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- [00:03]
A
It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind. And it either heard me or smelt me. And he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up. And that, that shocked me. They don't make people that. That big. The way moved almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything move like that in my life. They were screaming at each other in gibberish. It sounded like a language. And they were chuntering away, back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forwards. I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet that what I saw were bears. Nine one one, what are you reporting? Jesus Christ. You better, sir. See ya.
- [01:20]
B
Hello.
- [01:21]
A
Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a is about 6 foot 9. I don't know. Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. Oh, Hey, Squatch.
- [01:35]
B
This is Ian from the sunny southern.
- [01:37]
A
US and you are listening to the.
- [01:39]
B
Best show in the world, Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show. Tonight we'll be speaking with Tex. And about a year ago he was training on Fort Benning out there in Georgia and had a run in with this creature. And again this was during a military training exercise. And I'll kind of let text go into it. It's, it's fascinating how the base reacted to their encounter. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is wesasquatchchronicles.com and if you get a chance, check out sasquatch chronicles.com you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it. Tonight I want to welcome Tex to the show. Tex, thanks for coming on.
- [02:59]
A
Thanks for having me, Wes.
- [03:01]
B
Yeah. And before we get into your encounter, you know, thank you so much for your service to our country. I really wish. One of my biggest regrets, I wish I could go back in time. I'd have been right there with you guys. But thank you so much for your service.
- [03:16]
A
Yes, sir. Well, I appreciate it. It's a, it's a family heirloom for me. It runs in the family. I have military all throughout my family. So when I, when it was, When I turned 18, I, I heard my call and I said, you know, I got to go do this. And I, I'm I glad to do it so that, you know, those that I love and that I, I hold truly don't have to.
- [03:35]
B
Absolutely. If you would text just kind of start from the beginning, you're out there in Fort Benning, Georgia. We're going back about a year ago. What were you doing and what happened?
- [03:47]
A
Yes, sir, I joined into Fort Benning in the autumn, fall of 2024. During this time, it was kind of the winter season and we were taking a field event. I think we rucked about 16 miles or so and we rucked out down in the. We were on the outer parcel, outer edge of the base. So heavily wooded hills, you know, country. It's out away from civilization. So when we got in there and our. All our teams we had. We had five different companies and every company, they wanted to set up in a different spot. That way if we were to get blown out by the enemy, which would be the drill sergeants at the time. That way if one team gets blown out, they can't find, they can't find our spot. So most of the other platoons, they put their patrol bases or PBS in close proximity to the main area. We took about a mile ruck farther back off into, back into the woods. It was a little bit farther for us if we had to go get chow or if we had to go up to the ammo point or control point for any reason. But it was well worth it. And because two reasons. One, I don't think this would happen to us if we hadn't been that deep and to. Our position was not. Not known until almost the last day there. So it was, it was definitely very good to get back in there. So taking into what happened, it was roughly 12 o' clock. We had our patrol base which is the shape of a triangle. That way on each point we have our high casually producing weapons which are our, our saw 249 shooting 5, 5, 6 millimeter and our 240s shooting at 762. All the, all the ammo we had was blank. It was no, no live. But it's still, it's still substantial, still has a substantial kind of noise. If you would the 240. It's, it's loud. You can hear it for quite a ways when it, when it goes off. And so we had those at each of the corners. We had six squads in our patrol base. We had roughly six to eight troops in each squad in our platoon. I think it added up to close to about 60 people. We were pulling security. We, when we do security, we don't do, you know, one person here. It's. We take sleep schedules so that some people can sleep. We do a rotation so that equal amount of people are Pulling security. And at this time on our line, we were. My line was so. So let me tell you where we're stationed. We were. There was a draw, kind of a draw on these two hills, and at the bottom of the draw was a creek. It wasn't super deep. It was. It was kind of muggy and stuff. But we were on this hillside and my line was facing parallel with the creek, going along the, along the mountain side. And so we had, we had every other man on security at that point. And so my buddy to my right, he was. He was out buddy my left, he was sleeping. But the guy on the opposite side or right after him, he was awake in this situation. Actually, what had happened was my buddy Hal was the first one to have seen this, this, this movement at first. So we were sitting there, woke up at roughly 12 o'. Clock. That was the start of my fire guard shift, our security shift and I. When we're sitting there, we, you know, you're trying to stay awake. You're just, you're looking out in the tree line. You're looking for movement. We're all thinking the same thing, like, you know, no one's going to come in. We're way back here. You know, this is, this is dumb. Why am I here? Why are we doing this? Um, and so we have, we use, we use night vision. We call them nods. It's night optical devices. They mount on our helmets, and so they flip down, they flip up. And so I could see better without them. I was having trouble seeing with them because looking at them, yeah, it lights up a little bit and there's a little bit of moonlight that night it was also partially cloudy too. So the, the moonlight wasn't coming through bright, you know, as. As it would be. But you could still see probably for about 10 to 15 yards in the tree line. And so at first, I want to say it was probably around 12:45. We had. There were some kinds of movement out in our 12 o' clock and our 10 o'. Clock. From where I was sitting, where we're sitting at, we had to dig these up. We had to dig foxholes, which. Those people that don't know that it's just a hole that we dig out that way you can lay your body in it, but you can still lean up over the berm that way if you're getting shot at, you can get down in the hole but still shoot. And so on the berm in front of me, it's just dirt that I dug up. And then it's A little open. It's leaves. And then it goes to the tree line about 10. 10 yards away. I had heard movement, sounded like someone walking, but it wasn't like walking like a person walking. Usually if you have a guy walking, they'll take two steps. They'll stop or they'll walk through, you know, oh, I'm making noise, you know? You know, I'm here. And so it was more of like. Like, slow one step, kind of slow, deliberate. And. And I looked over at my buddy Hal, and I'm like, hey, are you hearing this? And he's like, yeah, I'm hearing it. And then he's like. I'm like, do you see anything? He goes, no, I can't see anything. We're looking out. We. He had his. Get his nods down. I had my nods down, up. We were looking out. We couldn't see a thing. It was. And I'll tell you. I'll tell you what it was. It was pretty bright that night. Honestly. It was like the moonlight was coming down, partly cloudy, but you could still see, you know, you could see really good without the. The nods. And with the nods, maybe a little bit better. And so as we're sitting there, I started hearing, like, thuds in front of me. And I was. I wasn't really sure of it, so I leaned up out of my foxhole, and there's these pebbles about. Probably about the size of my thumb, and they're laying in front of me on top of the dirt. And I'm. I'm thinking myself. I was like, did I dig these up? Like, I don't remember digging these up. And I look over at Hal to tell him about it, and another one lands right there again. And I watched it roll as it hit the first hip and then rolled up on the berm. And I'm looking out in the woods, and I'm like, who's. Who's out here throwing rocks at us? And so I look over to Hal and I tell him, hey, man, someone's throwing rocks at me. And he goes, dude, I have a freaking stick laying in my foxhole. And I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, I'm