Sorry I didn't get back to you guys sooner, I've been real busy at work this week. I think the photos were in a LIFE magazine, or something like that. It may appear in the book that was mentioned above, but I was just reading newspaper accounts for a few weeks, then there was like a Sunday supplemental type magazine devoted to Mt. St. Helens. with great photos in it. I'm not sure if LIFE magazine was still being published when it errupted, but it was a magazine like that. At the time I lived in Minnesota, as I do now, so it may have been in the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper, or the St. Paul Pioneer Press each of these have had great photo type magazines from time to time, and their archives may still have the photos used.
I guess the associated press, etc. may have been a source also. Soory I wasn't much help there... :new_tiredsmiley:

There was an incident here in MO, where two people were watching a meteor shower and became aware of a bipedal SOMETHING approaching them, at first through a field, then up a road. When it got close, it let out a growl, and they beat feet. That's it...no throwing stuff, no chest-beating or anything like that.

What continues to creep me out about it is the idea that it well knew they were there, AND JUST KEPT COMING. It didn't run, or change it's course to avoid them, it just kept coming right at them. I guess it reminds me of those slasher films where the killer just calmly and continuously approaches the vicitim...an air of "I'm in no hurry..."

I think you might be onto something - searching the library archives for old LIFE (and other) magazines from around the time of the eruption (May 1980 if I recall correctly) would be an excellent place to look for pics. There was certainly tons of coverage back then - entire books of pictures devoted to the event.

I feel another trip to the library coming on!

I disagree Alex, i think that story is very factual sounding..

To ( try ) to answer a couple of your questions, i think one of the reasons that the BF " willingly surrendered " may be down to the fact with how bad its burns actually were.

Pretty bad accordingly to the report.

Maybe it realised that it could have possibly died or was dying & thought that it had nothing to lose when it stumbled upon the Firefighters ??

& as far as the solitary witness goes, they were all threatened with instant dismissal if the incident was spoken about again..

That would keep more than a few people quiet i'm sure..

A more detailed account can be read in Thom Powell's " The Locals " !!

Also found the fact the the " witness " didn't use collect call but his own cost, email responses & a couple of other reasons that i'd need the book to refer to that sides towards an actual sighting in my eyes...

I've read almost every report on the BFRO site and the two scariest ones I can think of from there are Washington State - a river guide who took people fishing and BF kept showing up in the river, and it was night time! Eeek! The other was Barry County, MO a dad and his young son fishing and BF came across the river and chased them. The dad picked up his son, carried him like a football and ran the heck out of there. That report isn't on the site anymore, though. Doesn't look like any of the Barry County reports are.
Anyway, those two encounters are the most frightening I've ever read - so far! (Haven't read Cowman story yet).

For me, Cowman is probably the scariest because it involves small children (i have my own).

If you can't find it, let me know and I will post it here for you.

Cheers

Alex

VAB was that the one where the BF had the dead baby BF?, where it actually was swinging the dead baby or even throwing it at the father and son? I have tried to find that report but cannot even remember where it was posted...it was one of the scariest I ever read!

I agree.

In a high camp, surrounded by rain forested slopes I became aware that I wasn’t alone. I really can’t put a finger on it but it felt like I was being watched from close-by. I searched casually around with my eyes, trying not to move my head as I did so not to give away any awareness.

About 50 feet away there was a large moss covered boulder just inside the tree line. I noticed some movement near it or maybe it was actually behind it. Slowly I bent down and picked up a baseball size rock and stood back up. I tossed the rock at some near by stumps. I repeated this a couple of times. On the last throw I swiveled around quickly and threw as hard as I could at the boulder and damn if I didn’t hit it square on. A loud yelp came from behind it and then rocks started flying back towards me.

They were accurately thrown and I had to duck. I quickly ran over to the stumps I had been throwing at and ducked behind them. Several of the rocks clunked against the stump. When it seamed to quite down I slowly peaked out from behind my hide and wham, right in the forehead I got smacked with a rock.

I fell in a daze. The edges of my vision began to turn grey and move towards the center of my sight. I passed out. I woke with what felt like hours passing. I was being drug through the brush backwards by one foot. Something had a hold of my foot and was carting me towards the woods. I looked towards my feet and thought I must be in the grips of a bear. All I could see was the back of something massive and hairy. It smelled terrible and was making some weird guttural like sounds.

