areas in ways that terrify his mother, and during a recent camping trip, teachers found him standing at the forest's edge at 3 AM, fully awake, listening to something only he could hear calling from the darkness.Sarah's story raises uncomfortable questions about the nature of these beings and their interest in our children.
Are they simply animals operating on instinct? Or are they something more complex—intelligent enough to plan, patient enough to wait, and alien enough that we may never understand their true intentions?As always, I leave it to you to decide what you believe. But Sarah's warning bears repeating: if you ever hear a familiar voice calling from the darkness, especially if it sounds like someone you know is standing right beside you, don't answer. Some things that watch us from the forests have learned our voices, and they're very, very patient.
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Sarah and her two boys, ages ten and twelve, fled to an inherited cabin in the Bankhead National Forest to escape an abusive relationship. What should have been a healing retreat in nature became a two-month ordeal that defies conventional explanation. The creatures that stalked her family didn't just throw rocks or make strange vocalizations—they learned. They studied. They mimicked the family's voices with perfect accuracy, always trying to lure one of them outside.
What makes Sarah's account particularly disturbing is the apparent intelligence behind these encounters. These weren't random animal behaviors but calculated attempts to separate and take her youngest son, Ben. The female creature that Sarah describes seemed to be mourning a lost child of her own, leading to questions about what these beings actually are and what they truly wanted with a human boy. The historical pattern Sarah uncovered in old newspaper archives—children vanishing in that exact area for decades—adds another layer of horror to her experience.
Each disappearance left behind the same massive footprints that were always dismissed by authorities. Some reports even describe tall, hair-covered figures seen with smaller companions that looked almost, but not quite, human. Three years later, Ben still dreams about the "forest mommy" who called to him.
At sixteen, he's drawn to wooded areas in ways that terrify his mother, and during a recent camping trip, teachers found him standing at the forest's edge at 3 AM, fully awake, listening to something only he could hear calling from the darkness.Sarah's story raises uncomfortable questions about the nature of these beings and their interest in our children.
Are they simply animals operating on instinct? Or are they something more complex—intelligent enough to plan, patient enough to wait, and alien enough that we may never understand their true intentions?As always, I leave it to you to decide what you believe. But Sarah's warning bears repeating: if you ever hear a familiar voice calling from the darkness, especially if it sounds like someone you know is standing right beside you, don't answer. Some things that watch us from the forests have learned our voices, and they're very, very patient.
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Get Brian's Books
Leave Us A Voicemail
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Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sasquatch-odyssey--4839697/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 air 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 or
was it was? 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
(01:03):
somebody out here when I'm out there. I thought of
Amna about Tech forty nine. I don't know easy annount there. Yeah,
I'm walking rite hey.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I recently received a voicemail from a long time listener
named Heather. She's been listening to the show since twenty
twenty one, and she was having a hard time with
the story from the old timer who shared his deathbed confession.
She questioned whether these stories were real or if I
was embellishing them for entertainment. I've always thought I'd made
it clear, but let me state it plainly. I do
(01:35):
rewrite every story I've ever shared.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
On this show.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I have to anyone who narrates any story on any
Bigfoot podcast does, or at least they should. If they
say they don't, they're most likely lying. These stories come
from a myriad of places. Some arrive as barely legible
emails written in broken English. Others are voicemails where the
witness rambles for twenty minutes without ever just describing what
(02:00):
they actually saw. Some come from old forum posts, newspaper clippings,
or accounts passed down through families. They are almost never
written well. Some have no backstory, some have no middle,
and many have no end. They would be useless to you,
the listener, if I didn't have all the pieces to
offer you a complete story. So yes, I sometimes have
(02:23):
to get creative, not to change the story, but to
complete it, to make it entertaining, to paint a clear
picture of the experiences. I fill in the gaps with
plausible details. I create dialogue from described conversations. I add
the emotional context that witnesses often leave out when they're
focused on just getting through the facts I craft beginnings
(02:46):
that draw you in and endings that leave you thinking.
It's interesting that Heather mentioned how much she enjoys Fred
from Alaska and that she believes every story he shares. Frankly,
these stories are no different. Fred's stories go through the
same process. Every compelling encounter you've heard on any podcast
has been shaped by someone who understands narrative, who knows
(03:09):
how to build tension, who can transform a jumbled account
into something that keeps you listening. Even the witnesses I
interviewed directly, the ones who share their stories on the show,
they require a decision from you at the end of
every episode. Was I entertained, was the person believable? And ultimately,
what do I choose to believe? The story you're about
(03:32):
to hear came to me through multiple sources. Sarah not
her real name, initially reached out through a mutual acquaintance
who knew about my research. She was reluctant to share
her experience, worried about being judged or disbelieved. Her first
account was fragmented, jumping around in time, leaving out crucial
details she found too painful to revisit. It took several
(03:55):
conversations to piece together the full narrative. I've taken her
experiences and after them into something coherent, something that captures
not just what happened, but how it felt, the fear,
the confusion, the terrible realization that the world contains things
we don't understand. Every major event she described is here,
(04:15):
but I've built the connective tissue that makes it a
story rather than a series of disconnected incidents. So as
you listen, remember this is Sarah's truth, filtered through her memory,
processed through her trauma, and shaped by my hand into
something you can experience. Whether you believe it happened exactly
as presented, or whether you think some details have been
(04:38):
unconsciously embellished by time and fear, or whether you think
it's all fiction, that's your decision to make. All I
can tell you is that Sarah believes every word. And
after hearing her voice break when she described the sound
of her own voice calling her child into the darkness,
after seeing her hands shake when she showed me the
photos that came out to blurry to prove anything, after
(05:01):
watching her check the locks on her windows three times
during our conversation, I believe her too. But what you believe,
that's entirely up to you. I never believed in monsters
until I lived through something that still wakes me up
at night three years later. My name is Sarah, and
I need to tell someone what happened when I took
my boys to that cabin in Alabama. We left Birmingham
(05:24):
on a Tuesday morning in March. The divorce had just
been finalized after eighteen months of hell. My ex husband
had broken my ribs twice, dislocated my shoulder once, and
left bruises on my boys that I had to explain
away to teachers. Tyler, my twelve year old, had stopped
talking about his father entirely. Ben, only ten, still flinched
(05:46):
when anyone raised their voice. The restraining order was supposed
to keep us safe, but paper doesn't stop a man
who thinks he owns you. So when my great aunt
Martha died and left me her cabin in the middle
of nowhere, I saw it as a gift from God.
The drive took four hours into the deepest part of
Alabama I'd ever been. The roads got narrower with each turn,
(06:08):
civilization falling away mile by mile. First, the interstate gave
way to state highways, then county roads, and finally a
dirt track that hadn't seen a greater in years. My
old suburban groaned over potholes deep enough to swallow a tire.
The GPS signal died thirty minutes before we arrived. I
had to navigate using Aunt Martha's hand drawn map, her
(06:31):
shaky handwriting barely legible in the fading afternoon light. The
cabin sat on forty acres of pine forest that backed
up to the Bankhead National Forest. No neighbors for three miles,
the nearest town fifteen miles away. Perfect isolation. That's what
I thought I needed. Distance from my ex from the
court system, from everyone who knew our story, a place
(06:54):
where my boys could heal without judgment or pity. The
cabin was smaller than I expect did, but solid, real
log construction from the nineteen sixties, not that fake siding
you see now. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen that
opened into a living room dominated by a stone fireplace. Someone,
(07:15):
maybe Aunt Martha or a previous owner, had installed serious
locks and thick windows hurricane glass, I learned later from
paperwork in a drawer. Those windows were rated to withstand
impacts at ninety miles per hour, that detail would matter
more than I could have imagined. For the first week,
it felt like we'd found paradise. My boys transformed before
(07:37):
my eyes. They explored the woods from sunrise to sunset,
coming home covered in dirt and scratches, but grinning like
I hadn't seen in two years. Tyler discovered a creek
about a quarter mile east full of craw dads and minnows,
been built elaborate stick forts, and declared himself King of
the forest. I spent hours on the porch with coffee,
(07:58):
watching them play, feeling knots in my chest, finally loosening
for the first time in years. I wasn't looking over
my shoulder, I wasn't planning escape routes. I wasn't sleeping
with my car keys in my hand. The forest around
us felt ancient and peaceful. Massive pines stretched up so
high I couldn't see their tops. The undergrowth was thick
(08:19):
enough that visibility ended about thirty feet in any direction.
The silence was profound, not empty, but layered with small sounds,
birds calling, insects, buzzing, branches, creaking in the wind. It
felt alive and welcoming. I should have noticed when that changed.