telling you, dude, a stick just hit the top of my berm and rolled in my foxhole. And I'm like, all right. I said, just. Just pulling security. Tell me if you see anything. And so we're sitting there, and then Hal says, hey, I got some contact. And I'm like, what do you. What do you see? What do you see? And we have to call it the, the three Ls, which is or three Ds distance, direction and description. And so he calls out, it's basically right at his 12 o', clock, just about, maybe, maybe 10 yards, maybe 15 yards. And there's a, there's a big pine tree. And of course in the woods, you know, you have small pine trees, big pine trees. Well, there's this one big pine tree, probably about a three to four foot diameter. And on his angle, he's looking straight at it. But for me, I'm looking, I'm over to the right of it, so whatever's behind it or next to it, I, I can only see partial, you know, I can't really see what the angle is. He's looking dead on it. And he goes, dude, I'm looking at a boulder. And I said a boulder? So there's no boulders out here. We're on the edge of a hillside. There's no rocks anywhere out here. He goes, dude, I'm telling you, there is about an 8 foot tall boulder sitting here right in front of me. And, and like, was it there earlier? And he goes, no, there wasn't anything here. And I'm like, okay, just watch it. And then he calls out to it. So basically we have, when you're in a patrol base, if anybody in the patrol base wants to leave, go to the bathroom stuff, they'll tell somebody. But when they come back, we have something called a challenge code and a challenge password. And it's, it's basically consists of two words. One or two words that whoever's in the, on the security line, they shout out to the person coming in. And the person coming in will know it. They'll answer with that code and we'll, we'll know, hey, that's a friendly, bring them in. If not, if they don't answer with it, it'll be an enemy. And that's when we, we take fire on them. And so he caught, he, he threw out the challenge password and there was nothing, no movement, no, no words, nothing. And he threw it out again. And after the set, we don't have to do it two times, but usually we do it two times just to make sure. After that second time, I put my gun on fire because I knew, I knew we were about to light up and there was no response. And then he started up popping off rounds. I started popping off rounds about that time when, when you hear one or two M4s going off, whoever's on the, on the corner of the triangle, the 240s or 249s. It's a, it's a belt, they're both belt fed. They're like machine guns. And so they start firing off. They're just firing out in the direction. They're not firing in our direction, they're just firing out. So we're all, we're all, all shooting as in our, in our line of, our line of fire, where we're at. And at that point everyone starts waking up, there's a bunch of shouting, a bunch of this, you know, everyone's shooting, everyone's contact, contact, 12 o'. Clock. And you know, everyone's, you know, kind of distressed and stuff and how, how stop shooting and, and he's not out of ammo. He shot, I think he shot on, on semi auto, but it was, you know, it was repeatedly. He shot maybe 10, 15 rounds out of his mag and he stopped shooting. And I'm like, I'll pick your gun up. And he goes, it's running. And I'm just, I'm shooting, I'm shooting. And they're like, stop shooting. Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire. So we all yell cease fire. We do the, the motion for ceasefire. And it sounds like a locomotive barreling down this valley down into the ridge or down in the draw, moving up towards the ridge. I mean it was, it was breaking branches, it was thuds. And when it hit that water, we thought, we thought a tree had fallen over and landed in the creek of how, how big the splash sounded. It was, it was, it was, it was ridiculous how big this thing was. And so at that point we're still sitting there. I asked how's, asked me, did you see that? Did you see that? I'm like, no man, I didn't see anything. I'm sitting on this tree and I can only see so much. And he goes, dude, it was like an 8 foot tall boulder and it was just sitting there. And he said when I started firing, it got up like, it easier. It didn't like stand up like with his knees, it just turned and took off. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, that's, that's not possible. I'm like, you're seeing stuff now. You're, you're sleep deprived. He goes, dude, I'm telling you, that boulder got up and took four steps and it was gone. And I said, I said, dude, I don't know what's going on here. And, and so rpg, which is our platoon guy, he come over and he asked us, hey, you know what happened all this? So we told him, like, hey, we had some contact. We don't know what it was. It was a boulder. And my, my PG is like, are you guys high right now? Like, like, what, what are you talking about? There's no boulders out here. And how I was telling him, like, dude, I'm telling you, it was an 8 foot tall boulder and it turned and ran. And my PG goes, oh, you must have saw a Bigfoot. And everyone starts laughing and stuff. And yeah, we, I kind of giggled about it too, and stuff, but it was, it was just ironic because, you know, that's how it's got, it's kind of in that situation. A lot of people would understand, but for military guys, when we want to get through a situation, whether it's like stressful or sad or something, we'll joke about it. And then, you know, because laughter brings up the spirits and stuff. And so he said that and we all kind of started giggling stuff. And then our senior drill sergeant comes barreling down, down the draw and we yelled out the challenge password. And, and he didn't know it either, but he told us. He's like, hey, yeah, yeah, you know, you know, shut the hell up. Shut the hell up. It's me, it's me. And he's like, I'll, I'll start smoking all you, you start shooting at me. And, and we didn't want to get smoked. So we're like, all right, let's not shoot. No, we're good. PG said, don't shoot, don't shoot. So he comes in and asked us where RPG goes and tells him, you know, talking about what, what happened? Hal told him what happened. I told him, you know, hey, you know, I saw, I didn't really see anything, but I heard it. And how was the only one that really, you know, had the situation? You know, he was actually able to see it and he was, he was shook up. He was like, when we were all laughing, he did not think it was, it was funny. He was sitting there. He was, he didn't know what to think. He just, he was sitting there staring at the dirt pretty much. I'm just not, not like if he saw a ghost, but like, I think he was just contemplating his life decisions at that point. It was, it was kind of like he just, he didn't know, he didn't know what had happened. He was in the state of shock. And, and so I, I, I jumped out of my hole because we're all up, we're moving around, you know, our position's. Been sold. We know they know where we are now. So I jump out of my hole, I go over him. I. I tap him, and he kind of jumps and jolts at me. I'm like, dude, like, calm down. Calm down. Just breathe. It's me. You know, drink some water. Just calm down. Calm down. I took his M4 away from him because even though it's blank, I don't want him firing off, around and then all us all getting smoke and stuff, so took his. His weapon off of him, and that's when I pulled his mag out, because I thought he ran out of ammo. That's why it stopped shooting. And I look in there, and there's still rounds in it. And I'm like. I'm like, dude, like, you have rounds in here? And he goes, dude, I had to stop shooting this thing. I mean, he goes, it's not real bullets, but it's still like I had to stop shooting. Like, I. I couldn't shoot. My body would not let me shoot anymore. My buddy Hal, he's a Texas boy. He. He's. He's a good old strong boy. I mean, he come up hunting. You know, he's out there. He ain't afraid of just about, you know, damn near nothing. And I could tell this really, like, really shook him up, and he was not about it. And so we ended up. Everyone was up for the next two hours pulling. Pulling security, and then we went back into rotation stuff. I ended up going to sleep. I didn't. I wasn't on any more security detail that night or that morning. And. And then I remember when I went to bed, I looked over at. I looked over at Hal, and he had wrapped himself in his blanket, but he was still sitting up. And I'm like, how. Just lay down. Go to sleep, dude. And he's like, I'm not. I'm not closing my eyes. I'm. I'm. There's something out there. I'm not doing that. And I'm like, all right, dude. You snooze, you lose. And I kind of joked with him, you know, I went to