I yelled out “Hey, let me go!” and tried to kick at it with my free leg. It just kept going. Drug over rocks and sticks was beginning to really hurt my back. My coat and shirt had moved up my back going backwards this way so my skin had no protection. There were dull hits, hurting deep and then there were cuts, really stinging. Finally the thing dragging me stopped with a humph and dropped my foot.

It turned slowly around to look at me and that is when I realized it must have been a Bigfoot. It was human looking in the shape of its face but that is about it. It had a very wide mouth but with thin lips. Hair covered everything but the high cheek bones just under the eyes. Those eyes, black as coal in shadow, deep-set, but glinting from the late day sun.

I started to get up and it opened it’s mouth and kind of growled. I stopped. Damn, my camera was in a pouch on my belt. If I could just reach that and snap a picture people would know I was telling the truth. Slowly my hand moved to my side. I found it by touch and pulled the camera out.

Up to my eye and snap. The flash fired as well. This was just an emergency camera that I always kept with me out in the bush. The thing blinked and growled even more. It stooped down and picked up a rock the size of my head with one hand. It threw it close to my head. My whole body shook from the impact. That was close, a warning to not do that again.

The creature looked up and tilted it’s head as if hearing something I couldn’t. My stomach started to turn. I was getting dizzy. The earth beneath me seemed to be trying to spin me till I threw up. My hands instinctively reached out to my sides to steady. My camera was dropped and forgotten in the brush.

It reached out and grabbed my foot, stood, turned and began walking with me in tow again. I couldn’t think anymore. I closed my eyes in resolve of my imagination as to what was happening.

Did you experience this yourself, or are you reposting from another person's encounter?

Just making a point... anybody can post a story... and make it scary.

Be careful, DDA. The last time someone posted a false story on these forums to make a point, he was labeled a hoaxer.

Who wrote that book mate?

Maybe... maybe. But the point here is that I can make up the most fantastic of stories with nothing to back it up versus a mundane story and have tracks, video, multiple witnesses and I would bet that the one getting through the skeptical cheese-cloth strainer will be the more outrageous of them.

Lack of evidence cases seem to pile up on themselves and get lost in the process. Justifying a fantastic story with statements like "Now I know it is hard to believe because I have nothing to prove it true but..." may in fact be a 'slight of hand', misdirecting an investigator's attention. Putting in small details that will wet the appetite focuses attention elsewhere.

The scary stories are so far and few between that they seem to not fit the behavior bell curve... making me think they are anything but truthful.

:laugh:

DDA - I thought your story was gonna be one of those "This is how I met my wife" stories -- :laugh:

Sounds more like a needle shaped curve than a bell curve then :laugh:

Why is it the title of the thread is "Most Frightening Encounter You've Read/Heard" and can stray off into various discussions of people picking them apart, or discussing how easy it is to just make up a story, but nobody complains about it being 'off topic'?

Who ever assumed a 'story' posted here was true? The thread is about things people have heard or read: there's no responsibility on their behalf to defend the stories. Just take them for what they're worth and enjoy them... or don't.

What bugs me here, is that when I or others have asked questions or made 'technical points' during thread debates, we've been asked to keep it on topic.

Just my thoughts on it.

Frank Peretti

Because:

a) the moderators at BFF are all conspiring against you.

life is not fair in the real or virtual world.

c) you like to argue and want the attention.

d) all of the above.

e) none of the above.

f) insert additional reason(s)/comment(s) in this blank: __________________________________________

And your actual point in responding to my post was what? To be argumentative yourself? Don't assume you know or understand my intentions of making a post unless I actually specify what they are.

So................you chose the letter "f" for an answer?!

Crikey! You're a grumpy boy!!!!!!

