Alone in Deadhead Swamp: A Michigan Hunter’s Sasquatch Story

0:00 You're listening to Bigfoot Society, and I'm Jeremiah Byron Tonight's story isn't from a camper or a curious tourist. It's from a Michigan hunter who knew every sound the woods could make until something shattered the silence. Three voices, bone chilling screams, and footprints unlike anything he'd ever seen. Alone in Deadhead Swamp, under a sky full of stars, Nate faced something ancient and it left him forever changed. This is in folklore. It's not a misidentified animal. It's a first hand account from someone who knows the forest better than most. And this is the story of Nate and the Night Michigan Swamps screened back. So stay with us. I pick the Society. I've got the privilege of talking to Nate today. Nate is a listener of the show from out there in the great state of Michigan, and he's got some interesting things to share today. He's a hunter and an outdoorsman as well. But welcome to the show today, Nate. How's it going pretty good?

0:55 Thank you for having me absolutely. You know, I always enjoy talking to those that are our hunters and outdoorsmen. You all have a very interesting way of experiencing what happened out there. And I'm just thankful for you coming on the show. So I'm going to make sure that you have the time to share what you need to today, Nate. So I'll go ahead and pass things over to you and we'll go from there. All right, Thanks, appreciate you. Ron. So I guess it goes I was. I think it was. I believe it was two thousand and one, and I would go to the Northern Lower Peninsulent Michigan and Ross Common State Game Area near Holton Lake, Ross County County. And my family we've been going there off and on for many years.

1:54 We would go there for usually rough grouse hunting and a little duck hunting and stuff like that, an occasional bull Huntingford Dear and I was there. I believe it was the first weekend. The growse season opens on September fifteenth, and so it would be the first Saturday, first week, first full weekend that was available for the open And I drove there and was there Saturday and basically spent the day walking around in the It's a I think the day the people of the neighborhood call it the dead Horse or Deadhead Swamp. It's a pretty big area, doesn't have any roads in it right there. It's kind of basically on the west side of the freeway. And I drove a few miles back in there an area where I camped. There's a clearing that I like camping, maybe two or three miles back in on the state game area. And I spent the day walking around basically just looking for birds, and it wasn't much going on.

2:59 It was a little a little dry. And I got back Saturday night, Saturday evening, and had something to eat and was just hanging out by the fire and went to bed. I was pretty tired. Probably walked six eight miles there and in the afternoon and maybe a few in the morning, probably total ten to fifteen miles circling around. So I grew up early, right before dark, and I woke up sometime in the middle of the night. Something woke me up. And I've never woke up where I like are shocked awake. I guess you could say where you get scared, like you're scared awake. I woke up something, something woke me up and spook me and I sat there and there was something screaming outside of my tent, really loud. I've been going there for a long time, been all over Michigan, but in the up all over the place. It wasn't. It was the volume on It was really loud. Is what scared me at the first, like you know, concerned me. And it was after it went on for quite some time. So as I listened to it, you know, I sat there initially you're frightened over it, you know, and then I kind of calmed down with it. While I was going to continued to scream and it wasn't. The volume was just like it was.

4:20 It was ear splitting and h The duration it was it was so long and loud like it was. I've heard you know, foxes or you know bobcats, and a fox can scare you pretty good. They make quite the noise. But this was just like whenever was young. It was too big. It couldn't. No animal that rode out of Michigan seemed like would have little lungs just the capacity to make a sound. It was that loud or that long, but it would. It screamed maybe five or six times real loud, maybe a few minutes heart and then I guess it was probably in this clearing. I mean it's maybe one hundred yards across. The woods are maybe thirty or forty yards from my tent. I got. I was up in the tent with the windows slightly open, looking out.

5:14 It was dark. I couldn't see anything, but it sounded like it was just inside the woodline for my tent. The one because it was screaming on and off, but then another one would scream. There would be a different scream that would come for maybe a one hundred and fifty yards down the woodline. This one would scream a couple of times, and like this one, the other one would answer, and you could tell because there were two different sounds. One the first one was real and it was real shrieky, like high pitched, almost like a woman's screaming, but like it would have to be a you know, it wasn't as high pitched as like let's say, like you know, like a woman screaming, but it had that shrill sound to it, and it was long and you know, very loud. And the other one would do a similar screen, but it was it sounded more more deep in tone.

