Hikers Encounter Rock Throws and Massive Tracks in Indiana’s Morgan-Monroe Forest

0:00 You're listening to BIGFA Society, and I'm Jeremiah Byron. In this show, we go beyond the campfire stories to bring you first hand encounters from people who say they've seen something impossible. From backwoods trails and remote mountain haulers to quiet farms and crowded highways. The stories come from everywhere, and each one leaves us with more questions than answers. These are the voices of the people who've lived it. To settle in, because today you'll hear another account that just might change the way you see the woods forever. So stay with us, all right, pick the Society. I've got the privilege of talking to a new friend, Chris from Indiana area. That's where he's been having some interesting things going on out there. Chris is an herbalist and also an outdoors man, so he's getting into the state parks out there in the state of Indiana and has had some interesting things happened. So welcome to the show, Chris.

0:53 How are you doing today, sir. Absolutely gift, Thanks you brother. Everything has been wonderful today. Just soaking up this unused, really unseasonably warm weather here for us in the Midwest. Man. So yeah, just getting out there, getting the boots on the ground, and there was some good hiking, harvesting up some late season medicines and uh yeah, just so overall enjoying, enjoying. Life right now. Man, it's really been an adventure over the past year. I love that such a such a great outlook. I mean, it has been a really nice time in the in the Midwest actually, and we're just. About to get into the winter. I think we're gonna get some snow maybe later this week, but we'll see what that brings for you. But uh, you know, Chris, uh, you mentioned when you signed up some really interesting areas in Indiana that I've been to myself and have come up on the show lately. So I'm I'm really interested to hear what you have been experiencing in these areas when you're out, you know, trying to find herbs and and just enjoying the outdoors. So you know, feel free to to take us back when really this journey started for you when it started intersecting with Bigfoot right on?

2:03 Man, Well, you know, according to myself, I've always been an avid fan of the Bigfoot or sasquats phenomenon. If you would say, I've had a few paranormal experiences in my lifetime. Growing up, I lived in I guess what you would call a haunted house for a period of my life. I've never had any experiences with myself, but a lot of activity was centered around my bedroom and stuff like that. So anyways, you know, I've always just been an avid outdoorsman. I like to fish a lot, used to hunt back in the day as well, and I just like to get out on the parks and really just forged for the different mushrooms and the different medicines. I'm really really well cultured. I've done some traveling in my time. Twenty eleven, I went to college in North Miami, Florida, Johnson and Wills University for colin the re Arts. So I'm kind of a big steer away from where I'm at in.

2:55 My life now. But you know, I was down in Miami for some time. Southern California, Washington State. My aunts and my uncle they stay up in the Tri Cities area right outside of Kennewick, So you know, I spent some time up there, and then I also spent some time in Alaska. I spent about a six or seven month stint in Alaska. I worked on the docks out there, so that was a really wonderful experience as well. And then you know, somehow somewhere I found myself back to the Midwest here in the good old Gary, Indiana. That's where I reside at the moment. I'm kind of I'm kind of a region nights. I grew up in the region around here in northwest Indiana, so this is kind of my dwellings, and I guess when it comes to the sasquats phenomena around here, I really didn't think that it was, you know, possible for something to exist around here. But I have come across some recent information about Indiana Dunes National Park, which just got the term Dean National Park as of the past two years. So Indiana Dunes National Park supposedly has a couple of sightings and or experiences when it comes to footprints and tree structures and stuff like that. I myself have not encountered anything out there, but nonetheless, I still find it interesting that, you know, this part of the state, I guess, from Porter County, Lake County into Laporte County and pushing further towards South Bend or even the new Buffalo just down the Michigan Indiana line tends to award some pretty good activity up that way as of recent So yeah, man, that's pretty much how I got started

4:26 into all this was just by being I guess a fan of it and then having some experiences later in my life. It was extremely interesting to hear about Indiana Dune State Park. You know, if you look on a map that we were talking about about the Big for Society map earlier before we started, and it was nice to hear from someone that they use it and they enjoy it. So I appreciate, As I said, I appreciate that. But it does make sense because I do have some reports I've taken from southern Chicago, and then you've got the Maynistee National Forest over in Michigan, so it makes sense that there could be that little corridor going around the bottom of Lake Michigan, and Indiana Dunes State Park would put that right there. So are these friends that you've heard this information from or where have you been hearing this from?

5:20 This is stuff that I've seen on and I take everything with the grant. As you know, I try to keep a very open mind and open perspective, especially to people's word and things that you read on the Internet nowadays. So this, this particular one came from Reddit. A guy was talking about he was hiking off trail, you know, and I came across this while I was searching for primitive camp sites down to Morgan Monroe State Forest. So that's how I came came across this information about the footprints found in the nation in the Indiana Dunes National Park. So Reddit was a provider of that for me. A guy was hiking off trail and one of the trails down there in the National Park and came across some pretty good sized foot prints in sort of like the bogy areas that could come up within the Sandy Dunes and stuff like that. So somebody found that they're supposed to be along with some three structures.

6:14 But what makes me, you know, just kind of. Hesitant or skeptical to to give a thumbs up to reports coming out of Indiana Dudes National Park is that, you know, there's a lot of pranksters in the world. And I remember a few years ago when the When Defining Bigfoot Show came out, they did an episode up here in the Indiana dudes, National Park, and I remember the video that came out, and it just looked like some guy was scaring his kids out in the woods. His children were in the car, and the family or the mother whoever was in the car with the kids was like, oh, look there it is off off in the wood lines, and it just looked like some guy, you know, rocking back and forth and maybe one of the generic monkey shoots and stuff like that. So, you know, people say that it was credible, but if he us, if if you're a very discernful person, you know, you're I think you'll be able to decipher a lot of facts from fiction out there and keeping open mind as well.

7:03 But nonetheless, that's. That's why I'm hesitant to really give a thumbs up, even though as of let me see, I went out hiking yesterday with the bresident of mine right over here in an offshoot of the National Parks. So the National Park is in a place called Chesterton, Indiana, and where we were hiking was a place called Porter, Indiana, which is just before that, and there's a there's a ranger station right there, and we usually find a lot of mushrooms out there. We find huge bounties of Chicken of the Woods and Hand of the Woods and just a lot of good stuff over there overall. But we were hiking on one of the branches of the Calumet Trail out there, and it runs right along the Calumet River, and we came to a portion, I'm kind of in the backwoods parts of it, where there was a maybe about a twelve to fifteen foot tree. It looked kind of old, but it still had flexibility to it, and it looked like it was bent over in the art shape right, and I believe the arts was about eight foot across is what we had measured it at, about eight foot arch that that there was. And what was very interesting which made us really look I guess a little more specific at this this tree arch was that there was like a fork in the tree, right, like a y, and the top portion of it was tucked into this other tree that so if you can imagine a field goal, right, it was it was tucked into there where the bottom branch was bent towards the ground and the other part was there bracing it in between, like a little notch in the tree, right. And that's

8:35 what really, you know, kind of floored us, and we were just very excited to find something like that. Although we don't jump to conclusion all the time, it was just nice to see some anomalous things out in the bush like that, and that was really well. We did come across what appeared to be some type of footprints, but it's it's kind of hard to discern that in some of the boggy swampier areas along the Calumet River. Right there, we found what appeared to be two of them pretty large. We didn't take measurements of them because they was just a little bit, you know, not so profound, But nonetheless, it was still interesting to see that stuff out there. And what I'd like to give thanks for you.

