Something Climbed Their 40-Foot Fire Tower in Idaho

0:00 You're listening to Bigfoot Society, and I'm Jeremiah Byron. In this show, we go beyond the campfire stories to bring you firsthand encounters from people who say they've seen something impossible. From backwoods trails and remote mountain haulers to quiet farms and crowded highways, the stories come from everywhere, and each one leaves us with more questions than answers. These are the voices of the people who've lived it. So settle in because today you'll hear another account that just might change the way you see the woods forever. So stay with us. Please keep Jeremiah in your prayers as he continues his fight against cancer. For more updates about his medical journey, please go to the CaringBridge link in the show notes.

0:42 Thank you. Hey, Willie, thanks for going up. How's it going? Real good. How about you? Hey, great. Well, what happened with you at that fire tower, man? That was in 1990. A friend of mine and me, we rented it off the forestry service just to stargaze and use it as like a base camp to go hiking in the top of a mountain. It was Deer Ridge Lookout Tower. But we were there for three nights and four days. The last night we were cooking pork chops. throw him over the railing 40 feet down to the ground. And after we got done eating, we put the lights out, laid down, went to bed. And you could feel, it was like only 15 minutes, none of us were talking.

1:29 And you could feel that whole tower tremble. And now this thing was 40 feet tall and it was guy wired from all four sides. And we could feel the tremble of that whole tower with this thing coming up. And there would be a pause. And it would be, you could tell it was on the landing, the first landing. And then you could feel the thing tremble again a little bit more this time. And then another pause. And we could tell this thing's on the next landing. So I said to my buddy, I said, Mark, do you hear that? He said, yeah. We're both looking out the window where whatever it was would appear. Now, far to the left of this window is where someone that would be like five, six foot average height would appear. the head and shoulders would appear way to the left.

2:15 In that window. This thing appeared far to the right, which only meant it was only on like the second step, and its head was already in view. Couldn't get any details, but we saw the silhouette of the shoulders and the head. It was a point like a football. And that was it for me. I couldn't take it anymore. That fight or flight kicked in, swung my feet off the cot, and I had an 870 pump shotgun. And I just cocked it one time. Well, this thing took off. It wasn't worried about being stealthy on its way down. I went outside to the catwalk and went straight to the edge and looked down where the thing was expected to come out the bottom. It never came out the bottom.

2:59 It went down the top three flights and went over the railing. And nothing ever did come out. So we're like looking and looking. We never went to sleep. The next morning, We found no tracks, no sign of anything. And we went back to the ranger district to return the keys. I said to the ranger, I said, we had somebody come up to the tower on our last night, last night. And he kind of looked at me with this smirk on his face. I knew that we weren't the first ones to tell this guy this. Now a bit of like insight on this tower. It was one hour and 15 minutes from the bottom of the road, which was just strictly a forestry access road with a gate at the bottom. And the ranger, when we picked up the keys at the beginning of the trip, he told us, make sure you pull through and lock that gate because we don't want anybody up that road. There's no intersecting township roads or nothing. So we did what he said. I mean, how someone would end up up there with us, it wouldn't have happened. I don't think anybody would have gone down the steps and dove over a 10-foot railing down to the bottom.

4:15 I really don't. We tried to rule out what indigenous animals in the area may have taken an interest in those porkchop bones because we figured that was the enticer. And a mountain lion, of course, would. But you wouldn't hear or feel a mountain lion come up the steps. They just don't carry enough weight. A grizzly bear possibly could have come up those steps and made that tower tremble. And it could have even stretched up to its full height to where we would have seen the silhouette in the glass. But a grizzly bear, in my opinion, doesn't have the intelligence to get on the top three flights and go over the railing to avoid getting shot if it came out the bottom.

4:56 Absolutely. And that and what other animal fits the description of having a pointed head? None that I know of. None. None. I mean, it was as wide. I mean, that head was as wide as a five-gallon bucket. I mean, it was huge. We didn't hear any wood knocks. I didn't pick up any, like, strong smell that these things were supposed to have. Nothing. There was no indication that anything was even outside. We thought we were up there by ourselves. But apparently it had been sniffing the pork chop bones and wanted to come up. For a better look is all we could figure. We should have closed the trap door going up to the catwalk, but we didn't, you know, we left it open.

5:41 But we didn't want to, it was just a reaction, that adrenaline. It just, that's it. You weren't coming up any further. And we jumped up and that was it. I mean, if he'd have got a hold of us, if we would have been a threat to him or he thought that he couldn't get down the steps because we were in the way, I mean, I totally think he'd have thrown us like a wrench over that railing. Well, Willie, imagine if you had just left those bones up in the fire tower. I wonder if it just would have come right up. I don't know. It probably polished the ones off that we threw over and was coming up for more to see where they came from.

6:23 Absolutely. We left a notation because they had a guest book, a guest register up there, and we filled you know, fill it out and put down, you know, what happened to us. But I mean, when we returned those keys and I told the guy and he was looking, I mean, that, that removed all doubt to me. I knew this guy, he knows all about these things. That's an incredible account. Thank you. I mean, wow. Right off the bat, but this is like a Northern Idaho looking at a map. It says it's in Bonner's Ferry. It is way, way up there. That's where some weird stuff happens. Have you ever done research in that area to see if there's been other things reported? No.