About five days in the birds went quiet around the cabin,
(08:41):
not suddenly, but gradually, like someone slowly turning down nature's volume.
I mentioned it to Tyler, who just shrugged and suggested
it might rain soon. But the weather stayed clear and
warm for early spring. The silence felt different from a
coming storm. Ben started telling me about what he called
the hide and seek animals. He said they were really
(09:02):
good at hiding, that he could never quite see them,
but he knew they were there. They made funny sounds,
he said, like someone clearing their throat, but deeper, and
sometimes they whistled. I dismissed it as childhood imagination mixed
with the novelty of being in real wilderness for the
first time. But that night, lying in bed, I heard
(09:23):
exactly what he described, a low rumbling sound from somewhere
in the forest, like someone clearing their throat, if that
someone had a chest cavity the size of a barrel.
Then a whistle, not a bird's whistle, but human, like
the kind you'd use to get someone's attention, except it
was wrong, somehow, too perfect, like a recording played back
(09:44):
at the wrong speed. I got up and checked both boys.
They were asleep. I made sure all the doors and
windows were locked, even though the night was warm. I
told myself it was just an animal I wasn't familiar with.
The woods were full of creatures that made st sounds.
The next day I found the first footprint. I was
(10:04):
checking the old shed behind the cabin to see what
tools Aunt Martha had left there. In the mud beside
the shed door was a print that made me stop cold.
It looked human at first glance, five toes a heel
an arch, but the proportions were all wrong. It had
to be sixteen inches long and eight inches wide. The
(10:25):
toes were too long, almost like fingers, with too much
space between them. I stood there staring at it, my
mind trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
I took a photo with my phone, but when I
looked at it later, the image was blurry and useless,
like the camera couldn't properly focus on it. That afternoon,
Tyler dragged me into the woods to show me something
(10:47):
he'd found. About fifty yards from the house was a
small clearing where someone had arranged hundreds of stones in
a perfect spiral pattern, starting small in the center and
growing larger as it wound outward. Each stone was carefully placed,
touching the next. It must have taken hours to create.
Tyler was excited about his discovery, but I felt uneasy.
(11:10):
The trees around the clearing seemed to lean in, and
that unnatural silence was complete. There no birds, no insects, nothing.
I told Tyler we needed to go back to the
house immediately. Something in my voice must have scared him,
because he didn't argue. The rock throwing started that night.
I was washing dishes after dinner when something struck the
(11:30):
side of the house hard enough to rattle the windows.
I went outside with a flashlight, expecting to find a
fallen branch. Instead, I found a white mark on the
wood siding at head height rock dust. I called out,
asking if anyone was there, but got only silence and response.
Yet I felt watched that crawling sensation on your neck
(11:52):
when you know eyes are on you. My flashlight beams
seemed to die just a few feet into the forest,
swallowed by the darkness between the trees. The next night
brought three impacts in quick succession, hard throws that would
have required real strength. Tyler came out of his room,
eyes wide, asking what was happening. I told him it
(12:12):
was probably local kids playing pranks, though I knew no
kids would drive fifteen miles down abandon dirt roads just
to throw rocks at an old cabin. Tyler was too
smart to believe me. He pointed out we hadn't seen
another person since we'd arrived. The rocks became our nightly routine,
sometimes just one or two, sometimes a barrage lasting several minutes,
(12:34):
always from different directions, never the same pattern. Twice, after
a particularly bad night, I found one of the rocks.
It was the size of a softball, and it hit
hard enough to crack the siding. I called the Sheriff's department.
After a week of this, they sent Deputy Collins, a
young man who clearly thought I was wasting his time.
He suggested we had a bear problem. When I pointed
(12:57):
out that bears don't throw rocks, he gave me a
com descending look and said I'd be surprised what bears
could do. He suggested they might be knocking rocks off
our roof. When I showed him our secured garbage cans
and the complete absence of any food waste outside, he
shrugged and said to call if it continued. I knew
he wouldn't come back even if I did call. Three
(13:18):
weeks in, the screaming started. I woke at two a m.
Not to a sound, but to its absence, that complete,
unnatural silence that meant something was wrong. Then it came
a scream that wasn't quite a scream, deep and guttural
and impossibly loud. It seemed to come from everywhere at once,
(13:39):
vibrating through the cabin walls. It lasted maybe ten seconds,
but felt like forever. Both boys ran to my room,
Ben crying, Tyler trying to act brave but shaking uncontrollably.
I told them it was just an animal, maybe a bobcat,
that they make strange sounds. But I'd heard bobcats before.
This was something with much larger lungs, something that could
(14:02):
produce volume that didn't make sense for any animal. I knew.
The screams became another part of our routine. Some nights
they came from far off, echoing through the pines. Other
nights they were so close it seemed like whatever made
them was on our porch. They varied, too, Sometimes that deep,
reverberating scream sometimes a series of whoops that climbed in pitch,
(14:24):
sometimes something that almost sounded like speech, but not quite,
like someone trying to talk with the wrong kind of throat.
I stopped letting the boys play outside after dark, started
putting chairs under the doorknobs. The boys noticed the changes.
Tyler asked if we were safe. I lied and said,
of course we were, that I was just being careful
like moms do. But I could see he didn't believe me.
(14:49):
One morning, about a month in I found every pine
cone from the large tree in our front yard arranged
in a perfect circle around Tyler's bike, hundreds of them,
each one carefully placed to touch the next, all oriented
with their points facing outward, like some kind of barrier
or warning. And stay tuned for more sasquatch out to see.
(15:09):
We'll be right back. After these messages, when I showed Tyler,
his face went pale. He admitted he'd been hearing something
outside his window at night, breathing and tapping, like something
trying to get his attention. He'd been too scared to
move or call for me. That confession from my brave boy,
(15:31):
who stood between his father and his little brother more
than once terrified me more than anything else that had happened.
I started sleeping in the living room, where I could
watch both bedroom doors and the front entrance. I kept
my grandfather's shotgun beside me, loaded with buckshot. I'd never
fired it, but I hoped the sound alone might scare
(15:51):
off whatever was out there. One night, I woke to
find Ben standing at the front door, his hand on
the dead bolt. He was sleepwalking, his eyes vacant. He
kept saying he'd heard me calling him from outside, that
I told him to come out, that I'd said it
was important. He said the voice sounded exactly like mine,
calling from right outside his window, telling him I needed
(16:14):
to show him something. My blood turned to ice. I
hadn't called him, I'd been asleep on the couch. I
made him promise that if he ever heard my voice
outside when I was inside, or inside when I was outside,
he wouldn't listen. He had to come find me first.
The confusion in his eyes broke my heart. How could
(16:34):
something sound exactly like his mother but not be his mother.
That's when I started seeing them. The first time was
at dusk. I was calling the boys in when I
saw a movement at the forest edge. Something tall, much
taller than any person, stepped behind a tree, but the
way it moved was wrong, too smooth, too quick for
(16:54):
something that size, like it was gliding rather than walking.
I stood frozen, waiting for it to show itself again.
It didn't, but I could feel it watching me. After that,
I saw them regularly, always at the edge of vision,
always just for a second, dark shapes that didn't belong,
moving through the trees with impossible silence. Sometimes I could
(17:18):
make out details, arms that hung past where knees should be,
a massive frame with wrong proportions, a face that was
almost human but not quite. Then I'd blink and see
nothing but shadows and trees. The boys saw them, too,
though they pretended otherwise. I'd catch Ben staring at his
window at night. Transfixed, Tyler started having nightmares about tall
(17:42):
people in the woods. He'd wake up describing dreams where
they stood in a circle around the cabin, just watching,
waiting for something. In his dreams, they had faces, but
he could never remember what they looked like when he
woke One afternoon, I was hanging laundry when I heard
Ben laughing in the front yard, but it wasn't his
normal laugh. It was forced the way he laughed when
(18:05):
he was nervous but trying to be polite. I found
him standing at the edge of the yard, about ten
feet from the forest line, looking up and nodding like
he was having a conversation. But nothing was there, just trees.
When I called his name, he turned to me, smiling
and said the mommy was funny that she made silly sounds.
He pointed at the trees and said she was right there,
(18:28):
and he wanted to know if I could see her.