9:17 And what you what I found, you know, listening through this show is that you know, there. Seems to be times where you don't see anything when you're not aware of this subject, you know what I mean. But but the moment you become aware of the different findings or what to look for in the bush, I guess I would say, is when you really start to see these things that should be so evident to us, you know, I mean, some of these these things have been right in front of us and we just we just ignore them, maybe because our mind doesn't want to accept them or deal with it, or because we just don't have a frame of reference, right, you know, we see a ben tree and we think, you know, somebody was hanging on the tree or something. You know, that's just the the the average response or the average stuff. But it's just very interesting.

9:58 And I give thanks for for guys like yourself providing a platform that's allowing this information, and I guess you call it evidence to be put out there for us to utilize when we go out into the bush. You know, I'm never actively I was never actively looking for this stuff until recently, until I have my accounts, But I'm just being out there now. I know the things to look for, and I know not to jump to conclusion right away because usually there's there's a natural explanation for things, right you know, ninety percent of the time, you know, according to me, there is a natural explanation for things. But then that ten percent is that realm of the unknown, and we always got to keep an open mind. Man. Oh, I agree with you, and first thank you for the kind words and also the how you explained that that that tree being held down I've seen that in Oregon out in the willam At National Forest Wow in the Oakridge area around Oakridge. And when you see stuff like that at it really makes you take notice because that that didn't just happen by itself. I mean, something was like, all right, hold this down, you know, that's that's how it works. And this area of the Indiana Dunes.

11:15 Have you talked to the rangers at all? You were mentioning that there are some some rangers in that park. Yeah. Absolutely, I haven't spoken to any rangers, just because I don't know, at least for me, they don't seem like the type of people that you know, would be so inclined to speak about this stuff. Usually they're they're more research and science space. You know. If you brought some of the I guess you would call it the woof stuff up to them, you know. I don't think that they would acknowledge it. But I'll take your advice if that's what you're giving to go ahead and talk with some of these rangers out there as I cross paths with them in the near future. Well, you know, and it's something where you can take it a few ways, where you can jump right into the Hey, you seem bigfoot around here? If if you if you're wanting to go down that road or an other way to do that is like, hey, have you seen anything weird around here? Like I've been noticing some things out in the woods. Has anyone else or have you guys seen stuff like that? Sometimes that approach can can lead to some interesting conversations. It has for me out in the Pacific Northwest, out in the Midwest I'm in Iowa, not a lot, but it's always worth checking. Actually, no, I take that back. It does work.

12:27 I just can't really say where it does work though, do it. Anyways? So you mentioned an area that's come up a few different times lately, Morgan Monroe State Park, and there has been a lot of activity reported. I mean just to me. Down in that area, and this is south of Indianapolis. I mean, because you've got Yellowood State Forests, Morgan Monroe, and then what's together in Brown County State Park. I believe all of those areas are having activity.

13:10 Currently. So you had some experiences down there in Morgan Monroe. I've been excited to share this one as it's a very recent encounter. It happened, it happened I shouldn't say encounter, I should say experienced rather. But this happened back on October seventeenth and eighteenth. So I went with three friends of mine, excuse me, two friends of mine, my friend Would and our lady friend joh And we went down on October the seventeenth. We left in the morning time to head down to Morgan Monroe State Forest. We were gonna go scout it out and figure out. I went down on October seventeenth and eighteenth and left the nineteenth. This was the weekend of October seventeen, eighteenth and nineteenth that I just said. But I went down there with two friends of mine, my friend Would and my friend joh. And you know, I always like to when I go play.

14:00 Now that I'm a little bit more inclined to be looking for the sasquatch phenomena, if you would say, I'm more inclined to bring some spiritual. People as I don't know if you want. To call it bait or placebo or maybe some type of attraction, but I just think that's the anty, you know what I mean. So, yeah, we went down there on October seventeenth, and you know, it was the first time we ever been to a big state force like this or anywhere past the Indianapolis to do some hiking or camping. So got down there on the seventeenth in the. Afternoon about one two o'clock. We scouted it out. We figured that we were gonna wind up camping at Mason Ridge Campground, which is just before Scout Ridge. Now I heard scout Ridge Campground. I think it was from episode nine fifty three of The Guy in Indiana. He was talking about some of the spots in Morgan Monroe and that maybe he had a friend of his that would frequent back to scout Ridge. Because of the amount of activity, it's a little more secluded, it seems to be I guess what they call like a scout camp or boys camp or something like that, where they got pavilion, maybe some picnic benches and stuff. It's a little bit more set up. Nonetheless, we wound up setting up at Mason Ridge Campground. I was pretty sparse out that day.

15:13 There was maybe about six other campers throughout the camp ground. And yeah, we set up. Camp and uh, you know, did a little bit of hiking around the Cherry Lake area, found some nice gields. I actually got a nice little yield right here. This is a nice quartz crystal right here. Nice yeah, warts nice. Yeah, absolutely a nice milky quartz. So nonetheless beautiful find out there. Supposing you could find other gemstones and uh, I guess the nice correlation, I guess I would put with the with the sasquats phenomena. Is that or even just paranormal? In general? It seems like where there's heightened quartz deposits or mineral deposit there seems to be a lot more activity. Am I right? Yeah? Oh you're one hundred percent right, my man. Yep, you got it, Chris.

15:56 Right on. So yeah, we found these right off a little gully next to our campground and Mason Ridge. So anyways, we. Decided to do that hiking at Cherry Lake, and we didn't notice anything anomalous out there. I was just pretty cool to get out in such a vast area, you know what I mean, such a desolate place where you spark, you very very rarely encounter people, especially if you're on the on the the outskirts outskirts of the trail, or if you're just on some of the some of the more outback trails, or I guess they call them backcountry. So we didn't experience anything that first day really compelling. But at nighttime we did do a night hike, right so me and my guy would we did a night hike on the back end of the Mason Ridge Campground.

16:38 There's like a little I don't know if it's a fire trail or a trail that just goes off a hunter's trail maybe, but it goes off for some miles and we didn't try out the whole thing. We went about a half a mile in as it was dark and stuff like that. It was getting pretty late, it's probably about eleven or twelve o'clock, and you know, we heard some some bardials and stuff like that. And sometimes I guess in the fall time you get a little bit spooked when you when you hear like, uh, the squirrels and the raccoons and stuff hopping around. I remember we clicked out our red lights at one time and we had some eyes shine right in front of us, and we both jumped and we jumped on, you know, to the regular light and there was a possum hanging from the trees. So it goes to show you that you'll definitely see some animals out there, but you won't see them as frequently as you would think, you know. I guess a misconception that people think about Indiana or just being in the woods in general, is that anywhere you go, you're you're automatically going to see wildlife. And that was the exact opposite for being down at Morgan and Road. We've seen the occasional bird, but we rarely seen squirrels, We rarely seen raccoons, no deer, that one particular possum. So it's very very quiet and desolate out there, and it was just interesting to feel that difference in location as compared to where I'm at up here by the dunes.

17:56 You know. So anyways, the first day didn't award anything, but we decided to hike to Pray the Lake because I heard once again on Bigfoot Society, one of the earlier podcasts, that there was a gentleman that was doing some camping or some frequenting through Morgan and Road, and he brought up Prey the Lake and how it was a lost or a hidden lake that's just way back in the bush, and you know, you could see when you hike the trail to get there, you can see why, you know, it's so desolate. But we decided to hike that one on Saturday, was October the eighteenth, and we got up there about eleven thirty in the afternoon, and we drove down this road called Rosenbomb Road. You got to drive down this old.

18:39 Gravel road, and I had to drop my Trailblazer in the four wheel drive because there was some treacherous roads right there. Right, so we're going down some steep inclines and stuff, and we wound up traveling down Rosenbomb Road, made it to the old fire road that was fortunately open at this time of year, usually closed, but we were fortunate to find it open. And so we traveled up that road into this park lot. Right. So there's this gravel parking lot. After you get up in there, and nobody was Nobody was there when we pulled in right there was no there was no trucks, no cars, no signs of anybody being in there. But what I found interesting, man, was that there was this log set up just off to the side of the parking lot, maybe a fallen deadwood or something like that, and there was four apples lighted up on the log. So I don't know if people were doing some gifting or something like that up there in this particular parking lot at the Pray through Lake trail.

