Little People, Bigfoot, UFO’s, Demons
By Ken Parnell
This is more a collage of stories, and experiences. Nothing specific but, I never cease to be amazed at the abundance of cryptid creatures and all sharing overlapping territories. Just as non-cryptid creatures do, but oddly this seems to go unnoticed. Most time peacefully but sometimes they do sort of go to war over something. Don’t look shocked, they often times have the same issues with their neighbors as we do, trouble is there is no 911 to call or conflict arbiter who can come in and get folks to work it out peacefully. The good news is it seems most seem to realize it’s in their best interest to cooperate as best they can, then along come the humans and very often we throw a monkey wrench in the works.
I would like to say, up front, I am not an expert on Little People, Bigfoot, UFO’s, demons, I have studied as much as anyone can really, and I have spent a lot of time in the woods. That hardly makes me an expert, and yeah people scream for proof, I don’t have any proof, if I did then this wouldn’t be in the realm of the paranormal.
I don’t call myself a “Cryptozoologist” because it’s not a real title, anyone who looks for cryptid creatures is a Cryptozoologist, and there is no college or university who offers it as a study curriculum. Why? Because if you look up the word “Cryptid”, you get this definition: (cryptozoology) Any creature that may or may not exist. Sightings of various cryptids have been reported, but their reality has not been proved. In simple terms you can’t get a degree in a course of study for something that doesn’t exist, colleges and universities are just kind of funny that way.
I am a Mechanical Engineer, retired. I have been hiking all over the US but mostly in the Southeastern US. I was taught about the Little People by my Great Grandmother, she understood the creatures of the forest and understood not all are natural; some are supernatural, but just as real as any deer, bear or squirrel. She couldn’t communicate with them directly but she certainly understood them.
A number of years later, I happened to meet through a former co-worker a lady by the name of Robin, who was a self declared witch. I know that conjures all manner of visions in your heads, but she owned her own shop, she did readings for people, she helped them with certain issues and she could remove negativity from you. She and I became friends and we talked about creatures of the woods. I found that she could communicate with them and with most of the supernatural woodland creatures. She gave me a book: “Myths of the Cherokee” by James Mooney.
She explained that if I read up on the Cherokee myths, I’d very quickly see parallels in the legends of the Little People of the European folks and those of the Cherokee. Now there are some cultural differences, but they are pretty much the same creatures.
Then I was lucky enough to work with a full blooded Cherokee, whose family was given the government travel special via the “Trail of Tears” out to Oklahoma. He’d moved back to North Carolina, had become an Electrical Engineer. John knew a ton of lore and shared it with me after we got to know each other.
I remember the way he and I met was I was assigned a project to redesign an existing piece of equipment and when I went and asked the chief electrical engineer who he’s assigned to the job. He looked at me like I’d just peed in his territory. “What do you need to know for?”
“Because things work a lot better when the mechanical guy includes the electrical guys’ stuff.” So when I met John, it was with his boss breathing down both our necks. “He told me the switches and sensors he wanted to use and I told him all I needed was the physical measurements of those devices. He got it for me and we later had another meeting where one of the switches was in the wrong place, my bad. Then he said, “Ok, I need to move a sensor as well.” I told him no problem, and he showed me the sensor and where it needed to go. His boss looked like he was gonna blow an artery his face was so red. I asked John, “Usually, it’s a fight between the mechanical guys and the electrical guys. The mechanical guys never talk to us and we never talk to them and as a result we wind up with issues.” I just sort of looked at him, “You mean no one has come over and worked out the details of switches and sensors?”
“You would be the first. My boss isn’t use to it going smoothly; it’s normally a cuss fight.”
Like I said, I have had the benefit of several good and knowledgeable people over the years.
My intent is to share the stories and experiences as I saw them unfold before me. I can try and offer my own interpretation but that’s all it is, my interpretation. I might not be aware of all aspects of the story. And that’s what makes a difference between an expert and me. Ok, we all got it?
* * * * *
As most people will notice a lot of my stories sort of crossover, Little People, Bigfoot, woodland spirits, demons (for lack of a better term) it’s just how things seem to work for me. The woodland areas of North America harbor many known and unknown creatures, some are just looking to live out their lives in peace, some are curious about us, but don’t understand us, some are indifferent to us, a few actually hate us.
They come in a variety of shapes and sizes and are known to us by many names. If you care to check, what white folks (Europeans) call a “Bigfoot” you’ll discover it has many names, and if you include Native American names the list gets even larger. Many Native Americans nations are subdivided and while all part of the same nation, they may have different languages.
For instance the Great Sioux Nation is comprised of three subdivisions, each with a different language, dress and mannerisms. They are:
1. Lakota (also known as Lakȟóta, Thítȟuŋwaŋ also known as Teton, also known as Teton Sioux)
Northern Lakota (Húŋkpapȟa, Sihásapa)
Central Lakota (Mnikȟówožu, Itázipčho, Oóhenuŋpa)
Southern Lakota (Oglála, Sičháŋǧu)
2. Western Dakota (also known as Yankton-Yanktonai or Dakȟóta, and erroneously classified, for a very long time, as "Nakota"
Yankton (Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ)
Yanktonai (Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna)
3. Eastern Dakota (also known as Santee-Sisseton or Dakhóta)
Santee (Isáŋyáthi: Bdewákhathuŋwaŋ, Waȟpékhute)
Sisseton (Sisíthuŋwaŋ, Waȟpéthuŋwaŋ)
So, as you can clearly see just within one nation, The Great Sioux, you can have a number of names for the same creature. Then throw in the European mixture and you got some pretty convoluted names and description. It is not my purpose to try and untangle all the different meanings and subtle nuances’, it would take a far better fellow than me to do that. Most of this is more cultural driven than anything else and I would have to bow to someone more in touch with that than me. Since I’m not a Native American, and yes I did my DNA tested and I don’t think they come any whiter than me. (Joke)
My purpose is to show that there is, as always, interaction between different groups. For instance I have a piece in the Case file. Click on the Menu in the upper right and select incident reports. Or click the link here: https://www.bigfootcasefiles.com/between-boone-and-blowing-rock-1980-north-carolina---strange-staircases-in-the-woods.html
This particular story had to do with a phenomenon that has to do with staircases found in the wood in the oddest of places. I don’t mean some old trailer stairs discarded from a man’s trailer because he got a new deck installed. What I’m talking about is a set of stone or brick stairs that might have been worthy of being on a fine home or public building. Since my own encounter I have tried to study up on them and they are often associated with dark powers, what it is I certainly don’t know.
I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure I might have killed the minion of a demonic entity. Understand that while demons are straight out of what we call hell, they retain powers in this realm. Some you can’t kill with anything other than a weapon of equal or greater power, however, a minion is usually just an unlucky human or creature who came under the spell of the demon upon entering this dimension, plane of existence, whatever name you care to give it.
Having killed it’s minion it came after me, and I can only assume with the intention of doing me severe bodily harm or perhaps something worse. I only escaped because a little person warned me and told me to run, they didn’t tell me why but I got up and out of that ravine like you’ve never seen. Now, in this case I have no idea what boundaries this demonic entity was bounded by, distance from the staircase, the ravine itself, perhaps some unseen energy emanating from crystals within the ground. I would point out that the western part of North Carolina is a treasure trove of minerals of all sorts, and those crystals do produce energy.
I simply can’t say what the boundaries are, but apparently I managed to get out of its’ bounds by the skin of my teeth and only due to the voice of a Little Person that suddenly popped in my head. Telling me to run and run now.
I should back track just a bit, but when I came into that ravine, I could feel the energy of the place change, all at once, as I came down into the ravine. You didn’t need to be a psychic to feel it, it was like going from inside an air conditioned building to going outside on a hot, humid day, it was that strong a sensation. Now, whenever I feel something like this I usually gift to try and appease whatever it is that’s feeling so negative. Oddly, the gifting parcels I make up seen to have a positive effect on other things as well, so I have always assumed a sort of commonality in terms of gifting and respect. In this case I don’t think it made any difference to anyone except maybe a Little Person, and I’m guessing it was the one who warned me to run and get out of the ravine.
Once I was out and relatively free I left a mini-bottle of whiskey for them with my deepest thanks. My word to them were; “Thank you for your help, beholden to you. Please accept this in peace.” Or words to that effect, it’s been many years since this happened.
Now, I don’t know what the significance is with the staircases but according to friends of mine, there have been stories of staircases in the deep forest ever since the white man came to the region. They even asked the Indians what they were but then had to explain what a staircase was to them. Let’s be honest, most Native American structures simply had no need for staircases. So, it’s my belief that it’s based in the culture of the Europeans rather than the Native Americans.
I have a couple of friends who grew up in western North Carolina and they have all heard the stories. They even warned me about the staircases, if I ran across one, don’t touch it, don’t get so close as you can be pushed into it. The pushing part is from another hiker’s experience he got too close and some force threw him onto the stairs. According to his friends, as he was part of a group, he went into a dazed trance and they had to get him out as quickly as they could. Turned out he’d broken a blood vessel in his brain, and had he been alone he might very well have been part of the missing folks we keep hearing about in the books by Mr. Paulides.
* * * * *
Now, at least it’s been my experience that most places in the woods are open and friendly, regardless of the terrain or vegetation. I had a fellow once tell me not to take a particular way that is was just a negative place full of terrible things and to avoid it at all cost. When I got to the place where it was to turn away or go in, I swear I couldn’t feel anything negative about it at all. So I decided to go that way but kept my sense on the lookout for any sort of change or warning. I also gifted as I went. This was in Craig County, Virginia and it’s a lovely place to hike off trail. I did happen upon several rattlesnakes, one even took a strike at me but I always wear my snake chaps so it wasn’t an issue.
Anyway I got back up to the trail I should have taken and all was good. I saw my buddy at work and he asked me about it and I told him I’d not taken his advice and had gone the lower path and he freaked out. Now I got the rest of the story, he was deathly afraid of snakes. No dark energy, no evil spirits just a fear of the mind, a simple phobia. Now the trick is, there is no telling how many people he and the people he’s told about the evil lower path and who knows if that will ever be anything but the ‘Dark Lower Path’ from now on, but there is nothing dark about it just wear snake chaps when you hike.
That is not to say that there aren’t dark and very evil places, it’s not always easy to know what made then dark and evil, but I assure you, you will feel it when you arrive at one. Take my word for it, something is there, or something has been done there that has tainted the very essence of the place.
One such place is over in Craig County, Virginia and isn’t terribly far from the Appalachian Trail. I refuse to give the location for this place, even though it’s several miles away, as I do not wish to deter folks from enjoying hiking the trail. It’s just a creepy place, makes you feel like you should bathe after you walk through it. Made a buddy of mine get irritable and had to yell at him once to get him to understand he was under the effect of the negative energy. Wasn’t until we got out of it that he realized how badly he acted. Is it like this all the time? I don’t know. Does it change? I don’t know.
There are any number of perfectly valid reasons for things being as they are, however, until some serious scientific study is done to measure the effects of this energy, then it’s sort of a moot point. I have heard about magnetic fields causing all manner of psychotic problems in people and people who live near high tension power transmission lines. Could be something related to that due to the crystal formations in the area, but I’m just taking my best guess.
* * * * *
Now, back a number of years ago I was deer hunting with a friend of mine in Central North Carolina, Chatham County, to be exact. I was hunting with a good friend of mine on some property his family owned. If you know anything about central and eastern NC, it’s the number of hog farms in the area and certain times of the year, talk about stink?
We were in a beautiful area and we’d already scouted out where we were gonna hunt and we got on our stands and got settled. Come ten o’clock we decided to meet up and see if we couldn’t find a new spot for the late afternoon. We poured coffee and began looking at our maps and making a plan. All of a sudden my buddy Bob looks at me and says, “You hear that?” I listened. I caught the faintest sound of what sounded like a man screaming. “What the hell is that?” I asked.