He said she wasn't a stranger because she knew his name,
knew all about us. I grabbed him and pulled him
back to the house. As I did, I saw something
move back into the deeper forest, something dark and massive
with a strange loping gait. That night, I called my
sister in Birmingham, desperate to hear a normal voice. She
(18:50):
asked how country life was treating us, said it must
be wonderful for the boys to have all that fresh
air and nature. I wanted to tell her everything, wanted
to pack up and to her house that minute, but
what would I say that I thought we were being
stalked by something that wasn't quite human, That something in
the woods wanted my son instead. I said everything was
(19:12):
great and hung up. After the call, I found Tyler
sitting on Ben's bed. He looked at me with eyes
that looked like they belonged to someone way beyond his
twelve years. He said we needed to leave. He said
Ben didn't understand that. Ben thought they were friendly. When
I asked what he meant by they, he said I
knew there was more than one. He'd been watching them too.
(19:35):
He said there were at least three, maybe four, one
bigger than the others that did most of the screaming,
a female with long hair who watched Ben's window, and
one or two others he'd only seen moving through the trees.
He told me about seeing the female in the moonlight
the week before, standing just inside the tree line watching
Ben's window. She had hair down to her waist. He
(19:57):
hadn't told me because he didn't want to scare meteive boy,
trying to shield me from the horror. About six weeks in,
the mimicry got worse. One evening, I heard Tyler calling
Ben from outside, telling him to come see something cool.
But Tyler was in the shower. I could hear the
water running. I caught Ben heading for the door and
(20:17):
had to explain that it wasn't really Tyler, even though
it sounded exactly like him. Ben's eyes went wide as
he realized his brother was in two places at once.
The voice outside called three more times, getting more insistent,
before finally stopping. When Tyler got out of the shower
and I told him what happened, he went pale and
said it was learning, learning how to be us. They
(20:40):
started using our voices regularly after that, always trying to
lure one of us outside, always when the person they
were mimicking was clearly somewhere else. It would have been
almost funny if it wasn't so terrifying, this thing that
could perfectly copy our voices but didn't understand that we
knew where each other were. One night, I woke to
Ben's voice outside my window. It said, Mommy, I'm scared.
(21:05):
I'm outside and can't get back in. Please help me.
The voice was perfect Ben's slight lisp, the way he
still called me mommy when frightened. But I could see
Ben's door from the couch, still closed, with the chair
wedged under from inside, like I'd taught him. The voice
got more desperate, said something was out there with him.
(21:25):
It was so convincing I actually got up to check
on Ben, just to be sure he was in his bed,
fast asleep. When I came back to the living room,
a shadow blocked the moonlight at the window. I watched
it raise what might have been a hand and tap
on the glass three times, slow deliberate. Then it spoke
in Ben's voice and said it knew I was in there,
(21:48):
that it could smell me. The shadow moved away, but
I didn't sleep the rest of the night. The next
morning I found those handprints on the window, not quite hands,
too long wide, with a thumb that bent the wrong way.
In the dirt. Below were footprints leading to and from
the forest. Those same massive prints seventeen inches long eight
(22:11):
inches wide. Whatever made them had to be at least
eight feet tall. That afternoon, while the boys were reading,
I walked the property perimeter. I found trails through the
underbrush where something large moved regularly, Trees with bark rubbed
off at eight feet high, more stone arrangements, circles, spirals,
(22:31):
lines pointing toward the cabin, and on a flat rock
about one hundred yards from the house, I found bones,
small animals, rabbits, squirrels, birds picked clean and arranged in
patterns that almost looked like riding, like someone trying to
use an alphabet. They didn't understand. I took photos of everything,
thinking maybe I could get help. But every picture came
(22:54):
out blurry, oversaturated, or showing nothing but trees where I
knew i'd photographed something else. The camera couldn't capture what
was really there. About ten weeks in, Ben woke me
saying the tall Mommy was at his window. I grabbed
the shotgun and rushed to his room. Through the curtains,
I could see a massive shadow, swaying slightly. Ben whispered
(23:16):
that she wanted him to come outside, that she had
babies who wanted to play. She was making a low,
mournful sound that did sound like grief. It was answered
by other calls from deeper in the forest. Tyler appeared
in the doorway with the baseball bat I'd given him,
knuckles white around the handle. He counted three of them
out there. We could hear them walking around the cabin,
(23:37):
those heavy footsteps making the porch boards creak. They circled
us three times, making low vocalizations to each other. Almost conversational,
like they were discussing something. Then I heard my own
voice from outside, clear as day, telling the boys it
was okay to come out, that I was out there
and everything was fine. Then Tyler's voice calling Ben buddy,
(24:00):
saying he needed help with something. Then my panicked voice
saying there'd been an accident and I needed them both
outside immediately. The mimicry continued for hours, trying different approaches.
My angry mom voice demanding Tyler come out right now,
Tyler's brotherly tone asking Ben for help, my scared voice
saying something was wrong. They were experimenting, seeing what would work.
(24:25):
We huddled together in my room until four am, when
everything went silent, that complete, unnatural silence. Then came the
breathing outside my bedroom window, deep rhythmic breathing through the curtains.
I could see multiple shadows. The breathing went on for hours.
Then came a voice that wasn't quite a voice, something
(24:47):
between human speech and animal vocalization, forming words with a
throat not designed for human language. It called Ben's name
over and over, saying he should come, that someone was
lonely wanted to play. Ben sat up, eyes unfocused, and
started climbing over me toward the door. I had to
physically restrain him while he struggled, saying in a monotone
(25:10):
voice that she needed him, that her baby was gone
and she needed a new one. Tyler was crying, but
helped me hold his brother back. The thing at the
window made a sound of frustration or anger. The whole
wall shook as something struck it. The window cracked but
didn't break. Thank God for that hurricane glass. More impacts
(25:30):
followed all around the house. The wall shook, picture frames fell,
and in the living room I heard wood splinter as
the doorframe cracked under assault. I remembered the shotgun. I'd
never fired it, but maybe the sound would scare them.
I pointed it at the ceiling and pulled the trigger.
The blast was deafening, plaster rained down, My ears rang,
(25:53):
but it worked. The pounding stopped. I heard those two heavy,
two fast footsteps moving away. Stayed huddled together until dawn.
When I finally looked outside, the house was surrounded by
those strange handprints in the dirt on the walls, on
the windows. The front door frame was splintered, the door
hanging at an angle. Deep gouges ran along the exterior walls,
(26:17):
like claw marks, but too deliberate, too patterned, and carved
into the big pine tree and letters three feet tall
was one word, so n I started packing immediately. The
boys helped without asking why. But that night, our last night,
they came back with a vengeance. The rocks were constant
(26:37):
and harder than ever. The kitchen windows shattered, the screams
came from all directions, and the mimicry was horrible. Not
just our voices now, but others. My ex husband's voice
which made my blood freeze, my sister's voice, my mother's voice,
though she'd been dead for five years. Around midnight, everything
(26:59):
went quiet. Then Ben stood up, eyes vacant, and walked
to his bedroom. I followed and found him trying to
open the window I'd nailed shut that afternoon. He kept
saying she was calling him, that the mommy needed him
because her baby was gone and she needed him, that
he could be her baby Tyler, and I had to
physically restrain him. Outside Ben's window, that massive shadow appeared again.
(27:25):
This time I could see more details through the curtain,
A huge head covered in hair, arms that reached almost
to the ground, something like a face pressed against the glass.
It spoken that horrible approximation of human speech, saying to
give him that Ben was hers, now screaming mine with
a roar that shook the whole cabin. Then it did
(27:46):
something that still haunts me. It spoke in a child's voice,
a young boy, maybe five or six years old, saying, Mama,
where are you? I'm scared the humans took me. Please
come get me. The creature outside I'd made sounds like crying,
like grieving, and I understood with horrible clarity it had
lost a child somehow and wanted Ben as a replacement.
(28:10):
I said out loud that I was sorry for its loss,
but it couldn't have my son. The shadow pulled back,
and for a moment I thought it might leave. Then
the entire wall exploded inward. The hurricane glass held for
half a second before shattering. The wooden frame splintered like
match sticks, and through the hole I saw it clearly
(28:30):
for the first time. It was massive, at least eight
feet tall, covered in dark brown, matted hair. Its face
was almost human, but the proportions off its arms hung low,
ending in hands twice the size of mine with those
terrible long fingers. It looked at me with eyes that
held intelligence, alien but undeniable intelligence. And in those eyes
(28:54):
I saw grief, real profound grief. It reached for Ben.
I didn't think. I brought the shotgun up and fired
directly at it. The blast hit its center mass. It screamed,
not roared, but screamed and stumbled backward. Dark fluid splattered
the destroyed wall, but it didn't fall. It clutched its
(29:16):
chest and looked at me with something like surprise. Then
the others came. Three more shapes appeared at the hole
in the wall, all massive, all covered in hair, all
moving with that strange gliding gait. One was even larger,
had to be nine feet tall. They looked at their
injured companion, then at us. The huge one let out
(29:38):
a roar of pure rage. I pumped the shotgun, chambering
another round, my hands shaking so badly I could barely
hold it. But they didn't attack. They grabbed their injured
companion and supported it between them. The one eyed shot
looked back at Ben one more time and spoke in
that broken English, saying he was hers that he would
(29:59):
come back. Stay tuned for more sasquatchy oat to see.
