Running from the Mafia in Sasquatch Territory!

0:00 Welcome to Big for Society. If you have Bigfoot activity to report from the same area as discussed in this episode, please reach out to me directly after this episode. And if you'd like to be on the podcast to discuss a personal Bigfoot encounter, please reach out to me directly at bigfo Society at gmail dot com. Do you wish there was more Big for Society to listen to you every week? Well there is now. If you become a supporting member over at Patreon, you get a special members only episode every single week on Wednesdays, and sometimes even more episodes. Head on over to patreon dot com. Forward slash the Big for Society and now let's get on with the show real quick. Before we get started with this show, just wanted to shout out quick, buy me a coffee that came in Michelle a thank you for buying me a coffee. Her message is you are good at this exclamation point and Michelle, I'm going to take that to the bank because that makes me feel pretty good. Thank you so much. I appreciate that kind word, that kind message, and I'm going to do the best job I can for you guys to get these stories and accounts brought forth, But if you'd like to support me a one time deal, you can go to buy me a coffee dot com forward slash Bigfoot Society helps me as I start to go through the airports to different festivals and conferences to get me something to drink or something to eat, and also as I start driving around the US to different places

1:32 to get interviews in person. It's going to help me, and it's a way to do it as a one time deal where you don't have to pay every month. So again, check out buying me a coffee dot com forward slash big for Society. Anyways, that's enough of that. Let's get on with the show, all right, Big for Society. I got the privilege of talking to Mark today. So Mark's an individual that I noticed a comment come in on one of my YouTube videos previous interview, and it was just very interesting to the point. I mean, I think it ended up it was talking about rolling off of a Camaro or something like that, but I'm sure that'll come up later. But I reached out to Mark and I was like, man, we got to talk because I got a feeling this is going to be interesting. So Mark, I'm glad that we made this happen, and I'm going to go ahead and let you have the floor and share what you would like to my friend. Okay, thank you, Jarma.

2:29 I'll just jump right in. In nineteen seventy two, I was eight years old and my mom had just remarried, and so we had a blended family and that was six of us boys and my stepdad. With that many boys, one of the things they would like to do is take us out hiking, and that was kind of like their dates when they when all of us boys were together. And because we were two of us were eight, I was eight years old and then ten, eleven, twelve, and fourteen years old. So on one of the heights we went on for some reason I'll never forget it, the man who was seemed to be my stepdad, he noticed something off of the trail and we were in our Merchy, Georgia, and I think it was a place called the Pocket, a little state park type thing, and there were switchback trails and you went up a small mountain and at the end of it was a little waterfall. But I would say about thirty feet off of one of the trails was this. I would six or eight saplings that were about eight to twelve feet long. It's been a long time, but I do remember. It was in a dome type structure and there weren't hardly any limb on the trees. And he noticed it first

4:03 and he said, well, isn't that amazing? How could nature make something like that happen? Because they were kind of intertwined weaves together at the top, and and you could, you know, you could see inside of it. It was basically just the the the trees without limbs, you know. I thought that really was interesting. And I even went over there to it and kind of stepped inside of it and looked around. And that was the first, the very first thing that I had ever seen. And of course I didn't have any idea what it was. But there was someone that came walking up the trail that wasn't there in our group, and I remember he said something about you shouldn't have touched that. Now you're marked. And the reason I remember it was because I said, well, that doesn't matter.

5:12 I'm already marked. My name is marked. So but we just kind of, you know, that was basically it. It was just an interesting thing that we thought nature had somehow done by weaving those trees together in the dome type structure, and we finished our hike, and I don't recall anything else happening, you know, strange during that hike. So that is what I would, you know, call my first encounter. So Mark, I'll tell you a really weird synchronicity going on here. So I just had an interview with another Mark last week talking about his experiences in this same area. I'm not even kidding that, right, Oh yeah. And I'll tell you, like, if you go to bigfootmap dot com you look in the area that you're talking about, it's lit up like the fourth of July. There's a ton of you know, sightings, people hearing, weird stuff, all sorts of stuff going on in that especially northern Georgia, but that northwest corner, the pocket Chickamauga just under Chattanooga, all that good stuff. Yeah, you've got you've got some really interesting stuff going on in that area. Man.

6:35 I wish I mean, if that happened to me, I wish i'd known what that guy meant by now you're marked, right, it was strange, but we just kind of wrote it off. Okay, he's kind of out there somewhere, you know, Uh, we didn't really, And of course that was a very long time ago, so I don't remember exactly how we reacted to it, but I just remember him saying I was marked, and I thought it was funny because my name is marked exactly now at this point, did you I mean you said age six or age eight? Okay, so a j And had you thought of big foot at that time or is it something that was talked about in your household or no? I had no idea whatsoever. Shortly after that, my mom and al was my stepdad's name, they married and we lived in a place. We rented a place in Santa and, Georgia, which is only about five miles from from our mercy, and it was it was about the one hundred and twenty acres of farmland in a wooded area and the driveway to the house was a little over a

8:05 half mile, so it was it was back in the woods. And there was I had one step brother that was uh. He was ten, so he was a couple of years older than me, and he kind of uh played the role as a big brother to me because my only real big brother. You'll hear a little bit more about him later. He didn't. He didn't look out for me, you know, very well at all. So so Brian he was he was a good guy, and uh he kind of looked out for me. And one day he and I were walking down that that driveway, just kind of going out on an adventure. Like I said, there were six of us boys, so we ran out over those woods and had a great time. Uh and we heard something in the woods beside us, and of course we just thought it was an animal that was about thirty feet away or so, and we couldn't we couldn't see it through the woods. And at one point Brian said, I don't think that's an animal.