We both just stood for a few minutes sort of talking about what it sounded like. Just then our third buddy came and rejoined us saying, “Hey, you guys hear that?” Like I said we were kind of taking a break, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and talking in normal tones. While the call, scream, whatever it was unusual, we very quickly blew it off. That’s a thing with youth is you can simply blow off what you don’t understand.
I suppose some twenty minutes has gone by and the three of us are pretty much on our way to a second location about a mile from where we are now. We’re taking a slow pace, as it is deer season, we take four or five steps and then pause and look and listen to see if we might have stirred something up. Any deer hunter is familiar with the cadence and how it’s important not to disturb other hunter’s hunts.
We came to an open section of woods, beautiful spot, large hardwood trees had formed a nice canopy over us and you could see a couple hundred yards out all around. Just then came a second scream like before, powerful low frequency but clear not something we recognized. Then without warning our third buddy, Jake, let out a scream in response. Scared the bejeebers out of us both and we were trying to get him to stop but he bellowed like mad.
Finally, Bob reached over and thumped him in the belly, which stopped him. He coughed and got all indignant. Then I said, “Dumbass, you have no idea what you responding to and if you hadn’t noticed that thing was closer than it was the first time.” Then starts acting all hurt Bob thumped him and I told him to knock that crap off or he was gonna have to fight two of us.
Naturally, he started wanting to make light of the thing as a joke. I told him, “Let’s hope that’s how it winds up going down.” We didn’t know exactly where, whatever made that sound was, but it damn sure had a good idea where we were thanks to Jake. “Ok, let’s spread out a bit, 3 meters apart and move this way toward out next hunt spot. Jake, I don’t care if that thing starts playing, “Free Bird” you keep your freaking mouth shut.”
We walked for a good thirty minutes and Bob said, “We aren’t far from where we want to be for the next hunt, but it’s way early for setting up. Let’s have seat and eat some lunch.” Sounded like a good idea. We had good visibility; it wasn’t like something was gonna sneak up on us. We made a small fire and boiled some water to make ramen noodles, a great staple, even today.
We’d gotten our stuff made up and ate and talked of hunting, and anything else that sort of came to mind and began putting out stuff away when all of a sudden that scream came again, only it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards away. Almost at the same time I noticed the air seemed to stop moving, and dead silence fell, not a sound from anything, and talk about eerie?
It was then the other guys looked like all the blood had dropped out of their faces. We could clearly hear the sound of something coming toward us, but we couldn’t see from where or what it was. Jake, looked like he was about to cry and Bob didn’t look much better. Just then I realized we had weapons and we had survival gear, we could make a stand against whatever it was moving around us no more than about seventy yards out.
Just to our was a about three trees which had fallen down and created a bit of cover. “I looked at the guys and said, “On my say so, grab all your stuff and get over to those trees, get inside of them and take up back to back to back positions. Ready? Go!” We took off and got inside the trees and took our guns up and were scanning about.
Apparently, our sudden movements had alerted it, but we needed to be under some sort of cover rather than out in the open like we were. Now, just as I started saying cover whatever area was in front of each of us a sudden rush of wind came in like a wave. I mean dead silence one minute than suddenly a wave of wind came through, not hard but it just seemed completely out of place. And an odor come in with it like nothing I have ever smelled, it was like concentrated body odor, if you ever been in a locker room that was not quite up to the standards of cleanliness of today then you know what I mean. Combine that with a smell of cooking cabbage and collards and you get what I mean. It was nasty and very strong, strong enough that I looked over at both my guys and we tears in our eyes.
“You guys see anything?” They say they didn’t but something stunk to high heaven. “Ok, I’m gonna try something.” I said, “Don’t freak out, and don’t panic. Remember, we have weapons and if we stay together we’ll be fine.” They nodded affirmatively.
“Hey!” I shouted. “We’re over here and we’re armed.” I heard nothing. “Then I said, “You might get one of us, but I guarantee the other two will get you.” I tried to use a strong command voice like the police often use to help control a situation.
“We will leave and never return. I have some whisky for you as a sign of my word.” I was thankful I had my gifting pouch with me now; I’d almost left it at home. Suddenly comes an angry scream, like nothing I have ever heard in my life, like nothing I have ever heard before in my life. I was carrying my Marlin .444 rifle and I located as best I could then told my guys. “Put your fingers in your ears.” They did and I determined as best I could where the scream came from and took aim and fired. The report of the gun was deafening and now I couldn’t hear much of anything, but because I warned the guys they still had their hearing.
Then I yelled out, “If you want to fight then let’s do it, if you want to let it go, then let’s do that, but we are leaving, with or without your permission.” I looked over at my guys, “You guys are my ears for now, I can’t hear anything.” Jake said, “I can hear something on two feet over near where you fired.” I asked, “Is it moving away, coming closer?” “Seems to be circling over this way getting behind us like it doesn’t want us to go further in.” Bob said. In about ten or so minutes it had traversed around and behind us. It hadn’t made any more sounds. “Ok, guys, let head back out the way we came in, just head back toward the truck.” The guys looked at me funny, “Look guys, in about four hours, it’s gonna be getting dark and I do not want to be here when it is dark, with whatever thing that is out there all interested in us.”
I was turned and talking to Jake when all of a sudden Bob opened fired with his slug gun. “Bob! Bob! What are you shooting at?” His face had lost all its’ color and he looked at me and said, “It’s a devil.” He was busy reload his shotgun. “A devil?” He looked at me, “I saw it step out, it looked like a wolf but it was on two legs, like a man.” He looked like he might go catatonic on me. ‘Keep it together, it’s a Dogman. They are dangerous but they know what guns are and that we have them.” I was trying to be a cool as I could so I didn’t freak the guys out. Then I wondered for a moment what was gonna keep me from freaking out?
“Ok, we are heading back to the truck, we are going to walk at as quick a pace as we can, no running, no freaking out, and no one fire off a shot unless one is coming at us to attack us.” They looked like they weren’t sure. “Hey, you guys can stay here if you want and when dark comes my guess is you’ll have very little chance of surviving.”
My ears were still ringing from the guns, but the guys got up and began moving back toward the truck. I estimated it wouldn’t take us more than an hour and a half to get to the truck and get away. Once we were in the truck there was gonna be no stopping us. “Bob, when we get to the truck, I want you to take up a position in the back and ride shotgun for us if something comes at us from the front then we’ll bang on the rear window.” He nodded.
No one talked; we just kept moving forward, however after about five minute I heard a call like a wolf you hear on the nature shows, long and drawn out. The sound of it made us all pause, as it sounded like the thing hadn’t moved. Then it called again, and again. Then all of a sudden we heard another call from further away, like an answer. I had no way of knowing if the creature was calling for help or calling to locate, but we were doing our best to be gone from there.
We made our way progressively, making sure we have our retreat covered and moving back as quickly as possible. Finally with the Sun still up in the sky, we arrived at the truck, without a word Bob was in the back and Jake was in the passenger side. I only stopped long enough to drop my gear and put it in the back. I grabbed my pistol and two spare clips and set them on them on the seat next to me. I looked over at Jake and said, “Keep that shotgun loaded and ready to use if we have to.” He just looked like he was scared to the point of being frozen. I reached over and poked him, “Jake, we need you. You need to get in the game.”
I later apologized to Jake over hot dogs for being hard on him, after all this was a hunting trip where the tables got turned and unless you’ve lived it, the level of fear can be debilitating.
I cranked up the truck and began heading down the dirt road it had rained a day before so there was no choking dust to deal with, and suddenly Bob yelled to stop. I stopped and jumped out and asked what was up, all he could do was point. There in the distance a good two hundred yards behind us was the “devil”. At least it sure looked like a devil. Ears turned up, snout clearly visible and standing way too tall to be a man, and while I have never actually seen a Bigfoot, I could see the proportion were all wrong for it to be one. I’m probably one of the few Bigfooters who’ve seen a Dogman and not a Bigfoot.
I got back in and drove until we’d come out of the woods and returned to the small town of Silk Hope, NC which is a small unincorporated community consisting of several churches, a volunteer fire department, the local school and a little country store. I stopped and got out and grab the guys and said, “Ok, we didn’t see anything. Got it?” Then Jake said, “Are you kidding? We need to call the TV stations.” I looked at him and reminded him that the reason we had to escape was due to his dumbass returning a call he didn’t understand. “How well you think that will play on TV, Bro?”
“What that was, was a Dogman. Bigfoots I might take a chance on, but Dogmen are dangerous and might well eat you as look at you.” I said, “A what?” Jake looked at me like he didn’t understand. “Dude, you go to anyone, cops, TV, anyone, you are on your own. Don’t mention my name, don’t mention his name, and trust me, not a day after that goes out on the TV, you’ll be wishing you’d kept your mouth shut.” Then I paused and said, “I want a hot dog, you want a hot dog? Bob? Wanna hot dog? Hot dogs are on me guys.” We went in and chowed down on about a dozen hot dogs and a couple sodas each. I took them back to where we’d all met up and they got in their cars and I headed on home.
On Monday I came into work and was asking a buddy of mine about the hunting down in Chatham County. He said there were too many feral hogs in that area now and they’d pretty much driven the deer away from there. I just nodded, but as I recalled I didn’t see much of any sign of feral hogs. I had a feeling something else was working on that issue.
* * * * *
One more story about Bigfoots and hunters. I actually have two very dear friends who I have a great deal of respect for and I want their identities to remain secret, so all names are factious and specific locations so as not to expose them to noisy types. One of these guys no longer hunts or will even go into the woods after seeing a Bigfoot while he was hunting on his own once.
You might have heard of people who have had an encounter and suddenly their whole world fell apart. That’s what happened to this guy. He saw the Bigfoot while he was hunting in an area which had been clear cut two years before and the weeds and saplings made for cover for the deer to move about unseen.
It took him several years to tell me what happened and to apologize for him having given me grief over my “hobby”. He never outed me but when we were alone he’d bust my balls about it, but he didn’t mean any real harm, it was good old boys just having fun.
After his sighting he moved from the country to the city. You couldn’t get him in the wood for love nor money, and he never told me the story of what happened until the last hunting season I was in Georgia, must have been 1992. I’d taken a nice doe and I was coming home when I recalled him living nearby so I went over to his place and said, “Hey, you want half a deer?” His eyes lit up, “Yeah!” I said, “Ok, help me butcher this one out.” I called the wife so she wouldn’t worry, and while we were cutting, sawing, wrapping and marking over a few beers, I asked him what happened and that when he told me the story.
Back to my story, I was hunting in Georgia back in the late eighties and parts of Georgia are just a hunter’s paradise. Dear, bear, small game, pheasant, grouts, dove and quail, if you love to hunt Georgia is a place you want to consider living. Not only that, but Georgia borders other great hunting states: Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, if you never hunted anywhere but those five states, you’d never want for hunting.
I assume most who read this will be familiar with hunting, but I will take a moment and don my Captain Obvious uniform and explain that the big hunting season is deer season, over and beyond anything else in the south. Basically a hunter will scout out a section of land, with the landowner’s permission, and look for sign of deer. They leave a number of different signs so they can locate each other come the rut. Very often a hunter will set up a stand or blind to hide himself in order to await the deer coming to check their little sign they left for any reply activity. Think of it was a dating site for animals.
Sometimes a hunter might set up a stand or blind along a game trail or a power line right of way, either are great set up positions for a hunt. However, one thing to keep in mind is deer can run significant distances after they have been shot. I recall I use to hunt with a .30-30 Winchester rifle and it was a very effective rifle and not so over powered that I had to concern myself with what lay a mile beyond my intended target. I also took the extra step of either shooting downward so the round almost immediately went in the ground, or waited until the deer stepped in front of a tree so the slug would be stopped by it. I wish more guys would practice shooting safety when hunting, but that’s another story.