We'll be right back after these messages. Then they melted
back into the forest with impossible speed and silence. We
didn't wait for dawn. I threw the boys in the
car with whatever I could grab in five minutes. As
(30:20):
we drove away, I saw them in the rear view mirror,
all four standing at the forest edge, watching us leave.
The one eyed shot held its chest, dark stains covering
its hair. We drove straight through to Birmingham, stopping only
for gas. The boys slept most of the way, exhausted.
When we stopped at a well lit station just outside
(30:41):
the city, Ben woke and asked where the forest mommy went.
He said she'd been following us for a while, but
stopped at the big road the interstate. We stayed with
my sister for a week while I found an apartment
third floor, center of the city, as far from forests
as possible. The boys never talked about those two months
in detail. It was like the memories just faded. Maybe
(31:04):
that was for the best, but there were signs they
remembered something. Tyler became hypervigilant, never letting Ben out of
his sight, walking him to and from school, sleeping with
that baseball bat beside his bed, for months, he never
wanted to go camping or hiking or anywhere near woods.
Ben was different. He'd stare out windows looking for something.
(31:25):
He'd draw pictures, tall, dark figures among trees, a female
figure with long hair reaching toward a small boy. When
I asked about the drawings, he'd look confused and say
he didn't know why he drew them, that he just
saw them in dreams. Sometimes he said the forest mommy
was always crying in his dreams, that she'd lost her
baby and was looking for him. Six months later, I
(31:49):
went back in broad daylight with two armed friends to
get important documents we'd left behind. The cabin was destroyed,
walls caved in, roof partially collapsed, everything inside shredded and scattered.
Every remaining wall had words carved deep into the wood.
Come back, bring Ben, He's mine, my baby, And in
(32:10):
Ben's room painted in what looked like mud but smelled
like copper. Still waiting. I had the cabin demolished, told
insurance it was storm damage. They didn't investigate closely. The
adjuster seemed spooked by the location. The land is still mine,
but I'll never go back. When Hunter's call asking permission
(32:30):
to use it. I always say no, that land belongs
to something else now, or maybe it always did. Last month,
at a cousin's birthday party, there was a small patch
of woods at the park's edge. Ben wandered over and
stood staring into the shadows between the trees. When I
found him ten minutes later, he was completely still. He
(32:51):
turned to me with vacant eyes for just a second,
then said he thought he'd heard the forest. Mommy, but
it was just the wind. He said, she was still
out there, still sad, still looking for her baby. He
said he dreamed about her sometimes, that she showed him
her baby, who looked like her, but smaller. Then the
baby was gone, and she was alone and so sad.
(33:12):
He said. He felt bad for her, even though she'd
scared us, that she was just lonely. That night, I
researched old newspaper archives from Alabama. I found articles dating
back to nineteen fifty two children who'd vanished in or
near Bankhead Forest, A five year old boy in nineteen
fifty two, a three year old girl in nineteen sixty seven,
(33:34):
twin boys in nineteen seventy four, more in nineteen eighty three,
nineteen ninety one, All disappeared without a trace, leaving only
unusual footprints that were dismissed as bear tracks. The most
recent was from two thousand and one. Four year old
Michael vanished while hiking with his family. His mother swore
(33:54):
she heard him calling for her from the woods for
hours after he disappeared, but searchers found nothing. She insisted
something in the forest took him, that she saw tall,
dark figures watching the search parties. No one believed her.
Michael would be about Ben's age now, if he'd lived,
if he'd stayed human, I'll never know the truth. Was
(34:15):
one of those missing children, somehow one of them?
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Now?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Had the creature lost a human child it had taken?
Was it mourning a child that had once been human?
Or its own offspring? The not knowing is its own horror. Sometimes,
on quiet nights, I swear I can still hear it calling,
not with my ears, but with something deeper, a pull
I can't explain. Ben feels it too. I see it
(34:40):
in the way he sometimes stops mid sentence, head tilted,
listening to something only he can hear. We're safe now,
I tell myself. We're in the city, surrounded by lights
and people and noise. But safety is an illusion when
you know what's out there in the forests, when you
know there are things that can learn our voices, that
(35:00):
can call our children in the night, that can grieve
and rage and want with an intelligence that's almost human
but not quite. The story doesn't have an ending, because
it's not over. Every time Ben stares into trees, every
time Tyler jumps at shadows, every time I wake to
sounds that might be wind or might be something else,
(35:20):
we're back in that cabin. We're always back there in
the dark, listening to something breathe outside our window, listening
to our own voices calling us into the night. That's
the real horror, Not the creatures themselves, but knowing they exist,
knowing the woods aren't empty, that some things want our
children for reasons will never understand, and all we can
(35:43):
do is hold them tight, lock our doors, and hope
that whatever they are, whatever they want, they'll wait a
little longer. Sarah's account ended there, but her story haunts
me in ways that other encounters haven't. I've been researching
and documenting sasquatch encounters for years now. I've interviewed dozens
of witnesses who've heard. These creatures mimic human voices, usually
(36:06):
simple words or phrases, sometimes the voices of loved ones.
It's a detail that comes up more often than you
might think, always delivered with that same mix of confusion
and terror. But Sarah's experience feels different, more deliberate, more intelligent,
more calculated. The creatures she described didn't just mimic voices.
(36:29):
They understood family dynamics. They knew when to use which voice.
They attempted psychological manipulation, trying different emotional approaches, like a
predator learning the weak points in its praise defenses. That
level of sophistication goes beyond anything I've encountered in other
witness testimonies. I've interviewed other people who've reported sasquatch creatures
(36:51):
watching them through windows, especially at night. Usually it's described
as curiosity, a face appearing briefly at the glass before
disappearing back into darkness. But what Sarah described was surveillance, studying, planning.
These creatures watched her family for weeks, learning their routines,
(37:11):
their voices, their relationships. They identified the most vulnerable member,
young Ben, and specifically targeted him, which raises the question
that keeps me awake at night. What did they actually
want with that child? Sarah believes the female creature had
lost its own offspring and wanted Ben as a replacement.
(37:32):
It's a disturbingly human motivation, grief driving a mother to
desperate actions. But is that really what was happening? Do
these creatures experience emotions the way we do? Can they
form parental bonds with human children? Or is it something
far more nefarious that we can't even comprehend. The pattern
is undeniable children vanishing for decades. There are occasional reports,
(37:56):
usually dismissed as hysteria or misidentification, of people seeing unusually tall,
hair covered figures accompanied by smaller ones, and sometimes witnesses
describe the smaller ones as looking almost human, but not quite.
I don't want to think about the implications of that.
I don't want to consider what might happen to a
(38:16):
human child raised by something that can walk upright and
use tools and mimic speech but isn't human, Whether they
would still be human after years in the deep forest,
or if they would become something else, something in between.
Sarah's story also makes me reconsider other encounters I've documented.
The voice mimicry that I used to think was simple parroting.
(38:39):
Maybe it's actually sophisticated hunting behavior. The window watching that always,
at face value, seemed like curiosity, but maybe it's selection.
The rock throwing that appears aggressive. Maybe it's testing our defenses.
What if we've been misunderstanding these creatures entirely. What if
(39:00):
there not the gentle giants some researchers believe, or the
territorial animals others claim. What if there's something more complex
and more dangerous, intelligent enough to want things from us,
but alien enough that we can't understand what those things are.
I reached out to Sarah recently to follow up on
her story. She was reluctant to talk, but finally agreed
(39:22):
to a brief conversation. Ben is sixteen now. She told
me he still has the dream, sometimes still draws those
figures without meaning to, and sometimes when they're driving and
pass a heavily wooded area, he'll suddenly go quiet and
press his face against the window, watching the tree line
with an expression she can't read. She also told me
(39:43):
something she hadn't included in her original account. Last year,
Ben's class went on a camping trip. His first time
back in the real wilderness since the cabin. The teachers
found him at three am, standing at the edge of
their campsite, staring into the forest. He was wide awake,
fully conscious, not sleep walking. When they asked what he
(40:03):
was doing, he said he was listening to someone calling him,
someone who sounded sad, someone who'd been waiting a long time.
They brought him back to his tent, but he didn't
sleep the rest of the night, and in the morning
the teachers found footprints around the campsite, large barefoot prints
that the park rangers dismissed as a hoax. Sarah pulled
(40:23):
Ben out of school for a week after that. They've
moved twice since then, each time farther from any wilderness.
