November 9, 2025 • 19 mins
Fear on the Ridge
Dusk settles over a narrow spine of mountain as routine turns uneasy. First it’s the rhythm—two knocks, then one—drifting through the trees. Then a faint, sour-earth smell on the wind. A treeline silhouette appears, then vanishes, replaced by heavy stillness and the sense that you’re being paralleled just out of sight.
In Fear on the Ridge, we let the mystery breathe: subtle sign, careful observation, and the unnerving awareness that something clever knows the terrain better than we do. No big reveals—only a tightening spiral of sounds, impressions, and choices that say as much about us as about what’s out there. Settle in, turn the lights low, and listen for the spaces between the sounds.
* Note- The following scenes are dramatized based on witness testimony and historical context.
The events — prints, casts, and newspaper publication — are factual.
Dusk settles over a narrow spine of mountain as routine turns uneasy. First it’s the rhythm—two knocks, then one—drifting through the trees. Then a faint, sour-earth smell on the wind. A treeline silhouette appears, then vanishes, replaced by heavy stillness and the sense that you’re being paralleled just out of sight.
In Fear on the Ridge, we let the mystery breathe: subtle sign, careful observation, and the unnerving awareness that something clever knows the terrain better than we do. No big reveals—only a tightening spiral of sounds, impressions, and choices that say as much about us as about what’s out there. Settle in, turn the lights low, and listen for the spaces between the sounds.
* Note- The following scenes are dramatized based on witness testimony and historical context.
The events — prints, casts, and newspaper publication — are factual.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
The pre dawned fog clung to the pines like smoke
from an unseen fire. The mountains near Bluff Creek, deep
in northern California's Six Rivers National Forest, was still and dark.
Diesel engines coughed to life, one by one, belonging to
the road crew working for R. L. Wallace Construction Company.
(00:29):
None of the men were strangers to hard labor. They
built logging roads where roads had no business, being mud cliffs, rain,
and thick timber everywhere. One of them was Jerry Crew,
a quiet, measured man in his early thirties, Tall and
(00:50):
lean with a face weathered by wind and distance. He'd
grown used to mornings where the mountains didn't give anything away.
Easily stood on the clear dirt path where machines had
been parked overnight. Something felt off. The fog wasn't just thick,
(01:10):
it was holding still, like the whole ridge was watching.
He walked further. The ground was soft from the previous
night's drizzle. Then he froze footprints, enormous ones. Something had
walked between the machines. Not bootprints, not bear tracks. These
(01:35):
tracks were shaped like a bare human foot, only impossibly big.
Each print was over sixteen inches long, deep enough to
hold water. The stride was wide, stretching several feet between steps.
Something big, very big, had moved with intention, not lumbering
(01:58):
or shambling. The ground around the track was disturbed, like
weight had pressed into the earth. Jerry felt a strange
tremor in his gut, a vibration of instinct that whispered,
You're not alone. He knelt beside the print, sliding his
(02:19):
hand along the outline. The heel was sharp, the toes rounded,
too defined to be a hoax. He knew the woods,
he knew bear tracks, cat tracks, and signs of elk,
but this this was different. Behind him, an engine sputtered
(02:41):
to life. Hey crew, a broker yelled, you've taken a
nap over there. Come take a look, Jerry replied without turning.
Boots crunched into the gravel and dirt as several men approached.
When they reached him, each froze exactly as he had.
(03:01):
What in the holy hell that ain't no bear? Their
shock was unanimous. And then down the path, yet another
set of prints appeared, walking between machines that weighed several tons.
Jerry scanned them and noticed gouges in the dirt, as
(03:23):
though something massive had grabbed and moved the fifty five
gallon fuel drums they'd left behind the evening prior. The
drums were not small or empty. They were filled around
four hundred and fifty pounds each, depending on fuel content.
But now one lay upside down several yards away, and
(03:47):
another had been rolled into the brush, rolled, carried, thrown.
None of those verbs fit any animal in the region.