One of the hardest things for young hunters to learn is how to stay in control when they make a shot and the adrenaline is pumping like mad into their system. The reason being is you need to wait and let that deer realize he’s dead and fall over. Then you have to note the location from where you are, gather up your stuff and then move to the deer and begin the field dressing process. It’s hard for me be too critical because I’ve gotten all caught up in the whole hunt, kill, claim thing myself.
So, one Saturday morning, I’m in my blind and I look at my watch and it’s getting to be about nine o’clock and I’ve just finished a nice cup of coffee and I haven’t seen any sign of deer. Suddenly, I hear a shot ring out from over in Jack’s. We were set up in a line with me in the middle and the two other guys both at scrapes and rubs. I sat for a moment waiting to see if the shot scared anything my way. You be surprised how many deer I’ve gotten just sitting for a few minutes after someone fires a shot.
I start gathering my gear up and begin easing my way toward where Jack was supposed to be it takes a fair amount of time as you don’t run unless you have to in the woods. Pretty soon I’m about where Jack is supposed to be and I sort of scan around for him. It’s early November and all the leaves have yet to come off the trees as yet, however it’s moist from rain earlier in the week, morning fog hasn’t quite burned all the way off just yet.
Suddenly, I catch wind of a stench and the only times I have ever smelled that was when I was close to a Bigfoot. A combination of extreme body odor and an odd combination of both collards and cabbage cooking, I paused for moment and tried to see if I could pin down where it was coming from and it seemed the wind was wafting up the side of the mountain. It was below me but the leaves we wet and try as I might I couldn’t pick up a single sound.
I continued to move toward Jack’s hunt site and pretty soon I see him. He sees me and says he can’t find the body of the deer. “No problem, with two of us we should be able to track him down.” Then I had to pick at him just bit, “You did hit him, right?” He gave the look, that showed he was perturbed, but he knew it was just a joke. Jack was an above average shot and a damn fine tracker.
I hit him right here. I look around and sure enough, I see where the bullet exited the body and hit the ground, not too hard to miss. Blood spray around so it was a good hit. “Which way did he take off?” He pointed and said this way. I haven’t gone ten feet and I see blood on the leaves. “Ok, got a blood trail.” And I scan about and about, I can look back and see the tree Jack’s stand was in and can just about pinpoint where he was because of the rub marks on the tree. I look at him and said, “Did you see where he fell?”
“Yep, see those three trees about thirty feet up? Right there. He fell hard too, didn’t just lay down, he sort of fell over legs in the air.”
“Sounds like he should be dead, but they do come back to life some times and take off again.”
About then I heard our third buddy call out to us. “You got him field dressed yet?” I hollered, “Nope, still trying to find him.”
“Ya’ did hit him didn’t ya’?” It’s an old joke. So, I’m seeing more blood and finally I get to the spot and sure enough there is a long bloody smear on the ground, not a pool, but like the deer went down and then was dragged slightly, then gone. Like something picked it up. Jack, Gary and I fanned out from that point as it obviously had “come back to life” as we say here in the south.
Not strange really, a deer or critter falls and while you’re getting down and then over to it the creature recovers from its’ state of shock and resumes its’ escape, unseen. Wild animals have amazing recuperative abilities, even ones that have terrible mortal wounds.
I once tracked a mortally wounded deer for almost two miles, when I found him I field dressed him and discovered my shot had gone right through his heart and not made a couple of nice neat holes but rather had turned the tissue to jelly for lack of a better term and still it managed to keep going for that distance.
We looked for twenty or so minutes and couldn’t find any sign at all, not blood, not track, nothing; one thing that will upset a hunter is losing the animal after a shot. The animal gave its’ life and such a sacrifice is not something a true hunter doesn’t feel respect for, so searching in mandatory, and leaving one is just not done unless you just can’t find it at all.
Finally, with no trail to follow we decided to just give up, upset us all, but sometimes you have to bow to the inevitable.
We got our gear and decided to use the lower path to get back to our vehicle so we could try a different spot. We’d gone a quarter of a mile maybe when I caught a whiff of that odor I caught earlier, just a quick whiff and it was gone. I looked over at Gary and said, “I could have sworn I smelled a Bigfoot when I was coming over the join Jack after he shot.” He laughed, “You still think them things are real?” Then I answered, “They been known to steal kills from hunters, so don’t be surprised if they didn’t get this one.”
“Sounds more like stories made up to cover bad tracking skills to me.”
“Well, we don’t have a deer either.” I said, “True, but I’m more inclined to believe Jack can’t shoot straight.” Hunters can be pretty hard on each other.
Just then I looked to my left and noticed, what appeared to be a large blood pool. “Hey guys, look at this.” We walked over and looked at it and while we were looking a drop came down and landed in the middle of it and on cue we all looked up. A good forty to fifty feet up was a deer, draped over two branches. Jack said, “That’s my deer.”
“Ok.” I said. “Let’s all just turn and scan around and make sure we don’t have any unexpected company.” We all sort of turned nice and slowly around and saw nothing. “Ya’ll look in the trees too/” Jack looked at me like I was crazy, now, I pointed and then signed “look around” to him. After we were sure that we were alone, Jack said. “How the hell, did my deer get up that tree?” I answered and said, “That’s the wrong question. What you should be asking is, ‘How’d a dead deer climb a tree after running all this distance with a shot in the kill zone?’” He looked at me like he didn’t understand.
“We need to move on guys.” They both objected but I pointed out that we had no means of climbing a tree in order to recover a carcass, and whatever put that deer that high in a tree has to be pretty strong. “Ken, that’s my damn deer.”
“Not any more it isn’t.” I said in reply, “And we need to get our happy asses out of here;”
I finally managed to convince then to listen to me and leave it for and let’s get moving. Now once we got back to the truck we were talking all about it. They would not even entertain the idea of a Bigfoot taking a kill, but for sure neither of them had ever heard of the local species of Georgia Tree Climbing Deer either.
Over the years I have heard tell of guys losing deer after they were killed and while not all Bigfoot will stalk a hunter for his kill, they may have learned that hunters, at least deer hunter will gut out a deer, also known as field dressing a deer, even if they don’t get a deer they get something from it. I have known a lot of hunters come in and talk about losing a deer in the bush. Now some areas are prone to losing a deer, it’s just a terrible tangle. However this was nice wide open country of old growth hardwood trees. Well, when I say old growth, I mean eighty to a hundred years. You can still usually see the old logging roads that got plowed out when timber was harvested back before.
This is something I have seen more and more in the last twenty years. Bigfoots possibly Dogmen, sort of shadowing human hunters and making off with their kills, pay attention next time you’re out and see if maybe you don’t catch a whiff.
* * * * *
This is a short story told to me by a long time friend when we reconnected a few years ago.
John and I got to be friends at work then discovered we had an interest in Bigfoot. Now John is a mostly full blooded Cherokee. I say mostly because this was before we had DNA testing and you never know what all is in the family tree, or woodpile. His ancestors were originally from North Carolina and back under the Jackson Administration were given a free trip to Oklahoma via the “Trail of Tears”. Well John, managed to get him a college degree in electrical engineering and discovered that reservation life sucked really bad. So when an opportunity to move closer to his more ancestral home in North Carolina came, he took it. When he first arrived back in NC he said to himself, “I can see why they wanted us out, compared to Oklahoma this is paradise.”
So John and I are catching up on what we been doing and how things have gone for us in life and he tells me he’d heard about what happened to me the ex-wife and the kids. He also told me I didn’t deserve to have such a thing happen but he was sure someone had done some evil magic on me. Now, please understand, John is a modern sort of fellow, but deep down inside he still holds many beliefs of the Native Americans and he reminded me that on three occasion he knew of I’d exposed people who were doing terrible things in the name of the company. He was very serious when he told me, “Words, thoughts, feelings and strong emotions carry great power in Native American beliefs.” Then he said, “Two people went to jail, and I know one of them was a person who dealt with spirits and I wouldn’t have put it past him to put a spell on you.” Now John knows I’m not superstitious and I have never put any stock in spells and incantations other such things, but I respected his beliefs much as I would anyone else’s or at least try to respect it.
On a side note, my witch friend Robin, when she and I first met via a party of a mutual friend said she noticed that I did have some odd energy around me and she did some cleansing rituals and got my energy straight again. So John might have been right.
When I was young I didn’t follow such things, but life has taught me to take certain precautions. Once a year, I will burn sage in my house to purge negative energy and place essential oils on the doors to ward off negative or dark energy.
Robin told me that I wind up in too many places where there is a lot of strange energies and it winds up getting tangled up in my own, so just like taking a shower to clean dirt and oils for your body, so too, we need to cleanse the energy things that we’ve gotten tagged with in our travels.
So John says he needs a bit of my hair and something personal like a trinket or a bit of clothing and I know he’s going to have a friend who’s a medicine man remove the “spell” for me. And I told him I appreciated, but since I didn’t believe in such things it might be a waste of time. He said, “Oh you don’t have to believe, the spirits do what they do regardless of what you believe.” I hadn’t really thought about it quite like that before, so I gave him what he asked for, you never know.
So then he asked if I was still doing my Bigfoot hunting and I told him I did and how I thought I was very close a couple of time and told him the stories. Naturally, we managed to down a number of alcoholic beverages during this time, which there is nothing wrong with we didn’t get rip-snorting drunk but we both had a nice glow to us. Then I told how frustrating it was when I’d read about how some people on the internet seemed to have so many encounters with Bigfoot that it seemed they were tripping over them left and right. He laughed and he said he’d read many of the same accounts and watched them on YouTube. And I told him I was frustrated in that I’d never seen one, and he said, “The reason you don’t see them is they are not spirits as many of my people believe, they are real creatures, but they are very smart and have learned many things about humans that makes then hard to find. For instance, when you go out you are armed with a shotgun and a pistol, making you very well armed and they recognize guns. They can’t tell you how it works or anything about it, but they know that people who have them can make them dead, and they avoid you. They would only confront you if you were to stumble upon one, most likely a juvenile, and shoot it. Then the whole family would descend on you and they would kill you, rip you apart and very likely eat you. Assuming you were ever found at all, you would be listed as being the victim of an animal attack, even in areas where there aren’t any large predators.”
He reminded me that we talked about what might happen because he’d come to believe they were in family units and those units very often formed “tribes” like the Indian did, “pods” as they have come to be known as now. “Remember Ken, they band together for the safety of numbers. Just like the Cherokee have done.”
He made sense but John and I have talked at length about this and how I felt it was important to bring them into the light so that people will know they are real and will be smart enough to leave them alone. I do enjoy being out in nature and looking for Bigfoot is something I sort of adopted due to the experiences of a couple friends of mine.
John told me he believed that I might well get the chance to take one but he felt I was taking a terrible chance on getting killed by doing it. He said that Bigfoot was much like the Native Americans in that they respected other tribes borders for the most part but if someone went too far then it was an act of war and they would bring all their strength to bear on you. Then he said, “You go out alone too much, you should cultivate friends to go with you, at least that way you can shoot in different directions to defend yourselves.” Then he said, “I told you the story of the man we think shot a Bigfoot and he was killed and he had a very powerful Weatherby Mark V rifle with him? I’ll tell the short version of that story now, suffice it to say that, it’s believed that what happened was this man was sighting in a rifle in Arkansas, and they believe he took a shot and hit a Bigfoot that came up on him shooting and either growled at him or made some sort or territorial stance. He then shot it for whatever reason then went to see the body up close. Where upon he was himself attacked by a number of Bigfoots who according to accounts said they crushed him backwards, into a sort of ball with his head twisted around backwards and his body was stuffed back into his truck, wedged between the seat and steering wheel. A pretty gruesome sight by all accounts and the cause of death “Homicide” via an attack of undetermined nature, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of that as an actual Cause of Death, but then different states do things their own way. The reason he knew about it was one of the deputies who worked the scene was a Cherokee friend of his.