But she knows, and I think Ben knows too, that
distance might not matter. Whatever connection was formed during those
two months in Alabama, it's still there waiting. This is
what truly disturbs me about Sarah's story. It suggests these
(40:46):
creatures can form attachments to specific humans that they can
remember and wait and perhaps even track someone across years
and miles that they're patient in ways we can't fathom,
operating on time scales that make our human urgency seem fleeting.
So I leave you with this thought and this warning.
The next time you're in the woods and you hear
(41:07):
a familiar voice calling from the darkness, pause before you answer.
If your child or loved one claims to hear you
calling when you know you haven't spoken, believe them. And
if you ever feel watched from the forest's edge, trust
that instinct, because it may not be who or what
it seems. And some things, once they notice you never
(41:29):
truly stop watching.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
They say, you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
I don't want to be.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Out.
Speaker 5 (42:00):
Step child, this child, that child, everything.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Can you ride back right back? Joy for me, joy
staying right? You come it right away?
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Still, step steps.
Speaker 6 (43:04):
Down, knocking down, dotsssstssssss
Speaker 4 (43:32):
Used thess
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 air 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 or
was it was? 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
(01:03):
somebody out here when I'm out there. I thought of
Amna about Tech forty nine. I don't know easy annount there. Yeah,
I'm walking rite hey.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I recently received a voicemail from a long time listener
named Heather. She's been listening to the show since twenty
twenty one, and she was having a hard time with
the story from the old timer who shared his deathbed confession.
She questioned whether these stories were real or if I
was embellishing them for entertainment. I've always thought I'd made
it clear, but let me state it plainly. I do
(01:35):
rewrite every story I've ever shared.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
On this show.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I have to anyone who narrates any story on any
Bigfoot podcast does, or at least they should. If they
say they don't, they're most likely lying. These stories come
from a myriad of places. Some arrive as barely legible
emails written in broken English. Others are voicemails where the
witness rambles for twenty minutes without ever just describing what
(02:00):
they actually saw. Some come from old forum posts, newspaper clippings,
or accounts passed down through families. They are almost never
written well. Some have no backstory, some have no middle,
and many have no end. They would be useless to you,
the listener, if I didn't have all the pieces to
offer you a complete story. So yes, I sometimes have
(02:23):
to get creative, not to change the story, but to
complete it, to make it entertaining, to paint a clear
picture of the experiences. I fill in the gaps with
plausible details. I create dialogue from described conversations. I add
the emotional context that witnesses often leave out when they're
focused on just getting through the facts I craft beginnings
(02:46):
that draw you in and endings that leave you thinking.
It's interesting that Heather mentioned how much she enjoys Fred
from Alaska and that she believes every story he shares. Frankly,
these stories are no different. Fred's stories go through the
same process. Every compelling encounter you've heard on any podcast
has been shaped by someone who understands narrative, who knows
(03:09):
how to build tension, who can transform a jumbled account
into something that keeps you listening. Even the witnesses I
interviewed directly, the ones who share their stories on the show,
they require a decision from you at the end of
every episode. Was I entertained, was the person believable? And ultimately,
what do I choose to believe? The story you're about
(03:32):
to hear came to me through multiple sources. Sarah not
her real name, initially reached out through a mutual acquaintance
who knew about my research. She was reluctant to share
her experience, worried about being judged or disbelieved. Her first
account was fragmented, jumping around in time, leaving out crucial
details she found too painful to revisit. It took several
(03:55):
conversations to piece together the full narrative. I've taken her
experiences and after them into something coherent, something that captures
not just what happened, but how it felt, the fear,
the confusion, the terrible realization that the world contains things
we don't understand. Every major event she described is here,
(04:15):
but I've built the connective tissue that makes it a
story rather than a series of disconnected incidents. So as
you listen, remember this is Sarah's truth, filtered through her memory,
processed through her trauma, and shaped by my hand into
something you can experience. Whether you believe it happened exactly
as presented, or whether you think some details have been
(04:38):
unconsciously embellished by time and fear, or whether you think
it's all fiction, that's your decision to make. All I
can tell you is that Sarah believes every word. And
after hearing her voice break when she described the sound
of her own voice calling her child into the darkness,
after seeing her hands shake when she showed me the
photos that came out to blurry to prove anything, after
(05:01):
watching her check the locks on her windows three times
during our conversation, I believe her too. But what you believe,
that's entirely up to you. I never believed in monsters
until I lived through something that still wakes me up
at night three years later. My name is Sarah, and
I need to tell someone what happened when I took
my boys to that cabin in Alabama. We left Birmingham
(05:24):
on a Tuesday morning in March. The divorce had just
been finalized after eighteen months of hell. My ex husband
had broken my ribs twice, dislocated my shoulder once, and
left bruises on my boys that I had to explain
away to teachers. Tyler, my twelve year old, had stopped
talking about his father entirely. Ben, only ten, still flinched
(05:46):
when anyone raised their voice. The restraining order was supposed
to keep us safe, but paper doesn't stop a man
who thinks he owns you. So when my great aunt
Martha died and left me her cabin in the middle
of nowhere, I saw it as a gift from God.
The drive took four hours into the deepest part of
Alabama I'd ever been. The roads got narrower with each turn,
(06:08):
civilization falling away mile by mile. First, the interstate gave
way to state highways, then county roads, and finally a
dirt track that hadn't seen a greater in years. My
old suburban groaned over potholes deep enough to swallow a tire.
The GPS signal died thirty minutes before we arrived. I
had to navigate using Aunt Martha's hand drawn map, her
(06:31):
shaky handwriting barely legible in the fading afternoon light. The
cabin sat on forty acres of pine forest that backed
up to the Bankhead National Forest. No neighbors for three miles,
the nearest town fifteen miles away. Perfect isolation. That's what
I thought I needed. Distance from my ex from the
court system, from everyone who knew our story, a place
(06:54):
where my boys could heal without judgment or pity. The
cabin was smaller than I expect did, but solid, real
log construction from the nineteen sixties, not that fake siding
you see now. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen that
opened into a living room dominated by a stone fireplace. Someone,
(07:15):
maybe Aunt Martha or a previous owner, had installed serious
locks and thick windows hurricane glass, I learned later from
paperwork in a drawer. Those windows were rated to withstand
impacts at ninety miles per hour, that detail would matter
more than I could have imagined. For the first week,
it felt like we'd found paradise. My boys transformed before
(07:37):
my eyes. They explored the woods from sunrise to sunset,
coming home covered in dirt and scratches, but grinning like
I hadn't seen in two years. Tyler discovered a creek
about a quarter mile east full of craw dads and minnows,
been built elaborate stick forts, and declared himself King of
the forest. I spent hours on the porch with coffee,
(07:58):
watching them play, feeling knots in my chest, finally loosening
for the first time in years. I wasn't looking over
my shoulder, I wasn't planning escape routes. I wasn't sleeping
with my car keys in my hand. The forest around
us felt ancient and peaceful. Massive pines stretched up so
high I couldn't see their tops. The undergrowth was thick
(08:19):
enough that visibility ended about thirty feet in any direction.
The silence was profound, not empty, but layered with small sounds,
birds calling, insects, buzzing, branches, creaking in the wind. It
felt alive and welcoming. I should have noticed when that changed.
About five days in the birds went quiet around the cabin,
(08:41):
not suddenly, but gradually, like someone slowly turning down nature's volume.
I mentioned it to Tyler, who just shrugged and suggested
it might rain soon. But the weather stayed clear and
warm for early spring. The silence felt different from a
coming storm. Ben started telling me about what he called
the hide and seek animals. He said they were really
(09:02):
good at hiding, that he could never quite see them,
but he knew they were there. They made funny sounds,
he said, like someone clearing their throat, but deeper, and
sometimes they whistled. I dismissed it as childhood imagination mixed
with the novelty of being in real wilderness for the
first time. But that night, lying in bed, I heard
(09:23):
exactly what he described, a low rumbling sound from somewhere
in the forest, like someone clearing their throat, if that
someone had a chest cavity the size of a barrel.
Then a whistle, not a bird's whistle, but human, like
the kind you'd use to get someone's attention, except it
was wrong, somehow, too perfect, like a recording played back
(09:44):
at the wrong speed. I got up and checked both boys.
They were asleep. I made sure all the doors and
windows were locked, even though the night was warm. I
told myself it was just an animal I wasn't familiar with.
The woods were full of creatures that made st sounds.