7:03 I live in Pennsylvania. When we got back to Pennsylvania, we told all of our friends and stuff, and they all laughed at us and said, oh, no, there's no way that happened. That was somebody messing with you. And I'm going to tell you what. I mean, we got on that landing, on the first landing, and looked over the railing. That was a drop down there. I mean, that was boulder-covered ground. I mean, it was– It was rough. If a human being would have went over that railing, they would have blown out both pelvis joints. I'm sure of it. Oh, wow. Yeah, there'd be broken bones. Yeah, there was no way a human would do that. And a bear would not have a need to. A bear would have just come out the bottom flight. And this didn't.

7:47 It was pretty scary. I mean, it just, it changes you, you know. Was it hard to go back in the woods after that? Um, no, you'd go back in there and you're like a lot more, uh, your senses are on higher alert. That's for sure. Right. But it didn't, it didn't, um, persuade me to, uh, no, I'm not saying that I would go out in that same area and camp in like a tent or something like that. No, but I would, I would, I would rent that lookout tower again for anyone out there who'd ever want to see or have an experience. That's what I recommend you do. As you go up into the Pacific Northwest, you book one of those lookout towers.

8:30 Go up there. Don't have Bigfoot on the brain. Just go up there and have a good time camping, playing harmonica. If they're in the area, they'll come to you because you are their entertainment. I mean, you'll stick out like a sore thumb because you'll be the guy making all sorts of racket on the big tower in the middle of nowhere. Oh, my goodness, dude. Yeah, and I mean, as far up as that was, you have a map there? You can see how far up the Panhandle. We were 13 miles south of the Canadian border. Yeah, it's so far up. We could look into Canada. We could look into Washington State. We could see Montana, and we could see into another time zone. I mean, that's where we were.

9:13 Wow. I mean, it's east of it, but it's north of Priest Lake, which is on the other side of Idaho in the Panhandle. But it's far up there for sure. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Willie, thank you for sharing that account. That's incredible. Well, you're quite welcome. Hi there. Hey there. Thanks for coming up. What happened up there near Thompson Peak for you? Okay. It was back in the mid-70s. My parents bought acreage between Honey Lake and Thompson Peak at the end of the road, the furthest property up, Thompson Peak's National Forest.

9:57 So we were backed by the National Forest. I did a lot of horseback riding and hiking up there, and it was bushwhacking, heavy-duty stuff. And at the base of Thompson Peak, I found a lot of animal bones and such. And it was spooky up there, and I could hear thunking sounds that were kind of strange. I never heard any vocalizations, but I was creeped out. I felt like I was being watched. I could hear sounds sometimes in the brush. But I was with my horse. I felt safe.

10:41 I'm a city girl. I didn't know better. You know, I saw bears and porcupines and, you know, all sorts of deer and such. And I didn't feel threatened by them at all. So I was just naive. And so one day I drove up the road that goes up to the tower on Thompson Peak. and was looking around up there, and the gal that lived in the tower came down to talk to me, and I asked her if she'd ever had any weird experiences, and she said a lot of weird experiences, and sometimes people were weird, but she said that she had seen a deer run off the edge of the cliff just suddenly, for no apparent reason, just freaked out, running full bore and just go off the cliff. And that's after I'd mentioned the bones at the base of the cliff. And she, and I said, I asked her about the knocking sounds. What, what does that mean? Is that like hunters or people chopping down trees?

11:56 What is that? And she says, no, I've seen, um, a Bigfoot. And I laughed at her. I thought she was joking. And, um, She says, no, I've seen a Bigfoot, and they're massive, and I'm up here by myself, so it's a little scary. But, you know, the strange people that have come here seem more threatening. It's just living up here, and I'm in its space. So she didn't venture far from the tower ever, but she said she'd heard vocalizations before. as well as the banging and branches breaking. And, you know, um, she felt watched just like I had. So she had all those same experiences, but she had actually seen it and she was an older woman.

12:50 I don't, she was no nonsense. I don't doubt her at all. She was dead serious that she'd seen this thing. And, uh, I don't know, a few years later, I went back up there and she was no longer there. In fact, the tower was closed. So I don't know if they, I mean, I think someone still goes up there, but she lived there. And I don't know if they man it like that anymore. So I don't know if, you know, if people still are having encounters or not. But I never liked staying up there any after that. I didn't, I was in a tent. And I didn't no longer felt safe. And my horse broke out a couple of times of the pin and, and it was freaked out. So I just decided I'm going back to the city and that was.

13:39 It for me. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, in that situation, I would have to be, that would be weird being in a tent as well. I totally get it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I actually had a bear rip through the foot of my tent by my feet when I was in it one night. And I had a dog in the tent with me, and the dog scared off the bear. But it was just too wild out there. It was just, you know, I wasn't armed. Like I said, I'm a city girl. I didn't know how to deal with any of it. So I just decided I was pushing the boundaries.

14:22 Yeah, exactly. And it sounds like you may have made the right choice, but I guess it's one of those things you'll never really know. But thanks for sharing what that lady shared to you over by that fire tower. It's incredible. Sure thing. And you know, the one thing to put it in perspective for listeners is this is back in the 70s. We didn't have telephones or GPS or anything like that, you know, you went out and even close to a town, you were on your own. I mean, there was, there was just nothing out there really. And people didn't venture up there, especially up by the peak. It was too remote.