Then he and I get to talking and he tells me about how right now, white folks want to know all about the Bigfoot in Cherokee folklore and legend. “That’s the strange thing people don’t understand, we do have the Bigfoot but they make up very little of our cultural heritage. The Little People make up a lot of our stories and folktales, mainly because the Cherokee had to learn to live in peace with them.
The Little People came south to the land of the Cherokee from the land of the Iroquois in what is now upstate New York and the Great Lakes. However, some Little People came from Europe with the whites who came to settle here. The ones located around what was once the Cherokee lands are those, however some of the Little People came across the ocean and up the Savannah River then came up and settled in the areas of far western North Carolina. They have migrated as people have expanded and are all over now in every state.
* * * * *
So after I get this story from him and I read the first book from David Paulides, I have to admit I want to talk with someone who knows something of the lore of the Native Americans. So I talk with John about it first, he nods and says the story isn’t so strange to him, he’s known a couple people who were lucky enough to be found alive and they all basically tell the same story.
It was his opinion that what might have happened is they was looking for a nice secluded place to relieve herself and happened into a cluster of the little people. “The Little People are no different than regular people in that they don’t like people pissing or pooping where they live either. What might have happened is they sent her away so she wouldn’t do that there and she just kept on going. Sometimes, they don’t want to be bothered by someone not of their kind.” I heard this and said, “You mean they would make her walk off and just let her go without any thought for her safety?” He smiled. “You have to understand that her safety is her responsibility, not theirs.” He explained. “We, Native Americans, have a slightly different sense of values than whites. If you do something that result in you getting injured, then we assume you learned your lesson and won’t do it again. If you do it again and you die, that’s on you. We use to teach children to not get in the fire by letting them get burned a little, not because we are cruel but because experience is the best teacher.” He continued. “We see many things as different as well; for instance if you don’t make sure your stuff is safe then it’s free for the taking. Then the whites came and called us all thieves, but they didn’t understand if you wanted it you protected it. You mark things with writing, and Indians didn’t understand what that was since we didn’t have writing. It’s a cultural thing.”
I have to admit, legends are culture based, and even if you don’t believe in them, a little respect can go a long way. I can see why they might move her on so as not to pee on them, but according to John they might well have just told her to walk off a cliff, instead they just told her to move on or go back. So in their way of thinking they didn’t do her any harm. I ran this by Gail and she sort of laughed and pointed out that not all the Little People are all the same, some are friendly, some not so much some like Native Americans and some hate anyone who isn’t Native American.”It’s complicated when it comes to their thinking processes.”
She agreed with John that they didn’t probably mean her any harm and thought she’d be fine if they just sent her on back or on ahead. She said, “You have to understand one very important thing and that’s the Little People sort of assume that everyone is the same in human culture. Mainly due to them having limited contact with people in general and white folks they think are new comers.” This was kind of interesting to me so I posed a question to friend of mine, Gail. I’d known Gail in TEC school and she and I got to be fast friends. She shared my interest in spiritual thinks and creatures, only she was half Native American. Her Mother was a full blooded Choctaw from down in Mississippi, and met Gail’s dad when he was down working construction on a chemical plant.
I learned very quickly that she had a serious gift which enabled her to speak to spirits, demons and even the Little People. I always sort of wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to have several people who could speak with the Little People explain us to them and that might promote understanding. Hey, it worked for Henry Kissinger, way back when I was a kid, and it seemed like a meeting of minds could fix a lot.
So I pitched Gail on the idea, “You know Gail, you could speak to them and let them know that we’re different and we’re here to stay so they could understand.” She let out a laugh, “If it were that easy then yeah, but the truth is it isn’t like that you can’t just communicate with them and make a treaty with them.” Then I said, “Well, when I came over to take care of the Coyotes for you said you let them know I was coming and I was a friend of yours.” Now she really laughed. “Yes, I did and they didn’t do anything to you, however they were curious why you carry so much inside you.” Now I was off guard. “What?” She smiled. “While you were out there they took a look inside you, they said you have a lot of things inside you, your mind is a whirlwind of books, and things they didn’t understand, emotions, desires they got all that and then they were surprised that you and I aren’t lovers.” Mind you I wasn’t married at the time and neither was she but neither of us ever really thought about it that much. Again this is a cultural thing, men and women have sex together, unless you are gay. According to Gail they thought something was odd about us not having sex together. Gail expanded the concept of friends, and that led to the friends with benefits thing and that led to the breakup of friends due to the sex thing getting in the way. Which, I have to agree, has always confused me as well, ok we’re friends and we start dating, then we stop dating and all hell breaks loose, anger, spitefulness, suddenly burst from under the surface making you wonder what on Earth you ever saw in that person from the start. She said, the Little People really didn’t understand why humans do that, or many of the things they do, and in this case I have to agree with the little people.
Sex very often messes up a good relationship, and causes friend to stop being friends because the girl is seeing this new guy and you and her being friend freaks him out and makes him think it might not be over or I’m hanging around to get a second shot at her. And females are no better with it either. I k now one guy who started dating this girl, then when they broke up he said he was gonna have to move as he couldn’t go anywhere without her being there, “stalking him’. I had to laugh at him, she was no more stalking him than the man in the Moon. She just hung out at the same places he did before they hooked up, and she continued to do go to those places after they broke up. He considered it stalking.
Anyway, this is sort of where I’m at in trying to understand certain aspects of Native American culture and how it relates to oddities that very often happen in the wild. Now I should point out that every time someone dies or gets lost it’s not always the work of the Little People or the Forest Spirits or Bigfoot or Dogmen. However, you can’t really get away from them to deny they’re presents at times either. Gail told me I’d spent enough time in the woods and nature as a result of my search for Bigfoot that I was becoming more aware of the spiritual aspects of the wilderness. Could be she’s right.
She also gave me a bit of advice. She told me to start “gifting” the little people, naturally I told her I already did, in fact I gifted her Little People. That it was common for Native Americans to gift the little people so that they did need to worry about taking the “long dead walk”, as the Choctaw called it.. Couple pieces of hard candy and a little tobacco is all it takes. The hard candy gets you noticed and liked but, the tobacco gets you permission. A number of times in my life it’s been nice to hear the advice and wisdom my Grandmamma gave, told back to me by others.
“The little people think most white people are disrespectful to them, the forest and animals, but it isn’t so much disrespect as it is ignorance.” She poured me a cup of coffee and gave me a lesson in how to be a considerate white man. “First you gift, just a couple pieces of hard candy and a bit of tobacco, just put it on the ground and in a calm voice just tell then this is for them and you hope they will guide you away from their places that are special.” She paused. “Little people and Bigfoots are known to each other, but have little in common and don’t share a symbiotic relationship with each other, they aren’t enemies and do communicate, they just aren’t what you would call, Bud’s, more like neighbors really, they wave and speak politely but just sort of keep to themselves.”
I have to admit Gail has a very unique way of making Native lore a little easier for me to understand. She said it’s because that I have spent enough time in the woods to come understand the spiritual side.
I put together what I call little people care packages all the time. After I’ve gone a couple hours or spotted a place on my topomap where it looks like a natural boundary, I usually drop some more and let the one around there know what I’m doing. Yes, it might sound silly or superstitious, but it really doesn’t hurt anything, and I can tell you that since I’ve been doing it I have found that things just seem to really go my way. Several times I have gotten a bad feeling about something and when I listen to that feeling I have later found I have avoided trouble. Either from Pot growers, ‘shiners, or the odd deep woods psycho, and yes, there are a few of them.
* * * * *
I was way out once back fifteen or possibly twenty years ago before the ex and I broke up, and in the middle of nowhere I came across this “nekked”, long haired, beard, crazy old SOB who when he saw me came running at me and I pulled my snake gun and cocked it. He stopped and started talking crazy about wanting he and I to go back to his shack and “We could have a good time, just the two of us.” I told him he needed to just get on and pretend he’d not seen me.
If ever there was a stranger looking man, I never want to see them. Bare-butt naked, wild looking curly hair, looked like it might even have been permed, full scraggly beard, down to his nipples, fairly hairy, and boots. Not very, maybe 5’-3”, skinny, he had three should slung pouches and a belt around his waist with what appeared to be a case knife and unfortunate teeth. He seemed dirty and I assumed he might be just a little crazy, ok, maybe more than a little crazy.
He was all wild-eyed and shaking himself at the waist to make his little hoo-hoo swing around. I assumed he was just trying to get me to look at it. I just shook my head, “Partner, I’m going this way here, don’t let me hear or see you coming up behind me or it’ll be too bad for both of us, but mostly for you.” I headed off and I could hear him laughing crazy and talking to the trees and what I assumed was some spirit or something. He had a laugh that was like something out of a scary movie, just a crazy, high pitched laugh.
So, I’m walking and I turn abruptly and yep I caught a glimpse of him following me. So, I knew a crazy is just about the worst thing to encounter in the woods as far as humans. So I went down a bit further until I came to a rather large oak and I walked around it like I normally would have then stepped behind it and got still and quiet. I stayed there for about ten or fifteen minutes before I heard him walking after me again.
I could easily hear him getting closer and closer and as he came up on the tree I was behind, I jumped out. Then held my quarterstaff ready to beat the daylights out of him if that’s how he wanted to respond, but he just jumped up and down laughing and acting all crazy. Out comes the pistol again and now he started dancing, shaking his naked butt at me at about forty yards and I decided I’d had enough of him and his crap. I took out my snake gun and popped off a round which hit him right in the butt and he let out a scream. Then I put the snake gun away and pulled baby out. Baby being my trusty .45 ACP and I pulled that hammer back on it and released the safety and said, “This one will kill you, and out here no one will ever find you or know whatever happened to you. If I see you again, ever, I will kill you. Make sure you understand.” He grabbed up his walking stick he dropped and got this crazy look on his face and he let out a yell that was just like something out of one of those old “Tarzan” movies.
So he took off and I waited and listen to make sure he was going the other way, then I got myself going the other way. I was trying to put as much distance between him and I as I could before night came. Last thing I wanted was this old boy wanting to see if I’d really kill him or not. I played it safe and made a Dakota Fire Hole which is a fire that is hard for anyone to spot and pin-point you at night. Next morning I made it to my pick up location and my ride came along right on time. Never went back there so I never had another encounter with the crazy “nekked” man.
* * * * *
I did have a strange encounter with an elderly lady once. I was walking down a creek looking for sign of Bigfoot, tracks, hand prints and I started hearing someone singing Carol King songs. I realized that Fairies and Little People are so modern so I eased on up and came to a point where I saw an elderly lady sitting on a rock, smoking something of questionable legal nature and she was nekked as a Jay-bird, well except for her nice Sun hat.
Now, this can be a difficult thing, if you let her know you’re there so she can get dressed then she might freak out, you might give her a heart attack. Or she might want you to join her in nekked rock sitting and Carol King songs. Or she might decide she wants something else, and that’s just awkward.
So I back up quietly and sort of get good and out of sight, then I start whistling, good and loud and ease my way up the stream. That way she knows I’m coming and can take whatever steps she felt was appropriate. I came around a bend and into sight and saw that apparently, her idea of appropriate was to smile wave and invite me to come close and get a good look at the well aged goods in all their glory.
There are times when words just sort of are hard to come by and so I managed to say, ”I’m sorry to have disturbed you Ma’am. I’ll just move on by and you can go back to whatever it was you were doing.” She let out a laugh, “Oh honey, I quit worrying about being embarrassed for some time now. If you want you can strip off those clothes and come sing with me. I got some more pot I don’t mind sharing.
“And I appreciate that Ma’am, but I think I’ll just mosey on by. You have a nice day. And consider a touch of insect repellent.” She just smiled and kept plucking away on her guitar. “Thank you, and safe journey to you.”
Now neither of these two people have nothing what-so-ever to do with the Little People or forest magic other than it shows you will run into any number of odd personalities when you hike in the woods.
