Shocking Bigfoot Sighting in Central Tennessee!

0:00 You're listening to Bigfoot Society, and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Tonight's stories from a man whose life was forever changed when he saw Bigfoot. Ridge shares his jaw dropping account of the massive Sasquatch, its mood stride, and the evidence that proves Bigfoot is more than a legend. But this story isn't about one sighting. It's about a world of strange activity unfolding in the mountains of Tennessee, from haunted distilleries to cryptids lurking in the woods. And this episode will uncover a whole new side to the Bigfoot mystery. So stay with us, all right, big for Society. I've got the privilege of talking to Ridge today. Ridge is an individual that we got connected to. I believe it was Facebook, but he's got it. Yes, Yes, I got an interesting encounter to share, and maybe some other stuff that's related.

0:47 Let's see, Ridge owns a distillery in Tennessee which is haunted, so that might come up as well. There's a lot of interesting things that are coming into play here. But Ridge, welcome to the show. How's it go on, man, I'm doing great, doing great? Yeah. Absolutely, it sounds like. Let's let's let's start with your original bigfoot sighting back in July of twenty twenty two. First, I'll let you start sharing that and then we'll see where where it goes after that, because I think this is all connected. Okay, Yeah, back in twenty twenty two. I've always been a believer in Bigfoot, just never thought they were in our area. Thought they were more out in the west, out in California or Washington State, Oregon, up in that area in the deep woods. But in twenty twenty two I became a knower, not just a believer. So I was working down in Georgia, down between America's Georgia Plains, Georgia area, and I work for an engineering company, so I do mapping for new projects. And I was down there riding the roads looking at what all needed to look at and putting stuff on the computer. And I was out in the area where they'd grow all these trees for the paper mills to make their paper. And it's just miles and miles of trees, just in straight roads.

2:15 And I had pulled off the side of the road was putting some stuff on the computer. There happened to look up and this thing went across the road in front of me. It was the middle of July, you know, a hundred degree day, just sweltering hot day, when I had the air conditioning just running wide open, you know, so hot, and this thing walked across the road from one side to the other in about six steps, and me working with the roads and all doing what I'm doing. I know, the distance there from the center of the road to the side of the right of way is thirty three feet on each side, so it's sixty six feet. So this thing in about six steps covered that whole area, which would have made about a nine foot stride. It takes me twenty two steps to do the same distance, And so I know this was no human in a in a suit on a one hundred degree day that did this. And so when I saw it, I put the car in gear, drove up to where I saw it across the road at and there was the bushes that had grown up, and there was a hole there where the game had been going through in and out through there. And I got pictures of the area. I took GPS coordinates and everything and tried contacting the Georgia Bigfoot people, you know, because before you know, I believed in them. I just you know, I never had any close contact or anything, and so I didn't think that

3:46 much about them. But then I when I tried, you know, reaching out to people, you know, I just had people saying following, you know, following, you know, but I never did really have any people that you know, responded back to me. So I started to doing my own research, just you know, looking around finding out other people that had experiences, you know, and getting on Facebook, on the groups and stuff. You know, I'm a member of a lot of different groups now, and and hearing all the stories from you know, different people in their encounters, you know, it showed me, you know, I wasn't crazy. And you know, I know this creature was not a human, you know, by the speed that it went across the road, and that it glided across the road just with a smooth gait, and like saying, about six steps. It was across the road and in the woods, and so it only took you know, three or four seconds where it would take us, you know, quite you know a little bit more time than that, and we would be bouncing up and down trying to run. But that was my encounter there, and since then, you know, I've been doing all this research and digging in pretty deep and finding out more and more in our area where I live in uh, Central Tennessee, up in the mountains is really really active. I mean I've been coming across a lot of accounts and people contacting me now telling me about their encounters and so we're we're fixing and start doing some heavy research up

5:17 in that area. Which some people have already been researching in our area and have seen things. Uh so I'm getting, you know, to know them and what they've seen. But it's you know, it's it's interesting and and you know, I'm just trying to learn as much as I can now. Oh absolutely, let's let's talk about your road sighting for for a little bit. I think that's that's very interesting. So the whole time you were having a view of of its side, I would guess as it moved across. Yes, it just went from one side to the other, and I saw the side view, you know, it walking across. So it was a bipedal, a solid black uh, you know, middle of the day at one hundred degrees south Georgia, sweltering heat. It wasn't somebody in the suits, you know, because as you tell and plus you know, like I said, it was out where it wasn't really populated and it was just trees, and there's deer like crazy down there.

6:14 People go deer hunting down in those areas, you know, because there's so much wildlife and so there's plenty of food for them, plenty of shelter. It's you know, sparsely populated, so they're you know, they're out of sight. And and there have been other you know, sightings down there. I later found out, you know, in the same area. Okay, could you get a feel as to how long the black hair was on it? I mean it covered the body completely, so it was you know, I had to be pretty long, cover the body completely, Like say, the number of steps that it took.