6:09 They they screamed back and forth with each other for I don't know how long. I was pretty amped up in the tent and couldn't tell. You know, time probably seemed like a take forever, but you know, maybe for I'd say forty five minutes or an hour. They kind of back and forth, vocalizing like the They never really moved. But then a third one would come down to clearingum and it's probably two or three hundred yards long, and at the far end it would come back. But it sounded like it was a lot. It was a much more deeper tone. It wasn't a shrill and it was it washuge. It sounded like whatever it was. It had lungs like a horse. It was as loud as it could be, and just real, real deep tone like wall, you know, like that he would and what what it would end? It would like hubbub hop help. It would make some kind of weird like almost like gibberish at the end of it, hulhub hop this weird noise. But it would only answer periodically. So the one closest to me was screaming all it was doing the most, making the most noise, and I I was afraid to go out to I wasn't getting out of the tent. I was in there with the shot gunloaded, and like I didn't know what it was. I've heard it in the dark.

7:32 Then scared by raccoons, you know, I'll ran into a few things that this was like you could feel it and like it was. It was so loud it would make you shake, like it was. It Literally, I've never been that scared about something like that. And the one closest to me, which would make the shrieking scream for a few seconds seven eight, ten seconds maybe, and then it would stop, and the other one would answer and it would scream, and then the other the what I assume was the biggest one. It sounded like at the farthest away, he would only answer whatever. It would only make a call every every ten five ten, five six times.

8:13 These things would vote would talk to each other. Basically, it sounded like it's like they were young. Two were yelling back and forth each other, and the one at the end was telling them to be quiet. I mean, that's what it was like. He was. It was this one, you know, real loud ro you know. And uh, finally, the the one with the deep voice, it stopped. It quit making any racket. It sounded. The one closest to me would would call a little less frequently, and the second one I would say was maybe you one hundred and fifty two hundred yards away. For me, at most, it seemed like it only made a few noises and then like it cut out. And the one that was just inside the tree line for my tent, like you could almost hear it, like where it would screech, would scream, and then it would like it was losing, like like no one was answered, like it would be a little less and a little less, and finally like it just made like, oh you know, it's a little grunts and stuff, and uh, kind of just cut out and then it stopped in entirety. So they went on for quite a long time at night, and I was, I was pretty weird at all about it. I'm not gonna lie it was.

9:29 I was pretty nervous in the tent, so I got I stayed it was. I stayed up till it was broad daylight, peeking out the window, never saw anything. And then when it was daylight, I finally opened the tent and looked he run kainst it and I just literally threw everything in, pulled the palls out of my tent, threw everything on top of the tent, folded the tent up, and set it in the back of my backup, and I baled out of there and was gone, like I left. So if you drive down out of there, you go down up down the two track aways and it goes and there's a spot where it splits a big swamp before you get back to the Mellsville Road where the freeways at. I drove down that road in the swamp and I stopped and I sat there the truck and I thought for a minute, like, you know, what was that last night? Like I had no idea. I was just sitting there kind of like never heard anything like that, and AS just pretty freaked out about it. So I sit there thinking, I was like, you know, I'm like, I don't go back, and look like I'm gonna wonder forever what that was. Like, I didn't. I didn't think it was a good idea to go back. I don't know, but I sat there for a minute and thought, well, I'll go back with the truck and I'll just I'll drive back and I won't drive all the way back to my campsite. There's a you take a couple of forks and it goes through a great big clearing, and then the two track goes into the woods and then it reaches and it forks again, and then Mike, the clearing eye was in is on the left fork. So I stopped in the main larger clearing, parked my truck

10:59 turned around so it was facing back out the way I came in the field, got outloaded my shotgun, h got everything PUBB doctors on it. And I walked down the two track and I was just gonna walk down the two track back to where I was at and just nice and something. As I was walking, I was looking in the bushes. I was going real slow, almost like I was still hunting here, just trying to, you know, make sure I didn't walk in anything. I was just looking to see what was in front of me, you know, pretty nervous about it. I'm not gonna lie. And I got got down the sand and the two track, and I looked down and I saw there's like where the two track, saying the two track goes, there's basically like your two lanes where the tires of wore all of you know, the grass and the sodden stuff off, it's just sandy dirt, and then in the center there's that little bit of grass that goes the middle. There was a track and I could see there was a footprint track of something that had five toes, but I couldn't see the whole track because it had stepped down the grass and the toes were in the sand. And I looked at them, and then as I looked up, there was another one that was kind of the same way, like it was walking down the center of the two track where it was grassy, and I go, that's a big bear. Like, holy smokes, I go, that's a that's a huge bear track. I'm looking at it, you know, I got a size twell boot and like I can't.