By Ken Parnell
This is more a collage of stories, and experiences. Nothing specific but, I never cease to be amazed at the abundance of cryptid creatures and all sharing overlapping territories. Just as non-cryptid creatures do, but oddly this seems to go unnoticed. Most time peacefully but sometimes they do sort of go to war over something. Don’t look shocked, they often times have the same issues with their neighbors as we do, trouble is there is no 911 to call or conflict arbiter who can come in and get folks to work it out peacefully. The good news is it seems most seem to realize it’s in their best interest to cooperate as best they can, then along come the humans and very often we throw a monkey wrench in the works.
I would like to say, up front, I am not an expert on Little People, Bigfoot, UFO’s, demons, I have studied as much as anyone can really, and I have spent a lot of time in the woods. That hardly makes me an expert, and yeah people scream for proof, I don’t have any proof, if I did then this wouldn’t be in the realm of the paranormal.
I don’t call myself a “Cryptozoologist” because it’s not a real title, anyone who looks for cryptid creatures is a Cryptozoologist, and there is no college or university who offers it as a study curriculum. Why? Because if you look up the word “Cryptid”, you get this definition: (cryptozoology) Any creature that may or may not exist. Sightings of various cryptids have been reported, but their reality has not been proved. In simple terms you can’t get a degree in a course of study for something that doesn’t exist, colleges and universities are just kind of funny that way.
I am a Mechanical Engineer, retired. I have been hiking all over the US but mostly in the Southeastern US. I was taught about the Little People by my Great Grandmother, she understood the creatures of the forest and understood not all are natural; some are supernatural, but just as real as any deer, bear or squirrel. She couldn’t communicate with them directly but she certainly understood them.
A number of years later, I happened to meet through a former co-worker a lady by the name of Robin, who was a self declared witch. I know that conjures all manner of visions in your heads, but she owned her own shop, she did readings for people, she helped them with certain issues and she could remove negativity from you. She and I became friends and we talked about creatures of the woods. I found that she could communicate with them and with most of the supernatural woodland creatures. She gave me a book: “Myths of the Cherokee” by James Mooney.
She explained that if I read up on the Cherokee myths, I’d very quickly see parallels in the legends of the Little People of the European folks and those of the Cherokee. Now there are some cultural differences, but they are pretty much the same creatures.
Then I was lucky enough to work with a full blooded Cherokee, whose family was given the government travel special via the “Trail of Tears” out to Oklahoma. He’d moved back to North Carolina, had become an Electrical Engineer. John knew a ton of lore and shared it with me after we got to know each other.
I remember the way he and I met was I was assigned a project to redesign an existing piece of equipment and when I went and asked the chief electrical engineer who he’s assigned to the job. He looked at me like I’d just peed in his territory. “What do you need to know for?”
“Because things work a lot better when the mechanical guy includes the electrical guys’ stuff.” So when I met John, it was with his boss breathing down both our necks. “He told me the switches and sensors he wanted to use and I told him all I needed was the physical measurements of those devices. He got it for me and we later had another meeting where one of the switches was in the wrong place, my bad. Then he said, “Ok, I need to move a sensor as well.” I told him no problem, and he showed me the sensor and where it needed to go. His boss looked like he was gonna blow an artery his face was so red. I asked John, “Usually, it’s a fight between the mechanical guys and the electrical guys. The mechanical guys never talk to us and we never talk to them and as a result we wind up with issues.” I just sort of looked at him, “You mean no one has come over and worked out the details of switches and sensors?”
“You would be the first. My boss isn’t use to it going smoothly; it’s normally a cuss fight.”
Like I said, I have had the benefit of several good and knowledgeable people over the years.
My intent is to share the stories and experiences as I saw them unfold before me. I can try and offer my own interpretation but that’s all it is, my interpretation. I might not be aware of all aspects of the story. And that’s what makes a difference between an expert and me. Ok, we all got it?
* * * * *
As most people will notice a lot of my stories sort of crossover, Little People, Bigfoot, woodland spirits, demons (for lack of a better term) it’s just how things seem to work for me. The woodland areas of North America harbor many known and unknown creatures, some are just looking to live out their lives in peace, some are curious about us, but don’t understand us, some are indifferent to us, a few actually hate us.
They come in a variety of shapes and sizes and are known to us by many names. If you care to check, what white folks (Europeans) call a “Bigfoot” you’ll discover it has many names, and if you include Native American names the list gets even larger. Many Native Americans nations are subdivided and while all part of the same nation, they may have different languages.
For instance the Great Sioux Nation is comprised of three subdivisions, each with a different language, dress and mannerisms. They are:
1. Lakota (also known as Lakȟóta, Thítȟuŋwaŋ also known as Teton, also known as Teton Sioux)
Northern Lakota (Húŋkpapȟa, Sihásapa)
Central Lakota (Mnikȟówožu, Itázipčho, Oóhenuŋpa)
Southern Lakota (Oglála, Sičháŋǧu)
2. Western Dakota (also known as Yankton-Yanktonai or Dakȟóta, and erroneously classified, for a very long time, as "Nakota"
Yankton (Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ)
Yanktonai (Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna)
3. Eastern Dakota (also known as Santee-Sisseton or Dakhóta)
Santee (Isáŋyáthi: Bdewákhathuŋwaŋ, Waȟpékhute)
Sisseton (Sisíthuŋwaŋ, Waȟpéthuŋwaŋ)
So, as you can clearly see just within one nation, The Great Sioux, you can have a number of names for the same creature. Then throw in the European mixture and you got some pretty convoluted names and description. It is not my purpose to try and untangle all the different meanings and subtle nuances’, it would take a far better fellow than me to do that. Most of this is more cultural driven than anything else and I would have to bow to someone more in touch with that than me. Since I’m not a Native American, and yes I did my DNA tested and I don’t think they come any whiter than me. (Joke)
My purpose is to show that there is, as always, interaction between different groups. For instance I have a piece in the Case file. Click on the Menu in the upper right and select incident reports. Or click the link here: https://www.bigfootcasefiles.com/between-boone-and-blowing-rock-1980-north-carolina---strange-staircases-in-the-woods.html
This particular story had to do with a phenomenon that has to do with staircases found in the wood in the oddest of places. I don’t mean some old trailer stairs discarded from a man’s trailer because he got a new deck installed. What I’m talking about is a set of stone or brick stairs that might have been worthy of being on a fine home or public building. Since my own encounter I have tried to study up on them and they are often associated with dark powers, what it is I certainly don’t know.
I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure I might have killed the minion of a demonic entity. Understand that while demons are straight out of what we call hell, they retain powers in this realm. Some you can’t kill with anything other than a weapon of equal or greater power, however, a minion is usually just an unlucky human or creature who came under the spell of the demon upon entering this dimension, plane of existence, whatever name you care to give it.
Having killed it’s minion it came after me, and I can only assume with the intention of doing me severe bodily harm or perhaps something worse. I only escaped because a little person warned me and told me to run, they didn’t tell me why but I got up and out of that ravine like you’ve never seen. Now, in this case I have no idea what boundaries this demonic entity was bounded by, distance from the staircase, the ravine itself, perhaps some unseen energy emanating from crystals within the ground. I would point out that the western part of North Carolina is a treasure trove of minerals of all sorts, and those crystals do produce energy.
I simply can’t say what the boundaries are, but apparently I managed to get out of its’ bounds by the skin of my teeth and only due to the voice of a Little Person that suddenly popped in my head. Telling me to run and run now.
I should back track just a bit, but when I came into that ravine, I could feel the energy of the place change, all at once, as I came down into the ravine. You didn’t need to be a psychic to feel it, it was like going from inside an air conditioned building to going outside on a hot, humid day, it was that strong a sensation. Now, whenever I feel something like this I usually gift to try and appease whatever it is that’s feeling so negative. Oddly, the gifting parcels I make up seen to have a positive effect on other things as well, so I have always assumed a sort of commonality in terms of gifting and respect. In this case I don’t think it made any difference to anyone except maybe a Little Person, and I’m guessing it was the one who warned me to run and get out of the ravine.
Once I was out and relatively free I left a mini-bottle of whiskey for them with my deepest thanks. My word to them were; “Thank you for your help, beholden to you. Please accept this in peace.” Or words to that effect, it’s been many years since this happened.
Now, I don’t know what the significance is with the staircases but according to friends of mine, there have been stories of staircases in the deep forest ever since the white man came to the region. They even asked the Indians what they were but then had to explain what a staircase was to them. Let’s be honest, most Native American structures simply had no need for staircases. So, it’s my belief that it’s based in the culture of the Europeans rather than the Native Americans.
I have a couple of friends who grew up in western North Carolina and they have all heard the stories. They even warned me about the staircases, if I ran across one, don’t touch it, don’t get so close as you can be pushed into it. The pushing part is from another hiker’s experience he got too close and some force threw him onto the stairs. According to his friends, as he was part of a group, he went into a dazed trance and they had to get him out as quickly as they could. Turned out he’d broken a blood vessel in his brain, and had he been alone he might very well have been part of the missing folks we keep hearing about in the books by Mr. Paulides.
* * * * *
Now, at least it’s been my experience that most places in the woods are open and friendly, regardless of the terrain or vegetation. I had a fellow once tell me not to take a particular way that is was just a negative place full of terrible things and to avoid it at all cost. When I got to the place where it was to turn away or go in, I swear I couldn’t feel anything negative about it at all. So I decided to go that way but kept my sense on the lookout for any sort of change or warning. I also gifted as I went. This was in Craig County, Virginia and it’s a lovely place to hike off trail. I did happen upon several rattlesnakes, one even took a strike at me but I always wear my snake chaps so it wasn’t an issue.
Anyway I got back up to the trail I should have taken and all was good. I saw my buddy at work and he asked me about it and I told him I’d not taken his advice and had gone the lower path and he freaked out. Now I got the rest of the story, he was deathly afraid of snakes. No dark energy, no evil spirits just a fear of the mind, a simple phobia. Now the trick is, there is no telling how many people he and the people he’s told about the evil lower path and who knows if that will ever be anything but the ‘Dark Lower Path’ from now on, but there is nothing dark about it just wear snake chaps when you hike.
That is not to say that there aren’t dark and very evil places, it’s not always easy to know what made then dark and evil, but I assure you, you will feel it when you arrive at one. Take my word for it, something is there, or something has been done there that has tainted the very essence of the place.
One such place is over in Craig County, Virginia and isn’t terribly far from the Appalachian Trail. I refuse to give the location for this place, even though it’s several miles away, as I do not wish to deter folks from enjoying hiking the trail. It’s just a creepy place, makes you feel like you should bathe after you walk through it. Made a buddy of mine get irritable and had to yell at him once to get him to understand he was under the effect of the negative energy. Wasn’t until we got out of it that he realized how badly he acted. Is it like this all the time? I don’t know. Does it change? I don’t know.
There are any number of perfectly valid reasons for things being as they are, however, until some serious scientific study is done to measure the effects of this energy, then it’s sort of a moot point. I have heard about magnetic fields causing all manner of psychotic problems in people and people who live near high tension power transmission lines. Could be something related to that due to the crystal formations in the area, but I’m just taking my best guess.
* * * * *
Now, back a number of years ago I was deer hunting with a friend of mine in Central North Carolina, Chatham County, to be exact. I was hunting with a good friend of mine on some property his family owned. If you know anything about central and eastern NC, it’s the number of hog farms in the area and certain times of the year, talk about stink?
We were in a beautiful area and we’d already scouted out where we were gonna hunt and we got on our stands and got settled. Come ten o’clock we decided to meet up and see if we couldn’t find a new spot for the late afternoon. We poured coffee and began looking at our maps and making a plan. All of a sudden my buddy Bob looks at me and says, “You hear that?” I listened. I caught the faintest sound of what sounded like a man screaming. “What the hell is that?” I asked.