19:33 But we decided to, you know, leave a couple of things as well. I left some small jade beads green jade's from a brace of the mind that I left inside of this little notch or this little hole that came off from a branch of the tree. Never got back to the parking lot to check check that out, but I'm planning to go back here in the wintertime to investigate some more. So. Anyways, we started hiking this trail that we thought was the trail to pray the lake, right. Obviously, we took the wrong trail. We were supposed to go through the gated spot. And I'm giving this information I'm making in public so that people, you know, don't get lost and have to go through the back country like we did. But make sure you go through the gate that's blocking the road. Uh, that's a one mile trot all the way down the Freighter Lake, and that's the way you want to go.

20:18 We wound up taking a. Trail right off of the parking lot and we started hiking in and it was just beautiful everything just opened up, beautiful canopy. It was the fall time, so the colors were starting to change and really pop. And like I said, very quiet out there. And we wound up getting about maybe a little less than a quarter mile in right and just to the right of the trail, now we came across this very anomalist what looked like a tree structure, or what they call a tree structure. So it was it looked it looked like a bunch. Of trees just forming intersecting cross sections or exits within the tree right off of the trail. And some of these trees, some of these logs were were pretty thick. Maybe maybe I don't know, I'm trying to think of maybe a good measurement for it, maybe between six and ten inches, where I guess ten would be the maximum for the the circumpass of the tree trunk. But nonetheless they were they were stashed in some of these looks and crannies of the tree that just it looked like you had to force these trees in there, or you had to maneuver them or positioned in some type of way to get them into these particular spots. And you know, I try, like I said, I always tried to be the man that's going to rationalize something. There's a rational explanation for everything, right, you know, maybe this is not a street trucks here. Let's try to eliminate the obvious.

21:34 And so some of these trees appeared to the you know, from death saw that were taken from another area. They didn't come from any of the surrounding trees, didn't look like they broke off of any trees above us or around us. So it's just very anomalous. Man, and it was right right on the edge of this ridge because on the on the other side of the trail, it just went down, you know, So that was very anomalist that we've seen as well. We didn't feel creeped out or anything like that. We just investigated and tried to rationalize the best we could. So we continue to trod, and you know, it started getting like an hour hour and a half into the trod and we're like, damn, where's the where's the lake? Man? You know, this is called Last Lake or Hitting Lakes for a reason. We can't find it.

22:14 So we wound up getting to the end of this trail and. It it branched off into two ways. There's a tree stand. There's a tree stand this for anybody who goes down this particular road. There's a tree stand off to your left. When you come to the fork in the trail, you can go left, which looks like it's maybe a logging road if you would call it that, or some type of service road where people are coming up to log because Morgan Road National State Forest is a place where people can gather permits to come log it, right, you know, it's a logging force, so you can go in there and cut your own trees for whatever purpose. So we came into this clearing right at this fork off to the right of the trail. That was a bunch of cut trees, you know. So we had we had to hike through this rugged terrain and all these fallen trees and such to start getting back to somewhat of a path towards the lake. And fortunately I was able to showcase my navigating skills man and get us there without a map and stuff like that, just being able to use some intuition and some I guess navigating skills through the bush get us to the lake. But on the trout there, there's such changes in elevation. We're going up and down and it's very rugged. If you've been out there, jeremih, I'm sure you know how rugged the terrain could be out there on some of these trails. You know, it's a lot of ups and downs and there's a lot of rough terrain. So we wound up coming down this I guess logging trail where it was marked by these pink flagsticks, and we started winding through this and it didn't really lead us anywhere except for down into this gully where it looks like they might have been doing some logging a while back. And I came across something weird.

23:46 I guess you can kind of attribute it to human activity. But there was this turtle show that was just sitting on top of this log. And it wasn't like the turtle was was just gutted out to where the whole shell was still intacted. It was just the top part of the shell. It looked like. Something had maybe ripped the bottom portion of it off or something. But it was sitting on top of this huge tree stuff. Man, this huge tree summer was just sitting right on top and I didn't really know what to make of it, Like I said, I didn't feel anything weird, any weird feelings. The forest didn't go silent or anything like that. But it was just one of those another anomalous things to log in the book of Happenings. Right, absolutely, right, absolutely.

24:28 It was very very strange, kind of out of place. So whatever you want to attribute that to, so be it. But we continued back back on the troad and just pushed our way through the bush and finally made it down to the old tray through lake, the Hidden Lake or the Lost Lake Man. It was just a very beautiful spot to see. We came in from the backside of it, because we had the trod, you know, a mile and a half two miles from from the back country where we got off trail, if you want to call it, and it was just a beautiful view from that backside. It really brought me back to the the the gentleman that was telling the story about he was down there with his children, uh, and they had a dog down there or something like that, and they trotted in from the fire road and I guess they were doing some fishing or something like that, and they heard what they thought was tree.

25:15 Knocks and some other strange things happening. It really spooked him and they wanted I guess the dog maybe you remember in the story, but the dog took off. They had a little small dog. The dog took off and I was like scouting the bush and stuff like that, and came running back, yipping and was hiding, you know, in between the guy's legs and stuff like that. So it was a very interesting encounter by this gentleman and his youth. And we just happened to be on the opposite side of the lake from where from where they were, and on that side of the lake that he was on, I mean, the ridges just go straight up as soon as soon as you get you know, if if we were to cross the lake and get right to that ridge and just go straight up. So it's very steep terrain right there. And on the side that we were coming in from, it was pretty flat, a little bit boggy and stuff like that. And we didn't notice anything anomalous over there.

26:02 We just we checked it out. Starting to get about uh you know, one thirty forty five pushing two o'clock. Uh, we had we were anticipating some thunderstorms coming in that week, so we decided, uh yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll try it around and harvest uff some some some different herbs that we were finding around the way, some good medicines. So we wound up calling it an early day trodding back up that fire trail. We found it, fortunately, and we started trotting back up that trail. Really rough terrain getting out of there. So we started trotting back and it got to be about about two thirty in the excuse me, two thirty in the afternoon, and it was kind of overcast, guys, you know, a little bit of sunlight peeking through, very still outside. There wasn't there wasn't much wind activity, uh, nor animal activity either. And it's about two thirty and we tried at about three quarters of the mile back, uh, checked the checked the phone. We got about twenty minute.

26:57 Tried to the parking lot, back to the parking lot there and we come out of the canopy right so the canopy is all the trees covering us. And we finally come out of the canopy to where the trees let up. And we've been hearing you know, squirrels and stuff throughout the day. Were really getting our ears in tunes for the sounds of the bush right, you know, so that we're not mistaken for certain things. So we were familiar with the squirrel sounds. Black wallnuts are falling all the time at this time of year, so we're just constantly hearing them fall and. Hitting leaves and hitting hitting the woods and. Stuff like that, so you could kind of pick out the sounds and know what is sounding like when these things occur. We come out of this canopy mountain. Just off to the left of us, there's a grassy berm, and then on the other side of the burn it goes straight down into you know, the bush one of those cliffs again. And as soon as we walked out of that, man, we're very quiet. We're not expecting anything.