12:22 I can only see like basic of toes where it's walking down there. But I'm looking at it. I'm like, man, moose, are you know? Round told them, I'm like, that's got to be it. I'm thinking it's a bear and a boot behind it, and it's it's substantially wide the toes everything, and I'm like, man, that's a huge bear. Paw like that's a I'm like, hey, that's a BlackBerry. He's a beast, you know, I'm thinking, like, man, there's a big bear sez. I'm walking, I'm find the trucks. They kind of go down the center of the two track. There's about five six subtracks, but I'm noticing they cut out onto the sand and they're out of the grass and they're actually in the sand. And I walk up to the one in the sand. I'm like, Okay, here's the toes everything, but there's no claws on it. And then I look up and the next there's another track in front of it, but it's floor foot farther up. So I'm like, oh, this bear is the thing. I'm thinking he's moving, so I'm looking at it. I'm looking at the track and like the track is long, so I'm looking at myself.

13:19 I'm thinking, like, you know, kyot and stuff. When they walk, they'll put their foot in the same hole almost kind it almost looks like he's walking on two feet. If he's in a little bit of snow or something like that, they step in something in the you know, this bear is hustling and he stepped in his track. When I'm looking at the track and I don't see I'm looking at the tracks going along there and I'm like, I kind of don't see a second set of toes in them. So I'm looking at the thing and I go down and there's like five six said maybe in total, let's say there was forty five or fifty tracks down the section. I could see on the two track there was quite a few tracks. But as I followed the first six eight ten, you know, they're all four or four or five foot apart, you know, it's big stride. I'm looking at them and I'm like this, yeah, I'm looking at him like they're now I'm not making sure that I don't get the like I gon't see a second bear track in them, you know, kind of like that stuff.

14:15 And I'm like, they're weird. And they get down to the last one and then all of a sudden, they're like half is long, and I can see the toes and now the stride is like six and a half seven feet maybe, you know, it's so stanch exaggerated. That's how I'm watching. And I'm like this, you know, is this bear like on a full lope going down the trail And I'm looking at it and they're short. So I follow them and they go up to where the clearing forks to go to the clearing where I was camped at. So when it forks, you only have to go a little ways and then you're into the clearing. It's you know, fifty or seventy five yard, it's not very far. When it forks left, they've they stopped at the fork. And then where they stopped there was a bunch there was six to eight tracks. But they were long. Again, they weren't they were. I could put my size twell boot in it and you know it would it would fit comfortably inside the track, no problems, inch or two on each end, and you know what would you know, heal water than mine and everything. And I was looking at it and then like I'm six to like two hundred and thirty pounds at the time I get the sand had been ringed down. It was packed down pretty tough because the tire the truck didn't leave a whole lot of tracks in it too bad, you know, wasn't that soft. And I stopped my boot next to it, and I could leave like the cleat marks in the ground.

15:37 But the track was you know, wasn't deep, but it was twice as deep as what I could stomp in the ground. With my cleats on my boots. It was pressed everyting. But the thing was is they went from these short tracks to these long tracks and then they were like kind of all pointed in different directions for a second, and I was seeing they're looking at it, and I'm like, so I walk forward and they're gone, so two around looked yeah, And I think what it did is it ran up to that dinner at fork before when I was came up, that had stopped and it stood around looking in a couple of different directions, and then it just stepped off the trail into the woods when there's some waist high brush. So I saw that and was like, I don't know, I'm I'm getting out of here. So I got loaded up, walked back, got headed back to the truck and got everything, put my stuff in the truck, and I drove out of there, and I drove home, and I you know, didn't do much think much about it till you know, I told my one buddy who I saw, and he told me I was nots like, he didn't know. He said it was just a bear or something. I said, I didn't know what it was. So that was a I was never thought about like sasquatch or anything along those lines.