15:05 People just couldn't get there. So if there's any place that a big creature could live without being detected, that's a great area. It had protection. It had food. It had, all the water and resources that it would need to survive up there and never come in contact with humans. So it was a great spot. Okay. I'll let you go. All right. Thanks for coming up. I appreciate that. All right. Hi there. Thanks for coming up. Hi. Can you hear me? Yeah. As long as, um, I remain anonymous, I guess.

15:45 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I don't personally have experience with any encounters with Bigfoot, but I've heard many stories about Bigfoot from family members and tribal members. He's actually very well connected with many Native tribes throughout the United States and Canada. I am guessing Canada. I'm not First Nations. My dad has told me about, um, his sister, um, having dreams of him. And I guess, you know, many like medicine men use him or, uh, they work with him cause he's, he's not an animal.

16:35 We don't consider him an animal. He's more like a spiritual being, uh, interdimensional being. Um, but, um, Yeah, so there are medicine men who do work with him, and I have been told that he does communicate, but he doesn't speak. Like, he communicates telepathically. And like a lot of people said, he comes from the water. So every time that he's around, the reason why he smells is because he comes from out of the water, and he and he'll go back into the. Water and wherever he comes from.

17:19 But let me go back to my dad. His sister was telling him she had a dream about him, that she wanted help because she's diabetic and she lost both her legs and she really can't get around and she's not mobile. but she doesn't want to die early at a young age because, you know, she's not really the best of in the best of health, but she wants to live long enough to see her grandkids grow up. And so she prayed to, um, she prayed to creator and then she was praying to Bigfoot about having help and wanting help. And, um, So she dreamt about him that night. And then when she woke up, she's seeing two big handprints, bigger than normal size of a man's hands on her window and like, um, big size feet. But, um, uh, she told my dad and he wouldn't tell, they were joking, but, um, he told her, uh, Don't be asking for anything that you're not, you know, ready to ask for work for, but when you ask for these things, you know, you have to work for them too. Um, but, uh, yeah, there's many stories with, um, natives who have had encounters with him. So he has been cited in South Dakota this past summer. Like a lot of people have been reporting him in South Dakota on the Rosebud Sioux reservation

18:51 and the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation. And he's also seen here in the Pacific Northwest in like Oregon and Washington. But my friend, she was telling me that in Washington, the FBI has a special office for him, just. For him in Washington. So if you didn't know about that, you should look into that. I haven't looked into it myself, but Um, yeah, so most, um, that's why I say, if you want to get any Bigfoot stories, you should have this conversation with natives, especially as natives who live on the reservation.

19:37 So I'll tell you what, um, those are conversations I love to have. I've only been able to have them on this application. I talked to an individual that lived on the Lummi Reservation in Washington for like 30 minutes on TikTok the other day, and she had some wild accounts. Yeah, it's a great app for getting to people. Did you say this individual knows of a FBI department in Washington that looks into Bigfoot? Yeah, that's what she said. She said there is a department for him because there are so many people reporting sightings of Bigfoot in Washington that they had to create one for it.

20:27 So if this is an individual that you talk to regularly, feel free to pass on my email. It's right there. It's bigfootsociety at gmail.com. I would love to talk to her. And it can be off record, too, if it needs to be. But that sounds extremely interesting. Yeah. I tried to invite my dad here because he knows a little bit more, too, about it. And then my mother-in-law, her partner, he has so many stories about it, too. If you talk to elders from tribal communities, they can tell you a lot more about it. about any experiences or encounters, and plus legends, or not legends, but actual stories from tribes. Many tribes have different stories of him.

21:20 They call him different things. Many tribes have worked with him. Many tribes have met enemies with him. The stories vary. This is all like before colonization too. So that's how far our stories go back. Wow. That, that is absolutely incredible. And I, you know, I, so I've realized whenever I'm able to talk to an individual that has access to like those oral tradition stories, it is such a privilege to be able to talk to an individual that has access to that. And, you know, I do not take it for granted at all. Feel free to pass on my, email to anyone that you would like to to be.

22:05 Honest okay um yeah if you message it to me at me i can um um write it down and send it out to a few. People cool i'm gonna go ahead and follow your account and i'll do that afterwards thank you hey jimmy thanks for coming up yeah that's fine all right so what's you got going down there in oklahoma jimmy. Oh, I got actually two Bigfoot stories. All right. The one really impressive one was back in, I don't know, 2008 or something like that. I can't remember the year exactly.

22:49 But I used to haul bulk milk, semi-truck, out of Snyder, Texas, and go into Dallas. On a regular basis, like four loads a week. Anyway, I traveled loaded with the load on this Highway 180 that runs parallel with the Red River in Texas. Yep. all the way from Schneider, Texas, through Breckenridge, and then heading east to Mineral Wells, then down into Fort Worth, Dallas. And I'd haul milk to Dallas.

23:42 And doing a normal run, I'd go to Dallas in the evenings. And then catch traffic where it wasn't too bad. Unloading the mornings. Anyway, I'm going west side of Mineral Wells, about 17 miles. There's a red dot there. If you Google about Bigfoot, they got a red dot on the map there where sightings have been seen. Well, I had one walk in front of my semi-truck.