27:48 We're coming to the end of our triad, you know what I mean, and we're just looking to get out of there and go set spark of fire. And have some dinner. And all of a sudden, man, you could hear what sounded like a rock, man, And I'm thinking maybe about this size. That's why I brought this thing up here for reference. We didn't see a rock as we didn't stick around long enough, but something maybe this size. Man. I don't know if you say, this is about softball size, right, So something about softball size, right. What sounded like came through the tall grass. And if you've ever thrown. Something a ball or a rock, or if you if you've ever heard something go through the dead tall grass, the brown grass, right, it makes a particular noise, almost like a shimmering noise, like a sh you know, going through the bush right there. And something came through there. Man, it sounded like it was airborne, right, and came through there at what I estimated was I guess would be off to my eight to nine o'clock position, so off to my left side, came from my eight to nine o'clock position, potentially over that ridge. But it came through the tall grass and hit another rock. And that is that sounded so familiar, you know, I mean rocks plaquing together is a very a particular sound.

29:01 That stands out, man. And if that's what it. Was, it came through the bush and it hit the rock, and it startled all of us. I didn't, And so me being who I am, I don't want to spook to people behind me. I don't want to be the placebo that's going to get somebody to answer. The same way I answered based upon my perspective, right, So I look back at them, and everybody's like, dah, did you guys hear that? And we stayed quiet. We was kind of whispering when we said it, but yeah, did you guys hear that? And we all stook our head. Yeah. And they originally said it sounded like sounded like a rock hitting. A rock, and automatically a click with my head because that was my immediate inference, and so we stopped. We listened.

29:43 We didn't hear any motion. Immediately, I'm looking up. I'm thinking, man, this has to be a black wall. Nup, this has to be a tree limb breaking off or something like that. Something rational. Man. Maybe maybe something shifted in the sand, maybe a squirrel kicked something, but this sounded like something that something had to have had thumbs to throw something. You know, I'm pretty like I said, I'm I'm very rational, guys, So I'm not looking to automatically say something is is woo or something is of paranormal. I'm looking for the rational explanation, and that I could not find in the moment. There was no black walnut trees that on top of us. I don't think a squirrel would have would have threw a black walnut at me, nor threw a black walnut in general, and who.

30:25 Would have thrown the rock. I mean, this soil has maybe smaller rocks in it's kind of like your harder play soil and stuff like that. There's a little bit of leaf litter on the ground as well, but we weren't seeing large rocks like that. Even trotting through the through the through the back country like that, there was no large rocks or anything. So we we stopped for a second. We paused for about two minutes, didn't hear anything, and we slowly creaked around. I was in the in the front of the in the front of. The pack, right, so I slowly trotted around, went up, kind of did a little curve off to the left to about ten o'clock position, right around the backside of that burn. And didn't see anything. And me just listening to you know the podcasts in the past, people are always talking about, you know, the spider position, right, things are crawling and stuff like that, and you know, we're never looking.

31:16 At the ground. We're always thinking, oh, it's going to be an eight you know, the ten foot tall creature or individual, and we're gonna be looking up for something. And so I'm looking around, I'm not seeing anything, and a big boom of thunder comes in and spook us again. You know what I mean, We're already We're already on. Edge man, you know. And me, I gotta laugh at myself because I'm always proud of myself. I'm being the tough guy, you know what I mean that, Hey, you know, nothing, nothing's going to scare me. I got to be able to, you know, take care of everybody behind me, you know, the caretaker in a sense. And you know, let's start. It startled me, that really humbled me, you know. So no, nonetheless we didn't hear anything, but we continue to walk out and got back to the parking lot, jump back in the vehicle, headed back to camp, and.

32:04 We were just trying to make makes sense to this, you know what I mean? We didn't. I should I should I should have said this before. I find it unfortunate that these things happen when I go out with other people that are under my supervision, you know what I mean. So I got to look out for individuals that are not out there for that particular experience in the sense, so. I didn't want to stick around. Me and my guy would we would have stuck around, you know, for the next hour so and even push through the rain, just to do some more investigation. But we had we had a lady with us, and we didn't we didn't know how gear she was for that, so we tried to back out. Unfortunately, and I got back to the parking lot, set up camp or excuse me, set up for a meal, got the fire going, rain started coming in, and you know, we wound up laying down pretty early, about ten eleven o'clock in the nighttime.

32:52 And before we were. Laying it down, we heard in the middle of the rain, in the middle of the night, like I said, pushing eleven twelve o'clock, what sounded like. Like shotgun blasts in the distance. And I'm thinking to. Myself, who's shooting off shotguns? You know, to what would have been maybe my one o'clock position, at my eleven o'clock That's what it sounded like to me. Who's shooting off shotgun at you know, eleven twelve o'clock at night during a rainstorm. That really didn't add up, you know, I know that maybe people could have been out there hunting coyote or coyote man, you know what I mean. But I'm not familiar with people that are doing that at eleven twelve o'clock at night. So it sounded like a gunshot in the distance.

33:33 If I had to guess between between a half a mile and a mile away, you know, a mile might be pushing it because I could still really hear the blast from it, if that's what you want to call it. So I'd have to say about a half a mile away in the distance. And they came from opposite sides of each other. So do you say that is your supposed would knock? You know, I'm not sure. What about you, Jeremy, do you do you have you ever heard people talking about what sounds like gunshots compared to woodknocks or do people want at that time of night? That is something that I mean, I'm thinking of my own first experience in Iowa. People that aren't used to hearing something like that, they'll usually say it, you know.

34:15 I think what I said was, I was like, why are the fireworks out here? It's not fireworks, it's just like a crazy wood knock and or you know, like a gunshot is another great example. The time of night that it happened. You're right, it really doesn't make sense that it was you know, someone hunting at midnight, and it's that's weird, right, So take into account the area you're in and what you know about the area, and what other people have experienced. I mean, there's been at least we know of I think two different people that have been talking about this for so I know there's many many other people that have had things happen in there. I just haven't actually talked looking to one of them. After this, I don't I'm a guy. After this, I just realized that. So that's pretty funny. But that's man. Uh, is this an area where you're you're thinking of spending a lot of more time in the future, or maybe going back with a smaller group that would be in it for the long hauliday investigate stuff.

35:25 Absolutely, And I'm willing to go out by myself if necessary. I'm not I'm not one that's uh that's not keen. To going off by himself and doing a hike by himself or doing some set up camp solo camp for a weekend or something like that. I'm just fine with doing that, and. I'm not looking to really expose anything from you know, my curiosity, you know what I mean. It's it's more so for my research only and to share with uh, share with fellow researchers, you know what I mean, just to get more of an overstanding of what we're dealing with, because this is not something that is I guess, I guess recognized. They're noticed by science, by the scientific community in a sense, there's no definite there's no tangible evidence if you want to say that, you know, but I definitely look to go out to this particular area. I want to go down to hoos your National Forest or Yellowood and stuff like that. But I heard that, you know, Morgan Monroe is is where the hotspot is, and I could definitely see why.

36:25 And it's just a very interesting area. There's so many places to get into the backwards areas and if you if you talk to people or do some research around, people will talk about the many different areas in there where they're having activity and stuff like that, and treight their leg scenes to be one of those scout ridge some of the some of the some people that are doing mushroom hunting out there on some of these more. I guess you would call them these these pull off areas, you know, kind of like how it is out west in Colorado and stuff like that, where you could just pull off of the highway and then try it out for a little while. So there's areas like that where it seems to be pretty promising. And yeah, I'd definitely love to get out there in the near future, man and and uh and do some more research and actually go out there for that. I do a lot of hiking with my group out this way, will lead people from the region on different tribes, you know, getting people exposed in nature, teaching them about plant medicine and and just just nature in general.