9:22 That sounds like a person. And you know, I said, well, how can you tell? And he said, it just sounds I don't remember the word he used, but of course by peedle. And he got scared. But for some reason I wasn't scared. And I can only attribute that and my experiences to my grandmother being full Cherokee, which makes me twenty five percent. And my grandmother and me were very close and she was a good Christian lady. We talked a lot, we were we were special to each other. So uh So, anyway, I said Uh. Brian was ready to turn around and go back home, and we were about a quarter mile from the house and I said, well, just wait a minute, I said, we have our pocket knives. You know, I was brave and uh and I said, uh, there's a clearing up here about fifty feet and when we get to this clearing, whoever that is will either have to stop or they will come out and we will see them. And so that's what we did. And just as we got to the clearing, it was about this was on the right the sound in the woods, and it was like the woods just sort of stopped suddenly. It was like a ninety

10:56 degree angle from the driveway where there was a clearing, but just got the edge of the woods, about thirty or so feet uphill, there was a bush. And as we stepped past the woods to where there was a clearing, and we could see that bush and we were looking up there for somebody or something to come walking out of those woods. That bush was shaking as if somebody was holding onto the middle of it and just shaking it back and forth, you know, about six inches from center or something. And it only did it about three or four seconds, and it stopped and of course we were amazed, and I remember saying, well, maybe there's some kind of bird in that bush causing it to do that. Uh, maybe it's got a nest in there, and it's you know, I don't know what would be what would be doing that. So but of course we were starting and confused, and even at that age, you know, I had learned to be aware of my surroundings. So after we stared at that bush for about you know, fifteen or twenty seconds and it hadn't done anything else, I started turning around, and you know, I turned to my little left, looking on up the driveway in the direction that we were going. And about the time I got my back turned to the bush as I was going

12:28 to do a three sixty and look all around us, my brother hollered, it's a monster run. And he even grabbed me and pulled me a couple of steps, and he repeated, it's a monster run, and he took off running. But now Brian was known to kind of exaggerate and you know, tell some unbelievable stories, so I didn't believe them. Even though we had seen the bush shaken and I had heard the footsteps, I just didn't believe there was a monster up there. So I stopped and I continued to look, but I never saw anything, and he kept running, and I guess, you know, when he got about fifty or sixty yards away, you know, I realized, I was, okay, I'm not going to do something here. So I hollered his name and I started jogging towards him, and he finally turned around, and I could tell that he was absolutely terrified, and so, you know, I kind of ran towards and I knew I had a long way to go. And I actually had a heart condition that I was born with, so I knew I couldn't run wide open,

13:58 you know, a quarter mile to the house. So I just kind of jogged towards him and h and as he was we were hollering back and forth, I put my finger up to my mouth and you know, told him to be quiet, and I listened in the woods, and you know, I said, it's okay, it's it's not following us. I don't hear it, you know. And so I asked him about the monster, and I said, well, what did it look like? Was it Frankenstein? You know? And he said, of course not. I said, well, there's a lake. We had, like a twelve acred lake, which is just on the other side of the driveway from where we heard that sound. And and I said, well, there's a lake ruight over there.

14:48 That left a lot in this monster. And he said no, he said it looked like Harry Caveman and that that gave me the chills. I was like, Okay, that's that's pretty scary. And we lived at that house. We lived on that property for about three years. And I do remember one or two other times, one time specifically when I was with my stepbrother who was just a couple of months younger than me, and we were a bit closer to the house. But I do remember the footsteps in the woods walking beside us one other time. But that was those two were the only things that happened at that house. And that was in that was in Shannon, that was just about five miles away from where that structure was.

15:43 That is that's super interesting. Do you remember how tall the bush was? You know, I would guess it was about five feet it was. It was pretty good sized bush. I don't remember, you know, what kind of it was, but I do remember it being very round and full and you couldn't see through to the other side. And I don't recall how big he said it was. Uh he said it just sort of peeked up over the bush, and uh, you know, of course I turned around and looked, and I didn't see anything, so I it had it had hidden whenever he whenever he hollered, I guess and I turned around. But it's for it to peek up over the bush right when I turned my back, but he was still looking. That's kind of you know, it just that's kind of weird. Yeah, that's that's very very interesting. You mentioned that you heard bipedal footsteps as well. Was that the only time that you heard something weird in the woods or were or other times where you would hear stuff maybe that wouldn't belong or out of place sounds anything like that on that property, that was the only time we heard footsteps, gotcha like that? And

17:15 that's that was the only Now, when we first moved in, and I believe it was the very first night, we heard something that sounded like a baby crying. I mean, it sounded just like a baby crying. But my stepdad said, that's just that's just a mountain lion. They sound like that. So but but I remember I was like, we've got to go get that baby, you know, I was concerned. And it sounded like it was about, you know, forty or fifty feet away, up and up in the woods, and it was night, so we couldn't see what it was. Oh man, he sounded a gold flashlight, which you couldn't You couldn't see thing. That's so that's very interesting. I mean, yeah, on the one hand, maybe could have been a mountain lion. On the other hand, I mean, if you look into what goes on in Alaska, you know, they they say if you hear a baby cry in the woods outside your place, don't go looking at it because that's how the hairy man is trying to lure you into the woods. So that's very interesting.