24:31 In that area? Yes, that exact area. Anyway, that's the only place on that whole highway that there's real small pine trees thicket coming up close to the road. Tiny little pines and then goes to bigger pines, you know. going into the woods there on the south side. On the north side, it's more of a hardwood and a fence there. The pines are all on the south side of the road. Anyway, it was pretty cool. It's curvy there, too. So it's a one-of-a-kind place anybody can spot. It's exactly 17 miles west of Manor Wells. Anyway, I'm driving around the curve, and I go around, curves left and right, you know, kind of things like that, and I curve to the right.

25:35 Here's a Bigfoot coming out of the pine tree, and he's walking in front of my truck. I'm in a big 389 Peterbilt. I'm backing that motor off and slowing down and slowing down and slowing down to a crawl. I didn't stop. I just crawled through there. And this dude's nine foot tall. His head's, even with my head out the windshield, it had just gotten dark enough to turn the headlights on. I had the headlights on. Seemed to not hear the noise or something, but wasn't fearful of nothing he was on a mission just across the road and he was traveling south and you talk about he was 10 foot away i seen the whole thing four steps and he was across the two-lane highway plus the shoulders so those are pretty large steps yeah that's incredible Oh, he was incredible. Extremely long-armed, long-armed, big hand, long, exactly, you know, to the T, exactly what a nine-footer should look like. Same coloring, everything, everything the same. It was kind of a drizzle there, trying, and it was a

27:06 little bit of heavy moisture in the air, but I saw him very well. And I believe, too, that they're a little ghostly, but like she said, they're kind of a supernatural. But they show themselves, and he didn't look at me. He did kind of, when he was right in front of me, he turned his head a little bit, but I couldn't see his eyes. He didn't turn it quite enough. He probably saw me, though, good, you know.

27:47 He walked across the road in four steps, stood sideways at the fence on the south side there, put both hands on top of the top wire, and stepped sideways and stepped over that fence and just casually moved south. So that was my sighting, pretty wild. But 10 feet away from you, you know what I mean? I mean, literally 10 feet away from my windshield, you know what I mean? He's right there in front of me.

28:27 That's a thing you must, I mean, if I had seen that, you must replay that over and over in your head. Oh, not really. You know why? The good Lord's created many things, and many things are strange, or, you know, are unknown, or iffy, you know. But, hey, it's just a little bit of God's humors, the way I absorb it. You know, God's got a lot of humor. He's got a lot of humor. He's had a lot of things in my life, you know, that... I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. Anyway, I'm 66 years old now, healthy.

29:17 A long life, sounds like, with some wild stuff. Yeah, and that was one encounter. Like you said, do you remember? Yeah, I thought about that for a long time. I mean, it was in my head for quite a while. And I remember it. like it was yesterday. But it was quite something to watch him take four steps across that road. But it was quite something to also that he did not flinch or stop or wait until a truck passed or hear the noise or where that was, why and what that was all about, I don't know.

30:05 But you would think that he would know before he got there. But sure enough, he crossed the road right in front of my semi-truck. Of course, that was curvy, you know, and I already was breaking down slow for about 40 miles an hour to make them curves to 35, you know, so it wasn't much to lower it down to a creep. But I waited all the way until I got right against him before I actually really creeped it slow, slow. I didn't make a complete stop. But I watched him out the front window and I watched him out the driver window stepping over the fence. That's how close I was to him.

30:51 What do you think would have happened if you had not been able to stop, and you had hit it. I'd have probably knocked him out ten foot and rolled. He'd probably been pretty mad and just got up and kept moving. They're a pretty tough creature, too, probably. You know what I mean? Right. You'd have to be going pretty fast to hurt them. Okay. Do you think a creature that large would probably do some damage to your truck, I would imagine? Oh, I imagine. Yeah. I'm sure they weigh about 600 pounds or better.

31:33 Have you ever talked to any other truckers that have also had sightings? Is that anything that came up? No, not really. I've pretty much just kept to myself about it all. a handful of them, a handful of family, you know, and stuff like that. But, no, I haven't really shared it with anybody. But another sighting, I had another sighting, too. I was, because I hauled, I went from hauling milk to hauling frac sand in the oil field.

32:18 And I did a gig in Williston, North Dakota for a year and a half. So I went up there and worked for a year and a half and I had a good buddy there that I met and we became friends and we did a lot of things together. I'm going to the, one time I'm going through north of Williston and to go There's an intersection there where you go east, and it takes you, I think it's Waterford, or it takes you to another town over there. Anyway, there's probably a 26-foot snake trying to cross the road.

33:18 biggest creature I ever seen in my life had to be about it had to be it was totally white and it had a massive head and it was it had to be over I'm going to say 24 inches around and It was huge, but it was no kidding. The traffic came to us. There was traffic. There was traffic. We all came to a stop, and I was right against the thing, and everybody gave it plenty of room, but he couldn't hardly travel across the blacktop, and he was slipping and sliding the whole way across, so it took him a long time. So we just sat there and watched and watched. That was pretty entertaining. And that dude, I swear, if you'd have stretched him out, he went all the way across the road. That was a two-lane with shoulders on it, too. It was huge, huge snake.

34:29 Biggest snake I ever saw in my life. And also in that same area, the Bigfoot, we were over there. We were in a vehicle. We were just sitting out there parked, you know. And we got out and we walked around a little bit. We looked across in the Missouri rivers right there. We looked right across the Missouri river there. We seen a Bigfoot probably about 500 yards away. It was all the way across the river. We knew it. We both saw it. It was a Bigfoot. And he's wandering around this certain area of trees, but he was totally visible. You could see the movement, you know what.