37:21 You know. I mean some really really good adventures that we go on from here all the way to Michigan. And so I definitely like to to go out some more. And I was I was saying these particular areas that that I select, I don't think a lot of people know, but I'm gonna put it out there now for the people that's listening that that tri out with us. You know, I usually excuse these particular areas because I've. Done my research and I find that these are hot spots for activity and stuff like that. So I have my own personal agenda, you know what I mean, And to bring in a little crowd and expose the people to you know, I guess maybe what's not taught or what's not accepted in society, uh is always the best interest to me, you know, because I love to I love to expose the truth to people and to get them back into with nature. So Morgan Monroe is definitely a place that I'll be looking to go back to in the near future.

38:10 Another place you had mentioned when I got your sign up is you had mentioned Turkey Run, and that's actually a place that I've visited. Wow family trips back in junior high. But I I've gone down in those canyons and it is it's very it's beautiful. It's a little weird down there. And I've also I don't know, have you heard the episode about the lady who her and her family went down into Turkey Run and then pretty much they stopped. They stepped through the mist of the fog and there was like a family a bigfoot and they were like pretty much frozen in place. They couldn't move for like an hour. It's it's a wild. It's a wild one. This is a while back, but so I am. I'm curious to hear what you have experienced out there in Turkey Run because I know a few people have been experiencing stuff out there.

39:03 Okay, absolutely, And before I jump into that, I'd like to say that I give thanks to the gentleman. I think he was in episode nine fifty three as well, but he was talking with you about these potential highways, you know, these forest areas that are interconnected. Turkey Run shades State Park. I did some camping down at Raccoon Lake, which is about Lake Waveland. So Turkey Run shades Raccoon Lake all the other nature preserves that are just west of Indianapolis, and then further south where they connected to Brown County and Morgan and Road all the way down to Mammoth Caves and such. You know, so it seems like to be an interconnected highway that these potential creatures could travel, you know, I mean and really go unnoticed.

39:44 I mean, these places are so vast and the terrain is is so difficult to traverse. I mean, Turkey Run was like that in general. So I'll go into my Turkey Run experience here this was. This happened the day after Halloween this year, twenty twenty five, so November first, which was a Saturday, and once again I was leading the group hiking down there, and I to it was Turkey Run, because you know, I know that it's an area thrown to some activity supposedly, so I wanted to go down there and really get a change of scenery, change of landscape, as we're just so used to hiking the sand dunes up here and stuff, so we want to get down to some different terrains.

40:25 So we got down there Saturday afternoon. We had a group of about five or six people with us, A diverse group we had. We had guys and girls with us, So I was it was nice to get out there and we were hiking. I believe it's Trail one. I don't have the map with me. I was looking for the map the other day when when I signed up for this, but I couldn't find the map. But I believe it's trail one, and this one takes you through the one hundred and seventy six steps. I think it is those those bricks there, I don't know what they are, if they're talk get into the landscape or what. But they just look like real old steps and one hundred and seventy six of them. And right before that is the ladders. Right the ladders is where you climbed down into one of the canyons, and that was a pretty neat spot. But yeah, nuh we so way before that, this is like right at the beginning of the tribe, and we jumped on trail one.

41:18 We started traversing through and very neat landscape, these huge rock outcroppings and very steep terrain and stuff like that. So we started trotting through there and we got down to this spot where just it was it. Got real real tight. Everybody had the the and there was a bunch of people on the trail in front of us, so people were just you know, squeezed in trying to get through this this tight spot, and we wound up coming off to the left of this trail. If anybody's listening and has been on this trail, try to picture and try to follow where where I'm headed. So there's the spot where you can go off to the left and it looks like a little chill spot. People take their dogs maybe back in there and just hang out for a while.

42:01 But if you if you crawl up, if you crawl up the ridge there a little bit crawl upon the rocks, you get you get over to this other side where it's kind of there's a lot of wild ginger over there. People know what that is a lot of wild ginger growing right there. Uh. And then there's kind of like this little you know, rock outcropping that's I don't know how you want to call it, if you want to call it like a canyon, you know, little canyon. And walking right up to there, you know, there's like a little wet, little damp area or maybe it was wet, you know, from the rain that came a few days before. But I was walking up in there, we all searching around, we were harvesting up some wild ginger and some other things out that way, and I came across what appeared to be a set of footprints.

42:46 Man, and this one. Man, I'm telling you, sometimes when you come across things that are really compelling, it'll make your heart jump. You know you can you can be a very deserful guy. It'll make your heart jump. Man. So yeah, I've seen this, and I'm like, this can't be what I'm looking at Man, So you know, I got closer started investigating before I called out to you know, my other guys that were on the trail with me. But I started checking it out a little more, and you couldn't really make out find details. Like if you were to do a cast or something, you could really you know, define the details, or if something were to step in mud or some wet sand and stuff, it really brings out the details. This was in leaf litter, right, so. Kind of hard to see, and it had the shape of maybe like a fourteen inch footprint because it was a few inches bigger than mine and my boots. My boots are ourside eleven and a half, so you know, I was I was saying about three or four inches bigger than mine. And there was a deep there was about a one and a half to two foot depression where the toes were in the leaf litter. And I tried to recreate this, right, I tried to get a running start and jump. I'm a one hundred and forty five pounds and a couple of guys that had with me are Buck eighty, you know, Buck ninety, and so we tried to recreate that depression in this leaf litter, and we noticed that we weren't able to do that even when we came down on our toes, right, but you could you could definitely tell where the heel was, how it kind of curved out all the way down to where the toes were, and something was kind of running through there.

44:15 So but yeah, you could see that. You can see the. Where the toe impression was on one of the feet, which looked like the right foot. That's why I could. I could remember in detail with the right foot it appeared to be. And then what really got me, man, which really what made me say, ah, this this may not be human footprint, you know, is that there was a six foot gate in between the steps. So there's a six foot stride in between there. And I remember that from you know, guys talking on your podcast recently and guys were saying, you know, that's one thing that we'll always negated being human activity. You could say what you want about that, but that was my inference coming from that, is that there was that six foot stride in there and there was no other footprints around there that we that we looked, you know, and potentially what we inferred is that.

45:03 There was there was like like I said, another another. Little cliff edge right there, and we wound up going up there to get up on top of the ridge, which put us right back near the trail. But you know, something could have potentially jumped up, especially if these creatures are able to jump as high as some people say they dude, you know, ten to fifteen twenty foot high. It was able to take those one two steps and then go up. So that was very intriguing as well out in there. And that's that's the only encounter I had in there. But the further we pushed along the trail, like I said, we got we got to the to the stairs right and we traversed up one. Hundred seventy six one hundred. Seventy six step staircase, and we got to another spot and stuff harvesting up some some pop there's some pop pout trees in there. Were harvesting up some pop paw leaves and some other mushrooms. I think we tossed some pup balls and turkey tails we were harvesting up as well.

45:56 So we came to this other spot. I must have been ahead of the trail, ahead of the guys, you know, down in another spot harvesting up. But my guy, Aaron, came across would look like a tree blind right off of the trail, you know. And uh, he had a guy, he had one or two other guys with them that were hiking with us, and he was able. To show them. And you know, they're kind of novice in this, you know, so they're not really sure what to be looking for. So it's it's cool to to bring them out on these trids and kind of work. Their work, their their bush skills up, you know what I mean. And so he seen, he's seen what appeared to be and we were like, said, we're out on the trail yesterday when we found that tree bend, me and Aaron, and uh he brought it up to me when he came across this this particular size tree. He was like, this is what that tree looked like that I seen, which could have been used for a blind right on the side of the trail.