The next day I found the first footprint. I was
(10:04):
checking the old shed behind the cabin to see what
tools Aunt Martha had left there. In the mud beside
the shed door was a print that made me stop cold.
It looked human at first glance, five toes a heel
an arch, but the proportions were all wrong. It had
to be sixteen inches long and eight inches wide. The
(10:25):
toes were too long, almost like fingers, with too much
space between them. I stood there staring at it, my
mind trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
I took a photo with my phone, but when I
looked at it later, the image was blurry and useless,
like the camera couldn't properly focus on it. That afternoon,
Tyler dragged me into the woods to show me something
(10:47):
he'd found. About fifty yards from the house was a
small clearing where someone had arranged hundreds of stones in
a perfect spiral pattern, starting small in the center and
growing larger as it wound outward. Each stone was carefully placed,
touching the next. It must have taken hours to create.
Tyler was excited about his discovery, but I felt uneasy.
(11:10):
The trees around the clearing seemed to lean in, and
that unnatural silence was complete. There no birds, no insects, nothing.
I told Tyler we needed to go back to the
house immediately. Something in my voice must have scared him,
because he didn't argue. The rock throwing started that night.
I was washing dishes after dinner when something struck the
(11:30):
side of the house hard enough to rattle the windows.
I went outside with a flashlight, expecting to find a
fallen branch. Instead, I found a white mark on the
wood siding at head height rock dust. I called out,
asking if anyone was there, but got only silence and response.
Yet I felt watched that crawling sensation on your neck
(11:52):
when you know eyes are on you. My flashlight beams
seemed to die just a few feet into the forest,
swallowed by the darkness between the trees. The next night
brought three impacts in quick succession, hard throws that would
have required real strength. Tyler came out of his room,
eyes wide, asking what was happening. I told him it
(12:12):
was probably local kids playing pranks, though I knew no
kids would drive fifteen miles down abandon dirt roads just
to throw rocks at an old cabin. Tyler was too
smart to believe me. He pointed out we hadn't seen
another person since we'd arrived. The rocks became our nightly routine,
sometimes just one or two, sometimes a barrage lasting several minutes,
(12:34):
always from different directions, never the same pattern. Twice, after
a particularly bad night, I found one of the rocks.
It was the size of a softball, and it hit
hard enough to crack the siding. I called the Sheriff's department.
After a week of this, they sent Deputy Collins, a
young man who clearly thought I was wasting his time.
He suggested we had a bear problem. When I pointed
(12:57):
out that bears don't throw rocks, he gave me a
com descending look and said I'd be surprised what bears
could do. He suggested they might be knocking rocks off
our roof. When I showed him our secured garbage cans
and the complete absence of any food waste outside, he
shrugged and said to call if it continued. I knew
he wouldn't come back even if I did call. Three
(13:18):
weeks in, the screaming started. I woke at two a m.
Not to a sound, but to its absence, that complete,
unnatural silence that meant something was wrong. Then it came
a scream that wasn't quite a scream, deep and guttural
and impossibly loud. It seemed to come from everywhere at once,
(13:39):
vibrating through the cabin walls. It lasted maybe ten seconds,
but felt like forever. Both boys ran to my room,
Ben crying, Tyler trying to act brave but shaking uncontrollably.
I told them it was just an animal, maybe a bobcat,
that they make strange sounds. But I'd heard bobcats before.
This was something with much larger lungs, something that could
(14:02):
produce volume that didn't make sense for any animal. I knew.
The screams became another part of our routine. Some nights
they came from far off, echoing through the pines. Other
nights they were so close it seemed like whatever made
them was on our porch. They varied, too, Sometimes that deep,
reverberating scream sometimes a series of whoops that climbed in pitch,
(14:24):
sometimes something that almost sounded like speech, but not quite,
like someone trying to talk with the wrong kind of throat.
I stopped letting the boys play outside after dark, started
putting chairs under the doorknobs. The boys noticed the changes.
Tyler asked if we were safe. I lied and said,
of course we were, that I was just being careful
like moms do. But I could see he didn't believe me.
(14:49):
One morning, about a month in I found every pine
cone from the large tree in our front yard arranged
in a perfect circle around Tyler's bike, hundreds of them,
each one carefully placed to touch the next, all oriented
with their points facing outward, like some kind of barrier
or warning. And stay tuned for more sasquatch out to see.
(15:09):
We'll be right back. After these messages, when I showed Tyler,
his face went pale. He admitted he'd been hearing something
outside his window at night, breathing and tapping, like something
trying to get his attention. He'd been too scared to
move or call for me. That confession from my brave boy,
(15:31):
who stood between his father and his little brother more
than once terrified me more than anything else that had happened.
I started sleeping in the living room, where I could
watch both bedroom doors and the front entrance. I kept
my grandfather's shotgun beside me, loaded with buckshot. I'd never
fired it, but I hoped the sound alone might scare
(15:51):
off whatever was out there. One night, I woke to
find Ben standing at the front door, his hand on
the dead bolt. He was sleepwalking, his eyes vacant. He
kept saying he'd heard me calling him from outside, that
I told him to come out, that I'd said it
was important. He said the voice sounded exactly like mine,
calling from right outside his window, telling him I needed
(16:14):
to show him something. My blood turned to ice. I
hadn't called him, I'd been asleep on the couch. I
made him promise that if he ever heard my voice
outside when I was inside, or inside when I was outside,
he wouldn't listen. He had to come find me first.
The confusion in his eyes broke my heart. How could
(16:34):
something sound exactly like his mother but not be his mother.
That's when I started seeing them. The first time was
at dusk. I was calling the boys in when I
saw a movement at the forest edge. Something tall, much
taller than any person, stepped behind a tree, but the
way it moved was wrong, too smooth, too quick for
(16:54):
something that size, like it was gliding rather than walking.
I stood frozen, waiting for it to show itself again.
It didn't, but I could feel it watching me. After that,
I saw them regularly, always at the edge of vision,
always just for a second, dark shapes that didn't belong,
moving through the trees with impossible silence. Sometimes I could
(17:18):
make out details, arms that hung past where knees should be,
a massive frame with wrong proportions, a face that was
almost human but not quite. Then I'd blink and see
nothing but shadows and trees. The boys saw them, too,
though they pretended otherwise. I'd catch Ben staring at his
window at night. Transfixed, Tyler started having nightmares about tall
(17:42):
people in the woods. He'd wake up describing dreams where
they stood in a circle around the cabin, just watching,
waiting for something. In his dreams, they had faces, but
he could never remember what they looked like when he
woke One afternoon, I was hanging laundry when I heard
Ben laughing in the front yard, but it wasn't his
normal laugh. It was forced the way he laughed when
(18:05):
he was nervous but trying to be polite. I found
him standing at the edge of the yard, about ten
feet from the forest line, looking up and nodding like
he was having a conversation. But nothing was there, just trees.
When I called his name, he turned to me, smiling
and said the mommy was funny that she made silly sounds.
He pointed at the trees and said she was right there,
(18:28):
and he wanted to know if I could see her.
He said she wasn't a stranger because she knew his name,
knew all about us. I grabbed him and pulled him
back to the house. As I did, I saw something
move back into the deeper forest, something dark and massive
with a strange loping gait. That night, I called my
sister in Birmingham, desperate to hear a normal voice. She
(18:50):
asked how country life was treating us, said it must
be wonderful for the boys to have all that fresh
air and nature. I wanted to tell her everything, wanted
to pack up and to her house that minute, but
what would I say that I thought we were being
stalked by something that wasn't quite human, That something in
the woods wanted my son instead. I said everything was
(19:12):
great and hung up. After the call, I found Tyler
sitting on Ben's bed. He looked at me with eyes
that looked like they belonged to someone way beyond his
twelve years. He said we needed to leave. He said
Ben didn't understand that. Ben thought they were friendly. When
I asked what he meant by they, he said I
knew there was more than one. He'd been watching them too.
(19:35):
He said there were at least three, maybe four, one
bigger than the others that did most of the screaming,
a female with long hair who watched Ben's window, and
one or two others he'd only seen moving through the trees.
He told me about seeing the female in the moonlight
the week before, standing just inside the tree line watching
Ben's window. She had hair down to her waist. He
(19:57):
hadn't told me because he didn't want to scare meteive boy,
trying to shield me from the horror. About six weeks in,
the mimicry got worse. One evening, I heard Tyler calling
Ben from outside, telling him to come see something cool.
But Tyler was in the shower. I could hear the
water running. I caught Ben heading for the door and
(20:17):
had to explain that it wasn't really Tyler, even though
it sounded exactly like him. Ben's eyes went wide as
he realized his brother was in two places at once.