18:29 You heard it so close to where you were staying, too. Yeah, But other than that, you know, I saw I was looking that up one time, and I saw there's also a frog that sounds like a baby crying, but I didn't I never saw, you know where they are indigenous too, but that was a late video. There was there is a frog that sounds just like a baby crying. So at this point you're around eleven twelve or how old are you at this time? Well, now my next my next story is, uh, I was eleven at that time.

19:10 I was like eight and nine, okay, but yeah, something something happened when I was eleven. I was actually we were still in the in the Armorchy area, and this place was an old logging road, and we were with my real dad. We were visiting him on the weekend, and and he had a there was something called parents without Partners, and they would, you know, people who had kids but they were single, they would get together and go do you know, usually something a low budget type thing. So this this old logging road had been designated as a hiking area somehow, but because there was a at one point we passed a bathroom, you know, built out a block that they had had put there for the people who go hiking up this road. And there was Okay, so there's me and my real brother at this point, I was eleven, and so my real brother was fourteen, and and then there was my dad and another adult male and an adult female and two girls. And I seem to remember they were a little bit younger than me. I would say they were about nine and

20:41 eight. So we're we're hiking up this road and my brother's stomach starts hurting. And we had passed these bathrooms about a mile or so back, and he was like, I've got to go back to the bathroom. My stomach is killing me. And so somehow we decided. I was always more brave than I should have been, I guess, but uh, me and my brother walked back to the bathroom because you know, the girls were a bit younger, and we had already been walking for a while. So the whole group didn't want to go back because uh, you know, and so the adult stayed with the two young girls and me. I was eleven and my brother was fourteen, and we had already lived, you know, out in the wilderness. So I was like, well, we'll just walk back, y'all. Just hang on it. Like I said, it was about a mile, so I said, you know, forty five minutes or so we should be back. So that's what we did. We got back, We got back to the bathroom, my brother went in, and I went around back to you know, to take a wise. And when I went around behind that building, man, I felt something watching me. I just I

22:15 felt eyes on me. I can't explain it, but I knew somebody was watching me. Excuse me. So my brother gets through and we start walking again, and I still have that feeling. I remember mentioning because my brother, but he just kind of brushed it off and we heard the footsteps. Now, my brother he was I know he I know he heard it because I kept seeing him glance over there. It was it was to her right, and but he decided he was just going to ignore it. And he's just started talking about whatever came to his mind, talking a mile a minute.

23:03 And of course I'm I'm kind of in disbelief that he's doing this. But uh so I after, you know, just a few seconds or so, I said, Keith, I know you hear that, and uh, I'll never forget. I got him to stop. We both stopped, and the footsteps stopped and we started walking again, and the footsteps started up again. I'll never forget. It still cracks me up. I said, see something's walking over there, and he said, why do you always have to notice everything? But that was his personality. He wanted to you know, he didn't want to acknowledge anything that was scary or dangerous. He would rather just try to ignore it. But so, okay, so I said, oh. And one thing about this was really strange. This this was these were new pine trees planted in rows, and I would best I can remember, they were about thirty foot tall or something, and there wasn't a bunch of undergrowth or anything. We had clear vision. I even remember looking to

24:37 see. I thought, it's this thing a ghost and I'm because you can't. I couldn't see it. And it only sounded like it was about twenty or thirty feet away, and we should have been able to see it. I was even looking at the ground where it sounded like it was that to see if there was a ghost and its feet were pushing down, you know, the grass and things. That's just I'm sorry, but so and so I said. I told my brother, I said, okay, stop, and I said, I'm gonna run about five steps and we'll see what we hear. And so this is the way. And another thing was we were walking on a very dry, hard dirt road wearing tennis shoes, and you could tell the sound in the woods was heavy footsteps with twigs snapping and grass being pushed down. It was a totally different sound than our footsteps because we had thought, well, maybe it's just an echo. So I told my brother, I said, okay, stare right here. I'm gonna take five fast steps. And here's the way it went. It went stomp, so sop sop, sop, sop, sop sop sop. So. So there

26:11 was no way that was an echo because it took way too long, you know, an echo from just that distance, it would be like a split second later. And uh So I turned back to my brother and I said, that ain't no echo. Run And I took off running just as hard as I could go, because because at that point I was scared, and I guess I ran about fifteen steps or so. And I looked back at my brother because I knew he was older and faster than me and he could catch up. And and he was still standing there, and he was looking where the sound was coming from, and he was looking back at me.

26:59 And he would look where the sound was coming from, and he would look back at me, and I said, what are you doing. Come on, let's get out of here. And my brother said, it's after you get away from me, it's you know. I hope my brother never is this, but if he does, that's that's what happened. But uh so, and this is going to sound really unbelievable, but this is what happened. I turned and looked in the direction where I thought the thing was, because it had stopped when I stopped, and I said, if you want, if you're going to kill one of us, you ought to get him because he's evil. And this thing hollered. I mean, it was a roar that knocked me down and I fell back and I actually rolled over backwards that you know, rolled into a somersault, and got right back up on my feet and took off fronting just as hard as I could. And at that point, my brother, I think I hollered at him, you know, I said, stay here if you want to, I'm getting out of here. And so he decided to start running too, and I actually, out of still, out of some compassion, I slowed down where he could catch up because I was a good ways ahead of him, and he caught