35:25 I mean? And, uh, pretty cool. That was my previous encounter before I saw that one in mineral by mineral wells, Texas. Okay. So this is your first one. That was my first one, the one in North Dakota and then the mineral wells, Texas. That was a, Well, that was my second one. But pretty awesome stuff when you see stuff like that. Like you, yourself, you can learn and gain all kinds of knowledge from others. And if you haven't seen one yourself, you ain't been in the woods long enough. They're out there.

36:07 Right, right, right. No, exactly. You got to be in the right area and you got to be in their– for a long enough amount of time. I totally agree with you. We have them here in Oklahoma, too. Oh, yeah. I mean, all over the place. I live in the area where they are. Is it southeast? Yeah, I live southeast Oklahoma. Yeah, so you've heard all the stories and the ho-nubby stuff and Washington National Forest has got a ton of them. It's just nuts from what I hear. They're everywhere man they're not just they're different places they're real elusive and nobody's going to see them by you know they're real elusive they show themselves and you're just a lucky person to be able to you know vision that other than that the normal person's not going to see them I don't think.

37:12 Yeah, I think you have to have the right intentions about doing it. You've got to know how to move in the woods, and you've got to know how to be quiet, and you know how to be patient. You've got to move real slow. You've got to take your time. You've got to enjoy what you're doing. Yep. And you've got to have a good peace of mind. And if you have a good peace of mind and you do everything right– You can hear noises. The noises will come at you. But they're out there. I don't have to think. I know they're real. You know what I mean? Oh, absolutely.

37:55 I'm one of them guys that know they're real. Do you know what I mean? Jimmy, thank you for coming up and for sharing what you experienced over the years. If you have stuff to share in the future, feel free to reach out. My email is right up there. But I appreciate you coming up, man. You bet. You bet. And I hope everybody's having a good evening. All right. Thank you, sir. You bet. All right. I've got Char. I'm going to go ahead and bring Char up, who's requested to come up. Hey, Char, I saw your comment. Thanks for coming up about Preston, Washington.

38:37 I'm just bringing it up on the map. Okay, so this is... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This was like probably 30 years ago that I experienced it. I have not lived in the Northwest since. But yeah, when I was riding horses, I kind of sighed them a lot because we want to go back like into like the tree farms and we would go by the highways and that kind of thing. And every time we would go by, we would always see like something... hunched down almost like, like a, like a, like a, just like pine cones and everything. And then it got up and then it just left. It was unreal. And when I told anybody that I was with, they didn't believe me, but I was definitely like, I saw it.

39:23 I've seen this many times. I lived on Mercer Island, Washington as well. And there was this park called secret park. And it was kind of in the middle of nowhere. And a lot of times we would go back there as kids and we would always see something hunching down. And it was always covered by something, you know, almost like it was hiding. But I have seen it get up and walk away. And it's kind of creepy. My horse was always. kind of on edge, you know, cause they have like a sixth sense, I think. But, um, yeah, I mean, I mean, it was interesting. I was never harmed by it. It was always hiding from us, but you know, it was always one or it was always me or someone else that was with me that experienced this, but it was always on our horses when we are not in like you know, any kind of area that was like heavily traffic, trafficked or anything like that. It was always like back in the woods. And we have, we found a lot of stuff. There's a lot of things back in the woods, like old abandoned houses and that kind of thing. You know, we see a lot of things, but I mean, that was just kind of like, no one, no one really, um, believe me, but I know, I know what I saw.

40:33 Well, absolutely. And I think you definitely are hitting something there with, uh, a lot of things will only happen, you know, if, if you're around horses for some reason, and they do definitely have, I've gotten a lot of reports about, you know, and there's things reported like braiding of manes. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Is that anything that you ever experienced yourself since, since you're familiar with horses? Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, We had 18 horses in our stalls and every night we would come in and some nights they.

41:16 Would be like really bothered. And some nights they would be totally calm and there was no reason for them to be really bothered, you know? And I feel like, I don't, I mean, I don't know. We were really remote. Like our farm was like way in the middle of nowhere. When we took our horses, it was like muddy trails. It was nothing that was ever like really mapped. And so our farm was kind of like in the middle of nowhere. And I kind of feel like, I don't know, I feel like we call it Sasquatch up there, but you know, when he would come in, he definitely had a connection with, with the horses. So I believe that what you say, it's, it's definitely.

41:57 Like, cause horses are, you know, they're very, you know, just. They're into any kind of environment that they're around. They, they pick up on that. When you say had a connection, uh, what do you mean specifically by that? Well, the connection was like some nights I would come in there and it would be very calm. You know, we had, we had, we had an open pasture and some nights it would be like super calm. And then some nights it would just be like, what is going on? It was just like some kind of spirit in the air. And I don't understand it. I, I mean, I don't have any understanding being from the Northwest. I mean, we, it's like this mythical creature that no one believes in and all this stuff. And when you talk about it, everybody's like, oh yeah, it's just the woods or it's just, you know, the wind or whatever.