6:55 You know, I've got a three foot stride went on my walk, and that's how I measure things when I'm walking, and like I say, mine's twenty two steps to cover that sixty six foot area. So it was about a nine foot stride on it. So it would have had have been, you know, probably about nine feet tall to have a stride like that. It was a lot larger than a human and you know, it was solid. It wasn't you know, skin or anything like that. It was a pretty bensized creature. Okay. And how. So as in front of your vehicle, how close to the vehicle was it when it crossed?

7:37 It was probably you know, one hundred, one hundred and fifty feet in front of me. So I got a pretty good view at it. And that's how I could, you know, kind of see him any steps too. And you know, it just happened so fast. You know, I had no time to to get a camera even think about a camera at that time. So now I have you know, the driving camera was on the front and the back of my work vehicle. So something happens now then you know, hopefully I'll capture it on the on the dash cans there. From what you saw that day, and I know it did happen really quick, But was there anything you remember that is different than what most bigfoot researchers will say about bigfoot.

8:28 Not from from what you know I started studying and reading and have heard in the past. You know, this one's pretty typical as far as the smoothness of the gate. You know, it's just kind of glided across the road you didn't have a or you're bouncing up and down because I guess their feet are more flat and they don't go from hill to toe like like we normally do. And from all the other reports I've heard, you know, it's pretty much a smooth gate. They don't bounce up and down. And this one was, you know, typical what you think of bigfoot, you know, with the you know, no neck really you know, just just large creature. And uh, like I say, it was solid black. So this one I have heard of some that are more like us and don't have as much hair on them, you know, from other reports I've heard, but this one was, you know, solid black. And I know they come in different colors, kind of like you know, dogs of litters and you have different shades of colors on those. I did find out about ten years ago that in nineteen ninety seven when we lived in Alabama, my kids saw one. It's called the Alabama White Thing. Uh th h A and G is I G is A and G it's a Southern thing. But yeah, and I didn't even know about that unil about ten years ago. My wife she knew about it, but my son, he was like six years old, my daughter was like nine years old. They were over

9:58 their cousins and and they were out playing that in the yard there, and it came out of the woods, you know, bipedal walking, and the girls ran in the house left my son out there, and he says it was more like a dog man creature, and you know, it scared them, and they can recall it real, real vivid, you know, from even from the way back then, because that was back in ninety seven. So they're both in their thirties now. And when I researched that one, I found out that it's there have been several sightings in that same area that we lived. There was three different counties that butted up together. It's kind of like a triangle right there, and there was several sidings and I know there was one other siding back in ninety seven right there. So you know, through all my research, I've heard of all colorations of the creatures, varying degrees of hair on them, you know, and the dog man is something I'm just now getting into. I really never knew much about them, but that's that's something that's you know, researching more and more on.

11:11 Also, that's really a really interesting sighting, and it definitely you can tell it affected you because you know, now you're in central Tennessee and you're doing what it sounds like, you're starting active research. When when you say central Tennessee, and you know, not to get overly specific, but is that considered the Nashville like north of Nashville area. It's right in between Nashville and Knoxville, So it's about one hundred miles either way from Nashville to Knoxville up in the Upper Cumberland Mountains. So you know, we have the mountain areas. There's a lot of forest up there, a lot of state parks. My property actually butts up to a state park, and there's been a lot of sightings in there. We've had activity at our house, and we had activity back in twenty eighteen when we had we bought our property. We didn't have a house on it yet, but we would camp up there, and so we were camping one year on July fourth, and it was a you know, one hundred degree day, whind was just really still. It was just really hot and human and we were packing up, getting ready to leave, and on the other hill, on the on the ridge there, it just started it heard a tree just start crack crack cracking. Then as we go huge tree just fell over, you know, there was no wind or anything. Something had

12:43 to push it. And that was the first thing we heard there. Then my son, we had a fire going, and he went over to the edge of the hill because it's like a three hundred foot drop down to the bottom of the valley, and he just hit the tree with a stick, you know, a few times, and there was something out at him and he can come over to the fire real quick. And then in twenty eighteen, we had a camper up there when we were building our log cabin, and me and my wife were just sitting there playing cards in the camper. The wind wasn't blowing as you know, dark outside, and we heard this thing like you know, you know, it sounds like somebody saying he's just really really loud, and just sent shivers up our spine, you know, and turned the light off and had the gun, said what do you want? What do you want? Never heard anything. And we lived half a mile off the main road, you know, dead ends on our ridge back there, and and you know, we we didn't really give them much thought of a big foot, but then recently, I've got some vocalizations that have been recorded in our county and it sounds the same as what we heard, So you know, I bet it was you know, we put a camper out there. It was something different and they were just checking it out. So and let's say we butt up to a state park.

14:03 There's nothing but trees. So yeah, plenty of room back there, wild hogs and deer, form turkeys. Okay, plenty of foods, water. So you're you're very close to state park in Tennis's my backyard. I'll look down a big valley into the park. So have you ever heard yep? Uh yeah, I'm just I'm I am trying to do a I'm going to say, uh yeah, there's stuff that happens in that area. I have to be ever so careful about what I say right now. I'm trying to think of what is public and what's not. But yeah, there there are things going on in that area. So there are people reaching out to you with with recordings of vocals from your county.