sleep and. And then we woke up. We went up to town and all that, you know, day went on. We did training and stuff. That day. He. He kind of. He kind of got better, you know, it was daylight. He felt good. You could tell when we were on movements, we. So when we move, we move in different formations. We have the wedge where it's kind of like a triangle, and then we have a file where it's Just a line of us. We're all spaced out, and then we have staggered where it's two lines on the. On either side of. Of the road. If we're on a road, but it'll be every. Like, it'll be offset so we're not. So that way, if, you know, someone gets shot or there's an explosion from a grenade or 320, not everyone is injured. It's more so just that guy, whoever's there. That way the other guys can have more. More space to run or take cover. And so we were moving a file because we were moving through the woods. It wasn't a long trail. And we're moving down this game trail, and Hal's about two guys behind me because, you know, we're on the line. We. As we walk up, when we walk up to a patrol base, when we set our. Our position, where we set our position, that's where we're at to lay down. So that's. That's where our foxhole is going to be at. And so when we pulled up, you know, we cover our holes back in, and we all moved out instead of. We don't meet up at one point and then just take off. We pick up, grab our gear. We all take one step back, we kick some leaves and stuff over our holes. And then as a line, we move out the same as we came in. We just move out. And so we moved out. And. And so he was about two guys behind me. And I looked behind me and asked the guy. I was like, hey, man, hey, check on Hal. You know, is he all right? And he goes, dude, he's. He's not talking to nobody. He hasn't said a word all morning. And. And so I talked to him. Look, dude, hey, we got training today. You got to clear your head because, you know, there's guys here. And we had. We had a guy, we called him Charlie. And. And he was. He wasn't. He wasn't a bad guy. He just. He wasn't really. He wasn't all there in the head. He wasn't mentally strong. And I was like, you remember what happened to Charlie? And he's like, yeah, I remember what happened, Charlie. All right, don't be like, charlie, today. Today's gonna be a good day. Last night's over. We're gonna get this done. We're gonna train, and then we're gonna go home. I said, when we get home, you're gonna love how good that hot shower feels. You're gonna have some good food. We're Gonna be hanging out. You're gonna love it. And he's like, all right. You know, and he kind of shook it off. Anyway, so our, my second, second part of that is it was probably about a day, I think it. Me. It was me and Hal again. We were on patrol. We were doing a nighttime patrol, but it was a, it was a security patrol. It was a two man security patrol. And so we had, we moved out from our, our main patrol base, which we actually had to move patrol base because after we, we fired all the shots, we fired out that, that spot was burnout. So we have to end up moving. And so we ended up moving. We moved probably about. I think it was, I think we moved closer back towards camp, just, just farther up on like the ridge line of where we were. And we, we did the same thing. We were on the other side of a draw, but a little bit higher up on, on elevation. That way if something happened, we could get more elevation on, on where we are. Me and Hal had to take security. We took patrol. And how our patrol worked at the time is we could want to do it one of two ways. We could do cloverleaf where we kind of do a circle, we come back in and then again and then just make a big cloverleaf. But you know, how's like, hey man, I want to clear my head. You know, let's just, let's get some space, get some air. So we just kind of did a big circle kind of around our perimeter. Wes, I've been, I've been in the woods almost all my life. I know about hunting, I know about tracking. You put me on a trail or you drop me in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere, and I'll find my way to civilization one way or another. And there was a time when we were walking in the woods and I'm like, I do not know where we are. And how, How's a good old country boy? He's a good old Texas boy, but he's not, you know, he's not really inclined when it comes to navigation wise in the woods. And not just that it's night time, you know, he, you can tell he's jittery, he's. He's nervous. And I have keep having to like, yeah, I keep having to grab him, kind of shake him out of like, hey man, you know, I'm here, we're walking, we're fine, we're good. And he's just, he's on edge and, and I, I can see why. And after, after he had that encounter, that. That shock, I would not blame them at all. And. And so we. We were walking out, and I can't remember how far from base. From the patrol base we were, but we were. We were off a good. You know, we were off at least. At least a couple meters, maybe a little bit more. And we were walking off. And so we're headed down this game trail, and we're at the top of this ridge. I said, hey, let's take this valley. Let's go down the mountain into this draw, and then we'll walk the creek back up. We'll go up to the. Up to where the patrol base is, and then we're done. So we'll call it. There he goes. All right. So we got off the ridgeline, started walking down, and as soon as we dropped down, probably about, I don't know, 10 yards off the ridgeline, the air turned colder and everything was dead quiet. I kind of noticed at first. I noticed when the sound of my boots hitting the leaves were a lot louder. And I put my hand back to tell him to stop. He stopped. And he's like, what do you see? I'm like, be quiet. I'm like, you hear that? And he goes, no. I said, exactly. There's not a word. There's not a bird. Usually at that hour, you'll have birds, a couple birds or an owl flying around. You'll hear the bugs and such. And the water was just down to the bottom, and there was no. There was nothing. And it was just dead quiet. And I looked at him, I said, dude, this. This is eerie. This. This isn't right. And he goes. He goes, we need to get out of here. I'm like, all right, just calm down. I said, we're almost there. Let's go down here. And then we'll take a left. We'll go head back up the creek and. And sure enough, so we're walking, and I stopped. He stopped. And something else did one step and stopped. And we both snapped our heads to the right. And it was right at our three o'. Clock. And I said, dude, there's something over there. And he goes, yeah, I've been hearing it, but I didn't want to say anything. I'm like, why didn't you say something? He goes, dude, I'm just. I don't want to say anything about it. I didn't want to think you're, you know, you think I'm hallucinating. And I'm like, all right. And. And about that time we heard a Tree snap at our 6 o'. Clock. So totally behind us, probably about 10 yards back, about where that ridgeline was. So it was up on the ridgeline. So whatever it was, there was something on the ridgeline behind us, and there was something on our three clock, probably about 10 yards off and 10, 15 yard right in the tree line. But at the time, we couldn't use white lights. We couldn't use flashlights. We had red lights that we could use that way. It's very low visibility, not only for us, but more so for the enemy. It's a lot harder for your eyes to adjust to them. And so I'm turning my red light out, but I can only see, like, maybe a foot in front of me. And it's just woods right here. I'm like, okay, I can't see anything. I said, all right, just follow me and watch my hands. I'll throw up a hand signal, you know, for, for halt and then for freeze. And so, so we're moving. I took three, four steps, and I can hear it off to my right side. It's about, I mean, it's, it's, it's substantially large. Whatever it was at that point, I was not sure, but I was like, all right, you know, and, and this entire time, I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, what's going quiet? Air change. I'm like, this, this sounds like a bad story. You know, I've. I've listened to your show for. For ever since it started coming out. I've always been super intrigued with bigfoot, with Sasquatch. I've always watched the, you know, history channels on and all, and I'm like, you know, I've heard about this stuff before. I, I, you know, this, this doesn't seem like coincidence. And we're headed down. Well, we get down to halfway down this draw, and I stop, and he. And he's like, he starts coughing, and I'm like, do you smell that? And he goes, dude, there's something dead around us. I'm like, yeah. And then we kind of start. We. We do a little circle sweep, trying to see if it's like a dead. Dead