42:45 No, it's definitely not. I definitely believe that animals have a creature like connection. You know? So with creatures, I think it's different, you know, with humans, I think we're so confrontational. I don't know. They pick up on our energy. I don't know anything about it, but I'm so intrigued by your conversation and hearing about experiences because, you know, growing up, I did have a like I would hear things and I would think it was just like maybe the horses like running up and down the gravel, you know, a driveway from the horses to our house, which was like a third of a mile, I think. But you would hear. Like running up and down it. And when I would look outside, you wouldn't see anything. And I understand there's bobcats and deer and all that kind of thing, but we didn't have a lot of that. Bobcats and deer really didn't come around our environment just because we had horses and dogs and cats and that kind of thing.

43:44 So I don't know if they would be so inclined to come into our property. It's not out of the question. I mean, I've talked to plenty of people where Like they will get up close to the house even and hit the side of the house or the trailer. But did it sound like it was something on two legs that was running when you would hear something running around on the gravel? Yeah, definitely. Okay, so I'll explain my situation. So we had a log house that was probably like a third of a mile up from where we kept the horses. And where we kept the horses, there were two pastures on both sides of the driveway. Okay. And the driveway was all rock and the horses were in like mud and sawdust and that kind of.

44:30 Thing, like grass and that kind of thing. So you would never hear the horses. But one night I had my window open and we had a guy who was like the caretaker of the stables, like right down the hill. And so one night I had the door open and I was listening and I heard like this, almost like he was, someone was running up to the doorway and. Mind you, like. I can't remind you how much we were so remote, but I was thinking it was Myron, the guy who took care. Of the stalls. And it was, you know, definitely two legs. But it was kind of like heavy. Like someone was coming up to like reprimand you. I don't know how to explain it.

45:13 But when I talked to him the next day, I was like, hey, were you looking for one of the horses? Did they get out? And he's like, no. You know, I don't know. But when I looked outside, I mean, we had pastures upon pastures and we had horses and I could see it by the moonlight. There was nobody back there. Wow. A lot of people will describe the way it moves or when they hear it move as something that moves is moving with purpose. Like a very heavy van. Yeah, it's very interesting. How close was your nearest neighbor? My nearest neighbor was actually like right across the fence.

45:54 And so when I talked to them, they had many experiences as well. And they didn't really talk about it. They were just like, yeah, they're just like, oh, it's just living in the country, you know, so they didn't really equate it with anything. That's funny. Yeah. Would you would you hear sounds out there that didn't really belong and not necessarily things that were like you were thinking was like a Bigfoot? Okay. So here's the funny thing is that, you know, the sound peacocks make, it's kind of like a high. Yeah. So we would hear that constantly. And my neighbors were always like, Oh, it's just the, the peacocks.

46:34 And I was like, where are the peacocks? Peacocks are nowhere to be found, but it's kind of like a high pitch, like squealing sound for just a little bit. And then it's just, then it's gone. But no one really knew what to think of those sounds. It's funny that people will usually, they'll say it sounded like it was a duck. But then at the end of the duck noise, it turned into something just wild and crazy sounding. Just weird stuff like that, right? Yeah. So my brother has peacocks. He lives on Whidbey Island, Washington.

47:16 Okay. But he actually does have wild peacocks that go around the island or whatever. And so one day he sent me this video of a peacock in his backyard. And I was like, that sounds a lot like what I heard on the ranch. It's just like this. I don't want to like, it's. Kind of like a, like a, I don't know, kind of like a high-pitched turkey sound. But it doesn't stay for very long. It's just kind of like that. And then it's done. You know, when like there's like when my horses would make like Winnie or whatever, the horses would Winnie with him. But when you heard this peacock sound, it's like everything went quiet.

47:58 It was very strange, but I never saw any peacocks. So, I mean, yeah, no one's ever believed me. Was it the kind of quiet where like it gets just super overpoweringly quiet and you're like, ah, it. it's weird. I can't handle it. That kind of quiet. So the kind of quiet we would, we would experience is when we were going into the woods, there was a tree farm across the street from us. And we got permission from the tree farmer that we could go through there because there was a river on the other side of his farm. So we would, we would walk across his farm to get to the, you know, the peacock or the stream and, But every time, I mean, it was just, it was just kind of eerie. And he was just like, just be careful out there. And like, when I would go out there, it got really like almost quiet where your ears kind of ring.

48:59 Yep. It's so quiet. And then all of a sudden you would hear something. And then my horse would perk up for his horses are super, you know, they're like village and about everything that's around them. And so they would perk up, my horse would perk up. And so. Yeah. He, I mean, he was the most frightened. before me but it. Was kind of weird because you're kind of out there in the middle of nowhere and then you hear the sound and you're. Like oh. Yeah I experienced that type of um uh quiet for the first time out in the Willamette National Forest in Oregon this summer And it's just, it's wild. It's, you cannot, you can't explain it until you've, you've experienced it yourself.

49:49 Just the entire forest getting oppressive, just crazy, crazy quiet. And it's just like, it feels like you're doing, I can't explain it. It is so quiet, but you're like, something is wrong. Something is wrong right now. And it's so hard to explain until you're there. I don't know. It's an eerie quiet it's like should i be on edge or should i not be on edge but i've never been like harmed by obviously never been harmed by any that's you know bigfoot or the sasquatch or whatever i believe that they're very you know i mean i don't know i think that they're very quiet and gentle creatures i don't know they try and kind of keep out of the limelight but You know, at the same time when I'm riding a horse and I'm going in there and it's quiet, we're going through a tree farm and there's a stream, I would imagine I would catch somebody off guard.