Something powerful, incredibly powerful, had been there. The crew talked
in frantic overlapping whispers. No man could move that drum
(04:12):
on his own. Maybe a grizzly pushed it. Bears don't
pick up on drums and set them down upright. Jerry
walked over to the nearest drum carefully. He tipped it
rock solid, heavy, dense. He felt the weight in his bones,
(04:33):
then he imagined the strength required to lift it. Something
walking barefoot at night in wet, cold earth, moving through
machines logically, as though it understood the space, had decided
to interact with a drum. The lid bore massive smears,
(04:56):
wide padded impressions, not claws. The metal showed dense as
if squeezed. He looked back at the prince. They faced
the drum, standing beside it, beside the machine. Analyzing almost methodical,
(05:18):
Jerry swallowed hard. Something out here wasn't just passing through,
It was inspecting them. He whispered under his breath, Why
what do you want? The woods gave no answer. Later,
Jerry would sit alone at home and try to make
(05:39):
sense of it. He would recall details that didn't fit
the usual explanation of bears or hoaxes. The Prince had
weight behind them, every stride, sunk deep into the damp earth.
Bears don't walk in a straight line of two bipedal prints.
They don't step heel first. They don't test drums with
(06:03):
human curiosity. But something else does, something upright, Massive, muscular,
something built like a man, but not a man. Jerry
tried to visualize the very being capable of those prints.
Seven to eight feet tall, broad chest, barrel, thick neck,
(06:27):
arms too long to belong to a human, Muscles layered
like rope under fur, a forty five gallon drum lifted
like it was nothing. He imagined what the creature might
have looked like in the moonlight, heavy shoulders, rolling with
muscle as it walked between machines. The giant forearms flexing
(06:52):
as it grasped the drum, powerful hands spanning nearly half
the lid. It's stepps would have been silent except for
the soft settling of weight on earth, its breath steaming
the cold air, its head low scanning, thinking then there
(07:14):
was nothing clumsy or accidental about it. When the crew
reached the equipment shack for lunch, they argued over what
to do. They'll laugh us out of camp. No one's
gonna believe giant footprints. I say, we'd tell Wallace that
name hung in the air. Ray Wallace was the general contractor,
(07:38):
the boss. Wallace was the kind of man who liked
jokes and told tall tales. Some said he invited chaos.
Others said he got bored too easily. If they brought
Prince to him and he dismissed them, Jerry shook his head.
(07:59):
We don't need Wallace's approval to tell the truth. But
they all know the truth wasn't the same as proof.
One man asked, what if it came back? Another pointed
toward the drum still rolled into the brush. Buddy, it
already did. The Next morning, before dawn broke, Jerry returned
(08:26):
with something new, A bucket, plaster of Paris, and stirring stick.
He'd never forgotten his father's words. Truth matters most when
nobody believes it. He mixed the plaster and poured it
gently into the largest print. The men watched in careful silence.
(08:48):
When it hardened, he lifted it. It weighed close to
twenty pounds, thick, solid, undeniable. It wasn't just a footprint anymore.
It was evidence. Jerry carried the cast to his jeep.
He set it on the passenger side and stared at it.
(09:09):
It was huge, sixteen inches long, seven inches wide. The
toes were individual. You could see skin creases, pressure ridges.
No human could fake the depth and the body weight
behind those impressions, he whispered a single sentence to himself,
(09:31):
something big walks these woods. When Jerry brought the cast
to the Humboldt Times newspaper office in Eureka, California, receptionist
Betty Allen became immediately interested. She called over the editor,
Andrew Gonzoli. Gonzoli examined the cast. This, he said, slowly,
(09:55):
is a story. The next morning, October fifth, nineteen fifty eight,
the front page headline read Bigfoot. It was the first
time that name appeared in print. Within days, the words
spread like fire. Radio shows mentioned it. People drove from
(10:17):
out of town hoping to see prints Wallace. Ever, the
showman loved the sudden attention. Tourists showed up on logging
roads just for a chance to gawk. But while reporters
debated and skeptics scoffed, Jerry couldn't stop thinking about the drums.