46:47 It was. It was a green tree. The leaves were still green. On it, right. It wasn't like it was uh you know, the fall time dead fall. It was just maneuvered alongside of the trail. It was it was had to have been what I influenced is about twenty foot around, you know, around the trunk. Twenty inches would be the size of the tree. And maybe about twelve to fifteen foot tall is what what we could estimate the size of it was. And to him it looked like it you would you would need a couple of people to pick this log up and to move it where it was. And it wasn't a cut log because people, you know, were doing logging down there obviously, so you could see where the four service was coming in and cutting some of the trees. But it looked like somebody picked this up and set it on side of the trail, up against another tree to create this blind you know, I guess you could say, you know, mother nature did it. I guess that's the obvious or the rational, you know, explanation for this. But just the manner that it was placed and where this tree could have come from, because we we searched, not knee, but they searched around the area and didn't find any any spot where this tree potentially matched up to a broken trunk or something that was uprooted. It looked like something that was picked up somewhere out of the bush or broken somewhere out of the bush because they had the splintered edges right, so something broken picked up and moved to the side of the trail to lean up against another tree and or bush right there to kind of get behind and hide. And he said it was about eight foot tall in total where the blind was stashed. So, I mean, when we start getting to these eight nine ten foot tall anomalies, it really makes me wonder if

48:21 we have to exclude or eliminate, you know, human activity. But nonetheless, it's just a very interesting encounter down there in Turkey Run. And I'd definitely look to go back to Shades State Park this Friday. I wanted to camp out this week, but I'm looking to go back this Friday and then camp out potentially the next weekend, which would be the first week in December, so like December sixth and seventh, I want to camp out at Shades. It's it's extremely interesting when you can bind the info about the blind, especially with finding what looks to be tracks with a six foot gate, is extremely extremely compelling.

49:03 There is an app that you can get if you have a smartphone on you when you go in there where you can actually scan stuff using your your phone camera, so you don't have to if you don't have casting stuff in in whether you're like it wouldn't. Cast, you can at least try. You're scanning it and seeing a three D scan, and then you can kind of see a different view of how far down it actually goes into the leaf litter. I think scan scan a verse is a good one. Yeah, gotcha, So that might be It's been a while since we talked about that one, but that's something you might be able to look at and listeners check that out to it.

49:47 At least you have something you know, if you don't have plaster on you. But there's so many weird things that have happened in Turkey run over the years. I'm not surprised really that you're I mean, if you're finding multiple tracks with a six foot gate, I mean, how many tracks in all? Did you do you think he saw? There were the potential attraction? Gotcha? There was. There was only two definitive ones that we've seen, right, okay, And like I said. They were they were just right in an area where. It looked like something could have jumped up on this cliff or it had the option to keep going straight through the canyon. But we walked up the canyon a little bit more and there was a little bit sandy underneath that rock outcropping right there. You know how the rocks are down there in Turkey Run, they got like outcropping.

50:33 Sometimes they go over the edge, But there wasn't anything in the sandy area right there. There was nothing further ahead. That that we noticed, you know what I mean, not saying that there could have been other evidence there, but we didn't notice anything there. We just noticed the two looked like two steps, and potentially steps were I don't know, this is just this is just a novice inference that potentially, you know, the steps were toe oriented. As you know, the pressure was put on the toes and that's where most of the depression into the prince was was on the toe area on both of the tracks, I should say, So you know it's the right foot, left foot, and then you know if something used that left foot to jump up and went.

51:13 Off into the brush or the tree. Like I said, a lot of a lot of leaf litter down there, so it's kind of hard to see prints in some of the terrain, especially the harder terrain. If you're coming across play or Rocky Services. So yeah, nothing more than that man, And oh I'm glad. I'm glad you're keeping me out because it's bringing back other stuff from Turkey Run. So we also came across and I wound up noticing this with the guys. We were on trail I want to say this was Trail nine, because Trail nine is what goes up the one hundred and seventy six steps and continues on and you could take Trail ten, which flanks all. The way around it. There's a big loop out by I forget what the canyon is called, but there's another canyon area over there, and it'll circle back around to Sugar Creek, which is the water system that runs through there.

52:01 But we wound up taking Trail nine and we came across this tree. This one. This one was a smaller tree. It had to maybe have been about four or five inches a round, so you know about that that big a round. So and that tree was about about ten or twelve foot tall and maybe maybe taller than that. I'm trying to remember this to the best of my ability, maybe about ten ten plus feet tall. But we noticed a ninety degree break in this tree. Hanging over the trail right. So it was a ninety degree break about eight foot up. And the way that we figured eight foot is that I'm five eleven probably six foot with my boots on, and so it was I couldn't even reach the branch with my hands hanging straight up, and so with my hands straight up, that would put me at about, I don't know, close to seven feet maybe, So it was taller than that.

52:49 Had to been a whole nother foot taller than that. Man. So and we all seen that, and we both we all three said the same thing, was that, man, you know, something had to have been eight foot tall for ten sleep to grab that and snap that at a ninety degree angle to where it was a clean bend and or break, if you want to call it that. You know, it wasn't like it wasn't like wind damage or a squirrel or a raccoon was hanging on to the tree and it just tipped over and cracked. No, man, this was a ninety degree break in the tree. And what I remember from it is that on the back, only on the inside of the cree I'm trying to think how to. Visualize this only on the inside of the crease. So this was the bend the inside of it, right, the inside of it was the only part that was fractured.

53:32 The outside of it. It just seemed like it was bent like rubber almost right or plastic without fracturing. So it was weird. It wasn't just like somebody just cracked it in half. It was it was almost strategically bent. You know, if you would have been a you know, a steel rod or something like that copp of rod, you know, you could bend it, bend it into place. And so that was very interesting as well, very anominalists. We didn't notice anything else around it. And this was a green tree by the way, we put that out there as well. This was a green tree, wasn't a dead wood. So nonetheless, another very anomalous thing. And that one happened. Uh, that one happened after my brethren Aaron found that quote unquote blind that was created by that pick that launch street.

54:13 Oh wow, so yeah, pretty okay, gotcha. Uh there, I noticed on the map there is a campground at Turkey Run. I would man if I was out there. Sometimes I'll say this sometimes if you talk to the camp host, if there's a camp host at a campground and you can get like a conversation going with them. Sometimes those guys will have pretty cool stories because they're staying in that one area for like multiple months, you know what I mean. So okay, got me and and let me let me ask you about this, Jerema, what do you think about what do you think about campgrounds that are like like overly crowded. I mean, look at look at the Turkey Run campground that's over there. We were driving into the into the the park. I mean that that campground, especially for fall time, which is you know, I guess still in season, especially when the weather's nice, was just loaded up and it was a really tight campground compared to a Morgan Monroe where it was very sparse, you know what I mean?

55:13 Yeah, do you think those eyes are still liable? I would still at least give it a try, see if there's a guy in there that you can talk to, because I mean, I'm guessing there might be some times where there's it's not packed all the time and he could still have some some stuff to to share. But uh yeah, I mean it is interesting talking about packed campgrounds verse not packed. You know, I would, just from personal experience, out in Iowa. You know, you get a campground where there's not a lot of people out there, you're the only one. You're probably going to have more.

55:54 Activity then if it's a packed one. But I would still I'd still see if there's a guy there to talk to. Absolutely, and man if it's an older guy too, one of those dudes, just like, yeah, I got stories and I don't care anymore. You know, that's the best, That's the absolute best. But the Chris Man, I love how you were getting around in the state of Indiana. I remember when you signed up you also had a story you wanted to share from Bailey Colorado. Is that right? Oh? Yes, yes, man, I'm glad you're bringing this up because some of these things I kind of tuck in the back of my mind is I don't have a lot of people to talk to about this, right, So I'm glad you're bringing this one up.