I know my expeditious "help" here of three and a half years after the fact to what is surely a long-gone member by now impresses all (as a fairly new member, I just came across it), but yes, it was Green's STAAU found in the chapter Gentle Giants, in which all stories written there could apply to this thread.
I wouldn't even bother, but it happened to be the first tale to pop into my brain cell when I noticed the topic title. The story is almost certainly bs (at one point, the menaced man suggests the beast held on to the back of the "powerful Mercury" to prevent his escape) and occurred in '52, I think, on a stormy night between Orleans and Happy Camp, CA. Makes for another great campfire yarn, tho.
(doggone it. meant to quote traveler)

That reminds me of a guy I took a report from here in my county. He is a big time outdoors man and nothing scares this guy (I've known him for years), but he told me that what got to him the most was that this "thing" had to know he was there, yet it just kept following him and wasn't trying to be that quiet about it. It had every opportunity not to be seen, it could have run away from him, but it followed him out of the woods. He said it was almost a relief when he saw it cross the trail behind him and run the other way. He said for a split second, he expected it to barrel down the trail right toward him. Here's the report:

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=10913

The story that was passed around about the border guard taking his wife and daughter camping up on one of our mountains here near the Canada USA Border, and a little while later they were missing, so people went up there to check and found the remains of the man and wife wrapped around stumps, torn apart, chucked at trees, and the little girl sitting at the camp table alone and unharmed.

I guess the thing that freaks me out about that one is that the alleged place this happened was not far from my own research area.

Oh, and I have to agree the Cowman story is freaky, and the Harrison Mills story (true, also not far from here) about the native family being chased out of their home by a huge one, and the Baumann story where the prospector is killed right at his own fireside, and, oh yeah, the one from Alaska where the pilot lands for a break on his honeymoon and a wildman runs out of the nearby woods and grabs his wife (she is never heard from again), and of course the Cultus Lake story (again, not far from here) of the honeymooners that disappear in their lakeside cabin, with the dinner on the table and nothing but huge footprints all around--again, never heard from again...

Then there's the classic story from Mt. St. Helens (the guy is a nutbar, but who knows) and especially freaky is the story of the two hunters that are being followed by the big fella, turn and find a fresh deer eyeball on a stick stuck in the middle of the path behind them... Like, "I'm keeping my eye on you..."

Sheesh, this doesn't make me feel very good about getting out and about in this general area...

Wow vilnoori, I missed some of those. Do you have any links?

Of course there is still the infamous "Chetco Indian Devil" story...

I wonder if you have the story locations mixed up there VABFgal. This story http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=7229 sounds very much like your father and son story. This happened not far from where I live. I have done a lot of work up in that area and can tell you it's prime Sasquatch habitat.

Cheers

X

The other situation that frankly scared the crap out of me as a kid (even if the deptiction of it was silly) were the original Boggy Creek incidents. First it was just random encounters, then stalking, then someone shot at it and it turned violent and attacked that farmhouse.

Aw, man, I don't think I can find them all. I know some are listed on Ken Christianson's old page, if its still up. I think I saw some of the others at Oregonbigfoot but not sure... unfortunately this is why there needs to be a single big database with all the possible sightings on it. And some are in Thomas Steenbergs' book. Sorry...I'll try, I'm sure I've posted about this before.

This is my own account. I've posted it elsewhere as well and since were sharing.....lol.

In the summer of 1986 I was 17 years old. I had spent my life living on the same piece of land that my family had settled nearly a hundred years before. It was a 300 acre cattle ranch, with rolling pastures, sprawling hay fields, stock ponds and several barns. Most of my immediate family lived on the farm as well, their houses scattered on different parsels. Situated about 60 miles northwest of Houston we were bordered on the east by 30,000 acres of privately owned land, held by a former senator and oil and gas tycoon whose name I wont mention here. The 30k to our east did house a 500 acre private game preserve which was home to various breeds of exotic deer and antelope. A 16 foot high fence kept them safely inside and supposedly kept any intruders out. As the crow flies the Preserve was about 3 miles away, down an old dirt road that barely even rated a name. About halfway down this road was our family cemetery were many of my ancestors lay eternally shaded by the thick east Texas Pineywoods. To our northeast lies the Sam Houston National Forest. Over 160,000 acres of woodland bordered by the Trinity and San Jacinto Rivers as well as Lake Livingston and Lake Conroe.The three counties that contain the Sam Houston National Forest - Montgomery, San Jacinto, and Walker - have yielded evidence of human occupation dating back 12,000 years. More recently, the basins of the San Jacinto and Trinity Rivers were home to Atakapan-speaking groups known as the Bidai, Patiri, Deadose, and Akokisa. Primarily hunters and gatherers, some from these groups may have practiced some form of agriculture. It is believed that disease and pressure from European settlers led to their eventual extinction in the early 1800's. Evidence of occupations from as early as 7,000 years ago to the Twentieth Century has been documented by a number of archaeological sites. I included this information due to the fact that so many folks here clear vocalizations on many occassions and it has always made me wonder if there is a link between these tribes and Sas. The nearest country store that a Coca Cola could be purchased from was 9 miles away from our home. If one were driving west on the Farm to Market road you would turn left onto a dirt road, cross some railroad tracks and proceed nearly 2 miles through the woods to get to our ranch. Needless to say we live in the "Boonies."