(10:40):
Because no pranks could do what happened next. Two nights later,
near midnight, machines parked in a neat line suddenly shifted.
One was nudged several inches enough to reveal fresh prints
that were circling around it and the drums. The drums
(11:02):
were gone, not tipped, not rolled. Gone. Two nights later,
near midnight, machines parked in a near line suddenly shifted.
One was nudged several inches enough to reveal fresh prints
circling around it and the drums. The drums were gone,
(11:26):
not tipped, not rolled, gone. Crew and the others found
them the next morning down a steep embankment, resting neatly
on their sides, as if someone had carried them down
the slope, then placed them with careful deliberate precision. One
was dented, as if something had gripped it too tight,
(11:49):
finger shaped pressure dents pressed into sheet metal. The night
was replaying in Jerry's mind. Imagine the creature in the dark,
standing beside the drum, hand curled around cold steel muscles
flexing like coiled cables, lifting hundreds of pounds, as easily
(12:15):
as a sack of grain, Descending the hillside in silence, power, balance, control.
Whatever this thing was, it wasn't just curious, It was intelligent.
One fog thick morning, while Jerry walked to check the
(12:36):
upper ridge, he felt eyes on him, not the feeling
of being watched from far off, but close. He stopped.
The forest held its breath, branches creaked under heavy weight.
Something shifted behind the screen of pines. A tall, broad
(12:58):
silhouette braced between two trunks, stood watching. He barely caught
its outline before it vanished into deeper shadow. Not a bear,
too tall, too vertical. That night, back at camp, Jerry
drew what he'd seen. Shoulders wider than a door, head
(13:23):
domed slightly forward, no neck, arms hanging past the waist,
torso thick, with layered muscle covered in dark hair. Not fur.
A worker leaned over to look. You saw it, didn't you.
Jerry hesitated, I saw something. It's eight feet tall. The
(13:49):
worker whispered, whatever made those prints is eight feet tall.
The more the press grew interested, the more skept emerged.
You got hoaxed. It's Wallace messing with you. Those prints
aren't Those prints are carved. But nothing explained the drums.
(14:12):
Nothing explained the machine movement. Nothing explained the silhouette in
the trees. Jerry finally snapped in a newspaper interview. People
can argue, Prince, they can't argue physics. What moves those drums?
Was not a prank. He wasn't chasing fame. He wanted
(14:37):
the truth accumulated so future generations would know that something
real walked the forests of northern California. Years later, skeptics
would claim Wallace faked Prince. They'd point to wood carvings,
stories from Wallace's relatives and laugh about the giant feet.
(14:59):
But that's the story fabricated decades after the events, never
addressed the facts. The cast Jerry made came before Wallace
ever knew the media was interested. The drums were moved
before Wallace even arrived. Prince had weight and depth exceeding
(15:21):
carved wooden outlines. What skeptics could never explain was force.
They never explained how a human carrying four hundred plus
pounds in uneven terrain could remain unnoticed, or why the
creature returned multiple times to examine machines, disturbed only specific
(15:45):
objects and left without damage. There was pattern in its
behavior and intelligence in its choices. Jerry Crew died in
nineteen eighty two. His original plaster casts still exist in
the Willow Creek, China Flat Museum in northern California. People
(16:10):
stand in front of them, staring at the contours, the toes,
the ridges, the arch, and the weight. You can feel it.
For decades since, people from all walks of life, loggers, hunters,
forest workers, sheriffs have come forward with the same description.
(16:35):
A massive, muscular, upbright creature covered in hair, with intelligent
eyes and unbelievable strength. The creature that lifted drums, the
creature that walked between machines, the creature that had left
footprints in the fog. Bigfoot not a myth, not a prank,
(16:59):
an under discovered primate of staggering power, And it all
began with one man on a fog heavy morning in
nineteen fifty eight, standing alongside a footprint that shouldn't have
existed at the end of his life, Jerry was asked,
(17:20):
do you believe what you saw? He smiled. My belief
never mattered, he said, that footprint mattered, and just like that,
we've reached the end of another story here on Bigfoot's Wilderness.