The voice outside called three more times, getting more insistent,
before finally stopping. When Tyler got out of the shower
and I told him what happened, he went pale and
said it was learning, learning how to be us. They
(20:40):
started using our voices regularly after that, always trying to
lure one of us outside, always when the person they
were mimicking was clearly somewhere else. It would have been
almost funny if it wasn't so terrifying, this thing that
could perfectly copy our voices but didn't understand that we
knew where each other were. One night, I woke to
Ben's voice outside my window. It said, Mommy, I'm scared.
(21:05):
I'm outside and can't get back in. Please help me.
The voice was perfect Ben's slight lisp, the way he
still called me mommy when frightened. But I could see
Ben's door from the couch, still closed, with the chair
wedged under from inside, like I'd taught him. The voice
got more desperate, said something was out there with him.
(21:25):
It was so convincing I actually got up to check
on Ben, just to be sure he was in his bed,
fast asleep. When I came back to the living room,
a shadow blocked the moonlight at the window. I watched
it raise what might have been a hand and tap
on the glass three times, slow deliberate. Then it spoke
in Ben's voice and said it knew I was in there,
(21:48):
that it could smell me. The shadow moved away, but
I didn't sleep the rest of the night. The next
morning I found those handprints on the window, not quite hands,
too long wide, with a thumb that bent the wrong way.
In the dirt. Below were footprints leading to and from
the forest. Those same massive prints seventeen inches long eight
(22:11):
inches wide. Whatever made them had to be at least
eight feet tall. That afternoon, while the boys were reading,
I walked the property perimeter. I found trails through the
underbrush where something large moved regularly, Trees with bark rubbed
off at eight feet high, more stone arrangements, circles, spirals,
(22:31):
lines pointing toward the cabin, and on a flat rock
about one hundred yards from the house, I found bones,
small animals, rabbits, squirrels, birds picked clean and arranged in
patterns that almost looked like riding, like someone trying to
use an alphabet. They didn't understand. I took photos of everything,
thinking maybe I could get help. But every picture came
(22:54):
out blurry, oversaturated, or showing nothing but trees where I
knew i'd photographed something else. The camera couldn't capture what
was really there. About ten weeks in, Ben woke me
saying the tall Mommy was at his window. I grabbed
the shotgun and rushed to his room. Through the curtains,
I could see a massive shadow, swaying slightly. Ben whispered
(23:16):
that she wanted him to come outside, that she had
babies who wanted to play. She was making a low,
mournful sound that did sound like grief. It was answered
by other calls from deeper in the forest. Tyler appeared
in the doorway with the baseball bat I'd given him,
knuckles white around the handle. He counted three of them
out there. We could hear them walking around the cabin,
(23:37):
those heavy footsteps making the porch boards creak. They circled
us three times, making low vocalizations to each other. Almost conversational,
like they were discussing something. Then I heard my own
voice from outside, clear as day, telling the boys it
was okay to come out, that I was out there
and everything was fine. Then Tyler's voice calling Ben buddy,
(24:00):
saying he needed help with something. Then my panicked voice
saying there'd been an accident and I needed them both
outside immediately. The mimicry continued for hours, trying different approaches.
My angry mom voice demanding Tyler come out right now,
Tyler's brotherly tone asking Ben for help, my scared voice
saying something was wrong. They were experimenting, seeing what would work.
(24:25):
We huddled together in my room until four am, when
everything went silent, that complete, unnatural silence. Then came the
breathing outside my bedroom window, deep rhythmic breathing through the curtains.
I could see multiple shadows. The breathing went on for hours.
Then came a voice that wasn't quite a voice, something
(24:47):
between human speech and animal vocalization, forming words with a
throat not designed for human language. It called Ben's name
over and over, saying he should come, that someone was
lonely wanted to play. Ben sat up, eyes unfocused, and
started climbing over me toward the door. I had to
physically restrain him while he struggled, saying in a monotone
(25:10):
voice that she needed him, that her baby was gone
and she needed a new one. Tyler was crying, but
helped me hold his brother back. The thing at the
window made a sound of frustration or anger. The whole
wall shook as something struck it. The window cracked but
didn't break. Thank God for that hurricane glass. More impacts
(25:30):
followed all around the house. The wall shook, picture frames fell,
and in the living room I heard wood splinter as
the doorframe cracked under assault. I remembered the shotgun. I'd
never fired it, but maybe the sound would scare them.
I pointed it at the ceiling and pulled the trigger.
The blast was deafening, plaster rained down, My ears rang,
(25:53):
but it worked. The pounding stopped. I heard those two heavy,
two fast footsteps moving away. Stayed huddled together until dawn.
When I finally looked outside, the house was surrounded by
those strange handprints in the dirt on the walls, on
the windows. The front door frame was splintered, the door
hanging at an angle. Deep gouges ran along the exterior walls,
(26:17):
like claw marks, but too deliberate, too patterned, and carved
into the big pine tree and letters three feet tall
was one word, so n I started packing immediately. The
boys helped without asking why. But that night, our last night,
they came back with a vengeance. The rocks were constant
(26:37):
and harder than ever. The kitchen windows shattered, the screams
came from all directions, and the mimicry was horrible. Not
just our voices now, but others. My ex husband's voice
which made my blood freeze, my sister's voice, my mother's voice,
though she'd been dead for five years. Around midnight, everything
(26:59):
went quiet. Then Ben stood up, eyes vacant, and walked
to his bedroom. I followed and found him trying to
open the window I'd nailed shut that afternoon. He kept
saying she was calling him, that the mommy needed him
because her baby was gone and she needed him, that
he could be her baby Tyler, and I had to
physically restrain him. Outside Ben's window, that massive shadow appeared again.
(27:25):
This time I could see more details through the curtain,
A huge head covered in hair, arms that reached almost
to the ground, something like a face pressed against the glass.
It spoken that horrible approximation of human speech, saying to
give him that Ben was hers, now screaming mine with
a roar that shook the whole cabin. Then it did
(27:46):
something that still haunts me. It spoke in a child's voice,
a young boy, maybe five or six years old, saying, Mama,
where are you? I'm scared the humans took me. Please
come get me. The creature outside I'd made sounds like crying,
like grieving, and I understood with horrible clarity it had
lost a child somehow and wanted Ben as a replacement.
(28:10):
I said out loud that I was sorry for its loss,
but it couldn't have my son. The shadow pulled back,
and for a moment I thought it might leave. Then
the entire wall exploded inward. The hurricane glass held for
half a second before shattering. The wooden frame splintered like
match sticks, and through the hole I saw it clearly
(28:30):
for the first time. It was massive, at least eight
feet tall, covered in dark brown, matted hair. Its face
was almost human, but the proportions off its arms hung low,
ending in hands twice the size of mine with those
terrible long fingers. It looked at me with eyes that
held intelligence, alien but undeniable intelligence. And in those eyes
(28:54):
I saw grief, real profound grief. It reached for Ben.
I didn't think. I brought the shotgun up and fired
directly at it. The blast hit its center mass. It screamed,
not roared, but screamed and stumbled backward. Dark fluid splattered
the destroyed wall, but it didn't fall. It clutched its
(29:16):
chest and looked at me with something like surprise. Then
the others came. Three more shapes appeared at the hole
in the wall, all massive, all covered in hair, all
moving with that strange gliding gait. One was even larger,
had to be nine feet tall. They looked at their
injured companion, then at us. The huge one let out
(29:38):
a roar of pure rage. I pumped the shotgun, chambering
another round, my hands shaking so badly I could barely
hold it. But they didn't attack. They grabbed their injured
companion and supported it between them. The one eyed shot
looked back at Ben one more time and spoke in
that broken English, saying he was hers that he would
(29:59):
come back. Stay tuned for more sasquatchy oat to see.
We'll be right back after these messages. Then they melted
back into the forest with impossible speed and silence. We
didn't wait for dawn. I threw the boys in the
car with whatever I could grab in five minutes. As
(30:20):
we drove away, I saw them in the rear view mirror,
all four standing at the forest edge, watching us leave.
The one eyed shot held its chest, dark stains covering
its hair. We drove straight through to Birmingham, stopping only
for gas. The boys slept most of the way, exhausted.
When we stopped at a well lit station just outside
(30:41):
the city, Ben woke and asked where the forest mommy went.
He said she'd been following us for a while, but
stopped at the big road the interstate. We stayed with
my sister for a week while I found an apartment
third floor, center of the city, as far from forests
as possible. The boys never talked about those two months
in detail. It was like the memories just faded. Maybe
(31:04):
that was for the best, but there were signs they
remembered something. Tyler became hypervigilant, never letting Ben out of
his sight, walking him to and from school, sleeping with
that baseball bat beside his bed, for months, he never
wanted to go camping or hiking or anywhere near woods.