28:29 up pretty quickly. And just about the time he uh started to pass me, my heart started hurting. And it would do that sometimes when I would run, and uh, you know, I told him, I said, I said, stop, wait up. My heart's hurting, and he was like, I don't care, I'm getting out of here. And so I as I was falling, he was on my right and I fell and I grabbed hold of his belt with both hands, and when I fell, I pulled him down and he landed flat on his back and knocked the wind out of him and its glasses went flying off. And so while I was recovering from my heart hurting, it's a mitral valve provous. The valve would actually get stuck and it would just cause horrible pain, but it would eventually, especially if I would take deep breasts and stretch it, it would pop back into place. So while he was recovering from his getting the wind knocked out of him, about the same time I recovered from my valve getting stuck in my heart, and we didn't hear anything else. I actually got up and got his glasses for him, because they had fallen in a small ditch that was right on the on the right hand side of the road. So I actually walked closer to where the sound had been coming from and picked up his

30:03 glasses, and uh, basically we we took off walking again, and we didn't hear anything else. Crazy Huh, that's that's intense, Mark my goodness. So it's it roared at you. Now, have you heard ever heard any sound that even comes close to what that roar sounded like? The ah, I mean, it was so loud. It was like I have been uh standing next to the railroad tracks where the road goes over, like when we were kids and we were walking around the neighborhood. There was a railroad track h in Garden Lakes there in Rome, and I have been uh there where the train is coming to, you know, to the the road where the road crosses over and it blows its one And it was it was that loud and that intense as far as you know, what it really sounded like.

31:14 You know, all I can say is a roar, but it was. It was just incredibly loud. And so when when we got back to the group, they they were looking at us strange at first, and so I said, did y'all hear that? Did y'all share that scream? And I could tell that they did, but they wouldn't admit it. That is the main thing that just blows my mind about sasquatch encounters is the way people just cannot deal with it. They will deny it, even even adults, you know. But I knew when they were looking at us, they were looking at us like we didn't know if y'all were going to make it back.

32:08 But one reason I realized they were the two young girls there, so they didn't want to scare them was one of the things why they, you know, didn't want to talk about it. So I told them, you know, what had happened, and they were just kind of like, you know, I don't really believe you. That's kind of hush, You're going to scare these girls, you know that sort of thing. Man, did you ever go back to that area any other time in the future after that? I don't think we ever went back to that area. No, that's wild. So you heard the roar, you're still not seeing anything at all?

32:54 Oh nothing, And we should have been able to see it because you know, those were planted pine trees, planted in rows. That makes no sense to me, especially since you're hearing you're hearing the footsteps Blake and it's like, well, man, the only the only explanation is that the thing is somehow invisible, you know, or or cloaked or like a chameleon like any of these unexplainable things. Who knows it's that's wild. Yeah, and I have heard, you know, a couple of other people. I listened to the podcasts and things. I've heard a couple of other people say the same type thing, right, So, yeah, it's it's very strange.

33:50 There's some strange things in this world. Now at this point, what were what were your thoughts as were you thinking, Okay, there's something weird in this world. Is it Bigfoot? Or were you not quite there yet where you believed in Bigfoot? No? I wasn't. I actually wasn't quite there yet. I think I may have seen the Patty Gelan film thing, the Patterson Ginland film by that point, because this would have been nineteen seventy five, so I'm pretty sure I had seen that. What year did that come out? I know it was so it was filmed in sixty seven. Okay, so, but it being invisible, I didn't really put it together with the Sasquatch. I didn't know what it was. That's such an intense story, especially the dynamic between you and your brother. Yeah, wow, that's kind of sad, is wild, But okay, here's here's the next one.

35:06 And it gets even more in denial. All right, this one is wild, this one okay. At this point, I'm seventeen years old, and so it's nineteen eighty one. I remember it's at the end of the summer. It was the first cool night of that season. He got kind of cold that night. So I had just gotten off of work, and I was I won't bother you with the details, but I had a lot on my mind. I had a lot going on in my life, and I was just confused. It's about what I was going to do. I wasn't getting along with my dad at all. So I came home from work and I just kind of I had the house to myself from my age and took a shower, and it was it was about nine thirty before I ever decided, I'll go over to my friend's house that I've known since I was five years old. It'll start right down the road and I'll see what's going on over there. So I get to his house and he says, you know, man, I'm glad you're here. I know where there's a party out in the woods. We used to like to go to fields and build bonfires and throw big parties. But he said I don't think it's going to be that big of a party, but I really want to go out there.

36:35 And so, long story short, we took off out there, and again it's in our merchy and it's I would say we were about ten miles north of the Martha Berry property, and I remember the last three or four miles there wasn't even a house out there anywhere. And I was like, you're sure we're going to the right spot, and he said yeah. So off this lonely back road, took a left on what I would call a farm road, just a little one lane dirt road, and this little road went through the woods probably about an eighth of a mile, and then it opened up into this huge field. And what I say huge, I would say it was probably about two hundred yards long by two hundred yards wide approximately, and it was very well maintained. I guess they grew rye grass out there or something, because I remember commenting like, wow, we and it was freshly cut, and I was like, wow, we could actually play football out here. Somebody's really taken care of this place. But so there were only three other cars out there and the guy that was driving each car,

38:07 so there was only three other people and then me and my friend. And let's say that we were going north as we came into this field. I don't remember the exact direction, but we'll just say north. So they had this huge bonfire going. I mean, the flames were about eight feet high, and their cars were each part on the north side, beside each other in a row. So I pulled up to the west side, just short of their cars and the west side of the fire. And so we start to get out, and they're just really happy to see us. And I could tell it was they were relieved that we were there, because, you know, a couple more numbers make them a little more confident that they were obviously scared of something and h and I knew it when I got out of the car. I felt it again. Somebody's watching Somebody is in those woods or or something that's got their eyes on us, you know. And I said something to them about it, and I could see them kind of nod in acknowledgment at first, and then they just kind of went, oh, no, ain't nobody watching us. How can you tell something's watching us?