(17:42):
Thanks so much for listening and spending part of your
day with me out in the wild. If you enjoyed
this episode, be sure to follow the show, leave a review,
and share it with someone you know who loves a
good mystery under the stars. And before you go, remember
to check out my friend Dave over at We're Bigfoot ROMs.
(18:02):
He's got some incredible stories that will keep you looking
over your shoulder on those night hikes. Until next time,
keep your eyes open, keep your ears sharp, and remember
the wilderness has secrets.
The pre dawned fog clung to the pines like smoke
from an unseen fire. The mountains near Bluff Creek, deep
in northern California's Six Rivers National Forest, was still and dark.
Diesel engines coughed to life, one by one, belonging to
the road crew working for R. L. Wallace Construction Company.
(00:29):
None of the men were strangers to hard labor. They
built logging roads where roads had no business, being mud cliffs, rain,
and thick timber everywhere. One of them was Jerry Crew,
a quiet, measured man in his early thirties, Tall and
(00:50):
lean with a face weathered by wind and distance. He'd
grown used to mornings where the mountains didn't give anything away.
Easily stood on the clear dirt path where machines had
been parked overnight. Something felt off. The fog wasn't just thick,
(01:10):
it was holding still, like the whole ridge was watching.
He walked further. The ground was soft from the previous
night's drizzle. Then he froze footprints, enormous ones. Something had
walked between the machines. Not bootprints, not bear tracks. These
(01:35):
tracks were shaped like a bare human foot, only impossibly big.
Each print was over sixteen inches long, deep enough to
hold water. The stride was wide, stretching several feet between steps.
Something big, very big, had moved with intention, not lumbering
(01:58):
or shambling. The ground around the track was disturbed, like
weight had pressed into the earth. Jerry felt a strange
tremor in his gut, a vibration of instinct that whispered,
You're not alone. He knelt beside the print, sliding his
(02:19):
hand along the outline. The heel was sharp, the toes rounded,
too defined to be a hoax. He knew the woods,
he knew bear tracks, cat tracks, and signs of elk,
but this this was different. Behind him, an engine sputtered
(02:41):
to life. Hey crew, a broker yelled, you've taken a
nap over there. Come take a look, Jerry replied without turning.
Boots crunched into the gravel and dirt as several men approached.
When they reached him, each froze exactly as he had.
(03:01):
What in the holy hell that ain't no bear? Their
shock was unanimous. And then down the path, yet another
set of prints appeared, walking between machines that weighed several tons.
Jerry scanned them and noticed gouges in the dirt, as
(03:23):
though something massive had grabbed and moved the fifty five
gallon fuel drums they'd left behind the evening prior. The
drums were not small or empty. They were filled around
four hundred and fifty pounds each, depending on fuel content.
But now one lay upside down several yards away, and
(03:47):
another had been rolled into the brush, rolled, carried, thrown.
None of those verbs fit any animal in the region.
Something powerful, incredibly powerful, had been there. The crew talked
in frantic overlapping whispers. No man could move that drum
(04:12):
on his own. Maybe a grizzly pushed it. Bears don't
pick up on drums and set them down upright. Jerry
walked over to the nearest drum carefully. He tipped it
rock solid, heavy, dense. He felt the weight in his bones,
(04:33):
then he imagined the strength required to lift it. Something
walking barefoot at night in wet, cold earth, moving through
machines logically, as though it understood the space, had decided
to interact with a drum. The lid bore massive smears,
(04:56):
wide padded impressions, not claws. The metal showed dense as
if squeezed. He looked back at the prince. They faced
the drum, standing beside it, beside the machine. Analyzing almost methodical,
(05:18):
Jerry swallowed hard. Something out here wasn't just passing through,
It was inspecting them. He whispered under his breath, Why
what do you want? The woods gave no answer. Later,
Jerry would sit alone at home and try to make
(05:39):
sense of it. He would recall details that didn't fit
the usual explanation of bears or hoaxes. The Prince had
weight behind them, every stride, sunk deep into the damp earth.