deer, you know, something dead or whatever. And there's nothing, not a trace or nothing. And he goes, dude, it's really, really strong. I get stronger than when we were up there, you know, coming down. And I'm like, well, here's the thing, though. If it was a dead animal and it's down in this draw, the wind's gonna move down this draw. And up over this mountain. So we would have smelled it on the ridge, but we're not smelling it until we're getting just down here. And he goes, yeah. He goes, I don't know, dude. And I'm like, all right. So I'm like, you still hearing that? He goes, whatever it is, it's paralleling us, and there's something behind us. He goes, dude, we need to get out of here. And I said, all right, let's get out of here. Well, we got down. We kept going down. As we were getting down, the smell was getting stronger. And whatever was behind us and to our right was closing in close. I mean, it was getting real close. We couldn't see anything. You look behind you, that night, it was a lot darker. It was. It was really, really cloudy. There was almost no moon. It was. It was almost pitch black. And whatever it was, it sounded like I could have reached out and touched it with how. How close these steps sounded. But we turned around, and there's nothing there. It's just. There's just a trail. And so. All right, let's keep moving. I told how. I said, hey, you get in front of me. That way I can keep an eye on you so you don't run off or do anything stupid. And Hal gets in front of me, and I said, don't. Don't take big strides. And I said, whatever you do, do not run. And I'm like, you know about how preys are, how prey and predators are. When you run, whatever that predator is, it thinks you're prey running, and it has a natural instinct that takes over, and it's going to chase you and then maul you, and then you're, you know, you're screwed. I said, whatever you do, do not run. And I said, not just that, but if you leave me here, I'm gonna kill you when I get back to base. And he goes, yeah, yeah, you know. You know. You know, I'm not doing that. And not just that, but when we move out, we. In. In basic, you have to do a battle buddy system. So wherever you go, you have to have at least one person with you. And this is a precautionated thing that makes her, you know, something that something doesn't happen to one of the other guys. And so if he would have showed up without me, he would have really been, you know, screwed over. We both would have got screwed over. And I told him, like, hey, you know, just don't run. Don't leave me here. You know, don't take off, whatever you do, don't run. I said, if it's a bear, you know, whatever this is, if you take off running, one, it's going to catch you because we're going up the hill. And two, you know, it's, it's not going to turn out great for us, man. He's all right. I won't run. I said, just stay close with me. And so we started moving up and whatever was at our 3 o' clock and then whatever it was at behind us when we turned left, that would put the, our six o', clock at our nine o' clock and our three o' clock at our six o'. Clock. So it kind of moved, it kind of moved, you know, rotation when we took a left and we started walking. And whatever it was now was at our 9 o', clock, at our 6 o' clock and out of 3 o'. Clock. So we had three of something stalking us. And I'm like, dude, this, this is not good. And I said, all right, here's what you're going to do. I'm going to stand right here. You know, I'm going to be day quiet, lights out, turn your light on. And I want you to take about 10 to 15 steps up there up the trail. You know, not, not too, too far. Just keep your light on. And I'm going to sit here and listen and see if it follows. And he goes, all right. And I said, all right, go ahead. So he, he walks off. And I'm standing there. Nothing. Not a movement. No, there's no sound. There's. There's just nothing. And that sense now is, is about the same as when we got to the bottom of the, the draw where it's still really, really strong. It's, it's more of a smell of. It's like wet dog, musky rot odor. And kind of if you take roadkill and you just let it, you let it bake out in the sun on the hot pavement all day and then you poke it with a stick and it bursts open. It's just, it smell absolutely putrid. But at that point I smell pretty bad too. So I, you know, I, I couldn't really, I couldn't really blame, blame smelling on it. So I, we're moving up and how. Took off and he stopped up there and he gave me a whistle. And it was just like a. And right then and there before I whistled back, whatever was behind me at my six, let out a whistle. And it was the exact whistle that he just did to me, but it was not me. And so when that whistle went out, I just. I froze. And I. I'm looking. I'm looking towards how whatever this whistle is came from directly behind me. I freeze my tracks. I don't want to turn around. I'm. I'm standing here and I'm just. Just frozen in fear. I don't know. Whatever's behind me, I'm like, it's gonna grab me. You know, I'm dead. This is it. It's gonna come up behind me, snap my neck and. And, you know, I'm gonna never see my family again. And. And so. Oh. Oh, man. It's just bringing. Bringing back. Bringing back memories is. It's hard. It's hard to relive. So when it. That. That whistle came along, I didn't know. I can't remember what I told Hal. I don't know if I told him to stay there or. I'm coming up. I think I was going to do a leapfrog thing where he'd walk up and then he'd whistle at me. I'd move up and then I'd walk up. But he didn't understand what I was doing. So, you know, it wouldn't really work the way I wanted. So I slowly started walking kind of up to where he was and. And whatever was behind me started walking up too. It was. It was just steady, just kind of thud, thud, thud, thud. And it was. It was. I mean, it was. You could hear the leaves crunching. You could hear. It was. It was substantially large. You could tell whatever it was had some sides. We had a. We had a senior drill sergeant, and he was. He was super Jack dude. He was big. He was bulky. I think he wears about a size 12 shoe boot. And I mean, compared to this thing, he walks like. He walks like on feathers. It's. It. This thing is. Is covering a lot of ground in one footstep. And I. I move up, I get to him and he goes. He goes, what? I said, dude, you hear that whistle, right? I said, do that. Whistle at me. And I said, don't do it loud. Just do it right here. Until he goes. He's like. And I said, I didn't do that. And he goes, no, I. He goes, I did. I said, I know that respond. That wasn't me. And he goes, what are you talking about? I said, I'm not the one that responded to your whistle. It was at my 6 o'. Clock. I said, whatever that thing is that's behind us is intelligent enough that it knows to do a respond whistle. To your whistle. And he's, he's. He goes, that's, that's. That's not right. He's like, you're scaring me now. I'm like, listen, I'm not gonna freak you out right now because I, I already thought, you know, I. I thought, all right, there's, there's. There's some bigfoot out here. You know, this, this is, this is exactly, you know, I'm. I'm putting all the key pieces together in my head. I'm like, you know, I've heard about this. The smell, the, the. The ambush, you know, paralleling you just to push you out of an area. The whistle. And so he starts freaking out. I'm like, look, dude, I'm not going to tell you. I said, wait till we get back to, you know, patrol base and I'll let you know. So we're, we're. I'm like, let's head out. We're moving up this draw. I said, just keep an eye, you know, all around you. So he's. We're looking around, and whatever it is, it's still moving. And it sounds like it's getting closer, but every time you stop and turn, like, I'll stop and do a quick swivel and there's nothing there. There's. I mean, it's absolutely nothing there. And so we ended up. We were. We moved up and I think we walked probably, like, it felt. That night felt like we walked like three miles. But when we, when we. From the bottom of that draw, moving up it. It was probably about 0.5 miles headed up that draw. And I'm like, dude, we must have passed the patrol base. They must have all their lights off or something. I'm like, I don't hear anybody. I don't see anything. And he goes, he goes. I'm like, I don't know where we are. He goes, no, man, I'm telling you, whatever that thing is that's on our left at our 9 o', clock, must have been between us and. Yeah, it was between the patrol base and us. And I said, so for us to go to the patrol base, we'd have to go through whatever that thing is. And I said, dude, I mean, that's our only option right now. Let's just, let's. Let's circle around. And so we're. We're about halfway