50:44 Absolutely. Yeah, I feel like, you know, a few times I encountered that. It wasn't just me. It was other people that I was riding with. But it was mostly our horses that were just like, what's going on? Their ears perked up and were like, what's going on? That's wild stuff yeah i i would say you know like it's it's too bad that people around there weren't more receptive but the way that you're you're explaining it sound like you guys were definitely kind of in the middle of something but uh it never really got super crazy but you had something going on i would say for. Sure yeah we heard noises we've seen things like we would place things in the stables and they would turn up in a different place and like even food like We had this one horse and he was very young.

51:36 He was probably like three years old. He was really like little. Horse, but someone bought him and they wanted to put him in a futurity and he was always hungry. You know how they are. And so somehow he got out of his stable one night and he ate almost all of the bee pulp that was in there. And so I, I don't know how he got out because you know, those, the, um, The locks that are on the doors, you have to pick them up, turn it, and then pull it out. So it's not something you can just wiggle. But this horse was always like, I need food, I need food, I need food. I don't know if... I mean, I don't.

52:17 Know. Yeah, you had some weird stuff going on for sure. Yeah, there definitely... I mean. When you're out there, like when I was out there, it surprises you because you don't see it. Mostly it looks like a pile of leaves or pine cones or pine needles or whatever. And that scared the heck out of me a lot of times. It's because you would go past it one time and you're like, what is that? And then you go back and it's like, it's not there anymore. Oh, wow. Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that a few times. That would be the freakiest thing. you know, a whole pile of leaves just not being there. Right. Yeah. Not in the right place because we made that trail and we're like, where's that?

53:01 You know? So, I mean, you just never know. I mean, you have to keep an open mind, but yeah, I definitely have heard it. I've, I kind of have seen it, but for the most part, I believe in it because it's, I mean, there's so many trees and there's so many piles of leaves and pine cones out there that we just, I mean, I'm an avid hiker as well. I've never seen anything out hiking, but I definitely do see things that are more in like habitable areas. Gotcha. Well, keep, you know, keep me in mind if you're ever out there and, you know, you're continuing to do stuff wherever you are now. And if you have something else happen, which again, You know, if you've had stuff happen in the past, it can happen again. Feel free to reach out. My email is up there. Yeah, awesome.

53:56 Thank you. Okay, cool. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for chatting. All right, cool. Thanks. Good stuff. Hey, you've got an update about Thompson Peak. Good to talk to you again. Yeah, you know, I'm 66 now. This happened when I was a teenager, so I hadn't really thought about it much in years. But I thought about more of what this ranger said. I don't know if she was a ranger, whatever they are in the fire towers. But a couple things she mentioned, she said, She saw it through binoculars. She was up in the fire tower itself. So she couldn't determine how tall.

54:41 It was. Other than it was huge. And she said her hands were shaking, so it made her hard to see what she was actually looking at. But she described it as it had red hair. It had heavy hair on its shoulders. Its head was pointed. It had dark eyes and a large mouth, so she could see its face, but she didn't mention the nose. And she said it was carrying something on its shoulder, and it moved fast, but it was a strange gait. She described it as its joints were in the wrong place. Which, you know, of course, back then meant nothing to me. But I've heard more about that on your podcast. So I guess that's something they are weird moving.

55:37 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really interesting. I mean, I wish I could talk to her to clarify that. That is so interesting. Yeah, unfortunately, she's long gone because, you know, like I said, she was an elderly lady at that time. And I don't think she worked many more years after I was up there. But she also mentioned that besides the whooping sounds in the evenings and mornings, she said it gurgled like a crocodile, which at the time I thought, what is this woman talking about? But, you know, in my older age, I know that crocodiles, when they mate, they make a weird like, gurgling sound or you know some sort of vocalization and i guess that's what she thought it sounded like um it would move around like the base of her tower um but she couldn't see it she would hear this at night when she couldn't see so i don't know if that was growling at her you know like it didn't like her in her tower or something anyway she didn't know but it scared her And the last, let's see, what else did I write?

56:51 I wrote it down. Yeah, the only other thing she told me that stuck in my mind is she said, don't tell anyone I told you this. I would lose my job. I would lose my credibility. I would lose everything. So please, this is just between us because you've had strange experiences on your own. You're down below. I'm up above. But do be careful. So the only reason why she shared it is because she was concerned for my safety. But she certainly didn't want. this information out. And of course, now I don't feel bad explaining because she's long gone. I can't do anything to ruin her reputation at this point. And she was a very credible person. She was not kidding at all.

57:49 Thank you. That adds actually a ton to your account. I appreciate you coming back up. That is very cool. You know, she's out in the middle of nowhere. She is alone up there. It's very quiet. She can hear very well and see very well. So her account was so stunning because I have no doubt about it that she saw this thing. And it scared her to death. But, you know, she maintained her job up there alone. A female. So, you know, kudos to that woman.

58:29 Yeah, no, she she deserves a medal for for getting through that, but also like doing her job in a probably an amazing way. Like kudos for her. Absolutely. What a what a way to to celebrate her memory. Yeah. Thank you for coming back up. Have a good evening. You as well. Well, let's see. Rocky, I'm going to send you a request to see what we're talking about here. Hey, Rocky, how's it going? Evening. How's it going? Feel free to share what's been going on there. Okay. So I'm a born and bred Colorado native.