Bears don't walk in a straight line of two bipedal prints.
They don't step heel first. They don't test drums with
(06:03):
human curiosity. But something else does, something upright, Massive, muscular,
something built like a man, but not a man. Jerry
tried to visualize the very being capable of those prints.
Seven to eight feet tall, broad chest, barrel, thick neck,
(06:27):
arms too long to belong to a human, Muscles layered
like rope under fur, a forty five gallon drum lifted
like it was nothing. He imagined what the creature might
have looked like in the moonlight, heavy shoulders, rolling with
muscle as it walked between machines. The giant forearms flexing
(06:52):
as it grasped the drum, powerful hands spanning nearly half
the lid. It's stepps would have been silent except for
the soft settling of weight on earth, its breath steaming
the cold air, its head low scanning, thinking then there
(07:14):
was nothing clumsy or accidental about it. When the crew
reached the equipment shack for lunch, they argued over what
to do. They'll laugh us out of camp. No one's
gonna believe giant footprints. I say, we'd tell Wallace that
name hung in the air. Ray Wallace was the general contractor,
(07:38):
the boss. Wallace was the kind of man who liked
jokes and told tall tales. Some said he invited chaos.
Others said he got bored too easily. If they brought
Prince to him and he dismissed them, Jerry shook his head.
(07:59):
We don't need Wallace's approval to tell the truth. But
they all know the truth wasn't the same as proof.
One man asked, what if it came back? Another pointed
toward the drum still rolled into the brush. Buddy, it
already did. The Next morning, before dawn broke, Jerry returned
(08:26):
with something new, A bucket, plaster of Paris, and stirring stick.
He'd never forgotten his father's words. Truth matters most when
nobody believes it. He mixed the plaster and poured it
gently into the largest print. The men watched in careful silence.
(08:48):
When it hardened, he lifted it. It weighed close to
twenty pounds, thick, solid, undeniable. It wasn't just a footprint anymore.
It was evidence. Jerry carried the cast to his jeep.
He set it on the passenger side and stared at it.
(09:09):
It was huge, sixteen inches long, seven inches wide. The
toes were individual. You could see skin creases, pressure ridges.
No human could fake the depth and the body weight
behind those impressions, he whispered a single sentence to himself,
(09:31):
something big walks these woods. When Jerry brought the cast
to the Humboldt Times newspaper office in Eureka, California, receptionist
Betty Allen became immediately interested. She called over the editor,
Andrew Gonzoli. Gonzoli examined the cast. This, he said, slowly,
(09:55):
is a story. The next morning, October fifth, nineteen fifty eight,
the front page headline read Bigfoot. It was the first
time that name appeared in print. Within days, the words
spread like fire. Radio shows mentioned it. People drove from
(10:17):
out of town hoping to see prints Wallace. Ever, the
showman loved the sudden attention. Tourists showed up on logging
roads just for a chance to gawk. But while reporters
debated and skeptics scoffed, Jerry couldn't stop thinking about the drums.
(10:40):
Because no pranks could do what happened next. Two nights later,
near midnight, machines parked in a neat line suddenly shifted.
One was nudged several inches enough to reveal fresh prints
that were circling around it and the drums. The drums
(11:02):
were gone, not tipped, not rolled. Gone. Two nights later,
near midnight, machines parked in a near line suddenly shifted.