My father and his family are all full blooded Cherokee. I am half due to the fact that my dad married an english girl lol. I grew up hearing about many legends, but to me none of it seemed like anything that could actually have been real at the time... Turns out that at least in one instance I was wrong. There wasnt too much for my brother who is a year and half my junior to do during those times when we didnt have chores to do. The forest was our playground much of the time, we had treehouses and forts in various spots as children, BB gun wars were common, most of which eventually degenerated into hand-to-hand combat that would send one of us home with a bloody nose or split lip. As we grew older our hobbies change to hunting, fishing, camping and exploring. We would ride our horses from camp to camp and lake to lake.

Now you should know that since my grandfather, father and uncles were raised here as well, that they knew all of the great places to hunt and fish. The best places to put up a tree stand, run a trot-line or to hunt coons, all the things a teenage boy needs to know to have a good time in the middle of nowhere. However...there were sections of the forest, especially around Lake Creek Bottom and the old gravel pit that were absolutely forbidden to venture into as children. I recall actually getting a spanking for riding my horse alone to the gravel pit one Sunday after church when I was about 11. My father had a pretty good idea of were I had gone, and tracking my horse was easy in the muddy clay of the old logging road. I remember he was armed with a lever action Remington 44 Magnum rifle when he found me, and he was edgy and agitated. He told me then that he brought the rifle in case he jumped a deer, the 44 was a great brush gun; and that he was edgy because I had disobeyed. Thats about all I ever got out of him until years later. These "bad places" as my brother Blain and I called them were serious business. We were told from the time we could sit up and listen that if we ever found ourselves in one that we needed to make sure we cleared out of their before the sun went down; and we always believed it. Back porch stories of big black cats haunted our dreams at night. We would know them because they cried like a baby, or screamed like a woman and that they loved hunting the creek bottoms after dark. We had seen the remains of calves that had been killed by wolves and even bobcat or coyotes. We respected these animals and whay they could do, but the Panther tales are what kept us in line..usually. I often wonder how many of the stories and jest that were made were actually veiled truths. That the older folks knew something that we didnt, some secret that it felt as if they hoped we would never have to learn for ourselves.

So as we all know to well, as young men grow older they also grow to be more intrepid. Blain and I decided to go hunt Turkeys in the area not too far from the old gravel pit, but far enough away that we figured we wouldnt get into trouble if we got caught there by my father or one of our uncles. We set out from our house with a frying pan, 2 lbs of ground beef, 2 Model 1100 remingtons, sleeping bags, canteens and 2 Rhodesian Ridgeback hounds; Heckyll and Jeckyll were their names. They were amazing hunting dogs. They would run deer, hogs or tree coons equally well. They were brothers and buddies, just like Blain and I. We hiked for 3 hours before getting to the spot we wanted to be in. It was a 7 acre grove of pine sapplings, nicely spaced with not too much underbrush. Pine needles carpeted the ground and it had a gentle rolling geography that made it look like something from a midievel film. We called it "The Enchanted Forest" within a few minutes of seeing it for the first time as kids. There were several game trails that ran through it in different directions, one of them eventually leading to a lake known as Blue Hole, another place that was off limits except in daylight hours. It was around 2:00 pm when we arrived that day and we spent the rest of the afternoon hunting. We found turkey feathers and other remains of half-eaten turkeys (we assumed by coyotes or bobcats) but no live turkeys. We spent the evening cooking the hamburger meat along with pork and beans and bread, talking, having knife throwing practice and listening to the dogs run around in the woods. We had a Lantern but no flashlight (dumb I know), so we stoked up the fire and bedded down for the night around it, sleeping under the stars since the weather was nice. There was no moon and only dappled starlight filtering through the treetops. It was beyond dark. About 11:00 we heard the sound of Turkeys about a 100 yards to the South of us and figured we might be able to bag one or two in the morning if they were still in the area. The dogs lit out after them and we laughed, wondering if they might bring one back to us or not. We did hear quite a bit of barking and then the dogs growling at something. We figured maybe they had run across a coyote, bobcat or even a timber wolf and were fighting with it. It was the sounds of bushes and brush, small branches cracking and breaking, all the sounds you would associate with dogs fighting in the woods at night. All the commotion then began to trail off to farther to the south, the dogs were certainly running something to ground. After awhile my brother and I settled down to sleep, knowing the dogs would come back when they became tired or lost the trail.