14:58 Yes. One of them was a researcher. He's been researching for forty years and he he he told me, he said, yeah, we're on a hunt tonight and then it wasn't a little while later he sent me to recordings and it was like I said, it was what I heard outside my camper, but it was it was long like like that, and then it had that guttural growl I mean, and it was loud. I said, it sounded like you were pretty close. He said, I was in the tree and it was right below me. And uh, he had one of those uh sound things, you know, tone things that capture the sound, and he said he dropped that out of the tree. But you know, I said, didn't know you were there, and he said, I think it did.

15:43 But he's been doing it for a long time. He's had a lot of encounters. Uh. He used to be a deputy sheriff in the county and he was telling me about some reports of some I'm not going to go into details because he confided to me, but but this was back in like at night ninety seven and there was special ops people came in and everything. So and he you know, so he doesn't reveal too much information about where he hunts or or you know, details because we have helicopters flying over our place all the time. You know, sometimes they don't have any lights on at the night time, flying below the airspace they're supposed to be, you know, if their military and and we've had one lady that had one on her property. She said the helicopter actually landed out on her property instead. They were buzzing her house all the time. And I'm not surprised.

16:43 It's just a lot of activity out there. It really is, you know. All. My main thing is I talk to people about bigfoot areas and all across the US, and there's some really interesting things happening in this area if you start to put things together. You said you've noticed dog man activity as well. There's been some accounts of dog men there, just a few accounts. The main activity that I've heard of is between in the LVL. It's the land between the lakes there in Kentucky, and it's a big It's between the Tennessee River and the Cumberland River, and it's as about a five mile stretch from one river to the other, and then it goes for probably one hundred miles north and south and most of it's all preserved land, you know, it's it's park land. They have primitive camping in some areas and some regular campsites and others. But I just found out about a report, I think in nineteen eighty two about a dog man account or a dog man attack at one of the new camps that's there, and it killed a family of four and ripped the camper all the pieces, shreded the bodies and they found the like a five year old girl up in a tree.

18:10 And so they never developed that park. It's just primitive camping only, and you know, they didn't want to develop that one. But I mean, hre, I understand they're they're all up and down through there. Uh and the dogment are pretty vicious, is what I understand. The big Foots. I'm more intrigued with them and want to build a relationship and get to where I can stand in front of one and you know, observe them like some of the other people I've talked to that have done that. You know, one on one guy, he had a family of them that he was visiting for three years and they there, there was three of them that would come to him, but the other one stayed in the woods, but he would go back every day and take different things out there to them. On the big Foot and his story is pretty good. And he was a mayor of a county there in Tennessee, so he had to be, you know, kind of chush about well going on. He didn't want to lose his position and all that, you know, talking about him and then the police chief. I think I knew about him too, Nick County.

19:21 I think I know who you are referring to. Yeah, yeah, both of those gentlemen. Yeah yeah, So have you heard situations in that area where there have been very intense encounters between Bigfoot and individuals that encounter them in that area around I. Know one of the researchers. I had a meeting in February at my distillery and we had over ninety people show up. I had no clue if anybody would even show up. I just started by the first year, said, you know, I want to just have a meeting and just see if anybody has any interest in the area or has any stories, because I wanted to try to find out as much as I could. It's kind of pinpoint where activity may be happening. And so I you know, I made up a flyer. You know, Tennessee cryptis be putting beyond is what I called it. And uh and I just put the date on there on Saturday from three to five, and we had over ninety people show up, and a lot of them had had encounters, you know. Uh, some of them didn't want to talk about it. Uh, some of them did. And then there was probably that many more people that said they would were wanting to come, but they had prior engagements and they weren't able to make it. So We're having another meeting coming up in two weeks and I've got a guest speaker coming on that one. But I mean, I was just surprised at the outpouring of people saying, you know, I've seen things

20:55 and all that, and and and sharing their stories and and like I said, some of them didn't want their names huesed or anything like that. They told me they would tell me their stories and uh. And one guy, he said he was hunting up in the woods several years ago and saw a big foot and it spooked him pretty good. And uh. And it was about three years later he was out in the woods hunting again and saw like a giant eline. I asked him myself, was it like like a black panther? He said, about three hundred pounds heavier than a panther, so that would have been huge. And uh, he said he will not go back in the woods at all. Now he even moved to the big you know, to the city, and he does not want to go in the woods at all.

21:42 That's that's some wild, wild, wild stuff. It could have been what they call wampas cat named cat. I don't know if that's what he saw. I've seen pictures of him. But in my meeting, what I wanted to do is open people's mind. So there was there was some people there, you know that I believe. Some didn't believe really that they were just intrigued. And I told them, I said, you know, don't believe anything I say. I want you to research for yourself. I said, you know, that's when you start digging and going down these rabbit holes and finding out all this information. Because I could sit there and telling stuff all day long, and you know, they could believe me or not. And and so the stuff I brought out was just stuff. I wanted them to research for their self and start their own investigation and come to their own conclusions. I don't try to force anything on anybody. If they believe me, they believe me.