39:36 You're you're just not used to being in the woods, said, I said, no, I'm very used to being in the woods, and so I said, it's either coyotes or you know something. I said, it may be moonshiners, somebody may be growing some marijuana out here, or maybe even possibly a game warden. But somebody or something it's watching us, and it's over there to the west, and so we just kind of, you know, just kind of ignored it and talked for a while. And I would say, you know, maybe twenty minutes or so went by, and so all of these guys are leaned up against the front of their cars, at the back of their cars. I don't remember which way they were parked, but so they're facing south and I'm leaned up against the front part of my car, so I'm facing east. And then my old friend Ken, he's right over there beside me somewhere, but he's really drunk. He had gotten really drunk. The rest of us were driving, so we were staying pretty straight. We were just kind of sipping on views and talking and a rock came flying through. It was between John was the one closest to me, and I have to say he was most arrogant person I've ever known.

41:02 And they'll find out more about him in a minute. But so he was the one closest to me, probably six or seven feet away, and this rock comes flying through exactly at eye level and exactly in between me and John, and it, I mean, it's a fastball, it's a move in ninety miles an hour, and it goes over the fire and everybody saw it, even Ken, even though he was drunk, and we all of course turned real quick to look to the west to see where it came from, and there was nothing over there, and so we look back at each other and we're just stunned, and this is I still can't believe it. John looks at me and he gets this goofy on his face and he says, how did you do that? I'm like, man, what are you talking about. I'm standing right here beside you. He said, no, you did that somehow. I said, John, I'm not a witch, I'm not a warlock. I can't make things fly through the air. What are you talking about? But he was just adamant that somehow I did that.

42:27 Strange, strange, total denial. People blow my mind when it comes to things like this. So basically we kind of yeah, Actually, I said, okay, I'm getting out of here, and they were like, no, no, don't go. I'm not sure what they were thinking, and maybe they were trying to face their fears even though they were in denial, but they didn't want to go. So I finally relented and I said, okay, so we're it starts to get cold. And I had a sleeping bag in the back seat of my car, and I noticed that two of the other guys that are there are both they're standing up, but they're in sleeping bags, you know, pulled up to like their their chest. And I and I went, man, that's a good idea. And I was like, y'all both have sleeping bags exactly like the one that I just bought.

43:34 And so I went to get mine and mine was gone. And this is this is significant to the story because I get in my argument with them, but neither one would would admit that they had gotten my sleeping bag. So I finally just said, okay, you know whatever, I'm not going to get in a fight with with two people that I consider friends. I mean, one of the guys I had been in a in a little rock band with him, you know, for a couple of years and stuff. Then I knew him. I knew him all pretty well, so I said, you know, okay, just forget it. Well, John says Mark, he shouldn't be a coward. I'm like, man, I'm not a coward. I said. I said, would you fight two people over a sleeping bag? And he said yeah, because I'm not afraid of anything.

44:24 Literally, when when those words came out of his mouth, I'm facing north because I'm looking at him. He's facing south. The other two guys are facing south. Ken is beside me, but like I said, he's drunk, so he's not really paying attention. So about the woodline was probably you know, eighty yards away or so, about twenty feet behind the woodline, there's a pine tree that's i would say, about forty five feet tall. And when you said I'm not afraid of anything, this one tree. Now, it was kind of windy, so there was some you know, trees swaying a little bit, but this tree all of a sudden went about five feet from center one way. Then it came back and it went about ten feet from center the other way, and then it came back and it went about fifteen feet from center the other way. And about that time, I said, oh, you're not afraid of anything. Huh. Turn around and look at that. And they said, oh, we're not going to fall for that. We're out in the middle of the woods. There's nothing going on behind us, you know. All three of the guys that were facing me said that. And this tree is swaying back and forth, you know, about thirty feet total, and you can't I don't know if I mentioned it, but you can't see the bottom twenty feet or so of the tree

46:00 because of the undergrowth. And I would say it's about twenty feet back from the edge of the woodline. So I grabbed you know, Ken was also saying, you know, we're not going to fall for that. And I grabbed him and I said, man, I've been your friends and they were five years old. And I grabbed him by the shoulders and I turned him to look at the tree, and I leaned up against him and I had my arm pointed at the tree right beside his head. I said, look, Ken, look, and he at first he was like or whatever, And then he when he looks at the tree, his eyes get big and he starts shaking and he's terrified. And of course the rest of the guys turn around and they you know, they're terrified, and I couldn't resist.

46:52 I took about three steps and I was standing right next to John. I said, so you're not afraid of anything. And he looks at me with terror on his face. And then he looks back at the tree and then he turns back around and gets this determined demeanor about him and said, it ain't nothing. It's just a tree moving. It ain't nothing, don't mean nothing. And the rest of the people followed his lead. The rest of them said the same thing, turned around. And when when that happened and it turned around, the tree stopped. It was as if by that time, I am thinking sasquatch for sure, you know, and I am believing this is this is a sasquatch and uh and it was like it just let the tree go, and I can only imagine sasquatch is over there going what is wrong with these people? These are the craziest humans I've ever encountered.

47:58 So uh hm, basically, at that at that point, you know, I said that some other things happened. I actually forgot one one encounter before this one. But uh but you know, I know we were only have so much time, so basically that was it. Within a within a few minutes, I left. Uh, and I don't know, do you want me to tell you more about what happened as something I did that's unbelievable at the time, definitely. Well, Like I said, I had a lot on my mind, and I'll just backtrack that I had another encounter with my stepdad and something was shaking the camper that we were in and uh. And so I actually my stepdad, even though he was a big man, he was a marine in Vietnam. He was terrified, and long story short, when I knew there was nothing else I could do, I went over.