I dont know exactly what time it was when the dogs came back to camp. They did not come trotting back into the firelight frollicking like they normally did, they looked awful and stank to high Heaven. Jeckyll had a huge gash on the back of his neck that was just gruesome. He wasnt bleeding too badly but he was missing alot of hide, the other dog was limping and favoring both his hind legs. And I will never forget this part of it, those two dogs, full grown Rhodesians, bread to hunt lions, were literally trying to crawl inside our sleeping bags with us, they were whimpering like scared puppies. My brother was the first to notice that we we had another visitor just outside the light, maybe 20 yards away. All we could hear was very heavy, gutteral sounding breathing. Whomever it was huge. Blain and I stood up and grabbed the shotguns, yelling at whomever it was to stop messing around and come out of there or we would shoot. We even began walking toward it thinking it might be someone trying to just scare us or something...it was working. When we eased toward it the creature moved away from us and we thought whoever it was was leaving until it let out a great bellow and threw a rotten log at us, smashing against the trees in front of us. The dogs, hurt and scared somehow regained some of their courage and started growling again and advancing toward it, Rhodies are so protective of their owners it's really inspiring. By this time we could tell that it was NOT a human being we were faced with, it was moving in and out of the trees around us, making these awful bellows that seemed to rattle my fillings. Knowing what I know now I can say that I believe it was bluff charging us. In those instances of moving a little further into the light we could see that it was reddish-brown in color and around 7 feet tall, 400-500 lbs at least. The creature was grabbing onto the 5" and 6" sapplings and shaking them like a babies rattle, even snapping a couple off in the process. No human, no bear could do that in that way, besides bears dont throw things at you. For some reason I fired the shotgun into the air 3 times. Our father had always taught us to do that if we were ever lost or in trouble. Part of it may also stem from the fact that we were groomed to never shoot at anything we couldnt identify. I dont know, but it got the Sas attention and sent him running and screaming out of there to the south, snapping small trees and limbs as he tore his way out of there. The dogs pursued it and I decided then and there that we would never see them again.

We were both scared and shook up. Scared to stay and scared to leave the fire. But we decided to walk out of there that night. We left everything there except the shotguns and the lantern and hike 3 hours in the dead of night back to the ranch. I have spent 20 years in the Marines as a Grunt. I've been on countless marches and humps in some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world; I have somehow managed to survive 4 combat deployments... but that 3 hour hike was the longest and most terrifying of my life. Especially the last half mile, we could here something big moving behind us and it seemed way to close. We crossed through our barbed-wire fence and headed to our house. By the time the sun was rising were still scared, but talking about it. So much adrenaline needing to be expelled. Questions within questions within questions. Later in the day Heckyll and Jeckyll returned home, both healed just fine eventually but they were never as carefree or playful in the woods as they once were.....and neither were we.

One more.

So, now that I have related my first BF experience I can move onto to subsequent experiences and ongoing research. But before I do that I would like to relate something I find extremely interesting about Sas behaviour regarding an encounter that my father told my brother and I about after we had our frightening night in the woods. You can take it for what it's worth, but Dad is a pretty reserved guy. He flew Ironhand missions in the F-4 in vietnam and is a pretty cool customer, never really one for joking around or pulling your leg I have never had reason to doubt anything he has ever told me. I was 9 years old the day this happened. That being said here's the synapsis of his experience as he related it to me, and although present during some portions of the evening in question I was not actually with him when this occurred.