22:40 If they think I'm crazy, as you know, and I'm crazy. That's well, look, you. I would imagine that most people in this area are probably believers. So what do you think. Yeah, most of them that was at the meeting were believers, and like say, I would always believe. But in her stories, you know, from that from the Alps or you know, other countries, other continents, and maybe a few up in Washington. But I know, I never really knew there was that much activity, all of them down the whole United States, you know, in the mountainous regions, like in the Smoky Mountains, uppercome A Mountains where we're at, you know, the Rocky Mountains, and up in the Washington State and Oregon. That's that's where most of the forests and everything are at, and that's where they're more found out. You don't find them, you know, like out in the deserts because there's not any cover, not that much food. But you know, I've really been digging into it, getting into more, more and more details.

23:45 I think some people would be surprised that some areas in the southeast can be almost as active, which which is surprising. But when you start to really dig into it, there are some areas and southeast that can get pretty wild. Have you had any visuals yourself in this area where you're at now. Not in Tennessee where I'm at, you know that. I'll say my main visual was down in Georgia. But I've had you know, I say, all these other people that have told me stuff, and I've just heard the vocalizations. And I'm all the time going out now and doing you know, down the valley and hitting the trees and trying to get responses back where I'm at, just trying to get them familiar. And and and we had some big storms here a while back. Everybody's been having storms here lately. But I was out picking up linbs out in the yard and I thought I heard a radio on the other ridge because I heard a male and a female voice. But it wasn't English, and it wasn't Spanish.

24:58 It was a you know, I couldn't understand they were saying. But and it's kind of sounded like, you know, somebody talking on radio or something. I thought somebody had on radio on you know, some other language, but channel or whatever. But then it stopped, and I'm thinking there was what they called chatter, uh right over the hill from where I was standing, you know, picking up sticks and stuff because it was loud and and you know clear, I just couldn't understand it. And I have heard that some of the creatures, you know, respond to Native American language because the the Cherokee. I'm actually working in Cherokee, North Carolina right now on the fiber project up here. And so I've been up here since December. And there's parts of the reservation here that I'm not allowed to go on. Uh.

25:52 And they keep some things, you know, hidden here. They have all kinds of folklore about big foods here. Uh. They call them keepers of the forest or hairy men. There's all kinds of names they use for them down in Tennessee where I'm from, uh, And in the South, most people call them, uh, wood buggers, you know, the older people before the turn Big Cook came about, they were known as wood boggers or boogey Man or you know, things like that because they had different names for him. But over here on the reservation there's they have different names for them too. But like I said, there's areas that are you know, general publics are not allowed to go at all, and so you know, they could be harboring them them in a safe zone there or something like that. I don't know. But when I Jane in January, was up here working, I went up on top of one of the mountains on a service road and it was still covered with snow on the upper part. The bottom part had melted from the previous week snow. But I got up the very top and the road that ended and turned around and I noticed some prints in the snow on my left side, and I got to looking on the right and it's like they came out of the woods, went across the road and down the edge of the road and then back down into the woods.

27:14 And I got out and put my foot in the print and it was a whole lot bigger than none. And then a bigfoot researcher up here. I showed them the pictures of where the prints went down the edge of the road, and he looked at him and said, yeah, that's what I was wanting to see. And they were in a straight line. They weren't staggered like you know, like four walking and leave the prince side by side. They I guess they kind of walk where they like you'd be walking on a runway model runway or something in this one foot in front of the other. Absolutely, that's what that's what this picture was showing, you know, And that's how it was. And I'd say these prints were large. You know, it had snowed the week before, so there could have been some melting and there wasn't any total impressions because any of that snow would have melted to this, you know, would have been thin. But they're pretty large. And but he, you know, he knew what he was looking for, and and me and him has actually gone down on one of the highest mountains down south of Cherokee here, and it's a federal park up there, and we were down there at one o'clock in the morning up there, just walking by the moonlight, and we had activity up there. We had tree knocks, we had whoops, and you know, we can hear the sticks breaking me down things in the woods there. And we had a thermals, cameras and quarters and stuff, and so we got some pretty good activity up there, and he'd he'd seen him there before. He goes a lot.

28:49 Do you feel like around your current Tennessee area that there's any communication going back of any kind between you and the creatures that are out there. I'm trying to build up a you know, a dialogue or trust where they may respond you know, positivity and without you know, trying to scare me. And so what I do is, you know, they tell you to go and talk to the woods, So you go out there, you know, you just talk and and if they're out there, they can hear you. I also do mine speak, try to do mind speaking, just you know, just think in my mind. You know, I'm not here to harm you.

29:39 I just want to you know, learn about you and and all that, and you know, and a lot of people talk about that that that helps. And I've also heard some people that have said that they hurt in their mind get out now, you know. And so I guess if they can use the telequence u uh, you know, speak tepathically like that, and they can warn you to get out of the area. Because some of the people I've taught to say that these are primitive human beings, are you know, primitive people, and that they you know, they have their own language. Uh, they may have abilities that we don't have. You know, they could be interdimensional.

30:25 You know, I heard a lot of different things, and that could be why people see them and then they don't see them, you know, because they're they're kind of interdimensional and or have the ability to cloak with the type of hair they have that's kind of clear or hollow. You know. I've heard all kinds of different people talking about things like that, but I am trying to, like say, build up a trust with them and so they know that I'm out there to harm them. Do you feel like there's been a time where you may have experienced something like that via thought or anything like that.