up this. This ravine. And it was, you know, the hills and Fort Benning, they're. They're substantially large. They're. They're the valleys. They go on for a little bit. And so we're walking up and you know, I'm telling, hey, let's, let's go, let's just turn around and let's head up. Let's head up. Halfway up this mountain to where we know we put the patrol base, we'll take a 90 degree turn to the left and we'll walk in a straight line. And if we do that, we know we're bound to hit the patrol base. And he's like, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do that. So we did that. We went up, took a 90 degree turn, and we started walking back straight down. So we basically just did like a giant like, like, like a rectangle from, from where we started. Almost, almost to a rectangle. And so we're moving down and I'm not hearing any stomping. There's nothing behind me. I'm not really hearing anything. And we're walking and then I hear, and then I hear. And it's more of. It was like a knocking sound. And I, I, I reached my hand out and I yanked him. And I, I said, don't effing move. And I'm like, He's like, did you hear that? I'm like, yes, did you hear that? And he goes, dude, he said, someone's playing games with us. I'm like, no, they're not playing games with us. And he goes, well, what is it? I said, we need to get out of here right now. And, and so I'm like, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna pick it up, but we're not gonna run. I said, whatever you do, don't run. We are gonna Airborne shuffle. Which airborne shuffle is. It's, it's, you know, common for, for those that are in the airborne, in the airborne division. It's, it's a mix from a, like a speed walk to a run. You're not doing a full run, but it's more like you're running but you're dragging your feet. It's just, it's a, it's a slower run because when you have all your gear on with you, your parachute and stuff, you're carrying a lot of weight and you don't want to run with all that gear, it's going to tire you out real soon. So if you do a shuffle, we call it the airborne shuffle or the airborne run. And so I'm like, hey, let's just airborne run out of here. Okay, we're going to keep going down. We'll hit the pb eventually, we'll throw out the, you know, we'll throw out the challenge code, and we'll be back home. And he's like, all right. And I said, I'm following you. I said, I'm going to have my hand here on your tap system, which. It's like a. It's like a chest rig that we had that we were wearing. Has our canteen on it, has mag pouches, has our compass, has our map on it. And on the back, it has a clip where you clip it on the back of your back. I said, I'm gonna. I'm gonna hold your. Your strap right here. That way we don't get separated. And we started running or we kind of shuffle. We were shuffling, but it was hard to shuffle because we're still on this kind of incline, and we're not on a trail. We're just kind of running through the leaves, slipping, just kind of. Kind of just trying to make it stay level with this. This side of the mountain of where we think the patrol base is. And we're. We're just kind of running along or we keep on shuffling whatever's behind us. I can hear whatever's behind us. Now it's back behind us. It starts shuffling up with. Not really shuffling. It's just. It's just like. I mean, it sounded like someone not beating the ground, but I don't know if you've ever seen, like, a kid, like, when they run, they kind of like. They'll kind of like hit the. Hit the ground really hard with their foot, like, if they're running and they try to stop or whatever. It was like that, but over and over, it's just like. It was a big thud, thud, thud right after another. And it wasn't running, but it was substantial enough that it. It was. It was moving about. It was matching our speed. And I said, just keep going. Keep going. Don't worry about it. Keep going. And so we were. We were moving, and he stops, and I'm like, what are you stopping for? And he goes, look. And we look to the right, and there's a trail. We look to the left, and there's a trail. And I said, so wait a minute. This is a trail we were just on, like, 10 minutes ago. He goes, yeah, this is the trail we took down from the ridge. I'm like, this. This can't be right. I know. I, I. Because I. I had a. I had a pace counter on my. On my rig, and I said, I took a pace counter when we hit the draw, and we set up the patrol base, and I. I measured it out enough, and even. Even if that. I mean, this draw, you know, this. This mountainside is not really that big. So if we would have been moving, someone would have yelled out, you know, contact. And we would hurt them, because, dude, this. Something's not right. I'm like. I'm like, all right, we got to find out where we are. We need some. Some major, you know, land features. So let's get back on this ridge. And we started heading up this ridge, and we're not. We're not. We're halfway on, you know, on the mountainside now we're moving up towards the ridge, and we're probably about 10 to 15, about 10 yards from the ridge. And. And he stops. He's in front of me, and I'm like, what are you stopping at? Not a word. Not saying a word. He's just looking dead ahead. And I'm like, what are you looking at? And I shake him. I start shaking them, and he grabs me by my shirt collar. He said, don't move. He goes, there's a boulder right there. I said, the boulder and the boulder. And we're looking at the trail, and because of where the ridgeline is, there's almost no trees on it. So there's a lot. There's a little bit more light coming through. You know, it's not. It's dark right there. And sure enough, this boulder that was not there before is standing directly in our trail, in our path. Right at the turn for us to take a right to go on the ridge or take a left. It's standing right there, and it's just standing there. And we're. We're both looking at it. We don't know what to do. We're frozen. We. We can't move. We're. We're in shock. We're just. We're petrified out of fear. And. And at that time, a. That same whistle that Hal sent to me, that. That whistle came from my left. And this boulder, which was not a boulder, the boulder from. From the ground to the top of it, was probably about. About five. Five feet tall. It was probably about. I'd say, about four feet in diameter. And the big thing is, there was no. There was no. Like, you couldn't tell. The reason it looked like a boulder is because, you know, boulder rock, as you. As you go up the side of it, it rounds up to the top. On a human, the shoulders go up, and then it rounds to the neck and then to the head. This Thing had, like, no neck. It was just the shoulders straight to the head. And it was like a dome, pretty much. And so that's why we thought it was. It was a boulder. And when that whistle came across this boulder, stood up slowly stood up. And I can see it's on two legs because the light of the. Of the trail behind it is going between its legs. You can see the light. And you know. You know how if you look at a background image, you, can see, you know, through someone's legs, Even if it's dark out, you can see behind them. And. And so it's. It's. It's the same. Same mode of, like, deer hunters when they're. If they're in a ground blind. A lot of deer hunters, they have a black canvas or the backing is really black, and then they'll wear black gear, and they'll cover their body in black. That way, if a deer is looking in, and even if you're wearing, like, camera, whatever, if you have light coming through the other side, they'll see your silhouette, because your silhouette will. Will show on that. Over that canvas of where that light is. If it's all black and you're wearing black, there's no light coming through. They can't see through it. So it was kind of that situation where there was light on the other side. And we could see that this thing was in the way of the light. And it was. I couldn't tell. I couldn't really tell, you know, features of. Of how it looked. I know for a fact that it was shaggy. You could see, you know, rimbles of the. The hair. It was kind of like a shaggy, like, old. Like, like an old 80s carpet. Pretty much just kind of like that shaggy dog fur. But you could kind of see it. There was enough. There was enough light behind it that you could see the. The shape and outline and the shoulders. I mean, Wes. The shoulders were massive. And I mean, like, this thing looked like it could tear me in half, no problem. Like, like tearing down trees. The. There's. So in Alaska, there's these. They're called upside down trees, and they're. A lot of people believe they're a symbol that the nun to nook or the. The bigfoot of Alaska had taken them, pulled them out of the ground and stuck them back in the ground because