As I have already related we lived on a 300 acre cattle ranch, a few houses were home to my immediate family. One of these homes belonged to my Grandfather and Grandmother, both well into their 60's at the time of the event. Their house sat on a small hilltop in the middle of the property; around that hill were various hayfields and cattle pastures with the woods beyond them. Out back of the house, just outside the kitchen door was a large table that my grandmother used for various purposes, namely feeding hired hands, feeding us kids during nice weather and also for doing the odd chores, such as we were doing this evening...shelling peas. I have shelled more Purple Hulls and Pintos than I care to remember sitting at that old iron table. While my grandmother, mother, my brother and I were setting about the task at hand my grandfather and father stood talking, their arms resting across the old cyclone fence that bordered the back yard and kept the cows at bay from grandmothers flowers and hanging plants. My grandfather had a habit of spending the afternoons standing with a pair of Bushnell Binoculars held against his eyes, scanning the hayfileds and cow pastures. It was a good way for him to count cows, check on calves and make sure that eveything was alright with them. In hindsight I believe he counted calves to see if any were missing because he knew something that I didn't. My brother and I had seen the aftermath of coyote and wolf attacks on calves, they ate them were they killed them in the fields at night, scattering a few pieces here and there, but leaving the majority of the calf in place. The calves that were missing, I now believe were often "taken" across the fence into the forest and consumed there by our BF neighbors. For some reason the missing calves never seemed to bother the old man as much as those killed by varmints. I think that being full blood Cherokee he considered them gifts or offerings. The cost of doing business and living were we lived. The reason I speak of this is because he also scanned the tree-line looking for anything amiss and on this evening he found it.
After cutting and baling hay we would turn our cows out into those fields to graze on the stubble and left-over strands of hay that littered the ground. The particular field into which he was peering with his binos was 50 acre field, it was on the other side of a 3 acre orchard and 20 acre cow pasture. Since we were situated on a hill he had a good view even tho the object in question was approx. 800 yards away. There lying in the tall grass that goes uncut due to its proximty to a huge live-oak was a timber wolf. It was spying on the new calves in the herd that grazed casually in the field. This wolf was waiting for darkness to fall before it made it's move. A daylight attack on cattle by wolves or coyotes is pretty rare and pretty desperate. He was in shadow, being on the western-most fringe of the field the sun had already begun to fall below the surrounding treetops. I dont know what it was that caught grandpaw's eye. Maybe a flick of the tail, or a twitching ear, but whatever it was it did not escape his notice. He showed my father, who then went into the house and came back out with 63 WINCHESTER .300 Mag. It had a 12X Leapold scope and had one of the sweestest actions I have ever encountered ;and as a 20 year Marine Rifleman I know my weapons. Dad took the rifle and slipped down toward the field. It took him quite awhile to get close enough for a shot since he was moving so cautiously. He somehow managed to stalk this wolf to within 300 yards and got down into a prone shooting position with a hasty sling, concealed by a 200 gallon 4-wheel mineral syrup dispenser that the cows loved. I wonder if the Sas loved it to now that I think of it lol. After a minute or two we heard the big rifles report and saw my father returning to the house. He knew he had hit the timber wolf behind the shoulder, but it flipped over twice and ran into the woods after being hit. Most likely a windage issue sinse it was breezy he must have hit too far behind the should and the round failed to break any bones.
At this point the "hunt" was on. The dogs were called and loaded into the bed of my dad's old Jeep Honcho pickup truck. My brother and I road in the cab alongside dad, down into the field and we parked under the same big oak were the wolf had lain. There was blood on the hay and grass, even on the the barbed wire the lobo had gone under to escape back into the woods strait down a game trail that deer often used to feed in our fields at night. I remember dad pausing at the fence-line for a moment and scanning the forest before going through the fence. He had one dog with him named "Cosmo" he was a Blue-Tick and as great a hunting dog as ever lived. He was so intelligent that he would even stop barking at a coon or deer when he ran it across "posted" land. (Thats a joke but you get my point.) So there we were. A 9 yeard old and and 8 year old sitting on the tailgate of that pickup truck 50 feet from the edge of the same woods an injured wolf had just dissapeared into. It seemed like an hour past and by this time it was dusk, Blain and I began to get a bit nervous. Dad had a head mounted 6 volt light with him, and was carrying a 12 gauge Remington. It was pretty quiet accept for some bird and cricket sounds and the occasional bellow of a cow calling her calf. My mother eventually came and got my little brother because it was getting later and he needed to take his medication at certain times. So they got into her old Buick and drove slowly down the lane back towards home. I rememer watching the glow of the tailights in the dry dust until they dissapeared over the ridge.
I was totally alone in the growing darkness, waiting for my hero, my father to come back across the fence, with that dead wolf dragging behind him at any moment now. I was scanning the trees from inside the cab of the truck, looking for the glow of the flashlight beam, but I saw nothing but shadows. I guess I fell asleep at some point. I have no idea how much time passed by. Only that I was awakened suddenly by the sound of something heavy landing in the bed of the pickup. I was scared, but I willed myself to look out the back glass window. What I saw was Cosmo's ugly old snout and droopy eyes looking back at me. I was relieved that I had some company but also a little more worried about what could be keeping my father. I caught a glint of light in the mirror and turning to look out the front window I saw the dim light of the headlamp bobbing up and down as he walked slowly toward me from the trees. He was dragging a shadow. I was opening the door to get out and have a look when he told me sharply to stay put. I felt something else heavy land in the bed of the truck and I knew it was the wolf. I was very proud, my old man had tracked the thing in the dark, alone and brought it back. I asked all the usuall questions on the slow drive across the fields back to our house. I got the expected answers. Little did I realize what had really happened. I would not learn the truth for another 8 years.