31:18 Yeah. Actually, when I was doing the Bigfoot presentation at the Distivery, there was something that was messing with me there. I don't know if it was one of the Speirits that's there at the distillery, or there are some Bigfoots. Somehow knew I was doing a meeting on Bigfoot because about thirty minutes before the presentation, you know, I had everything. I had all this information, pictures, and I was trying to do a slide show and all this stuff, and my heart started racing. My mind was just jumbled up. I was trying to print stuff off the printer off my phone and there was no print button. The TV wouldn't connect you know, it's like everything was one against me on that and you know, my mind was just just racing it and I was able to actually get the stuff, the information out and I will rewatch the video that I filmed when when you know, I did the presentation, I filmed it. I didn't do too bad of a job, but I mean it could have been a lot better. But something was messing with me then.

32:21 And that's the first time I've ever had that particular type of experience. I've seen it on TV or you know, ghost punters and stuff are going and they get kind of confused or you know it's they're not theirself, you know, And that's kind of what was happening there. And you know, something was trying to keep me from talking about it, I think, But it could have been one of the spirits in the distillery. But you know, they haven't ever messed with me like that. We know they're there, but they haven't messed with me like that. That's that's extremely interesting. That's it's definitely something you know to think about, and it's hard because there's you know, no way to know if you know what what side that is coming from, right, But about have you ever actually gone into the park itself to see if you can find evidence of Bigfoot inside the park or is it just on the outside of it.

33:24 We've walked on some of the trails before, but I wasn't really looking at that time. I mean, there's trails all through the park, and it's public access land, so there's you know, you can go all around there. I work out of town a lot, so I don't have the opportunity to go into the park a lot. But I'm like saying, I live right there on and it starts basically at the bottom of my property, so I am in the park and I want to get to where I can do more investigations in there, looking for you know, tree structures, for you know, prints, things like that.

34:05 But I'm just not getting into that part of it. I know there's there's people that lead people in there and do do investigations. You know that they ten or twelve people in there and just walk around and try to look for things like that, But I haven't done those yet. And but that's something we're looking at doing, you know, kind of getting a core group out of these meetings of people that want to go do investigations and you know, and walk through the woods and do that document stuff and then we'll do some night hunts too. But you know, being out there night can you can you can hear things. Uh. I've heard cars that were four or five miles away. You know, they're exhausted and watch their headlights and stuff. So it can get really quiet out there, and you can hear for you know, long long ways. So you know, you can hear some noises out there. You say, well, I don't know what that is, you know, but that U But like I said, I'm just down getting into that research part. I do have one that's away from start but is still in the county that I've got two investigations to do for two different people, and they're within a mile and a half from each other, and neither one of them. I haven't told them who they are. I just told them that they had some neighbors that had activity also because I'm not going to reveal who who the other people are to them, you know, for their privacy. But one lady has had a lot of activity on her property.

35:36 She's actually going to sell her property because it's scared her so bad. The other one just the other night posted bigfoot howling in the background that sounded just like the one I've heard. And then I got to talk to the landowner on that one after I saw the video, and he told me they've been having activity for about two years on there and those are getting those are killing some of the livestock, you know. And at the one lady's house, they they are banging on the house and she's seen the mother and the juveniles, and she's got scared to death by the big guy one time when she went smoked on her deck, went out there and leaned over the deck at night and looked over and there was and I mean she was just in tears when she was talking to me about it. So I'm gonna go over there and investigate those during the daytime and look for evidence, you know, prints and tree structures, and look at the pile of bones. She said, there's that she picked up like fifteen gold schools and there's just piles of bones where they'd been sitting there eating them in the farms like a mile away where the ghilts are from.

36:51 So wow, And that's that's in that same area of central Tennessee where you're at. Yeah, yes, yes, still in the uptown the mountains. Yeah, it's probably about thirty miles and a lot of people say that they they kind of travel around. They may not stay in the same area all the time, but there's different families of them, different units of of the you know, the family structures there, so they you know, they may stay in one area for a while and they may move. But I mean there's so much land there some uh there. You've got the rivers, you got the lakes, and all the woods. There's plenty of room for your cover and and isolation. And then I mean I'm hearing all these stories from you know, the past where people talk about their grandma and grandpa and all them, you know, talking about them. And there's even places up there like like Booger Ridge, Brimstone, Booger you know, things like that where there was creatures in different areas and they always name them whatever that area is and they'll call them booger. And so that's how these roads and trails and areas got their name because of creatures that were sighted, you know, years and years ago. And actually have you heard the account of Daniel Boone killing the Bigfoot? Oh?

38:14 Yeah, that they was a yahoo or wahoo or something. Time yeah, they call him. They call him Yahoo's back then, because that was a character in one of the books that was out at the time. But that was up in Boonsboro, Kentucky, north of us. But it's still in the same mountain range. But he actually had a camp about five miles from my house along the Cumberland River back in the seventeen hundreds. He was like the first white settler up through there. He's named a lot of the rivers, a lot of the areas and all that. And there's still a lot of Booms that are living in the area that are descendants of his. But he spent about two years there right close to my house.