16:52 Like I was just a and I was a kid, you know, I knew about something, but I was twenty five years old. Never crossed my mind once, so kind of didn't, you know, think too much about it after that. I just thought it was something weird. Told me one a couple of my buddies I hunt, you know, we hunt together with once in a while about it. Thought it was weird, and they thought it was pretty weird too, you know, didn't know what it was. Wasn't it turn into that big of a deal. So then fast forward, I know quite a few years, maybe nine ten years. I'm watching TV and the show Monster Quest comes on, of all things. So I sat down and I was watching that. They had a thing on there and they had I watched it, and there was they were talking abouts of stuff, and they had some noises on there, like the Ohio Hall and some other stuff. And then they played a clip of like I don't know if it's in the intro or it was in the episode or what of these noises that kind of caught my sore, just out of nowhere. I never done it before. I decided to go on the computer and I just literally searched like Sasqua, big foot, you know, or whatever noises and stuff like that, and the Sierra sounds came up from Ron uh Ron Morehead and uh, I clicked on those, and when I heard a couple of those sounds, I was like, WHOA, that's really similar to what I was hearing a couple of things. They're not all of them,

18:23 but just a couple of them were similar. And then I started researching some of the sounds and was like, WHOA, but what uh I thought? I was like, man, I'm like, that's that's what I heard. Like, that's if you amplified it loud as can be, because I know it probably doesn't record the same way you know, when it's when you're live. It never you know, it never sounds the same when you record it. If you heard that in real life and it was loud as I heard it, like, that would be really similar, kind of like you know, drew my interest. So I went in a deep dive on it and started looking at all the reports from the DSR website and stuff like that, and there was things around the area and I was like, man, I don't know, but I started watching. Then I started searching all kinds of stuff, everything I could find, you know, researching just anything that was gonna say squatch stuff like that.

19:15 I would look at it because I was like, man, I was like, I don't know, I don't think, well, maybe it was. And then I stumbled into an episode. I don't know what it was. It was a documentary or something with doctor Jeffrey Meldrum and he had a thing about they had a graphic of the locomotion of the foot with the mid tarsal break, and I was watching it, just sitting there watching it, and like you know, I was eating something watching it, and they showed how like the human foot steps off and leaves the pressure ridge. And then they showed how the foot lifts off and I suppose that mid tarsal break and a sasquatch and leaves that further back, further back pressure ridge. When I looked at it, and then somewhere that he said when they run, they leave a half track, and I went, holy smokes, like right there, it was like I got struck by lightning on the couch. I almost choked. And when I was eating and I went I saw a track line of something walking with a mid tarsal brake that started running, and that was the half track. Because when I saw the half tracks, all I could think was like, this bear's on two legs, running like he's not leaving it.

20:26 There's not another set of pap prints by it. So it was literally he was walking or me she, whatever it was was walking on its feet, flat footed, at a slow pace. And when it amplified the. Gate and lengthened the gate, it started. That's where it ran for one hundred yards seventy five yards. It spread it through and that's where it left the half track. It was running on the foot front floor pod its foot basically, well, that's like that's where After that, I was like, okay, I know, I'm pretty sure that's what I encountered. I didn't see anything. I only heard something, and I found that track on the ground. But the tracks had five toes in a straighter line. They were wider than my foot. They had a huge, huge eel on it. And then there was the half tracks after that where the where the stride got longer, and then when it stopped at the end of the trail, the stride was shorter for a couple of steps, and it was the whole foot on the ground. So after that, I've I've never gone back there. I've thought about it.

21:29 I've talked to some people around here, but it's not a not very easy to talk about anybody with this stuff because a lot of people thinking give you They're like, yeah, right, okay. You know, it's hard to find some people like mind that you can discuss it with, you know, without having that stigma on it. And when you can do that, I think it makes it a little easier. I'd like to I see there's more people that have had an issue, who had an experience where I was at. I wonder if this would help anybody else to let their experience be known if it was the same area, because I I found several things in that area that were alluding to something being there.