One was nudged several inches enough to reveal fresh prints
circling around it and the drums. The drums were gone,
(11:26):
not tipped, not rolled, gone. Crew and the others found
them the next morning down a steep embankment, resting neatly
on their sides, as if someone had carried them down
the slope, then placed them with careful deliberate precision. One
was dented, as if something had gripped it too tight,
(11:49):
finger shaped pressure dents pressed into sheet metal. The night
was replaying in Jerry's mind. Imagine the creature in the dark,
standing beside the drum, hand curled around cold steel muscles
flexing like coiled cables, lifting hundreds of pounds, as easily
(12:15):
as a sack of grain, Descending the hillside in silence, power, balance, control.
Whatever this thing was, it wasn't just curious, It was intelligent.
One fog thick morning, while Jerry walked to check the
(12:36):
upper ridge, he felt eyes on him, not the feeling
of being watched from far off, but close. He stopped.
The forest held its breath, branches creaked under heavy weight.
Something shifted behind the screen of pines. A tall, broad
(12:58):
silhouette braced between two trunks, stood watching. He barely caught
its outline before it vanished into deeper shadow. Not a bear,
too tall, too vertical. That night, back at camp, Jerry
drew what he'd seen. Shoulders wider than a door, head
(13:23):
domed slightly forward, no neck, arms hanging past the waist,
torso thick, with layered muscle covered in dark hair. Not fur.
A worker leaned over to look. You saw it, didn't you.
Jerry hesitated, I saw something. It's eight feet tall. The
(13:49):
worker whispered, whatever made those prints is eight feet tall.
The more the press grew interested, the more skept emerged.
You got hoaxed. It's Wallace messing with you. Those prints
aren't Those prints are carved. But nothing explained the drums.
(14:12):
Nothing explained the machine movement. Nothing explained the silhouette in
the trees. Jerry finally snapped in a newspaper interview. People
can argue, Prince, they can't argue physics. What moves those drums?
Was not a prank. He wasn't chasing fame. He wanted
(14:37):
the truth accumulated so future generations would know that something
real walked the forests of northern California. Years later, skeptics
would claim Wallace faked Prince. They'd point to wood carvings,
stories from Wallace's relatives and laugh about the giant feet.
(14:59):
But that's the story fabricated decades after the events, never
addressed the facts. The cast Jerry made came before Wallace
ever knew the media was interested. The drums were moved
before Wallace even arrived. Prince had weight and depth exceeding
(15:21):
carved wooden outlines. What skeptics could never explain was force.
They never explained how a human carrying four hundred plus
pounds in uneven terrain could remain unnoticed, or why the
creature returned multiple times to examine machines, disturbed only specific
(15:45):
objects and left without damage. There was pattern in its
behavior and intelligence in its choices. Jerry Crew died in
nineteen eighty two. His original plaster casts still exist in
the Willow Creek, China Flat Museum in northern California. People
(16:10):
stand in front of them, staring at the contours, the toes,
the ridges, the arch, and the weight. You can feel it.
For decades since, people from all walks of life, loggers, hunters,
forest workers, sheriffs have come forward with the same description.
(16:35):
A massive, muscular, upbright creature covered in hair, with intelligent
eyes and unbelievable strength. The creature that lifted drums, the
creature that walked between machines, the creature that had left
footprints in the fog. Bigfoot not a myth, not a prank,
(16:59):
an under discovered primate of staggering power, And it all
began with one man on a fog heavy morning in
nineteen fifty eight, standing alongside a footprint that shouldn't have
existed at the end of his life, Jerry was asked,
(17:20):
do you believe what you saw? He smiled. My belief
never mattered, he said, that footprint mattered, and just like that,
we've reached the end of another story here on Bigfoot's Wilderness.
(17:42):
Thanks so much for listening and spending part of your
day with me out in the wild. If you enjoyed
this episode, be sure to follow the show, leave a review,
and share it with someone you know who loves a
good mystery under the stars. And before you go, remember
to check out my friend Dave over at We're Bigfoot ROMs.
(18:02):
He's got some incredible stories that will keep you looking
over your shoulder on those night hikes. Until next time,
keep your eyes open, keep your ears sharp, and remember
the wilderness has secrets.
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