there's. There's no signs of. Of. Of machinery. There's no chainsaws, nothing. It's just. It's all natural. There's moss going on there. They've been there forever. And when I looked at this thing, like, I'm telling you, this thing looked like it could do that with one arm. It was. It was crazy how big this thing was. And. And it wasn't fat either. You can tell, like, when you look at someone's physique, even if it's dark out, you know, you can tell, like, you know, they'll have, like, a big torso, and then their arms will be kind of. Kind of. Kind of fatty, but not skin. This thing looked like it was all muscle. Like, just two toned. All muscle, fully socked out. And. And so we're looking at this thing and this whistle that. How did. Earlier comes from our left side. When that whistle comes through and that thing stands up, it just turns to the right quarters. So it's. It's pretty much quartered to us. It turns around and goes right and takes a left on that ridgeline, and it walks. It just walks that way. And me and him were just standing there, and next thing I know, someone grabbed us behind guys, behind me. I turn around, and I. I start fighting because I think. I think this thing's behind me, and I need to fight for, you know, fight or flight. And I can't run anywhere. My body can't move, and I pull. I feel something grab me and turn me around. And when it turns me around, I throw my arm out and I just start punching and slugging and come to find out it was actually my drill sergeant turned me around, and I didn't know it was him. And I saw. I just punched the crap out of my drill sergeant. And. And then I realized it was him, and I was like, oh, I'm dead. So I just kind of, like, laid on the ground. I don't know what to do. And I was like. I was like. I was like, I'm sorry. I can't do. I can't do. I can't do. And then how. How was just in there, and. And so he got. He got us up. We were both in shock. He couldn't get anything out of us. I just remember him saying, like, we've been looking for you guys for, like, hours where you guys been? And. And we're like, we're. You know, we're. We're pulling security. We thought the patrol base was here. He goes, you boys are a mile from the radius of the patrol base. I'm like. And I'm thinking to myself, a mile. Like, there's no way we walked a mile. Like, there's. I know for a fact. I know we wouldn't have walked a mile because we saw. We scoped this trail in the daytime, and. And so now we're both in shock. We're both freaked out. And, you know, Joe's right. He's yelling. He's trying to move us and stuff. And how. Just he's out of it. He's white as a ghost. I'm. I don't remember what I. I really don't remember how I looked. I don't really. A lot remember a lot of. Of that initial. That initial reaction, other than I know that that drill sergeant smoked the. The dons out of me for. For punching them. And. And. And he goes, you know, why'd you do it? You know, why'd you do it? And I just. I. I didn't want to come up and say, you know, I. I saw bigfoot, and it scared me, and I was in shock. You know, I don't wanna. I don't want to sound like crazy, because then he'd be like, you know, you're talking more, you know, you wanna. You wanna make jokes? All right, you know, let's. Let's go, you know, let's make some jokes. And then, you know, end up getting stuck more. But come to find out a little bit later, as, you know, apparently, they. If I would have said something, I think I could have got it a little bit. A little bit nicer, you know, A little bit. A little. They're like, hey, you know, they're in shock. Just, you know, y' all come talk with us. You know, you're with the boys now. Just kind of calm down. So. So, yeah, that's. That's. That's how that happened. And I hope I never have to go back.
- [48:05]
B
Yeah, I hear you. And fort Benning, you know, out there in Georgia, is just as notorious, I would say, as for Lewis when it comes to encounters. And it's scary. I mean, this thing's standing right in your path or sitting in your path. I realize you guys thought it was a boulder. Would you kind of describe what you guys saw?
- [48:28]
A
Yes, sir. So we're headed up. When we're headed up this draw, There was. There was the woods here, and then the woods get thicker, and then it just opens up. At first, we thought it was a. You know, there's this boulder that is just. It was. It was bulky. I want to say it looked like a boulder would look at night. You know, it's just dark. It's just. It's sitting there. At this time, it was probably about 5, 6ft tall, sitting down and about. Probably about 4ft wide. And when it stood up, it was just. It was massive. It looked. It looked 8, 9ft tall. I'm 6 foot 5, and even at my. My height, I was. I was looking up even at our angle. From how far away? About 10, 15 yards we were looking. I was looking up at this thing. I mean, the muscle mass on this is just. It was. I don't know if you've ever seen the images of those, like, Olympic horses or the. I don't know the species, but it's a. It's a. It's a piece of equine. It's the ones they use for farming equipment. It's the big stir breads. And they're just like. You look at their chest and their legs and it's just like giant muscle. You just see them, the veins, the muscles. Paternal. I couldn't see veins. I couldn't see a lot of. A lot of features on this, but I could tell this thing was massive. And it looked like it, you know, it could literally take me and rip me in half, like, no problem. The. The arms hung down past the hips, though, like, almost to the knees. It's like the arms were longer than. Than the torso, which doesn't, you know, on a person. Usually they're. If they're standing, their. Their hands will stop about their side. But this thing, the arms went down the torso and almost not. Not to the knees, but about to the mid. Mid area of the calf.
- [50:13]
B
And I realized that it's dark. But were you able to see the face?
- [50:18]
A
No, the. The face, I mean, it was. Whatever it was, was looking right at us. I do, I do know that I was so keened in on. On looking because, I mean, it's. It's huge. It's right there. I noticed that when it turned. You know, if someone turns and there's a light behind them, you can. Then, you know, it's darker. Maybe. If you ever look at, like you watch like King Kong and, you know, when he turns away, you can tell, like on his quarter, if you look at his face, his lips kind of come out a little bit, and then his. His nose, you know, dips down or someone turns, you can tell that they have a nose. When this thing turned, whatever the light was behind it, the lips, there were. The lips weren't like chimp lymphs. Like, they don't bubble out or anything. They were just. It was just. It was. It was flat. There was no. The nose didn't pop out like a human nose. And the the hair, it's like, I couldn't really tell because it moved so fast. When it turned around, it. It quartered, stopped, and then. And then it quartered again. So it did a full like 180 with a, with a small pause in the middle. And so the. I could tell that the hair, though, growing down, like, not really from the beard, it looked like everything was connected. It looked like all the hair on it was. Was connected on it. And when it moved out, when it stepped out into the, into the light, which was a little bit lighter because the moonlight was coming down, it was like, it was like reddish brown. It was, it was, it was shaggy, kind of rich brown. I didn't tell. I didn't get a lot of look at it. It went around the corner right there. And I'm like, you know, I don't, I don't want to go after it. You know, that thing, that thing's gonna rip me in half. Like, no problem. It could just. It could flick me with a finger and I'm dead. You know, I don't, I don't want to mess with that thing. I don't want to follow it. And like, to this day, I wish. I really wish I would have was. I'm telling you, with all the accounts that I hear that people tell all the stories, like, you know, I wanted to get out of there. I didn't want anything to do. I wish I would have followed it or got, you know, maybe, you know, waved at it or something. But then again, I'm thinking, like, no, I think. I think it's better, better that I didn't. Because if I, If I had done that, I don't know if I'd be standing here today.
- [52:27]
B
Yeah, I'm not so sure it would have. It was looking to hurt you guys, but if you push your luck, you can definitely get hurt by these things. And I think it's best that you didn't follow it. And I feel for guys on military bases because you're basically unarmed. I mean, I realize you guys have guns, but they're full of blanks. And about the best you can do is make a lot of noise. Tell me about what your drill sergeant told you. You guys go back to base and what happens.