39:00 But I said it was later that he actually killed that bigfoot that was trying to kill his son. And I think they measured it out to like nine or ten feet according to the story there and says, you know, and Davy Crockett also had an encounter. I don't know if it's in that area or not, but and apparently the story was told to a group up in Saskatchewan, Canada, and I think that's where the term Sasquatch kind of came about. The Sasquatch monster from Saskatchewan Canada. That's one story I've heard.

39:44 From people that you talk to in your area. Do they usually describe the bigfoot down there as looking like either an ape or more human like? Or is it kind of back and forth across the board. There was one lady that wrote a book called Fifty Years with Bigfoot. Her name was Mary Green. She lived about ten miles from a while I live, and she was kind of the bigfoot lady they called her in that area. And she wrote this account of a family that they had bigfoots living on the property for over fifty years. And in that account they observed them, you know, having young ones and then growing up, and you know, the different generations. And they said some would travel through occasionally for a couple of months and then begone. I don't know if they were picking up new you know, different mates or something like that. And in that story there was variations of coloration, the amount of hair on their bodies, something like I said, some of them, from where they described it looked kind of looked like the thing on Lord of the Rings or whatever, you know, that little squiggly yack whatever his name is. I don't know, you know, but you know, so they had very little hair, but they were still like a while man and had more human features versus the eight features. One lady that

41:20 was at our meeting, she had a picture that she had a professional draw of what she saw at her house and it was a typical bigfoot, you know, no nick, real broad shoulders and muscular arms and legs and harry. And she was about ten feet from that one when she went to bee the animals had to play the food and looked up and there it was, she said, about ten foot tall. And she started gifting that one and it stayed around for a while. But I talked to her the other day and she said she hadn't seen activity for a little while because she was leaving food out there for at marbles things like that. Not everybody's scared of them, you know that. You know, they're intrigued by by them. Some of them people are and uh And a lot of people won't talk about them because they may have them on the property and they don't want anything to happen to them. They're trying to protect them. So you know, some people will talk about them.

42:25 Some people know about them, but they won't, you know, because sometimes there's there's several farms in the area that know about them, and some people may be losing livestock or something, but you know, they don't go out there trying to kill them or whatever. You know. I actually always wondered that because if you look on the map about this area, there are some pretty big farms and so have you actually talked to these farmers that are having to pretty much just deal with them, but they're just trying to keep their their livestock good. Yeah, I talked to some of them. I've actually gone out and done investigations on one guy's property that he showed me a picture of a big print that was on his property. We went and did some investigations with the dowsing rods or the witching rods. Uh. Found some buried stuff. I'm not going to get in detail about that, but there are some things on the property that are buried and and have monolithic stones on them. So I don't know if it's like Indian burial sites or something like that, but we were using the dowsing rods trying to find them, and we found what we were looking for.

43:41 We walked all around the rest of the property and they didn't do anything. And then I mentioned that some of the ghost hunters use them when there's energy around the cross and my dowsing rods crossed and I said, look over here, and he said to look over here, and his was doing the same thing, and I backed up, went back over that spot. It didn't do it. I said, can you do that again? And it did it, and our metal detectors started doing crazy all that kind of stuff. So that there's a lot of energy there and that big footprint was right there in that area that we were at. H and he's he's smelled them in there a couple of times and uh. And they had seen him before in Texas when they lived there. But they've also had you know, ghost activities on that property also, so it was pretty active area out there. Another thing about that area is it's ah the crater impact. It's called the Misa Comblink Flynn Lick Crater, and that was a meteor medions of years ago that hit and it's one of six in the United States. And you can't really tell that it's a meteor impact except you know, it's got some mountains around it and all, but just looking at it you wouldn't even be able to tell.

44:59 But the it's it's a big, huge crater, and that when a meteor hits like that, it creates a lot of energy, and just like the Serpent Mound, I believe in Ohio that one's on a crater impact and there's so much energy around that. And I'm thinking that could be one reason there's a lot of energy and a lot of sightings and and things like that in our area. It's because of the impact crater. Maybe that's really interesting to think about it. I don't think that's ever come up on the show before, so that that is a very cool other hypothesis to look into.

45:42 But I think you had mentioned before the show you've also had interactions with aliens in this area too. Yes, personally, I've seen three different craft through my lifetime. I've had The first time was when I was eighteen and thirvteen, eighteen years old, when I was doing high school and that was down in Alabama. We observed that one was about thirty minutes. Thought it was like a weather balloon because it was just a big silver orb in the sky and it was about five or six miles away and we just observed it, you know, and I went home, got the binoculars when we were looking at the binoculars, and then all of a sudden it just kind of took off and got out of there pretty quick. And then I saw another one back probably about twenty eighteen or so when I was traveling from Minneapolis up to North Dakota when I was working up there, and I saw about a twenty five foot orb outside the airplane go from one cloud to the other and just stop. And then the last one I saw was a couple of years ago. A craft came over the house.