56:36 So yeah, I'd love to share this last one. And yeah, well we'll set the stage. Man. So this was twenty and twenty three September twenty twenty three. And my brother he plays professional rugby, right, so he was, He's traveled around, he's played, he played, he went to Indiana University, played rugby for them, was very prestigious in it. And he was a late bloomber too. We all played high school sports growing up, and he wound up instead of going for football, things got screwed up with that. He wound up going and signing rugby, or rugby found him in the sense, so he started playing that and that took him on a lot of worldly travels. He played down in He played in the MLR down in Houston for the Houston Sabercasts for a little time, and then he wound up going to play internationally for the Glendale Raptors. And Glendale is like a little I guess neighborhood if you want to call it, just south of Denver.

57:30 So he was staying out there and he was on what came to be the last season for him out there. So he invited me out there before his season wound up starting, and you know, I jumped in the car. We took that sixteen hour drive. And he's the road warrior man. He just drove sixteen hours straight all the way through and I'll give him credit for that, but we made it all the way to Denver and we got into town and you know, he my brother knows that that I'm pretty into the into the bigfoot stuff or Sasquad stuff, you know I mean. So he asked me like, hey, you know, what do you want to do out this way. While we got time? And I said, I want to hit the mountains, man, I want to hit hit. I want to go down to Bailey, Colorado to see the Sasquatch Outpost. I just I just found it on the map, you know what I meanway as I was doing my research and looking for plature to hike. So all story short, man, We got down to Bailey, Colorado and had had a small breakfast and came in to the Sasquatch Outpost. And I wish I could remember the lady's name that was in there, man, because she was such a such a sweet lady. And if if anybody's ever been to the Sasquatch Outpost down in Bailey, you probably know the lady that's working the desk that's in there.

58:39 Real sweet lady and very knowledgeable as well. But we got in in there, checked around, and very neat museum. I want to give a shout out to Jim out there for putting that together. And he's a very knowledgeable guy as well. I wound up running into him after our experience, so that was pretty cool to talk with him and you know, get some more information out of him as well. But we stopped in the outpost and what I like about the outpost man is that they have a map in there. And I'd recommend for you know, even I know that there's not any outposts in Indiana or anything like that, but you know, maybe for some of the researchers, if you're a little more tech savvy or you know, know how to to put together maps of sidings and stuff like that, put together a localized map.

59:21 You know, we get like a topographical map of the area of Brown County or Morgan mon Roe State Forest or who's your national you know what I mean, get a map with sidings in there, and kind of what you're doing, Jeremiah, I mean, I'm just piggybacking off of you pretty much is pinpointing those sidings so that we have some real time maps. You know. I find that that a lot of times we do research on sidings and they could be they could be years old, you know what I mean, And who's to say that, you know, stuff is still going on in these places. But I would like to see people put together a map where we could have these these these more recent encounters documented for I guess the average person passing.

1:00:02 Through to check out. But that's what they did real nice at the outpost. They had a map put together of recent sightings and stuff like that, and some of them were within the past couple of months, you know what I mean. So I started talking to this lady, started talking to the lady at the desk, and you know, she was telling me. I was asking questions about, you know, encounters and you know, what people experience down here in Bailey, and she was telling me that pretty much everybody has their own encounter or secondary encounter or story from people in that area or even just all across the Rocky Mountain reason down there. But she was telling me about her own personal one and saying that there was that there was I guess a time where frequently they see red eyes, red eyeshine if you want to call it that, and multiple sets.

1:00:50 Some will be higher than others, others would be lower. Right, They would have pine cones being thrown as well at their dogs. Their dogs would be barking into the woods and they know it's not bears, as they are very familiar with bear activity and stuff like that. So very compelling, excuse me, very compelling to hear that from from individuals out there. And people always talk about she was one of the ones that say he's had some people, some family members of her talk about you know, like they call it the mind speaker or something like. That, you know, some type of telekinesis or you. Know, whatever you want to associate with that. Yeah, so very interesting to hear that from her. But we got in the conversation and I want to ask her, you know, you know, any recent encounters or any trails with recent recent encounters close to here so that we could get a day hiking.

1:01:40 And she told us about this this this this lady and her son. So lady was a naturalist, and this happened two or three weeks prior to us coming into town, which was right right at the end of verry season. We got in there probably a week or two after very season was over. We still found some bear berries and stuff like that on the trail, but as far as like salmon berry's and wild black caps and blackberries and stuff like that, they were pretty much gone. And she was out there with the sun on the Ben Tyler Trails. So if anybody is familiar with Bailey, Colorado, this is about a mile or two up the road in a small town called Shawnee. Shawnee, Colorado and Shawnny, Colorado is home to the Ben Tyler Trail, and this is just one of those.

1:02:25 Like I said, Jeremiah, you. Pull off the side of the highway and high Catcher Leisure and you could you could hike like fifteen to twenty miles over the mountain top to a whole nother city or town. I guess, man, it's very desolate, very beautiful location, but the ben Tyler Trail, And so we wound up taking the legs word. She was telling us that there was a there was a woman who was a naturalist, right and she was out there with her with her young son. He had to have been about eight or nine. I've seen this on Jim's podcast. It's called like Untold Stories or Stories of the something. I forget the exact name, the Flyer Downstairs. I checked it out a couple of times and actually seen the episode where this lady came on. But she was talking about two or three weeks prior to me and my brother getting down there, they hiked about two miles up this this Ben Tyler Trail, and this is once again a tough trail, man. This is rugged and there's a lot of switchbacks throughout this trail and eventually you'll get to this opening where it opens up, and that's so beautiful.

1:03:23 The landscape around you was all out, I guess you would call them. There's a lot of pine trees out there, a lot of a lot of coniferous trees out there, right, so pines and spruce and a lot of aspen trees out there. Very beautiful. So we came through that opening. We were looking looking around and searching the creeks and stuff like that. My brother was into into doing uh cold plunges, ice baths and stuff like that, part part of his recovery. So you know, we were stripped down and jump into these uh these mountainous creeks coming down and just really just invigorates so very beautiful. So we got about two miles up the trail to where this lady was talking about she set up camp with the sun and we found the camp site. Man, So that was very interesting. Right off the side of the trail and there's like a little stream that comes through there. It's a canoped area, kind of a mossy area as well, and she was talking about her and her son was over there, and they was hearing you know. I guess the typical would not throughout the day and stuff like that, and she wound up laying down for sleep with the sun. They didn't have no activities throughout the rest of the day, but they lay down for sleep and they started to hear more wood knocks, and it sounded like that they were closer and coming from opposite sides of each other.

1:04:32 And I guess during the middle of the night they heard something running to camp. They did. The lady thought she was dreaming, you know, so she kind of just rusted off, but the sun wind up having some dreams about it, and I think she she wound up having some some type of otherworldly dreams. Man. And they wound up waking up in the in the morningtime, and they got out the. Ten to check it out. She was asking her son if they heard anything in this that and the other and her son looked around the camp and they wound up finding a a glass, a footprint man and they took. A picture of that. You know, I guess for my eyes because my eyes are a little bit more novice than others. We've been doing this for some time. I wasn't really able to see the footprint so well, but you could definitely see where there was some toll prints in the mossy landscape close to the creek. We didn't see anything when we when we tried it in there to check it out.

1:05:22 But I just found it real interesting how this is going to lead up to what me and my brother wound up experiencing up there. So we found that campsite and it was cool to check it out and and correlate. This lady story. And so we started trotting a little bit more off the trail and probably about another quarter mile up the trail before we came into this aspen tree area we were. We were just on the outskirts of it, and we came across this this little damp area on the trail and we all of a sudden, we just picked up this scent. My brother was in front of me on the trail. We picked up this scent which was like this boggy scent. It's kind of like a like a swamp sent you know. And I smelled this as a recent especially yesterday, trotting, you know, long the Calumet River and just smelling the swampiness of it, you know, all the it was.