After the frightening encounter by brother and I had in 1987 at the age of 17 we both started to go back to Dad, Uncles and Grandparents trying to second guess all the little weird things that we had seen and heard about all of our lives. Many of them were nothing out of the ordinary as far as cause and effect go. Just ordinary mundane things. The timberwolf story was not ordinary. My fathers actions somehow earned him a special right that none of the rest of us on the farm had. Here is truth.

Dad followed the bloodspatter for two miles he reckoned all the way to a stream know as Mound Creek. It got its name from long ago due to the Balia burial mounds that it happened to run near. I have heard that the University of Texas had excavated them many years before. At the creek the tracks abruptly stopped. The blood trail stopped. The dog was agitated, he wanted to pick up the scent but could not commit to it. Eveytime he would start toward the possible trail he would turn and want to go back to the truck. My father eventually had to leash him to keep him with him. They were about to turn around and head back to the field when he said he heard what can only be described as a body being swung against a tree. It was that sickening combination of a dull thud of muscle, sinew and organs being pulverized and the sound of bone breaking at the same time...THWACK. It was coming from 50 yards downstream in the darkness. Now my father knew full well who else it was that dwelled in those creek bottoms besides us. He had seen them before from a distance. He had heard them howl in the night, and growl when he had approached "no man's land" a few times before. As well as several other strange encounters with the creatures and their habits. He could hear deep, labored breathing now. He moved a bit further downstream, splashing softly in the water since the brush along the bank was so thick. THWACK! once again. He kept going. He was afraid of what could happen but was already in over his head. I secretly believe that morbid curiosity was also at play by this time. He had to see this through. THWACK! then suddenly 20 yards ahead of him a burst of noise and shadow crossing the stream in the dim light of the headlamps beam. 2 large figures lept into the stream, scrambled across and bolted up the other side. An impossible climb for any human at that speed. He could here them moving south at speed, heading deep into the forest; into 15 miles of river bottom. Moving on downstream to were they had been he saw, laying on a sandbar next to a bloody pine tree stump the broken hulk of the wolf. There was blood everywere and large footprints were filling with creekwater. He wanted to get out of there soon. The Skillies were about, and he was way too close to their home. He grabbed the wolfs legs and he could only describe the feeling as dragging a burlap sack full of crack eggshells and rotten tomatoes. It's bones were shattered. Its meat and organs tenderized the hard way.

The timberwolf was skinned promptly and the pelt along with the attached head was hung on the fence not far from were it had been spotted stalking the herd. For any that dont know hanging a wolf or coyote carcass on a fences or tree etc will serve to keep other of their species away for quite some time. My father believes that the Sas left him the wolf has gift. He says that before he pulled the trigger on the wolf he had noticed three large shadows moving silently through the trees beyond our fence toward the wolfs position. Wether they were stalking calves for themselves and decided to eliminate the competition, or wether they were intent on killing the wolf out of fear of it as a possible threat to their young...we have no idea. Maybe they wanted to eat the wolf, who knows. All I can say is that my father believes to this day that maybe they recognized that he did them a favor by killing it. I wonder if they recognize that he cold have made the choice to shoot at them but chose not to, and decided to reward him for it. Doubtful but plausible. We will never know for sure. But, from that night onward my father could visit anyplace in the forest without fear. If they were there he never knew it, even when he chose to venture into place were they always made their presence known before. I think that even to this day at nearly 80 he could still get way with it. Just a hunch. Still once in a blue moon a coyote or wolf carcass will turn up in the treeline. Broken and torn. Once in a haybarn. Once shoved into a feed trough. The occasional calf still vanishes. And even though some of the surrounding land has started to build up there are still wild places that we will not go alone, or at night. Do they still remember? I would like to believe that they do. Part of me needs to believe that they do.