22:18 So okay, that was actually one of the questions I was going to ask you, is so you've looked into that area since then, and you've seen other people leaving reports in different areas well, just. A handful, but I found them. And I mean there's I found stuff like from uh, you know, the BNFR all reports, which is fairly decent for you know, getting information from I think, and then some other things for people. And then uh, there's a couple of uh Facebook pages where the people around there sharing it about things that have gone in Michigan, and I just kind of posted something on those just seeing if anybody would respond, how they would respond mostly you know, or if they're you know, people had had an experience like I had, just you know, it's a very vacation because anybody talked to about it.

23:08 I've got one, maybe a pair of buddies that are actually like open minded about it, Like they're coon raccoon hunters by trade, you know, by you know, family was and stuff like that, and they hunt and like I would stuff up northeast too, and they've had experiences that they can't explain noises and stuff like that, and they're they're open minded to it, so they can discuss them. But most people they're pretty pretty closed minded to it. So it's it's tough. So I've found a couple of people on Facebook pages that have had a similar experience in the same area. And uh, I did find that, uh, if I can say his name, mister Politis, Dave Politis.

23:51 He does the missing for one one, he has one about missing persons in Michigan in the National Forest and there's a missing hunt that was lost in the rostam And State gaar Ma area. They found his car with I think the door open and nothing taken out of it. And that's less than one hundred yards from where I camp, and I think it was in like the same timeframe. Oh wow, Yeah, it was pretty wild. I just like I want. I watched David Politis and stuff, and I really enjoy it. He has a pretty you know interesting uh my documentary's on YouTube there that he does and you know, posting up the different ideas. And that one had caught my attention because it was from Michigan, and I know about the Promena National Force and all that and how many people go missing stuff, And that one struck me because as I was reading it and he was explaining it it, I'm pretty sure that I know exactly where that car was parked and it was probably less than one hundred yards from where I camp. He went missing if it was the same year I was there.

24:51 He went missing a month later. M wow. So I found that to be pretty s strange. Yeah, that kind of stuff really makes makes you wonder. And I was also looking through the BFRO website in the same county, and I mean I'm seeing at least one class a group of teenagers had a visual near Houghton Lake. This is back in nineteen eighty four, which I thought was very interesting as well. Yeah, that whole if you go there from Holton Lake and you go eastward and north through like Roscommon County, Ogoma County, Oscota County all in there, and through that through that par National Force, there's there's something to do with that part of the National Force in the swamp land.

25:45 Everything goes through there. That seems to be pretty busy. Eight s in Logoma County alone. Oh yeah, Yeah. The people that you were, I think you said you were talking to them, and these these Facebook groups, did they also hear similar things to what you heard out there? I yes, they said they had. One guy was a ball hunter, said that he lives not too far from there and his hand he hunted there for like mind, my family had duck hunted there for shoot twenty years, you know, and I go the second week in October up there for a weekend and dot hunting. Then, you know, it was kind of an annual thing. Then we stopped doing that a few years ago when the drought came in and it kind of lowered the swamp levels with the water and the ducks, did he cease to migrate there.

26:33 So it kind of a one So I would just go there bird hunting because it would start in September and the weather would be real nice, and it was a good go camp and go walk around. And it was a spot where you know, there was no roads to really access it, so you never ran into anybody. It was real quiet. It's a It's one of those places when you get into it, like you can get turned around real easy and lost and a lot of It's kind of my one buddy that came with me the one year he said, he goes, I won't go back because that place is too creepy for me. It's big. If there's some big old trees in there and some swamps and he can get terribund I gets some of I get what he means by it, but it's not a I've been going. I've been there a bit quite a bit. Sound was comfortable. That was his first trip. He didn't like slogging through the brush. A couple of people I've talked on Facebook that have spent time there and the one, the one gentleman said that he had had enough experiences there they don't go back. Oh wow, that's what I believe, he said. I had a pretty long chat with him on Facebook there back and forth about it, and he said he would be willing to go back there. People wanted to go, but he said he hasn't been back there hunting in years because it was I don't think they saw anything, but they said there was activity that made him nervous.