49:13 I could tell where it had hold of the camper and it was shaking it. We were actually on the Tennessee River building a house and we were staying overnight and going to get up and work again the next morning. And I went over to where I knew it was and so it's just right on the other side of this little thing camperwall. And I said, look, I said, if I did something to offend you, I'm sorry, I said, because I thought it may have actually been a guy that was working with us, that was messing with us. But I was halfway thinking it was sasquatch. But yeah, I apologized and I said, I said, I'm a good person. I believe in Jesus and I want everybody to make it to Heaven. I said, but I am a dumb teenager and I do cut up and I do offend people sometimes. I said, if I offended you, I'm sorry. That was and it quit rocking the camper. Basically that was like I said that that had happened three years before, when I was fourteen. So with that in mind, when these guys back in that field in our merchy, when these guys kind of wouldn't pay me any attention, they turned away for just a minute, I took off running for that tree. I literally took off running towards the tree because I'm just I'm stupid,

50:54 but because I just I was at that point in my life. I was seventeen years old. I was really not getting along with my dad. I wasn't I didn't know where I was going to live at you know, I believed in God and I knew my life had a purpose, and at this point I knew it was a sasquats and because it had started shaking that herbs, making that tree sway right when you know, everybody was against me in that group. Somebody had stole my sleeping bag, you know, the guy was calling me a coward. I was like, it saw what was happening, and it was at least causing a diversion. It was upset about what was happening to me. So I was like, I've got to I've got to go over here. And just like in that camper, I went over there and I stopped about twenty feet from the woodline. That was as far as I was brave enough to go, and I quietly spoke and I apologized. I said, I'm sorry we're out here disturbing you. And I said, I you have a beautiful place out here, and maybe maybe you were planning on doing some hunting tonight and we're in your way, and I'm really sorry, and I just, you know, I understand why you don't want us humans here. But when I said I understand, it kind of hushed, it sort of sound, and I almost almost fell down. I

52:30 stepped back, and then I quickly said, Okay, I don't completely understand, but I sort of understand. I said, you've you've seen how I don't get along with these guys. I said, I'm not crazy about humans either, man, And I said uh. I said, so I'm about to leave, and I'm sure they will leave shortly after. And I said, I'm very thankful that I got to sort of meet you. I said, this is amazing. And as I turned to walk away, I turned back and I said, I knew I had to say this. I said, Jesus is Lord. He created everything I said, which means he created me and he created you. And if he can save me, I believe he can save you because you've helped me out. And with that, when when I said that, all the tension just lifted, I mean there was there was tension. Even though I was brave enough to go over there and apologize. It wasn't like I wasn't scared. It wasn't like I didn't feel danger. But when I said that, all the tension just lifted. And I walked back to my car and I said, come on, Ken, we're getting out of here. And uh, and I left, And as I was leaving, I saw, you know, the other guys, they were getting ready to leave too. And so that's that's basically the whole story.

54:00 That's incredible and not the first time that I've heard someone use the name of Jesus in order to stop some Bigfoot related interaction. It's really interesting and raised the tension right away. It was it was gone. It was gone, Yeah, because that was you know, it showed me intelligence and compassion, I thought. You know, so I still don't know, you know, who were what exactly these beings are, but they're intelligent and uh they you know, you hear hear other stories about them doing kind things. Now I'm not not even enough to think that they're all kind. I believe some of them are very evil too, you know, just like just like people are. I suppose Oh yeah, uh definitely, Yeah, But all my encounters are basically you know, have haven't I haven't experienced and evil uh sasquatch?

55:14 You know that, just like like some of the stories I've heard and unbelievable stories too, you know. Any So, after any of these situations, did you ever have any like really weird dreams or was there any like communication that would happen or anything like that. No, I've never experienced anything like that. Oh, but I have to tell you this, John, Now, I had a I'll try to make this as short as possible. I was actually had a conversation with him a few days later and he mentioned something about me being a coward again. I remember he said we were eating and stuff, when we were cutting up and having a good time. Like I said, he's the most arrogant person I've ever met. That's why I changed his name. But he brought up he said, you're all right, but even if you are a coward, and I said, man, I said, I said, I'm not a coward, and I won't go into all the details, but I said, I tell you this, for a million dollars, I would not go back out of that field, drive my car up at midnight, shine my lights on that tree, and get out of my car and walk around in front of it and scream I'm not afraid of you. I'm not afraid of you. And he said, I'll do

56:47 it because I'm not a coward. Now. I was using reverse psychology on him at that point. You know, I knew how he was. I knew he was simple minded. I knew he would do it. But when I realized that I had, you know, succeeded in talking him into doing that, I was like, man, no, you know, I had compassion on my dude, don't do that. Don't don't go back out there. But he just got mad at me. You know, we almost got in a fight. Don't tell me what to do. Yeah, So I actually I had moved to make him for a little while, and I came back and I saw him again. It was about a year later, and I went over to his house. His little brother was one of my best friends. So I had gone over to his house and uh, and I just ended up parking my car right behind his and uh when I went in and I actually cleared it was his little brother. First, I told his little brother what, you know, what had happened, that we had almost got in a fight. And I made sure it was okay with him if I came in. And they were having a little party, and so John was like sitting by hisself watching TV. He wasn't even interacting with anybody.