We both just stood for a few minutes sort of talking about what it sounded like. Just then our third buddy came and rejoined us saying, “Hey, you guys hear that?” Like I said we were kind of taking a break, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and talking in normal tones. While the call, scream, whatever it was unusual, we very quickly blew it off. That’s a thing with youth is you can simply blow off what you don’t understand.
I suppose some twenty minutes has gone by and the three of us are pretty much on our way to a second location about a mile from where we are now. We’re taking a slow pace, as it is deer season, we take four or five steps and then pause and look and listen to see if we might have stirred something up. Any deer hunter is familiar with the cadence and how it’s important not to disturb other hunter’s hunts.
We came to an open section of woods, beautiful spot, large hardwood trees had formed a nice canopy over us and you could see a couple hundred yards out all around. Just then came a second scream like before, powerful low frequency but clear not something we recognized. Then without warning our third buddy, Jake, let out a scream in response. Scared the bejeebers out of us both and we were trying to get him to stop but he bellowed like mad.
Finally, Bob reached over and thumped him in the belly, which stopped him. He coughed and got all indignant. Then I said, “Dumbass, you have no idea what you responding to and if you hadn’t noticed that thing was closer than it was the first time.” Then starts acting all hurt Bob thumped him and I told him to knock that crap off or he was gonna have to fight two of us.
Naturally, he started wanting to make light of the thing as a joke. I told him, “Let’s hope that’s how it winds up going down.” We didn’t know exactly where, whatever made that sound was, but it damn sure had a good idea where we were thanks to Jake. “Ok, let’s spread out a bit, 3 meters apart and move this way toward out next hunt spot. Jake, I don’t care if that thing starts playing, “Free Bird” you keep your freaking mouth shut.”
We walked for a good thirty minutes and Bob said, “We aren’t far from where we want to be for the next hunt, but it’s way early for setting up. Let’s have seat and eat some lunch.” Sounded like a good idea. We had good visibility; it wasn’t like something was gonna sneak up on us. We made a small fire and boiled some water to make ramen noodles, a great staple, even today.
We’d gotten our stuff made up and ate and talked of hunting, and anything else that sort of came to mind and began putting out stuff away when all of a sudden that scream came again, only it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards away. Almost at the same time I noticed the air seemed to stop moving, and dead silence fell, not a sound from anything, and talk about eerie?
It was then the other guys looked like all the blood had dropped out of their faces. We could clearly hear the sound of something coming toward us, but we couldn’t see from where or what it was. Jake, looked like he was about to cry and Bob didn’t look much better. Just then I realized we had weapons and we had survival gear, we could make a stand against whatever it was moving around us no more than about seventy yards out.
Just to our was a about three trees which had fallen down and created a bit of cover. “I looked at the guys and said, “On my say so, grab all your stuff and get over to those trees, get inside of them and take up back to back to back positions. Ready? Go!” We took off and got inside the trees and took our guns up and were scanning about.
Apparently, our sudden movements had alerted it, but we needed to be under some sort of cover rather than out in the open like we were. Now, just as I started saying cover whatever area was in front of each of us a sudden rush of wind came in like a wave. I mean dead silence one minute than suddenly a wave of wind came through, not hard but it just seemed completely out of place. And an odor come in with it like nothing I have ever smelled, it was like concentrated body odor, if you ever been in a locker room that was not quite up to the standards of cleanliness of today then you know what I mean. Combine that with a smell of cooking cabbage and collards and you get what I mean. It was nasty and very strong, strong enough that I looked over at both my guys and we tears in our eyes.
“You guys see anything?” They say they didn’t but something stunk to high heaven. “Ok, I’m gonna try something.” I said, “Don’t freak out, and don’t panic. Remember, we have weapons and if we stay together we’ll be fine.” They nodded affirmatively.
“Hey!” I shouted. “We’re over here and we’re armed.” I heard nothing. “Then I said, “You might get one of us, but I guarantee the other two will get you.” I tried to use a strong command voice like the police often use to help control a situation.
“We will leave and never return. I have some whisky for you as a sign of my word.” I was thankful I had my gifting pouch with me now; I’d almost left it at home. Suddenly comes an angry scream, like nothing I have ever heard in my life, like nothing I have ever heard before in my life. I was carrying my Marlin .444 rifle and I located as best I could then told my guys. “Put your fingers in your ears.” They did and I determined as best I could where the scream came from and took aim and fired. The report of the gun was deafening and now I couldn’t hear much of anything, but because I warned the guys they still had their hearing.
Then I yelled out, “If you want to fight then let’s do it, if you want to let it go, then let’s do that, but we are leaving, with or without your permission.” I looked over at my guys, “You guys are my ears for now, I can’t hear anything.” Jake said, “I can hear something on two feet over near where you fired.” I asked, “Is it moving away, coming closer?” “Seems to be circling over this way getting behind us like it doesn’t want us to go further in.” Bob said. In about ten or so minutes it had traversed around and behind us. It hadn’t made any more sounds. “Ok, guys, let head back out the way we came in, just head back toward the truck.” The guys looked at me funny, “Look guys, in about four hours, it’s gonna be getting dark and I do not want to be here when it is dark, with whatever thing that is out there all interested in us.”
I was turned and talking to Jake when all of a sudden Bob opened fired with his slug gun. “Bob! Bob! What are you shooting at?” His face had lost all its’ color and he looked at me and said, “It’s a devil.” He was busy reload his shotgun. “A devil?” He looked at me, “I saw it step out, it looked like a wolf but it was on two legs, like a man.” He looked like he might go catatonic on me. ‘Keep it together, it’s a Dogman. They are dangerous but they know what guns are and that we have them.” I was trying to be a cool as I could so I didn’t freak the guys out. Then I wondered for a moment what was gonna keep me from freaking out?
“Ok, we are heading back to the truck, we are going to walk at as quick a pace as we can, no running, no freaking out, and no one fire off a shot unless one is coming at us to attack us.” They looked like they weren’t sure. “Hey, you guys can stay here if you want and when dark comes my guess is you’ll have very little chance of surviving.”
My ears were still ringing from the guns, but the guys got up and began moving back toward the truck. I estimated it wouldn’t take us more than an hour and a half to get to the truck and get away. Once we were in the truck there was gonna be no stopping us. “Bob, when we get to the truck, I want you to take up a position in the back and ride shotgun for us if something comes at us from the front then we’ll bang on the rear window.” He nodded.
No one talked; we just kept moving forward, however after about five minute I heard a call like a wolf you hear on the nature shows, long and drawn out. The sound of it made us all pause, as it sounded like the thing hadn’t moved. Then it called again, and again. Then all of a sudden we heard another call from further away, like an answer. I had no way of knowing if the creature was calling for help or calling to locate, but we were doing our best to be gone from there.
We made our way progressively, making sure we have our retreat covered and moving back as quickly as possible. Finally with the Sun still up in the sky, we arrived at the truck, without a word Bob was in the back and Jake was in the passenger side. I only stopped long enough to drop my gear and put it in the back. I grabbed my pistol and two spare clips and set them on them on the seat next to me. I looked over at Jake and said, “Keep that shotgun loaded and ready to use if we have to.” He just looked like he was scared to the point of being frozen. I reached over and poked him, “Jake, we need you. You need to get in the game.”
I later apologized to Jake over hot dogs for being hard on him, after all this was a hunting trip where the tables got turned and unless you’ve lived it, the level of fear can be debilitating.
I cranked up the truck and began heading down the dirt road it had rained a day before so there was no choking dust to deal with, and suddenly Bob yelled to stop. I stopped and jumped out and asked what was up, all he could do was point. There in the distance a good two hundred yards behind us was the “devil”. At least it sure looked like a devil. Ears turned up, snout clearly visible and standing way too tall to be a man, and while I have never actually seen a Bigfoot, I could see the proportion were all wrong for it to be one. I’m probably one of the few Bigfooters who’ve seen a Dogman and not a Bigfoot.
I got back in and drove until we’d come out of the woods and returned to the small town of Silk Hope, NC which is a small unincorporated community consisting of several churches, a volunteer fire department, the local school and a little country store. I stopped and got out and grab the guys and said, “Ok, we didn’t see anything. Got it?” Then Jake said, “Are you kidding? We need to call the TV stations.” I looked at him and reminded him that the reason we had to escape was due to his dumbass returning a call he didn’t understand. “How well you think that will play on TV, Bro?”
“What that was, was a Dogman. Bigfoots I might take a chance on, but Dogmen are dangerous and might well eat you as look at you.” I said, “A what?” Jake looked at me like he didn’t understand. “Dude, you go to anyone, cops, TV, anyone, you are on your own. Don’t mention my name, don’t mention his name, and trust me, not a day after that goes out on the TV, you’ll be wishing you’d kept your mouth shut.” Then I paused and said, “I want a hot dog, you want a hot dog? Bob? Wanna hot dog? Hot dogs are on me guys.” We went in and chowed down on about a dozen hot dogs and a couple sodas each. I took them back to where we’d all met up and they got in their cars and I headed on home.
On Monday I came into work and was asking a buddy of mine about the hunting down in Chatham County. He said there were too many feral hogs in that area now and they’d pretty much driven the deer away from there. I just nodded, but as I recalled I didn’t see much of any sign of feral hogs. I had a feeling something else was working on that issue.
* * * * *
One more story about Bigfoots and hunters. I actually have two very dear friends who I have a great deal of respect for and I want their identities to remain secret, so all names are factious and specific locations so as not to expose them to noisy types. One of these guys no longer hunts or will even go into the woods after seeing a Bigfoot while he was hunting on his own once.
You might have heard of people who have had an encounter and suddenly their whole world fell apart. That’s what happened to this guy. He saw the Bigfoot while he was hunting in an area which had been clear cut two years before and the weeds and saplings made for cover for the deer to move about unseen.
It took him several years to tell me what happened and to apologize for him having given me grief over my “hobby”. He never outed me but when we were alone he’d bust my balls about it, but he didn’t mean any real harm, it was good old boys just having fun.
After his sighting he moved from the country to the city. You couldn’t get him in the wood for love nor money, and he never told me the story of what happened until the last hunting season I was in Georgia, must have been 1992. I’d taken a nice doe and I was coming home when I recalled him living nearby so I went over to his place and said, “Hey, you want half a deer?” His eyes lit up, “Yeah!” I said, “Ok, help me butcher this one out.” I called the wife so she wouldn’t worry, and while we were cutting, sawing, wrapping and marking over a few beers, I asked him what happened and that when he told me the story.
Back to my story, I was hunting in Georgia back in the late eighties and parts of Georgia are just a hunter’s paradise. Dear, bear, small game, pheasant, grouts, dove and quail, if you love to hunt Georgia is a place you want to consider living. Not only that, but Georgia borders other great hunting states: Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, if you never hunted anywhere but those five states, you’d never want for hunting.
I assume most who read this will be familiar with hunting, but I will take a moment and don my Captain Obvious uniform and explain that the big hunting season is deer season, over and beyond anything else in the south. Basically a hunter will scout out a section of land, with the landowner’s permission, and look for sign of deer. They leave a number of different signs so they can locate each other come the rut. Very often a hunter will set up a stand or blind to hide himself in order to await the deer coming to check their little sign they left for any reply activity. Think of it was a dating site for animals.
Sometimes a hunter might set up a stand or blind along a game trail or a power line right of way, either are great set up positions for a hunt. However, one thing to keep in mind is deer can run significant distances after they have been shot. I recall I use to hunt with a .30-30 Winchester rifle and it was a very effective rifle and not so over powered that I had to concern myself with what lay a mile beyond my intended target. I also took the extra step of either shooting downward so the round almost immediately went in the ground, or waited until the deer stepped in front of a tree so the slug would be stopped by it. I wish more guys would practice shooting safety when hunting, but that’s another story.