59:10 Native. And I've spent lots of time out in the mountains. I'm a hunter, camping, fishing. I love the wilderness. And this was probably 2006, 2007. Um, I was set up at elk camp, uh, by myself, uh, outside of fair play, Colorado. I'm not sure which national force that is. It might be San Isabel, maybe Pike. Um, but I was back off trail a good eight to 10 miles and set up camp and, uh, had my topo map out and was looking at it inside my tent and. probably marble to golf ball size stones were thrown at my tent a couple of times. And so I would get out of the tent and shine the light around, uh, the area and was looking for something, you know, um, didn't think much of it. Uh, went to bed that night around, I'm guessing two, two 30 in the morning, heard heavy footfall, uh, I put it up to moose, bear, deer walking through the area. Again, didn't think much of it. Twig snap.

1:00:41 You know, something moving around in the woods. And a couple of times I heard it get close into camp. And. I chalked it up to breeze, but my tent would kind of shift a little bit. But it wasn't really windy that night. Not like a push or like a hands on the tent or anything big like that. So get up the next morning to go scout. And it's probably 730 or so daybreak. And I start walking around looking for tracks to see what the heck it was. And I come across not a super defined set of prints.

1:01:25 It was kind of on pine needle and leaf litter, but I'm guessing they were in the neighborhood of 16 to 17 inches by five to six inches wide. Okay. And that's a guess. Um, I didn't have a tape measure. This is pre cell phone camera. Um, you know, I didn't have any like casting material or anything like that. So it was just, this is all just off memory. Um, But something was definitely around the camp that was not a bear, a moose, mountain lion, deer, nothing of the local fauna. Were there any smells that were weird out there? No, I didn't pick up on any odors because I hear they smell awful. I didn't pick up on any abnormal scent or odor. I didn't pick up any eye shine.

1:02:17 I wish I could have when I was shining my flashlight around. the flash forward three years later, same area of the country and still out camp. I'm out scouting. I'm in full camo cause it's not hunting season yet. And I set up a spot where three or four game trails merge and I'm just sitting and I'm listening and soaking up, you know, the environment, you know, squirrels, birds, all that stuff. And all of a sudden out of nowhere, the whole would go silent. There's not a sound.

1:03:00 Yup. And then I'm. Guesstimating 40 to 50 yards away across on the other side of the hill. It sounded like somebody was driving a truck through the woods. It was loud twig snap, loud footfall, loud, um, brush movement, loud, everything. And I just sat there emotionless, sat there still, let it pass through. When I was pretty sure it was gone, went over again, looking for tracks for moose, elk, whatever bear that might've moved through the area. I didn't find any tracks that time. I still don't know. I'm not saying it was Bigfoot on that. It was just kind of a really weird encounter situation. Um, that I was, that I experienced on that.

1:03:50 I don't know on that one a hundred percent, but it was, it was odd. It was the same general area. I try and stick to the same hunting grounds that I know. Um, and then, um, this was probably, what is it? 2025. So six years ago, um, I was Turkey hunting. This is in a different part of the country. Um, it's Colorado still. and Turkey hunting full camo, um, had my backup to a tree and was calling, uh, to turkeys and was getting responses, uh, from turkeys. And then all of a sudden I got no responses anymore. No big deal. You know, turkeys are kind of a pain in the neck like that. Uh, and I hear heavy, heavy twig snap behind me. Um, I'm backed up against a tree, so I had to kind of look over my shoulder and kind of behind me. And I just caught a flash of brownish, reddish fur. And instantly I thought bear. But what was weird is it was six and a half, seven feet tall. I saw it kind of go behind a tree.

1:05:13 Okay. And, you know, I was thinking bear on two feet, you know, because they do that once in a while or a bear climbing a tree. But I didn't get a super good glimpse of anything in, you know, to make a positive ID. So a lot of my stories are in passing, but I just wanted to share with you, you know, those three encounters I've had in, you know, the same part of Colorado. They're the kind of things that make you wonder, right? And it's stuff that's really hard to explain away, especially when you know that that area is really well known. Well, that whole part of Colorado. So if you go to Bigfoot Mapping Project, you can see different heat maps all around the country of how much activity is in certain areas and I just talked to a guy a few weeks ago about Breckenridge and a visual he had there.

1:06:21 And I can remember that area of Colorado was pretty well lit up. So, I mean, I don't think it's out of the question, especially here. the the fur seeing that brownish red fur that was pretty interesting but yeah i mean um i've never heard of fair play before thank you for for bringing that to my attention and i appreciate you sharing what you've experienced over the. Years yeah thank you um fair play for perspective is just on the other side of hoosier pass from breckenridge okay So as the crows flies, you know, there's probably 25, 35 miles between Fair Play to Breckenridge over a couple mountains.

1:07:04 So same area. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Super close. All right. Well, cool, man. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. Have a good night. You too. If you've had a Bigfoot encounter of your own, I would love to hear from you. You can send me an email with your encounter information. at bigfootsociety at gmail.com. I've come out with a free report about the top 10 Bigfoot hotspots. You can go over to bit.ly forward slash BFS report. I'm Jeremiah Byron. Thanks for listening to Bigfoot Society, and I'll see you in the woods.