58:10 So after a few minutes, I realized what was going on, and I said, you went back out there, didn't you? And he just got wild eyed and he said, I got to get out of here. And he didn't have his keys in his pocket, so he had to go to his bedroom to get his keys. But when he did that. I went outside and I was waiting on him, and my car was parked right behind his, so we couldn't get out. And he said, somebody's parked behind me. He'd seen my car a hundred times, and he was so beside himself he didn't even realize it was my car. And I said, it's my car, and I'm not moving it until you tell me what happened. I want to know what you saw out there, Jeremiah. This guy started crying, started shaking, he wet his pants, and he said, my life is over. My life is ruined. I have my whole life ahead of me and now it's ruined. And I got him to calm down, you know, I said, man, you still you whatever happened, you survived it. You still have your whole life ahead of you. And he kind of like yeah. And I said, do you want me to go in the house and get you some more pants? And he looked at me like I was crazy. He was wearing long blue jeans and he had wet his pants so much that it was dripping off the bottom of his pants wave and he had not even realized it. And he would never ever tell me that was actually the last time that I saw him for about I didn't see

59:43 him again for about another twenty five years, and that he would never ever tell me what happened out there, But something very serious and very scary came out of those woods, and you know, I don't know what it did, but it literally steered the p out of him, No, no doubt. Wow, that is quite the reaction I've I've never heard anything that wild before. Mark. This has been incredible, and thank you for sharing just some really interesting times from your life. And you definitely experienced, even though you never had a visual, you definitely experience I would say, some some Bigfoot activity over the years in that corner of the state, no doubt.

1:00:37 Yeah, Yeah, there's I have heard. Of course. You know they have the Bigfoot Museum up in Northwest Georgia. Absolutely, And I didn't even tell you about the one at Little River that I made the comment on that was that was the last one. Yeah, the one where you go off the roof of your car or something like that. Yeah, just just to be brief, I won't even get into why I was out there, but I was, actually I was, actually I had a I don't know how to put it. I had a run in with somebody who was very dangerous. This man was actually in the mafia, okay, and I was living in Atlanta, and he told me to leave Atlanta. He told me to I better not be ever be within one hundred miles of him again. End up finding out his name was Tom Papania. But I won't I won't tell you all the detail, but if you ever want to hear the greatest testimony you have ever heard, Tom Papania got saved in prison. He was in the mafia, and he got saved in prison and charges got dropped, a really cool testimony. And so I went out to the Little River because I figured if he was going to kill me, then I wanted it to be I would be by myself and nobody else would get hurt. And plus this was the place that I was familiar with and I knew my way around there,

1:02:07 and so I thought maybe my chances would increase of surviving it. So that's why I was out there, and I was sleeping on my car that night. It was Memorial Day weekend, and we had there's a lot of people that had come out out there that day. But then after the day was over, I went to My car was part the old sixty eight Camaro, was part just thirty feet from the edge of the canyon with the river down below. And so I was extremely tired because I had been up two nights before, and so I said, I'm gonna fall asleep in no time.

1:02:47 So what I'm going to do is I'm going to lay here about two more minutes and then I'm going to lightly snore as if I'm asleep. And literally on the third snore, I heard a snap. And at the moment I was thinking, Okay, the mafia somehow snuck out here without me hearing them, and but they stepped on a twig and uh. So I had my my gun on my on my chair in my hand on my chest, and I had my cover over me. So I threw my cover off to the right and I rode off to the left because that was the side of the canyon. The other side was about a quarter mile dirt road that went out to the main road. So I figured if that somebody was coming down there to get me, they would come from my right. So I rode off to my left and got on the other side of my car, and uh, and you know that's That's when I said, look, I've got I've got the gun. I've got a gun out here, but I really don't want to shoot you. I said, that was just a chance meeting in Atlanta. I don't know who you are, so I wasn't thinking sasquatch.

1:03:55 I was thinking mafia. And I said, uh, said, I don't know who you are. And I said, uh, I, but I could tell from your accent you're probably from the New York area. And I can tell by the way you dressed and just your demeanor that you are somebody that I do not want to mess with. And uh, I was a pretty bad dude. I grew up around bikers and stuff. But I knew when I met this man and he threatened me, I was like, yes, sir, may I leave? Now? This was somebody I did not want to mess with. But so, uh, you know, and and I said uh. And by the way, also, I was like on liver seeing DoD Kno's the shakeest gun in the West. But man, I was shaken. That's the way I look. But uh, but so I said, you know, I said, uh. I said the Lord's prayer I had before I went to bed that night, I had been.

1:04:56 I had been reading it and memorized it, and I said, said the Lord's Prayer out loud and uh, and everything was fine after I did that. And you know, I even I even I don't go around saying God told me something, but I really felt like God was saying, Okay, stand up, it's all right. So I hesitated for a second, but I was like, okay, and I stood up, and I looked around, and of course, even though my heart was beating in my chest and that was making a lot of noise, of course I was listening for any sound, any other sound, and I never heard anything else. I don't know how somebody got that close and then got away without me hearing them.

1:05:42 And I later realized that the snap was much louder and different than somebody stepping on the twig. It was like somebody had a stick that was about the diameter of a row of quarters, and they were really strong and they were able to just snap it in two. That's about what it sounded like. And it was about twenty feet away from me. So but yeah. Then the the next morning I hiked up river. I had already decided if I if I survived this night, if I lived through the night. I was I had practiced back flips all day on cliffs that were from you know, ten to fifteen twenty feet, and there was there was a big cliff up river about a mile and I said, if I survived tonight, I'm going to hike up there and I'm going to do a backflip off that off that cliff. It's probably about seven year or eighty feet high. And so that's what I did. I got up there, I did the back flip, and when I came up out of that cold water. It was nice, beautiful warm day both days and I was up there. But when I came up out of that water and I took a couple of breasts, I hollered, you know, I was happy. I was whoo. And then I heard a whoop, which was I noticed it was different than my woo, but I thought it somehow. I didn't see whoever had gotten out there.