One of the hardest things for young hunters to learn is how to stay in control when they make a shot and the adrenaline is pumping like mad into their system. The reason being is you need to wait and let that deer realize he’s dead and fall over. Then you have to note the location from where you are, gather up your stuff and then move to the deer and begin the field dressing process. It’s hard for me be too critical because I’ve gotten all caught up in the whole hunt, kill, claim thing myself.
So, one Saturday morning, I’m in my blind and I look at my watch and it’s getting to be about nine o’clock and I’ve just finished a nice cup of coffee and I haven’t seen any sign of deer. Suddenly, I hear a shot ring out from over in Jack’s. We were set up in a line with me in the middle and the two other guys both at scrapes and rubs. I sat for a moment waiting to see if the shot scared anything my way. You be surprised how many deer I’ve gotten just sitting for a few minutes after someone fires a shot.
I start gathering my gear up and begin easing my way toward where Jack was supposed to be it takes a fair amount of time as you don’t run unless you have to in the woods. Pretty soon I’m about where Jack is supposed to be and I sort of scan around for him. It’s early November and all the leaves have yet to come off the trees as yet, however it’s moist from rain earlier in the week, morning fog hasn’t quite burned all the way off just yet.
Suddenly, I catch wind of a stench and the only times I have ever smelled that was when I was close to a Bigfoot. A combination of extreme body odor and an odd combination of both collards and cabbage cooking, I paused for moment and tried to see if I could pin down where it was coming from and it seemed the wind was wafting up the side of the mountain. It was below me but the leaves we wet and try as I might I couldn’t pick up a single sound.
I continued to move toward Jack’s hunt site and pretty soon I see him. He sees me and says he can’t find the body of the deer. “No problem, with two of us we should be able to track him down.” Then I had to pick at him just bit, “You did hit him, right?” He gave the look, that showed he was perturbed, but he knew it was just a joke. Jack was an above average shot and a damn fine tracker.
I hit him right here. I look around and sure enough, I see where the bullet exited the body and hit the ground, not too hard to miss. Blood spray around so it was a good hit. “Which way did he take off?” He pointed and said this way. I haven’t gone ten feet and I see blood on the leaves. “Ok, got a blood trail.” And I scan about and about, I can look back and see the tree Jack’s stand was in and can just about pinpoint where he was because of the rub marks on the tree. I look at him and said, “Did you see where he fell?”
“Yep, see those three trees about thirty feet up? Right there. He fell hard too, didn’t just lay down, he sort of fell over legs in the air.”
“Sounds like he should be dead, but they do come back to life some times and take off again.”
About then I heard our third buddy call out to us. “You got him field dressed yet?” I hollered, “Nope, still trying to find him.”
“Ya’ did hit him didn’t ya’?” It’s an old joke. So, I’m seeing more blood and finally I get to the spot and sure enough there is a long bloody smear on the ground, not a pool, but like the deer went down and then was dragged slightly, then gone. Like something picked it up. Jack, Gary and I fanned out from that point as it obviously had “come back to life” as we say here in the south.
Not strange really, a deer or critter falls and while you’re getting down and then over to it the creature recovers from its’ state of shock and resumes its’ escape, unseen. Wild animals have amazing recuperative abilities, even ones that have terrible mortal wounds.
I once tracked a mortally wounded deer for almost two miles, when I found him I field dressed him and discovered my shot had gone right through his heart and not made a couple of nice neat holes but rather had turned the tissue to jelly for lack of a better term and still it managed to keep going for that distance.
We looked for twenty or so minutes and couldn’t find any sign at all, not blood, not track, nothing; one thing that will upset a hunter is losing the animal after a shot. The animal gave its’ life and such a sacrifice is not something a true hunter doesn’t feel respect for, so searching in mandatory, and leaving one is just not done unless you just can’t find it at all.
Finally, with no trail to follow we decided to just give up, upset us all, but sometimes you have to bow to the inevitable.
We got our gear and decided to use the lower path to get back to our vehicle so we could try a different spot. We’d gone a quarter of a mile maybe when I caught a whiff of that odor I caught earlier, just a quick whiff and it was gone. I looked over at Gary and said, “I could have sworn I smelled a Bigfoot when I was coming over the join Jack after he shot.” He laughed, “You still think them things are real?” Then I answered, “They been known to steal kills from hunters, so don’t be surprised if they didn’t get this one.”
“Sounds more like stories made up to cover bad tracking skills to me.”
“Well, we don’t have a deer either.” I said, “True, but I’m more inclined to believe Jack can’t shoot straight.” Hunters can be pretty hard on each other.
Just then I looked to my left and noticed, what appeared to be a large blood pool. “Hey guys, look at this.” We walked over and looked at it and while we were looking a drop came down and landed in the middle of it and on cue we all looked up. A good forty to fifty feet up was a deer, draped over two branches. Jack said, “That’s my deer.”
“Ok.” I said. “Let’s all just turn and scan around and make sure we don’t have any unexpected company.” We all sort of turned nice and slowly around and saw nothing. “Ya’ll look in the trees too/” Jack looked at me like I was crazy, now, I pointed and then signed “look around” to him. After we were sure that we were alone, Jack said. “How the hell, did my deer get up that tree?” I answered and said, “That’s the wrong question. What you should be asking is, ‘How’d a dead deer climb a tree after running all this distance with a shot in the kill zone?’” He looked at me like he didn’t understand.
“We need to move on guys.” They both objected but I pointed out that we had no means of climbing a tree in order to recover a carcass, and whatever put that deer that high in a tree has to be pretty strong. “Ken, that’s my damn deer.”
“Not any more it isn’t.” I said in reply, “And we need to get our happy asses out of here;”
I finally managed to convince then to listen to me and leave it for and let’s get moving. Now once we got back to the truck we were talking all about it. They would not even entertain the idea of a Bigfoot taking a kill, but for sure neither of them had ever heard of the local species of Georgia Tree Climbing Deer either.
Over the years I have heard tell of guys losing deer after they were killed and while not all Bigfoot will stalk a hunter for his kill, they may have learned that hunters, at least deer hunter will gut out a deer, also known as field dressing a deer, even if they don’t get a deer they get something from it. I have known a lot of hunters come in and talk about losing a deer in the bush. Now some areas are prone to losing a deer, it’s just a terrible tangle. However this was nice wide open country of old growth hardwood trees. Well, when I say old growth, I mean eighty to a hundred years. You can still usually see the old logging roads that got plowed out when timber was harvested back before.
This is something I have seen more and more in the last twenty years. Bigfoots possibly Dogmen, sort of shadowing human hunters and making off with their kills, pay attention next time you’re out and see if maybe you don’t catch a whiff.
* * * * *
This is a short story told to me by a long time friend when we reconnected a few years ago.
John and I got to be friends at work then discovered we had an interest in Bigfoot. Now John is a mostly full blooded Cherokee. I say mostly because this was before we had DNA testing and you never know what all is in the family tree, or woodpile. His ancestors were originally from North Carolina and back under the Jackson Administration were given a free trip to Oklahoma via the “Trail of Tears”. Well John, managed to get him a college degree in electrical engineering and discovered that reservation life sucked really bad. So when an opportunity to move closer to his more ancestral home in North Carolina came, he took it. When he first arrived back in NC he said to himself, “I can see why they wanted us out, compared to Oklahoma this is paradise.”
So John and I are catching up on what we been doing and how things have gone for us in life and he tells me he’d heard about what happened to me the ex-wife and the kids. He also told me I didn’t deserve to have such a thing happen but he was sure someone had done some evil magic on me. Now, please understand, John is a modern sort of fellow, but deep down inside he still holds many beliefs of the Native Americans and he reminded me that on three occasion he knew of I’d exposed people who were doing terrible things in the name of the company. He was very serious when he told me, “Words, thoughts, feelings and strong emotions carry great power in Native American beliefs.” Then he said, “Two people went to jail, and I know one of them was a person who dealt with spirits and I wouldn’t have put it past him to put a spell on you.” Now John knows I’m not superstitious and I have never put any stock in spells and incantations other such things, but I respected his beliefs much as I would anyone else’s or at least try to respect it.
On a side note, my witch friend Robin, when she and I first met via a party of a mutual friend said she noticed that I did have some odd energy around me and she did some cleansing rituals and got my energy straight again. So John might have been right.
When I was young I didn’t follow such things, but life has taught me to take certain precautions. Once a year, I will burn sage in my house to purge negative energy and place essential oils on the doors to ward off negative or dark energy.
Robin told me that I wind up in too many places where there is a lot of strange energies and it winds up getting tangled up in my own, so just like taking a shower to clean dirt and oils for your body, so too, we need to cleanse the energy things that we’ve gotten tagged with in our travels.
So John says he needs a bit of my hair and something personal like a trinket or a bit of clothing and I know he’s going to have a friend who’s a medicine man remove the “spell” for me. And I told him I appreciated, but since I didn’t believe in such things it might be a waste of time. He said, “Oh you don’t have to believe, the spirits do what they do regardless of what you believe.” I hadn’t really thought about it quite like that before, so I gave him what he asked for, you never know.
So then he asked if I was still doing my Bigfoot hunting and I told him I did and how I thought I was very close a couple of time and told him the stories. Naturally, we managed to down a number of alcoholic beverages during this time, which there is nothing wrong with we didn’t get rip-snorting drunk but we both had a nice glow to us. Then I told how frustrating it was when I’d read about how some people on the internet seemed to have so many encounters with Bigfoot that it seemed they were tripping over them left and right. He laughed and he said he’d read many of the same accounts and watched them on YouTube. And I told him I was frustrated in that I’d never seen one, and he said, “The reason you don’t see them is they are not spirits as many of my people believe, they are real creatures, but they are very smart and have learned many things about humans that makes then hard to find. For instance, when you go out you are armed with a shotgun and a pistol, making you very well armed and they recognize guns. They can’t tell you how it works or anything about it, but they know that people who have them can make them dead, and they avoid you. They would only confront you if you were to stumble upon one, most likely a juvenile, and shoot it. Then the whole family would descend on you and they would kill you, rip you apart and very likely eat you. Assuming you were ever found at all, you would be listed as being the victim of an animal attack, even in areas where there aren’t any large predators.”
He reminded me that we talked about what might happen because he’d come to believe they were in family units and those units very often formed “tribes” like the Indian did, “pods” as they have come to be known as now. “Remember Ken, they band together for the safety of numbers. Just like the Cherokee have done.”
He made sense but John and I have talked at length about this and how I felt it was important to bring them into the light so that people will know they are real and will be smart enough to leave them alone. I do enjoy being out in nature and looking for Bigfoot is something I sort of adopted due to the experiences of a couple friends of mine.
John told me he believed that I might well get the chance to take one but he felt I was taking a terrible chance on getting killed by doing it. He said that Bigfoot was much like the Native Americans in that they respected other tribes borders for the most part but if someone went too far then it was an act of war and they would bring all their strength to bear on you. Then he said, “You go out alone too much, you should cultivate friends to go with you, at least that way you can shoot in different directions to defend yourselves.” Then he said, “I told you the story of the man we think shot a Bigfoot and he was killed and he had a very powerful Weatherby Mark V rifle with him? I’ll tell the short version of that story now, suffice it to say that, it’s believed that what happened was this man was sighting in a rifle in Arkansas, and they believe he took a shot and hit a Bigfoot that came up on him shooting and either growled at him or made some sort or territorial stance. He then shot it for whatever reason then went to see the body up close. Where upon he was himself attacked by a number of Bigfoots who according to accounts said they crushed him backwards, into a sort of ball with his head twisted around backwards and his body was stuffed back into his truck, wedged between the seat and steering wheel. A pretty gruesome sight by all accounts and the cause of death “Homicide” via an attack of undetermined nature, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of that as an actual Cause of Death, but then different states do things their own way. The reason he knew about it was one of the deputies who worked the scene was a Cherokee friend of his.