Ben was different. He'd stare out windows looking for something.
(31:25):
He'd draw pictures, tall, dark figures among trees, a female
figure with long hair reaching toward a small boy. When
I asked about the drawings, he'd look confused and say
he didn't know why he drew them, that he just
saw them in dreams. Sometimes he said the forest mommy
was always crying in his dreams, that she'd lost her
baby and was looking for him. Six months later, I
(31:49):
went back in broad daylight with two armed friends to
get important documents we'd left behind. The cabin was destroyed,
walls caved in, roof partially collapsed, everything inside shredded and scattered.
Every remaining wall had words carved deep into the wood.
Come back, bring Ben, He's mine, my baby, And in
(32:10):
Ben's room painted in what looked like mud but smelled
like copper. Still waiting. I had the cabin demolished, told
insurance it was storm damage. They didn't investigate closely. The
adjuster seemed spooked by the location. The land is still mine,
but I'll never go back. When Hunter's call asking permission
(32:30):
to use it. I always say no, that land belongs
to something else now, or maybe it always did. Last month,
at a cousin's birthday party, there was a small patch
of woods at the park's edge. Ben wandered over and
stood staring into the shadows between the trees. When I
found him ten minutes later, he was completely still. He
(32:51):
turned to me with vacant eyes for just a second,
then said he thought he'd heard the forest. Mommy, but
it was just the wind. He said, she was still
out there, still sad, still looking for her baby. He
said he dreamed about her sometimes, that she showed him
her baby, who looked like her, but smaller. Then the
baby was gone, and she was alone and so sad.
(33:12):
He said. He felt bad for her, even though she'd
scared us, that she was just lonely. That night, I
researched old newspaper archives from Alabama. I found articles dating
back to nineteen fifty two children who'd vanished in or
near Bankhead Forest, A five year old boy in nineteen
fifty two, a three year old girl in nineteen sixty seven,
(33:34):
twin boys in nineteen seventy four, more in nineteen eighty three,
nineteen ninety one, All disappeared without a trace, leaving only
unusual footprints that were dismissed as bear tracks. The most
recent was from two thousand and one. Four year old
Michael vanished while hiking with his family. His mother swore
(33:54):
she heard him calling for her from the woods for
hours after he disappeared, but searchers found nothing. She insisted
something in the forest took him, that she saw tall,
dark figures watching the search parties. No one believed her.
Michael would be about Ben's age now, if he'd lived,
if he'd stayed human, I'll never know the truth. Was
(34:15):
one of those missing children, somehow one of them?
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Now?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Had the creature lost a human child it had taken?
Was it mourning a child that had once been human?
Or its own offspring? The not knowing is its own horror. Sometimes,
on quiet nights, I swear I can still hear it calling,
not with my ears, but with something deeper, a pull
I can't explain. Ben feels it too. I see it
(34:40):
in the way he sometimes stops mid sentence, head tilted,
listening to something only he can hear. We're safe now,
I tell myself. We're in the city, surrounded by lights
and people and noise. But safety is an illusion when
you know what's out there in the forests, when you
know there are things that can learn our voices, that
(35:00):
can call our children in the night, that can grieve
and rage and want with an intelligence that's almost human
but not quite. The story doesn't have an ending, because
it's not over. Every time Ben stares into trees, every
time Tyler jumps at shadows, every time I wake to
sounds that might be wind or might be something else,
(35:20):
we're back in that cabin. We're always back there in
the dark, listening to something breathe outside our window, listening
to our own voices calling us into the night. That's
the real horror, Not the creatures themselves, but knowing they exist,
knowing the woods aren't empty, that some things want our
children for reasons will never understand, and all we can
(35:43):
do is hold them tight, lock our doors, and hope
that whatever they are, whatever they want, they'll wait a
little longer. Sarah's account ended there, but her story haunts
me in ways that other encounters haven't. I've been researching
and documenting sasquatch encounters for years now. I've interviewed dozens
of witnesses who've heard. These creatures mimic human voices, usually
(36:06):
simple words or phrases, sometimes the voices of loved ones.
It's a detail that comes up more often than you
might think, always delivered with that same mix of confusion
and terror. But Sarah's experience feels different, more deliberate, more intelligent,
more calculated. The creatures she described didn't just mimic voices.
(36:29):
They understood family dynamics. They knew when to use which voice.
They attempted psychological manipulation, trying different emotional approaches, like a
predator learning the weak points in its praise defenses. That
level of sophistication goes beyond anything I've encountered in other
witness testimonies. I've interviewed other people who've reported sasquatch creatures
(36:51):
watching them through windows, especially at night. Usually it's described
as curiosity, a face appearing briefly at the glass before
disappearing back into darkness. But what Sarah described was surveillance, studying, planning.
These creatures watched her family for weeks, learning their routines,
(37:11):
their voices, their relationships. They identified the most vulnerable member,
young Ben, and specifically targeted him, which raises the question
that keeps me awake at night. What did they actually
want with that child? Sarah believes the female creature had
lost its own offspring and wanted Ben as a replacement.
(37:32):
It's a disturbingly human motivation, grief driving a mother to
desperate actions. But is that really what was happening? Do
these creatures experience emotions the way we do? Can they
form parental bonds with human children? Or is it something
far more nefarious that we can't even comprehend. The pattern
is undeniable children vanishing for decades. There are occasional reports,
(37:56):
usually dismissed as hysteria or misidentification, of people seeing unusually tall,
hair covered figures accompanied by smaller ones, and sometimes witnesses
describe the smaller ones as looking almost human, but not quite.
I don't want to think about the implications of that.
I don't want to consider what might happen to a
(38:16):
human child raised by something that can walk upright and
use tools and mimic speech but isn't human, Whether they
would still be human after years in the deep forest,
or if they would become something else, something in between.
Sarah's story also makes me reconsider other encounters I've documented.
The voice mimicry that I used to think was simple parroting.
(38:39):
Maybe it's actually sophisticated hunting behavior. The window watching that always,
at face value, seemed like curiosity, but maybe it's selection.
The rock throwing that appears aggressive. Maybe it's testing our defenses.
What if we've been misunderstanding these creatures entirely. What if
(39:00):
there not the gentle giants some researchers believe, or the
territorial animals others claim. What if there's something more complex
and more dangerous, intelligent enough to want things from us,
but alien enough that we can't understand what those things are.
I reached out to Sarah recently to follow up on
her story. She was reluctant to talk, but finally agreed
(39:22):
to a brief conversation. Ben is sixteen now. She told
me he still has the dream, sometimes still draws those
figures without meaning to, and sometimes when they're driving and
pass a heavily wooded area, he'll suddenly go quiet and
press his face against the window, watching the tree line
with an expression she can't read. She also told me
(39:43):
something she hadn't included in her original account. Last year,
Ben's class went on a camping trip. His first time
back in the real wilderness since the cabin. The teachers
found him at three am, standing at the edge of
their campsite, staring into the forest. He was wide awake,
fully conscious, not sleep walking. When they asked what he
(40:03):
was doing, he said he was listening to someone calling him,
someone who sounded sad, someone who'd been waiting a long time.
They brought him back to his tent, but he didn't
sleep the rest of the night, and in the morning
the teachers found footprints around the campsite, large barefoot prints
that the park rangers dismissed as a hoax. Sarah pulled
(40:23):
Ben out of school for a week after that. They've
moved twice since then, each time farther from any wilderness.
But she knows, and I think Ben knows too, that
distance might not matter. Whatever connection was formed during those
two months in Alabama, it's still there waiting. This is
what truly disturbs me about Sarah's story. It suggests these
(40:46):
creatures can form attachments to specific humans that they can
remember and wait and perhaps even track someone across years
and miles that they're patient in ways we can't fathom,
operating on time scales that make our human urgency seem fleeting.
So I leave you with this thought and this warning.
The next time you're in the woods and you hear
(41:07):
a familiar voice calling from the darkness, pause before you answer.
If your child or loved one claims to hear you
calling when you know you haven't spoken, believe them. And
if you ever feel watched from the forest's edge, trust
that instinct, because it may not be who or what
it seems. And some things, once they notice you never
(41:29):
truly stop watching.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
They say, you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
I don't want to be.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Out.
Speaker 5 (42:00):
Step child, this child, that child, everything.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Can you ride back right back? Joy for me, joy
staying right? You come it right away?
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Still, step steps.
Speaker 6 (43:04):
Down, knocking down, dotsssstssssss
Speaker 4 (43:32):
Used thess
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