THOSE a good stories!

I roughly know that area, and you're right, boonies.

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Great stories Dantallus!!! If you have any more that you'd care to share, I for one, would love to hear. Thanks!!

I haven't read anything so compelling for a long time. I could picture the land you were raised in through your eyes and your experiences through your excellent way of depiction.

Wow.

I'd say my friend's story that's on one of the topics that I put in here two years ago. I'm going back to that same campground tomorrow night for a long weekend. So we'll see what happens..

That was a GOOD one Salli. I've never heard that one before, scary. . .Almost sounds like a horror movie, almost too much so. But enjoyable story either way.

Good luck out there Twinkletoes, I hope you get to see one.

Wow Dantallus great stories!

I wouldnt discount the big cats around there either lol.

"Great stories guys"!!! It's hard to stop reading this thread once you start. Anyway I thought that I would share a couple stories of "Sasquatchus Interruptus", one of which is the first BF story that I ever heard, and was told to me first hand by my parents when I was a teenager. The other by a man that I have known, and trusted my entire life. My family has lived here on the coast of Washington for years, which is the setting for both of these stories.
First of all, my parents are two of the best people that you could ever be so lucky to meet. Adventurous, hard working, "HONEST", and all around great parents. One thing that I will never forget is the serious look on both of their faces when they told this to me for the first time. My mom even got mad at my father, and smacked him on the arm in the middle of relating this story to me, which happened before I was even born, and I'm 34 (you'll understand why in a second).
They had been out for a drive in the woods somewhere near Humptulips, when they decided to pull off the gravel road for a little ""nooky"". They stopped, grabbed a blanket that my dad had in the back, and walked down a short embankment to a nice little spot next to a river, or stream (can't remember which). Anyway it had gotten dark, and they were lying on the blanket "fooling around", when from somewhere right next to them in the surrounding brush came "the most ungodly/blood curdling scream" that either of them had ever heard in their lives! At that moment the same man that I "know" would take on a grizzly bare handed for any one of his family members, jumped up and took off running! He had ran all the way up the embankment, and was sitting in the truck before he realized that he had left my mother behind! So he jumped out, and took off back down the hill, threw what clothes he could see in the middle of the blanket, grabbed my mother, and nearly drug her up the embankment, threw her and the blanket full of clothes in the truck, and sped out of there "buck naked"!!!
My father knows the calls of the local wildlife, and he said that he's never heard anything like this before. I've questioned them about it several times since that first telling of the story, and all they can say about the scream is that is was ear piercingly loud, and sounded like nothing they've ever heard. What scared my father so bad, and sent him running for the car was that it sounded like it was right on top of them, only feet away. To this very day I don't believe that my mother has ever really forgave him for leaving her down there on that blanket, and knowing my mother she never will...

The second story of "Sasquatchus Interruptus" came from a man that I've known since we were just kids. In fact I know his entire family, and still attend their family reunions once in a while. This is a guy that is fearless in the woods, an avid hunter/outdoorsman, and an all around great guy. Although I've known him throughout my life, he never told me this story untill a couple years ago when he found out that I was into "this whole bigfoot thing". This happened while he was still in high school, and just like my parent in Humptulips, this was in an area that has had it's share of bigfoot activity throughout the years.
He had taken his girlfriend for a late night drive out into the woods of North River, in his mothers station wagon that he barrowed for the evening. They drove down the logging roads untill they found a nice, secluded little side road that would give them some privacy. They parked at the end of the road, climbed in the back, and started fooling around. Then in the middle of all their fun, came this hideously loud scream from right outside of the car! He instantly jumped up, climbed over the seats buck naked, started the car, and floored it! He said that he was so scared that he was driving out of there like a mad-man. Flying down the gravel road, sliding around corners, nearly going off the road a couple times, and all the while his poor naked girlfriend was still in the back, screaming as she was being tossed from side to side in that old station wagon! He said that he didn't slow down until he reached pavement, and was headed back towards town.