27:45 Yeah, okay, got you. Just if people were wanting to check it out, he would go back, but he's not going to go hunting back there a type deal. Yeah, I don't think he would go by himself. Yeah, I'd be willing to maybe go back by myself, but I don't. I think it'd be better two. People, especially in an area where I mean, you've you've got a documented a missing person situation like you had mentioned exactly. What I was thinking before. I probably would have been up to like three years. I've been like I did go back and just go hang out, and I'm like, well, what's you know, it was twenty five years ago. I don't even know if they may have you know, forested part of it. Harvest ed some of the trees off it.

28:26 You know, when I was there, they hadn't they had harvested trees on it, but it was all new growth. They hadn't done anything there. So I don't know, Like I said, I haven't been back there to scout it to you and see if they're like, oh, wow, they stripped a lot of the forest off it, and it's growing back, you know, new growth. You know, a lot of it was it was you know, pretty wooded. There wasn't there wasn't much of it that had been cut. So I don't know if this is something you'd ever thought of before. But when you went back to look at the area again and you saw the tracks, have you ever thought about what you would have done if you actually had had like a face to face or visual sighting during that time.

29:14 And I think about it probably every day. Yeah, like you said, I don't know. I suppose you know, it's like you run into a bear. You don't do anything, you know, standard ground face something, you back away. It's a black Beerry act. Big. I think I've I don't know if Yeah, I don't. I guess it depends what kind of mood would be in. You know, if a grizzly is trying to eat you, what do you gotta do? You play dead? Black bear is gonna eat you, gotta fight back. I don't, I honestly don't know what you would do. Like that's a whole different deal. Like if it just showed up and was there, like, man, I'd be nothing more than like I don't think you'd be. I don't think you can get a picture of it. I don't think you can record it. It has to like it has to be.

30:00 I don't think you could get If I had a camera with me, I would have took pictures of the track. I didn't. It was before I don't even think we had flip phones yet. That was like we had the push button push to talk, next cell phones, the yellow brick you could stick under your car tire keep it from rolling away, right, you know, So there was Yeah, there was no like that. And I get anno anything. And the same thing I said. I was in the you know Bigfoot when I was a little kid, you know, six seven, eight years old of us remember reading the books out of the library and Bigfoot and NeSSI and like I never read anything like now it's like, I'm like, I'm like a sponge with it. I go to I'm on Amazon. I have John Green's books, you know the Ages among us. I've read Roger Ivan san Anderson's books, book, John Bender, Naggles anything Jeffrey nlgrum does. I follow up on now And it's like, my wife thinks I'm nuts, Like my wife doesn't. I've never said a word to this about my wife. What's actually happened? You know what I had happened to her? I experienced, you know, it makes you know she just thinks I'm like a big foot, not like I just like to watch Monster questions. She's not a skeptic, She's like, she's not I think yourself proclaimed things. She's like, I don't know why I know so much about Giganna Panthecus. It's probably because you watch so much TV with Bigfoot.

31:12 In it that that probably has something to do with it. Have you ever considered to share that story with her? Yeah, she's not. It's not I don't know how receptive she is to it. Like, it's kind of like, my wife's got a pretty sharp wit. She'd probably chew me up. You know, some things are better left un said, I don't know, I would share it with her. I'm not scared too, but it's like I've never brought up. It's kind of those things like I told said something. I got a couple, Like I said, I have a couple buddies that are, you know, receptive to the whole thing, like they have had experience and stuff that they don't know, and you know, they they question it best. And it's the other people I've told her, like, man, you're you're loony to what are you get out of here? Like, yeah, sure, you know the easter bunny sits on my torch kind of thing, you know.

32:03 Yeah, I get that stuff. The persuasion that there's one big foot. You saw the only big foot that wanders around it's one monster. I'm like, I'm kind of lean into the thing like Meldrum and them guys are John vnder Naugle talks about like it's an extant species. Right. Yeah, No, I'm right there with you. I mean I get I get some weird looks when people ask me what I do so, but you know, I don't care. If I'm getting to that point though, I'm getting old enough in my life that I've got to the point like I don't I give you a stinky if you don't, you don't think that I'm telling you. You know, I believe I didn't say I saw, and I just said I found some footprints and something was making racket that I can't explain. I take that position like less Stroud does.