Then he and I get to talking and he tells me about how right now, white folks want to know all about the Bigfoot in Cherokee folklore and legend. “That’s the strange thing people don’t understand, we do have the Bigfoot but they make up very little of our cultural heritage. The Little People make up a lot of our stories and folktales, mainly because the Cherokee had to learn to live in peace with them.
The Little People came south to the land of the Cherokee from the land of the Iroquois in what is now upstate New York and the Great Lakes. However, some Little People came from Europe with the whites who came to settle here. The ones located around what was once the Cherokee lands are those, however some of the Little People came across the ocean and up the Savannah River then came up and settled in the areas of far western North Carolina. They have migrated as people have expanded and are all over now in every state.
* * * * *
So after I get this story from him and I read the first book from David Paulides, I have to admit I want to talk with someone who knows something of the lore of the Native Americans. So I talk with John about it first, he nods and says the story isn’t so strange to him, he’s known a couple people who were lucky enough to be found alive and they all basically tell the same story.
It was his opinion that what might have happened is they was looking for a nice secluded place to relieve herself and happened into a cluster of the little people. “The Little People are no different than regular people in that they don’t like people pissing or pooping where they live either. What might have happened is they sent her away so she wouldn’t do that there and she just kept on going. Sometimes, they don’t want to be bothered by someone not of their kind.” I heard this and said, “You mean they would make her walk off and just let her go without any thought for her safety?” He smiled. “You have to understand that her safety is her responsibility, not theirs.” He explained. “We, Native Americans, have a slightly different sense of values than whites. If you do something that result in you getting injured, then we assume you learned your lesson and won’t do it again. If you do it again and you die, that’s on you. We use to teach children to not get in the fire by letting them get burned a little, not because we are cruel but because experience is the best teacher.” He continued. “We see many things as different as well; for instance if you don’t make sure your stuff is safe then it’s free for the taking. Then the whites came and called us all thieves, but they didn’t understand if you wanted it you protected it. You mark things with writing, and Indians didn’t understand what that was since we didn’t have writing. It’s a cultural thing.”
I have to admit, legends are culture based, and even if you don’t believe in them, a little respect can go a long way. I can see why they might move her on so as not to pee on them, but according to John they might well have just told her to walk off a cliff, instead they just told her to move on or go back. So in their way of thinking they didn’t do her any harm. I ran this by Gail and she sort of laughed and pointed out that not all the Little People are all the same, some are friendly, some not so much some like Native Americans and some hate anyone who isn’t Native American.”It’s complicated when it comes to their thinking processes.”
She agreed with John that they didn’t probably mean her any harm and thought she’d be fine if they just sent her on back or on ahead. She said, “You have to understand one very important thing and that’s the Little People sort of assume that everyone is the same in human culture. Mainly due to them having limited contact with people in general and white folks they think are new comers.” This was kind of interesting to me so I posed a question to friend of mine, Gail. I’d known Gail in TEC school and she and I got to be fast friends. She shared my interest in spiritual thinks and creatures, only she was half Native American. Her Mother was a full blooded Choctaw from down in Mississippi, and met Gail’s dad when he was down working construction on a chemical plant.
I learned very quickly that she had a serious gift which enabled her to speak to spirits, demons and even the Little People. I always sort of wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to have several people who could speak with the Little People explain us to them and that might promote understanding. Hey, it worked for Henry Kissinger, way back when I was a kid, and it seemed like a meeting of minds could fix a lot.
So I pitched Gail on the idea, “You know Gail, you could speak to them and let them know that we’re different and we’re here to stay so they could understand.” She let out a laugh, “If it were that easy then yeah, but the truth is it isn’t like that you can’t just communicate with them and make a treaty with them.” Then I said, “Well, when I came over to take care of the Coyotes for you said you let them know I was coming and I was a friend of yours.” Now she really laughed. “Yes, I did and they didn’t do anything to you, however they were curious why you carry so much inside you.” Now I was off guard. “What?” She smiled. “While you were out there they took a look inside you, they said you have a lot of things inside you, your mind is a whirlwind of books, and things they didn’t understand, emotions, desires they got all that and then they were surprised that you and I aren’t lovers.” Mind you I wasn’t married at the time and neither was she but neither of us ever really thought about it that much. Again this is a cultural thing, men and women have sex together, unless you are gay. According to Gail they thought something was odd about us not having sex together. Gail expanded the concept of friends, and that led to the friends with benefits thing and that led to the breakup of friends due to the sex thing getting in the way. Which, I have to agree, has always confused me as well, ok we’re friends and we start dating, then we stop dating and all hell breaks loose, anger, spitefulness, suddenly burst from under the surface making you wonder what on Earth you ever saw in that person from the start. She said, the Little People really didn’t understand why humans do that, or many of the things they do, and in this case I have to agree with the little people.
Sex very often messes up a good relationship, and causes friend to stop being friends because the girl is seeing this new guy and you and her being friend freaks him out and makes him think it might not be over or I’m hanging around to get a second shot at her. And females are no better with it either. I k now one guy who started dating this girl, then when they broke up he said he was gonna have to move as he couldn’t go anywhere without her being there, “stalking him’. I had to laugh at him, she was no more stalking him than the man in the Moon. She just hung out at the same places he did before they hooked up, and she continued to do go to those places after they broke up. He considered it stalking.
Anyway, this is sort of where I’m at in trying to understand certain aspects of Native American culture and how it relates to oddities that very often happen in the wild. Now I should point out that every time someone dies or gets lost it’s not always the work of the Little People or the Forest Spirits or Bigfoot or Dogmen. However, you can’t really get away from them to deny they’re presents at times either. Gail told me I’d spent enough time in the woods and nature as a result of my search for Bigfoot that I was becoming more aware of the spiritual aspects of the wilderness. Could be she’s right.
She also gave me a bit of advice. She told me to start “gifting” the little people, naturally I told her I already did, in fact I gifted her Little People. That it was common for Native Americans to gift the little people so that they did need to worry about taking the “long dead walk”, as the Choctaw called it.. Couple pieces of hard candy and a little tobacco is all it takes. The hard candy gets you noticed and liked but, the tobacco gets you permission. A number of times in my life it’s been nice to hear the advice and wisdom my Grandmamma gave, told back to me by others.
“The little people think most white people are disrespectful to them, the forest and animals, but it isn’t so much disrespect as it is ignorance.” She poured me a cup of coffee and gave me a lesson in how to be a considerate white man. “First you gift, just a couple pieces of hard candy and a bit of tobacco, just put it on the ground and in a calm voice just tell then this is for them and you hope they will guide you away from their places that are special.” She paused. “Little people and Bigfoots are known to each other, but have little in common and don’t share a symbiotic relationship with each other, they aren’t enemies and do communicate, they just aren’t what you would call, Bud’s, more like neighbors really, they wave and speak politely but just sort of keep to themselves.”
I have to admit Gail has a very unique way of making Native lore a little easier for me to understand. She said it’s because that I have spent enough time in the woods to come understand the spiritual side.
I put together what I call little people care packages all the time. After I’ve gone a couple hours or spotted a place on my topomap where it looks like a natural boundary, I usually drop some more and let the one around there know what I’m doing. Yes, it might sound silly or superstitious, but it really doesn’t hurt anything, and I can tell you that since I’ve been doing it I have found that things just seem to really go my way. Several times I have gotten a bad feeling about something and when I listen to that feeling I have later found I have avoided trouble. Either from Pot growers, ‘shiners, or the odd deep woods psycho, and yes, there are a few of them.
* * * * *
I was way out once back fifteen or possibly twenty years ago before the ex and I broke up, and in the middle of nowhere I came across this “nekked”, long haired, beard, crazy old SOB who when he saw me came running at me and I pulled my snake gun and cocked it. He stopped and started talking crazy about wanting he and I to go back to his shack and “We could have a good time, just the two of us.” I told him he needed to just get on and pretend he’d not seen me.
If ever there was a stranger looking man, I never want to see them. Bare-butt naked, wild looking curly hair, looked like it might even have been permed, full scraggly beard, down to his nipples, fairly hairy, and boots. Not very, maybe 5’-3”, skinny, he had three should slung pouches and a belt around his waist with what appeared to be a case knife and unfortunate teeth. He seemed dirty and I assumed he might be just a little crazy, ok, maybe more than a little crazy.
He was all wild-eyed and shaking himself at the waist to make his little hoo-hoo swing around. I assumed he was just trying to get me to look at it. I just shook my head, “Partner, I’m going this way here, don’t let me hear or see you coming up behind me or it’ll be too bad for both of us, but mostly for you.” I headed off and I could hear him laughing crazy and talking to the trees and what I assumed was some spirit or something. He had a laugh that was like something out of a scary movie, just a crazy, high pitched laugh.
So, I’m walking and I turn abruptly and yep I caught a glimpse of him following me. So, I knew a crazy is just about the worst thing to encounter in the woods as far as humans. So I went down a bit further until I came to a rather large oak and I walked around it like I normally would have then stepped behind it and got still and quiet. I stayed there for about ten or fifteen minutes before I heard him walking after me again.
I could easily hear him getting closer and closer and as he came up on the tree I was behind, I jumped out. Then held my quarterstaff ready to beat the daylights out of him if that’s how he wanted to respond, but he just jumped up and down laughing and acting all crazy. Out comes the pistol again and now he started dancing, shaking his naked butt at me at about forty yards and I decided I’d had enough of him and his crap. I took out my snake gun and popped off a round which hit him right in the butt and he let out a scream. Then I put the snake gun away and pulled baby out. Baby being my trusty .45 ACP and I pulled that hammer back on it and released the safety and said, “This one will kill you, and out here no one will ever find you or know whatever happened to you. If I see you again, ever, I will kill you. Make sure you understand.” He grabbed up his walking stick he dropped and got this crazy look on his face and he let out a yell that was just like something out of one of those old “Tarzan” movies.
So he took off and I waited and listen to make sure he was going the other way, then I got myself going the other way. I was trying to put as much distance between him and I as I could before night came. Last thing I wanted was this old boy wanting to see if I’d really kill him or not. I played it safe and made a Dakota Fire Hole which is a fire that is hard for anyone to spot and pin-point you at night. Next morning I made it to my pick up location and my ride came along right on time. Never went back there so I never had another encounter with the crazy “nekked” man.
* * * * *
I did have a strange encounter with an elderly lady once. I was walking down a creek looking for sign of Bigfoot, tracks, hand prints and I started hearing someone singing Carol King songs. I realized that Fairies and Little People are so modern so I eased on up and came to a point where I saw an elderly lady sitting on a rock, smoking something of questionable legal nature and she was nekked as a Jay-bird, well except for her nice Sun hat.
Now, this can be a difficult thing, if you let her know you’re there so she can get dressed then she might freak out, you might give her a heart attack. Or she might want you to join her in nekked rock sitting and Carol King songs. Or she might decide she wants something else, and that’s just awkward.
So I back up quietly and sort of get good and out of sight, then I start whistling, good and loud and ease my way up the stream. That way she knows I’m coming and can take whatever steps she felt was appropriate. I came around a bend and into sight and saw that apparently, her idea of appropriate was to smile wave and invite me to come close and get a good look at the well aged goods in all their glory.
There are times when words just sort of are hard to come by and so I managed to say, ”I’m sorry to have disturbed you Ma’am. I’ll just move on by and you can go back to whatever it was you were doing.” She let out a laugh, “Oh honey, I quit worrying about being embarrassed for some time now. If you want you can strip off those clothes and come sing with me. I got some more pot I don’t mind sharing.
“And I appreciate that Ma’am, but I think I’ll just mosey on by. You have a nice day. And consider a touch of insect repellent.” She just smiled and kept plucking away on her guitar. “Thank you, and safe journey to you.”
Now neither of these two people have nothing what-so-ever to do with the Little People or forest magic other than it shows you will run into any number of odd personalities when you hike in the woods.
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