- [52:57]
A
So basically when we got back from the. The field event, we were. Everyone was tired. We just did the, the 12 or. I think it was a maybe a 14 mile ruck. We did it back to the. Our c. Our. Our C area, our CQ area where we sleep at. And so downstairs we have all the platoons, and then they just go upstairs on different levels. And so we're downstairs. We did our counts for si, made sure we have everybody. And then we're like, hey, you know, you guys did it. You know, pat yourself on the back and said, all right, you know, tomorrow's the rest day. We're gonna stretch and do all this stuff. And we're like, okay. He goes, all right, pg. Send them out. And then I remember the drill sergeant was standing next to rpg, and he's. Rpg. Didn't say anything. So everyone else went upstairs, and my platoon just stood there. And he said. He called out. He said the Text and then. Which we all had nicknames and basing and stuff, so he called text and then hall and went up. We went to PG and said, drill sergeant needs on the office. So we followed drill sergeant in there. Everyone else went upstairs. They said, you know, go upstairs. Rest everything. And at that point, everyone. The. No. No one's thinking like, oh, they're in trouble, or, you know, oh, they did something. They're all like, hey, we're upstairs. I'm taking a shower. I'm going to sleep. You know, I'm resting. This is. This is nice. And so we. Me and. Me and Hal got into the office, and we walked in. We walked to the front. We went to. We went to parade Vest. The drill started, and. And he got up from the desk. He said, follow us in. In the office. And when we. We go through the office every now and then through the hallway, but we've never been in the office. And, like, in. In the office, and. And so we went to the conference room in the back, closed the door, sat us down, and I was like. I looked at how. I'm like, dude, we're. We're screwed. Like, we screwed the pooch on this one. Like, I don't know what we did, but we are fried. And our drill sergeant said, look, he. He looks at us. He takes his hat off, first of all, which is, you know, inside. That's what they do. But when they're around us as trainees, you know, they don't want to, like, you know, they don't want you to think, you know, you're bros, and that way you can disrespect them or anything. Takes his hat off. He sits down next us, and he goes, I know you guys have been through a wild. A wild week. And I'm like, yes, yes. True sort. He goes, no, don't talk. He goes, just listen. And I'm like, all right. And so he goes, whatever happened, I don't want to hear about it. I don't want you telling your buddies about it. And it's not to leave this ring ever. And I. I said. I was like, yes, Drill Sergeant. But I kind of looked over, and I'm like. I'm like, like, what are we talking about? And he goes, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And he said, don't ever speak of it. He said, there's things out here that we can't explain, so if you end up saying some stuff about it, there's going to be some problems. And that was. That was enough. That was enough to pretty shut me up. But the weird thing is about it, Wes, is usually if someone does something, you know, in basic training, we do. We break a rule or we do something that's, you know, we're not supposed to. There's a piece of paper, it's called a council, and it's documentation. It says exactly what happened, who did it, you know, who said what, we'll write a statement on it, and then we sign it and date it at the bottom. That way there's documentation on it. So if it happens again, we can look back and be like, oh, yeah, this happened. Or we corrected it this and this and that. There was no counsel. There was no documentation whatsoever. It was just a conversation of a drill sergeant on versus two. You know, hey, this is. You know, don't even talk about this again. And when we left, we left. And before you went upstairs, that's when me and. That's when me and. How. Made a promise. Listen, I know you're. You're going to want to tell people I'm never saying anything about it again. He goes, I don't want to think about it. I don't even want to talk about it. I said, look, if you do, it's only people you trust. And I said, don't ever share it to anybody else other than that, other than people that you trust. I said, make sure you're careful with it. Don't be stupid about it, either. Don't be bragging. No. Don't go nagging about anything. And he goes. He goes, you know what was weird? And I said, what? He goes, why didn't we sign a council? And I'm like, I'm thinking the same thing. And. And that's. That's what we were contemplating. He goes, if we did something wrong or he doesn't want us talking about it, we would sign a council saying, hey, this is what we said. This is what they're not going to do. This is the corrective action. Signed it and date it and give a statement. We didn't do any of that. I said, dude, I. I don't know. And he goes, dude, they know something. And then we went upstairs and. And that was that We. We didn't tell anybody ever again. And we. We talked about it, and actually, just the other day, he called me a little while ago, and he goes, hey, you remember that? You remember that incident in basic? And I'm like, yeah. He goes, well, I'm finally out in the woods because it. It scared him so much, he didn't want to go out in the woods. I'm like, oh, heck, yeah, man. You know, I'm glad to see you're in the woods and stuff. He goes, yeah, I won't go alone. I won't go out again. But I got out here in the daytime, you know, we're out here doing some walking around, hiking and stuff. And I was like, awesome, dude. And he's like, how about you, man? How you doing? I'm like, hey, you're gonna take me out of the woods or you can't take the woods out of me? And he goes, yeah, well, I'm. I'm. I wouldn't feel the same way if, you know, if I ever saw one of those things again. And then he mentioned. He mentioned your show. And I'm like, dude, I've been listening to his show for a while. You know, this. That's where it's calling. You got to get on that on Spotify. And. And he's like, yeah. He goes, he was joking, like, pretty cool they brought us on. I was like, yeah, yeah, pretty. Pretty cool. And I was like, you know, good to hear from you, man. And then hollered at him later and stuff. But. But yeah, that was. That was all. That was just. The weird thing is, is the two thing is, one, they told us, don't talk about it. Like, but there was no counseling. There's no paperwork, which is unheard of in the army. Army is almost all paperwork. Everything you do, there's a piece of paper for everything. You have to date it, you have to sign it, you have to go through a catalog, and then you have to sign a piece of paper that says you signed that piece of paper or sign the other piece of paper, and there was no paper whatsoever. It was. It was. It was just. It was just something like, hey, sweeping on the rug. We're never going to talk about this again. And. And of course, we said, you know, yes, drill Sergeant, because, you know, it was a respect thing. They tell us what to do, we have to do it. We signed the contract, you know, we can't, we can't go against what they say. And we didn't want to disrespect them. You know, we didn't want to get in trouble for it. And we were, we were tired, we were exhausted. We did, we didn't want to be doing burpees and push ups and running around the track for, with water cans, you know, and we're just like, yeah, you know, we just submitted, you know, yesterday, didn't understand. And then that was that. And then we graduated and went to airborne school together. And then I came to Bragg and he went to Italy. So that's where we're at now.
- [59:54]
B
Well, I'm honored you would share the account here. And you know, I've interviewed many veterans and current military that have had encounters on these bases. And like I was saying earlier, Fort Benning is very much like Fort Lewis. And I could probably name five others where accounts like this happen over and over and over again and over the years. And I've always wondered why, when, when guys have these experiences. What you described there with your drill sergeant is very similar to what I've heard in the past. When leadership gets involved, it's kind of like, don't talk about this. If you want any sort of career in the military, shut your mouth. It didn't happen. And that's the end of that. Why do you think it's like that on these bases where it seems like there's no interest in these accounts, especially coming from the government? You think the government would be very interested in these accounts?