1:07:08 You know, somebody had seen me do the backflip and they were celebrating with me. But now I had done a backflip. So I'm facing the cliff and I quickly scanned to the right all down the cliff. It only took about two seconds where if anybody was coming out there, they would have come from that direction, because there's a parking area up there and the road that goes by up there, and there's a there's actually a bridge about another one hundred yards upriver. So and there was nobody out there. And then I quickly realized that no, this whoop came from my left, and that's all wooded area up there, and I looked up there, and uh, you know, I didn't see anything. And I also realized I was I was right there at the waterfall, you know, eighty what a pretty good sized waterfall, and I'm right there at it where it's hitting the water. So whatever made that whoop, I heard it very clearly. It had to make it a really good loud whoop for me to hear it like that. But so I just I, you know, I thought, well, it's a bird. I wasn't thinking sasquatch at that time. And I just swam back to the other side of the river where I had had my towel and my pistol, and and I just walked back, you know, hiked back down and had another had another good day out there. There was a few people that came out there and and I spent the night again, and I actually

1:08:41 stayed all the next day and had the whole place all to myself. Nobody actually came out on that Monday, and I stayed until sunset the next day, so I'd made it. I'd stayed out there for basically three days, never had anything else happened, even though even when I was hanging out there all by myself all day long. Wow, that is wild. What a way to end it too, Oh man, Mark, thank you for contacting me back, and just a pleasure chatting with you. I mean that. Man. If listeners have more things that have happened in that northwest corner of Georgia, please reach out Guys Big for Society at gmail dot com. But Mark, thank you so much for chatting tonight. It has been a pleasure.

1:09:30 Thank you, sir, been my pleasure. Please take a minute to help out the show by subscribing on YouTube, making sure you hit the bell so you don't miss any notifications, and share the episode on YouTube with a friend. Also, if you're listening to us on a podcast, thank you so much. Make sure that you're subscribed, share the show with a friend. Really, it's all about sharing the show wherever you can. If you've had a bigfoot encounter related to the following or know someone who has, please reach out to me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com or pass on my email. Here's the list. All right, I'm going to use this space this week to announce that I'll be at the Sasquatch Summerfest and Oakridge organ as an attender. I won't be presenting or anything, but I'll be hanging out trying to interview people that have had bigfoot counters. If you're from the Oakridge, Oregon area or surrounding and you've had a bigfoot experience, please contact me directly Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. Also, Priscilla was nice enough that if you get your tickets through Sasquatch Summerfest dot com and use code Bigfoot Society, you can get fifty percent off the cost of your tickets, which is a big amount. So code Bigfoot Society to get fifty percent off your tickets Sasquatch Summerfest dot com and helps out the podcast as well. A special thank you to all the Bigfoot Society Patreon and YouTube channel members. It's your support that helps keep the show going and I extremely appreciate it. Here at Big

1:11:00 For Society, we're headed to the moon and here's a current update about going full time. So here we go. As of five twenty two, you're now at two hundred and two patroons out of eight hundred and twenty four needed. That's twenty four point five to one percent, almost a quarter of the way there, guys, brings us down to six hundred and twenty two left to join the patroon. So a huge thank you to Barbara, Gregory, Dana Craig, Jeff, Steve, reckyde Norm, Meghan, Dan, Daddy Chatty, Joe Eber, Eike Jewels, Josh, Ryan Todd, Nathan Gabe, Bill Lucky, Meghan, William, Bobby, Joe, and Inger for joining recently. If you want to join in the fun, you can join over at patreon dot com forward slash the Big Foot Society. I'll see you there, and again, thanks for listening. Her and I can get out

1:12:44 here, we can tell our stories. Maybe there's somebody else out there listening it's too afraid to tell their story. Maybe this will give them the courage to come out. And now I feel so bad about it. Who cares what anybody thinks. I know what I saw. I know what's out there. That's all I care. Please let people know, Please let them know. If you ever see one of these things, you need to tell because if you don't, then shame on you. You have shame on you.

1:14:14 Wait there's more. Monsterfest two is coming up soon and Beautiful can't Ohio and I will be there doing a live podcast. If you've ever wanted to meet big Foot Society in person, this is the year to do it. My special guest in the live podcast episode will be Justin from Cryptids of the Corn. You will not want to miss this live episode and then you can hang out with me at Monsterfest. You can go to small Town Monsters dot com to get your tickets. Pre sale tickets are twenty dollars fifty cents and tickets at the door will be twenty five dollars. But kids twelve and under are free. How many places can you go to where at kids twelve and under are free? Not many. New this year are the live workshops. I'm excited about this, extremely excited. How to cast a footprint, how to collect DNA in the woods, Ghosts hunting tools one oh one, how to do research also there's going to be food trucks outside this year and new guests, new speakers, people you won't I mean, the coolest thing about last year is that I got to meet people I was not expecting to be there, people like less Odell, John Hickinbottom, really cool, big people that I never would have thought that I would have met before. And Seth Breedlove

1:15:45 made it happen by making this incredible place for the community to get together. Monsterfest in can Ohio June twenty eighth through twenty ninth. Guys, do not miss this year. If you missed last year, don't miss this year. Head on over right now to Smalltownmasters dot com. I hope to see you there.