1:06:09 It was weird. It's a scent that I that I wasn't all too familiar with at the time. But we smelled this swampy scent man, and the wind was blowing, so obviously it could have been blown into us from somewhere or it was permeating from somewhere around us. But immediately I looked down and I thought it was the damp area that I was that we were trotting on, that I was standing on top of. So I got down to the ground and I started smelling the ground, you know what I mean, and uh and checking it out, trying to pick up a scent. And that didn't smell nothing like it. It just smelt like wet dirt, you know, wet soil, you know. What I mean, which just which has an earthy scent to it, not a swampy or a boggy scent. And what was cool is me and my brother both picked up on this scent man, and he was he had have been about ten short in front of me, and both of us stopped in our tracks because the scent was punging enough to you know, to to stop us, I guess you'd say.

1:06:57 But we we picked it up and we stopped, and we were quiet the whole time, listening and looking around, and we didn't we didn't hear anything right away, and we didn't notice anything. But we continued trotting up the trail and the scent was gone. And when we come back through this particular spot, like we we. Didn't just keep on goal. We did a little research, I guess you'd say, in this particular location. So we went back and forth and we would smell it just in this particular area, man, And it wasn't behind us, it wasn't in front of us. It was right here. And so after after some time spent trying to debunk it, you know, we couldn't conclude anything. So we continued to trout, and that's when we heard that typical wood knock sound man from uh from it was it had to have been about fifty two one hundred yards out about my seven o'clock position. My brother was behind me at this time, as I had went ahead of him, so he was behind me atbout six o'clock and this was at about my seven or eight o'clock position, right, yeah, seven or eight o'clock, and we heard this plastic wood knock. It was just one, but it was it was pretty It had been pretty close, man, because it was pretty pretty good sound knock. But it was that that top you know that popping is that popping would knock. Man.

1:08:05 And we heard that and my brother looked at me. I looked back and my brother looked at me, and I was like, you're that man. He's he's like, oh yeah, I heard that, man, no doubt about it. And uh we continued on that and we wound up not experiencing anything else. I mean, we got up to to the to the the trail head where you can continue on and go over the top of the mountain. Like I said, it's really steeve, man, you continue going on top over the mountain or you got you got to turn back. And we wanted to turn it back because we were losing daylight and we didn't have any headlines or anything. So we just continued to try back and uh, you know, it was it was interesting when we came back through that spot that same exact spot because we had we had landmarked it. We came back through that spot down the trail and we didn't notice any scent there. Man, and I got down on the ground again smelt that smelt the ground went through the same procedures and this was right in the very near vicinity of that lady's encounter at that that uh, that bush camp site, right, So very very interesting man, And I mean you could say that we saw other stuff that, you know, like like rock stacking and stuff like that, but I mean people tried this trail. It's not like people don't try it, but it's very it's kind of like an advanced trail, you know, intermediate slash advanced trail.

1:09:17 So you're not going to get you know, I don't know if maybe it's kind of biased to me to say, but you're not going to get your average person coming up. In there to stack stack up rocks and stuff like that, right. Or maybe they could, but it was it was interesting seeing some some things like that. We didn't notice any tree brakes and stuff, as this was my first through encounter if you will, or experience, but it was just cool to document that. So I guess that answer is the original question that you asked me at the beginning of this interview. What really got me into this? And besides me, you know, being just infatuated with something out there of unknown origin, that's what really solidified it for me. And it's like I caught the bug man, you know what I mean. I can't get this stuff out of my head. And I wish I had more people to research and talk with, and I wish I had more time to go out and research, you know what I mean. So I try to dedicate every weekend to getting out to a new spot.

1:10:12 What what a fascinating journey you have gone on, because that really brings it, you know, full circle. You went back to your first time there. But have you ever looked into I want to say, there's a newer big Foot conference that takes place in Indiana. Now you I'm not too sure of it. Yeah, is it. Hopted by by the guy what's his name something Nail? Yeah? I think so. Yeah, Yeah, I think he's involved with it. But that would be a great way for you to try to get some connections with other researchers in the area. If if that's what you were trying to look into, but it seems like you have some great people already that are are willing to go out with you and and look as well. But Chris, this has been a fascinating conversation.

1:11:05 I mean, it's just it is wild how many different things are starting to come out of Indiana. It's it's very cool. And as you said, I mean we didn't even really talk about the who's your national force and it's Southern Indiana has got stuff going on too, But I think where you're focusing that Morgan Monroe, and like, man, that's that's pretty cool. Keep definitely keep me in the loop with what's going on there. But I just want to say thank you so much for coming on Chris, for sharing your accounts so far, and it'll be it'll be fun to see where this takes you in the future. And I believe you had you had given me your email as well. If people want to reach out to you, we can put that in the description of the episodes, so people can can drop you a line if I guess, if they have any questions or maybe if they have stuff to report about that area of Indiana.

1:11:59 So absolutely, I'd love to be in contact with with anybody that's Uh, you know, partaking and research around the way. I'd love to share experiences and share methods, you know, so that we can tiding up our skills. You know, as they say, iron sharpens iron man. So you know, the more that we can help each other out, you know, instead of being caught up in this, you know, disproving this person or bashing that person. You know, let's let's get some camaraderie going on. Chris, thank you so much for coming on man. Absolutely, and lastly, before I go, I got to give a shout out to the Ancient Mystics. Man. That's my crew out here, the Ancient Mystics, Ancient Mystics, all natural products. The Elder Lord cash is d my brethren Woodstone, the Messenger, my Brethren Chef Aaron l the Rebel Chef Carl the Spoon Weatherspoon, and uh and our other elder sister Nancy Knightley Bones. So we give thanks, and we're going to continue trotting out there and doing all the rights work for humanity and for many people's as long as we're on this planet.

1:12:58 My brother fantastic. Before we wrap this episode, I want to say something directly to a very specific group of listeners. If you're in the military, any branch or forces, and if you've seen something that no one can explain, or if you're a National park ranger or forestry worker who's been told to stay quiet, or if you're a pilot who's seen something strange down on the ground, or if you're with the FBI a federal agency, or working intelligence and you've stumbled upon something you're not allowed to talk about. And if you're a firefighter, paramedic, or search and rescue responder who's heard screams or found tracks that didn't make sense.

1:13:38 If you're in the logging industry on a remote oil field, or a trucker with government contracts and you've had something happen that you've never told a soul. And if you're a biologist, a wildlife specialist, or a field researcher under contract who has found evidence you're not allowed to report. If you're a pastor, a missionary, or someone on a spiritual retreat and you saw something that shook your faith, or if you work in the shadows, CIA, NSA, or anything with clearance and you've seen what the public hasn't, then I want to talk to you. Even if it's anonymous. You can reach me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com.

1:14:20 The world needs to hear what you've been forced to carry alone, and you're not alone. You've got the story, We've got the mic. See you in the woods. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bigot Society Podcast. Every encounter we share reminds us that the world is bigger and stranger than we think, and that the truth is often hiding just beyond the tree line. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the channel on YouTube hit the bell so you don't miss the next episode, and share this with a friend who's into mysteries, monsters, or the unexplained. And if you're listening to us on Spotify or Apple Podcast, please follow the show there and leave us a five star positive review because all that helps more people discover the show. And remember, if you or someone you know has had a Bigfoot sighting, please I'd love to hear from you, so email me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com and let's start the conversation. If you haven't gotten a chance yet, check out our membership community over at www dot Bigfoot Society Podcast dot com and that's where you can hear tomorrow's episode today early in ad free and members only episodes every week. Also, it's a place to connect with other people that are into the Bigfoot subject as much as you are. Thanks again for following along with the Bigfoot Society until next time, Keep your eyes open, trust your gut, and never stop asking what else might be out there?

1:15:44 And see you in the woods.