32:47 Right, Yeah, absolutely, you know, like. Jeff Meldrum, I'm not a believer, but I'm convinced there's something to it. Mm hmmmm. Have you ever considered or has it ever crossed your mind to go out on a like type of expedition type thing with other people to see if you can find evidence or is that align that you're comfortable not crossing. Being a hunter like I am and stuff Like I'm not much of a hunter anymore. When I was younger, I was pretty gung ho, you know. I Like, I wasn't much for killing animals duringthing there, but I liked that the whole aspect of the thing, like, you know the challenge of being out and you know, getting out, getting back, you know, being out there, Like if I harvested an animal that was just icing on the cake, I didn't care if I you know, you know, it managed to harvest anything. But I was there for the experienced kind of stuff, you know. But on the way I've learned how to like learn how to operate around animals here, you know, so they don't you know, they don't find it. You have to be a predator and like I don't, I don't know, like do you take you know, if it's like ben and on them say it's a it's a higher primeat or a hominid and it's got intelligence, it's you know, it's not on par with the human being, but it's not a chimpanzee where it's got the ability to cognitive ability to be like I have to hide or you know, bad things will happen to me. It's not like you're hunting a deer or doing anything like that. So just going out in the group or just acting benign and making some racket and banging on trees. I mean, did they come in and check you out to be like all these people

34:18 aren't doing anything, you know, let's go see what they're up to. Does that work? Or you know, I'm the aspect where it's like you got to be two people and just go do your own thing and let them find you. Maybe I don't know, like, and I think an expedition would be interesting. I've never been on one, you know, I'd like to see how it works. I know some people have seemed to say that it works for them, you know, and stuff like that, but I would. I'm open minded just about anything. I think if you're not, you're doing yourself a disservice exactly. You know, you have to. Yeah, if you're at the if you're at the point where you hear people's stuff and you just discounting it because it doesn't line up with what you hold, yeah, you're you're putting yourself in a bad situation.

35:10 This. Yeah, you got to be aware of what's being reported, even if it doesn't line up with your stuff. But yeah, Nate, I mean, I thank you so much for coming forward sharing what you experienced that day and that night in the rest of Ross Common, Michigan area. It's just, you know, I almost like some people consider them I think class be encounters. But you know, sometimes those are even more interesting or as interesting I think than you know, if you've had a visual But I just want to say thank you for coming on the show. It's been a pleasure talking to you today. I just wanted to make sure there was there wasn't anything else that you wanted to to share before we end out our time.

36:01 No, I'm good. I appreciate you having give me in a forum here. I can you know, talk about this, you know, without having a feeling like I'm being going to be ostracized by the end of it. You know, you always have that. You know, you're kind of afraid to tell the whole thing because somebody's gonna be dealing like, oh yeah whatever, you do a huge eye roll. But it's just nice to you know, with like minded people that are have an interest in, like, you know, whether or not this is real kind of stuff for nothing, it's a good thing. I like it absolutely. That's why we do it. That's why I do it so that people have a place to share and not have to be scared. And yeah, feel free to pass on my info to anyone you've been talking to and wants an area to share as well.

36:45 You feel free to share my email or whatever you'd like. But thanks again Nate for coming on the show, and appreciate you chatting today. Yeah, no problem, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you truly for listening to this episode of the Big For Society podcast. Nate's story is one of those encounters that stays with you, not just because of what he heard in the dark, but because of how deeply it shook a lifelong hunter to his core. So huge thanks to Nate for bravely sharing his experience from Rosscommon County and reminding us all that sometimes the wilderness is wilder than we can imagine. If you enjoy this conversation, please subscribe to us on YouTube, hit the bell so you don't miss future episodes, and share this one with a friend who loves a good mystery. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, make sure you're following the show and if you'd be willing to leave a review, it really helps more people find us. And if you or someone you know has had a big Foot encounter, especially in Michigan around places like Counton Lake or Rosscommon County, I'd love to hear from you, so email me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. And also, don't forget Sasquatch Summerfest is coming up July eleventh through the twelfth at Greenwaters Park in Oakridge, Oregon. Big for Society listeners can snag a two day pass for the price of a one day admission with code BFS at checkout. So get your tickets now at www Dot Sasquatch Summerfest dot com.

38:07 So thanks again for being part of the Big for Society. Until next time, trust your gut, keep your head on a swivel, and keep your eyes open for what might be calling. And see you in the woods.