46:54 It was low and slow, and it was big, and it was more like a tr th Rea B craft if you're familiar with those triangle. Craft, absolutely yeah. And it had the back of it was was just red all the way, you know, across it, you know, kind of like a Dodge charger taillights you know, how to go, you know, just just red all across or whatever. And uh So this thing like it was you know, thick, but it was flat and and it was going pretty slow, you know, for for a craft. And it was it wasn't really that high up off the ground. And but we see stuff all the time in the sky. We'll sit out there and look up in the sky and see.

47:36 Of course, we see the space station come by, we see the starlink, but there's other things up there that aren't human, and you know, they're tiny dots and they're moving super fast. And then we have seen uh. I saw one that was about the river. As I was coming home one night with the road follows the river, I saw something that looked like it was a couple of hundred feet off the river, big before light out there. When I got home, I was talking to the family about it because they were outside, you know, by the campfire, and then we saw this thing in the distance come up above the trees and went up and stopped, and then it went back down. Later I don't know what that was. I have seen another thing come out of the sky during a meteor shower. They were saying there was a meteor shower, and so we were outside looking at that and it came dropping down towards the horizon and stopped, separated in like five different the lights and then just kind of went horizontally different directions. So I've seen things like that that, you know, I don't know what those are. With the orbs, I saw it pretty close and the other craft came over and we have a cycic lady that lives down the road and she reported or she told us that she saw a large craft hovering over a field down there, and her husband couldn't see it, but she did. And and we have these people that are down there summoned the aliens, and she didn't know that that was hovering over that same field. So,

49:12 I mean there's activity out there. So you've got people in the same area that are summoning aliens. Yeah. Yeah, Uh, they they did that for a couple of years. They haven't gone back, but their their equipment and everything was down there. There was a recent flood and it pushed they brought in some some of these tiny houses, they had those there. They had hum vy there. They had a couple of vehicles and a lot of the stuff just got washed down into the neighbors uh yard down there. They had stores containers. But I came through one night coming in from work and it was like three in the morning. They had that whole field lit up, uh, different colors and and everything. I don't you know, I don't know what all they were doing, but but they were actually and they do this in different locations too. It wasn't just that one. So they bought that ten Acres, did all this wort to it, and then they kind of abandoned it unless they get picked up. I don't know. I haven't seen them in a couple of years, but they had other people said they had other locations that they would go do the same type of thing. That is absolutely well anything about it.

50:25 She said she saw the craft there. Goodness, crazy crazy stuff that's you know, not my forte. But it is still interesting and man wild to think that people are well, I guess I guess I do know a little bit about that, because there isn't there like what's it. It's like a protocol that that people do. It's it's escaping my mind right now. But yeah, someone will probably put it in the comments. But you've got some wild, wild stuff going on in this area Ridge, my goodness, and it sounds like you're really just getting started with it.

51:10 And it was about five years ago when I was in for July fourth weekend from out of town. That's when I was working up North Dakota, and I woke up and the whole room in our cabin was just just lit up, really really bright. We didn't have no light sourced all on that side of the cabin. The only other light we have them outside of a single light bulb in the front. But the whole room was just lit up, really really bright. I was frozen. I couldn't move, I couldn't scream, I couldn't do anything. And it was like a vortex like like my eyes, you know, I was like spinning around. And then the light when it finally went out, then I was just sitting there, just shaking. And so I don't know if I was abducted at that point or or or just visited or something.

52:00 And my wife, you know, she's there by herself a lot of times when I'm gone, and she's seen the light too, but she just since she puts cover over her head and she doesn't this isn't want to think about it, Okay, I was actually frozen. I couldn't move. Of course, my wife, she's a medium or she sees dead people and stuff. So we're kind of used to odd stuff happening and seeing things. So, you know, we've been married forty years and she's been seeing dead people ever since I've known her. So and she's learning how to use her abilities a little more to also. So okay, so that makes sense how you would know the distillery is haunted done?

52:41 You know, yes, yes, And we do ghost hunts there. We do a private label for the ghost hunt weekend. People that are on travel Channel on YouTube and the Raith Chasers you may see them on travel Channel. They've all been down there. And and so you know, we've done like three different hunts at different times there on the weekends. And then we've had other mediums that come in, people that are just you know, coming in, don't know anything about the distillery or the other ghost group or anything, and they'll see the same people that we know are there and they'll describe them and we say, yep, and we know who they are. And we have store cameras in there. We pick up stuff on our store cameras.

53:24 The bottles get moved around, we hear our names. We are whistling. Sometimes it it'll sound like boxes falling over and there's nothing moved. The build them was built in eighteen ninety eight and there was a livery stable to begin with for the hotel across the street right down town and Gainsboro, Tennessee. And then later it became a car dealership before car dealership up until nineteen eighty. And so the person that ran the livery stable, the blacksmith, that's where they kept tell of horses and buggies for the guests at the hotel. He became the lead mechanic and worked there sixty two years at the distiller at the Ford Dealership, and so his family come in, was talking to us about that, and so at the next ghost hunt we were talking about him, saying he may still be around. So he spent so much time there and on one of the phone it said black Smith and then it said Vincent, which it was Vincent Ford when it closed in nineteen eighty, So that was the affirmation that he was there. And one of the other people that's there is major Jim Quarrels that used to own the building and he was a car dealer or a car salesman also, and our cash registers right where his desks sat, we found out. And we have a lot of activity there as spirit balls go off al lot there. And there's another lady that's from the eighteen hundreds, Polly,

55:00 she's known as and she managed a couple of the hotels there, real prominent woman in town and she's there a lot. We've communicated with her and people describe her, you know, at these different events or people that just come in, they see him, they see her. There's a child and know that we don't know who that is either, but some of the mediums have said that the child was jumping down off the raptors to the floor and the back up, back and forth, wanting to play with their child that was with them. So you know, it's pretty active. There and so you definitely have your hands full wherever you go, which is pretty pretty incredible. But the whole area it's definitely wild with bigfoot activity. But I just want to say, you know, thank you for sharing a little bit about what you've been experiencing in this area of Tennessee. Ridge, thank you for coming on this show.

56:00 Is there a way that that people can reach out to you in any way if they have maybe something they heard during this episode sounds like something they've got going on their property. Yeah, if they want to just make an email me on my personal email. I don't mind that. I don't want doing on my business email, but I'll give me my personal one out and I go by Ridge because I used to be a Ridge runner. I used to hauld illegal moonshine and now I'm a ridge walker, so walk in the mountains and stuff looking for big goods and other things that are out there. So that's why I go about ridge. My email is s E h U N T the number one at Y'ALLHEO dot com.

56:50 Great. Great, that's awesome. I can give out my phone number if they want to. I need. That's that's totally up to you. I might recommend just the email. Uh. Yeah, this podcast has reached and. I get so many car warty calls and all that stuff too, So a lot of times I don't answer numbers that are I don't know that I don't know so but yeah, but I'm just like I say, there's so much activity in the paranormal. I'm just learning more and more about all of it, and and you just have to be open to it, you know, to for it to happen. Really, I mean, that can be happening and you're not really seeing it, you're not feeling it because you're not open to it. Well, once you do open up to it, then you know the connection can be made. There. The one thing I was I was going to talk about interdimensional that I always tell people is, yeah, I stay in hotels a lot. I want to work out of town. So you can have you know, say a four story hotel there, and then the same footprint of that four story hotel or that room you've got different just like different dimensions. You're on different floors, different things going on, but you're still covering that same footprint.

58:08 And I think, uh, like ghosts or in their own dimension, like like major chorals could still be in our building selling cars in his own dimension and and and then sometimes they just overlap. That's why we hear them, they hear us. You know, the Big Fist could be interdimensional and move in and out of dimensions, and they can be in a you know, a person only sees from one range on the high side and down to the low side, where dogs and cats see a lot more than we do and hear more and they It could be that some of these creatures are just on that verge of of the world we can actually see, and they can go in and out really easily, because you know, there could be something right beside us, and if we're not able to perceive it, we don't see it. But it doesn't mean it's not there. It's just that we don't have the ability to see it. There's like a thermal camera. You know, you can look with your naked eye and not seeing anything. You look at a thermal camera and that it shows something there. You know, just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

59:16 M that's extremely interesting. Wow. Uh wild wild stuff. Ridge, Uh, thank you, thank you. I definitely We're definitely gonna have to keep in touch you just it it feels like you're you're starting to get into some some wild bigfoot stuff down there, and you're in the area where you have access to a lot of really cool stuff. The guy, the guy up here in North Carolina that I went to bigfoot hunting with, he's a big foot expert down here. He mentioned in Tennessee. I said, well, that's where I live. He said, really said, I've been down there six times doing hunts down there. So yeah, if you want to come down and do a hunt or something sometime, and you know, like I say, I'm right there, so absolutely absolutely. Well.

1:00:02 I got it a few things to talk to you afterwards, but I just wanted to say thank you for coming on the show. Ridge. It has been a pleasure. Yeah, well, thank you for the invite. Just wanted to take a minute to say thank you for listening to this episode or the Bigfoot Society podcast. Ridge's story is a powerful reminder of how one encounter can shift your entire perspective. From his close encounter in Georgia to his ongoing research in the mysterious mountains of Tennessee, Ridge is uncovering more than just bigfoot sightings. He's peeling back the layers of something much bigger. If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe to us on YouTube and hit the bell icon so you don't miss an episode. And share this episode with a friend who's fascinated by Bigfoot, the paranormal or unexplained mysteries. And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and make sure you're following the show, and if you'd be willing to leave a review, it really helps more folks find us now. If you or someone you know has had a Bigfoot encounter, especially around Tennessee's I'd love to hear from you, so please shoot me an email at big Society gmail dot com and let's talk. Also, don't forget Sasquatch Summerfest is coming up July eleventh through twelfth in Oakridge, Oregon. Big for Society listeners can grab a two day pass for the price of one day admission with code BFS at checkout. So huge thanks to Priscilla for making that happen. Tickets are available now at www dot Sasquatch Summerfest dot com. Thanks again for being part of the Big for Society. Until next time, keep your eyes open, trust your gut, and never stop asking what else might be out there, And see you in the woods.