- [60:58]
A
I don't know. Honestly. I'll tell you how I'd say I answer most things around here that's above my pay grade, but honestly, I just think that, I think that the people, if you're working there, you're working on that base for long enough, or you're working in an installation, you're spending enough time in the woods, you've heard some stuff, you've seen some stuff, and you can have your own beliefs and stuff, but when it comes down to you have a job to do and you can't have anything that, you know, makes you unperform your job. And not just that you're training, you know, if you're a drill sergeant or you're a teacher, you're training students, you're training people. And you, you know, you have this, this title that you know, I'm a big kill Billy Badass. You know, don't. You know, don't mess with me. And then you're like, hey, you know, I'm scared of the woods. You know, don't go out there and stuff. I think more so. It's more the situation of. It's a. It's a. It's a hiding more. So I want to say, you know, a lot of people say, you know, you know, what do you think Bigfoot is? Or you ask a lot of people, what do you think Bigfoot is? And I. I can't say I know what it is, but I. I think it's definitely wrapped around the government. I think the government knows about it, and, you know, the government likes to keep it a secret. I. I think the government knows that there's our Bigfoot out there on Fort Benning, and there's people that know it out there, and I think there's people that have their higher ups and they've. They've talked to them like, hey, we don't talk about it. Don't say nothing about it. If you hear anybody, you know, shut it down. I don't want to hear about this, you know, in my unit or in my installation. And, you know, of course, you know, higher upstairs, you do something like, okay, yeah, I understand. I mean, that's just. That's what comes up from it, honestly. And so usually I just think, you know, everyone's just following orders. You know, you got to follow orders from your higher ups. If they're telling you, you know, don't speak of this, don't speak of it. You know, don't. Don't talk about it. You know, if it's. If it's. If being talked about, shut it down before I hear about it, or there's going to be, you know, there's gonna be problems, gonna be consequences. But I think. I think it's just like it's something to be hid. They don't want the rest of the world. I know a lot of. A lot of things that the government controls the world. Not only controls the world, but the world runs around. There's a control kind of situation where as long as the government has leverage, like taxes or inflation, they can control how people are, how people react. And I think that if this news got out or. Or, you know, this secret was, you know, unleashed about, you know, there's these things out there and they're dangerous and all that, then, you know, a lot of things. A lot of things will change that. Skepticism, science, would change, you know, the whole. The way that we look at everything might just be completely gone out the window. I just think we're so far down in the rabbit hole that, you know, there's no getting back out of it. And if, if something like this comes up, then, you know, I'm not saying it's going to be a. A World War iii, but, you know, there's just. There's. There's so much that we don't know about, and I think we don't know about it for a reason. And the government knows about it, but they don't want us to know about it because, you know, people will overtake and there'll be political arguments and fights and wars. And I think. I think it's just one of those things where it's like, hey, you know, this is one of the things that we have to make sure we control or else things are going to get out of hand. And I think. I think it's just that situation where, like, hey, you know, they know about it. They know it's there, but you keep these guys quiet about it and we won't have any problems, you know?
- [64:23]
B
Yeah, I think you're right. It probably is control, and I do think the government knows about it because of so many encounters on these bases when these guys like yourself are out there doing training. I've heard it so many times, and I know if I've heard it, they've heard it and they know what's going on. And it makes me wonder, too, if the government even thinks that they're dangerous. The fact that they would send our young men and women out on these bases to do these training knowing they're unarmed, that all they really have is blanks. It really makes me wonder, and I really appreciate you guys listening. I didn't realize how much of the military was actually listening to the show. And one day I was looking at the stats and I was like, there's all these Middle east countries. And I'm like, who's listening in all these Middle east countries? And it kind of hit me that it's the military. They're listening on the basis. So thank you guys, those out there who are listening. Thank you for your service and thanks so much for your support.
- [65:26]
A
Like, you're so. Man helps so many. So many people that may feel lost or like, you know, they don't have anywhere to go. It makes a safe haven for a lot of people. You know, you'll tell, you'll. You'll have a lot of people come on the show, like, you know, I don't want to talk about it because I want people to think I'm crazy. You know, people will criticize me for it or, you know, people like cast, you know, chastise me, and I just don't want to. I didn't want any problems. But this. This, you know, this that you have creates a safe place that no matter what happened, you know, no matter how crazy or whatever, you know, whatever it was that, you know, you had this situation and you can talk and tell somebody about it, because a lot of times when someone goes through a hardship, if you talk about it or you talk about what you saw, you talk about your experience, it helps bring the burdens out, and, you know, it helps bring it out in the air, and then that person can feel more easy about it. I know a guy, he's. He's in our. Our unit, and he ended up trying to take his life. And his buddy was sitting there and watched him do it, and he didn't stop him. He just watched him do it. And my buddy ended up. He survived. He's. He's fine now. But my other buddy that watched him, he was scarred for a while, and he wouldn't work. He wouldn't. He. He couldn't. He couldn't function properly. And he ended up seeing a therapist, and. And he got. He ended up talking about it, and sure enough, it just. It just kind of slipped away, you know, it's just kind of forgot about it. But I think it's just one of those things, like, you know, if you have a. An impacting experience and you hold that down on the inside, it's just. It. It's like putting a snake in a. You know, in a box. You just hold it down in there and you keep shaking and shaking and shaking. The more you shake it, the more it gets wild up. You let it out, you know, let it air out, let it calm down, you know, snake will be fine. And go on about doing snake business. You know, it's more that. Not just. Not just it helps people, but it's also, you know, you have. I think soon enough, there's going to be a day when people are going to be like, well, yeah, science says it's not real, and people say it's not real, or the government says it's not real. But this, this, this. This. This happened here. This guy, this guy, this guy, this woman, this guy. They all said this, and everything matches up. So the biggest thing about me, and one of the greatest things that I argue with People is, you know, they're like, oh, but, you know, Bigfoot's not real, am I? Let me tell you something. I said Indians, all in. Almost all tribes of Indians have words for animals, and it's in their own language. And I said, they have a word for every animal on the earth that we know of. I said, why do you think or why would they have a word for an animal that doesn't exist? Like, you know, they, they don't have a word for the unicorn. They're not making, they're not making words up for, you know, that. Some, some, you know, method, you know, mammoth or saber tooth, tiger. I mean, like, this is like, this is like a real time thing that they're having words for. And, and it's on hieroglyphics, you know, it's on paintings on the walls. And, and there's, there's the Aztec fields that, that show. I think it's the Aztec signs or what it is, it's, it's only, it's only. You can only see it from, from, from aerial surveillance, aerial vision, but when you look down, it has all these hieroglyphics that have been carved into the earth and it's, it's, it's, it's shapes and fixtures and, and images. And I think that, you know, if Indians, you know, everyone, everyone believes in Indians. Everyone knows, you know, Indians were on this earth at one point or another as, as, you know, riding, as tribal, and they're, they have a word for this thing that doesn't exist. Well, why do they have a word for everything that does exist? You know, it doesn't, you can't, you can't have it. You know, why, why could you argue that point? And, you know, it's in books, it's in, it's in catalogs, it's in news reports. I mean, people are seeing stuff. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's just like, you know, I can't tell you what is or isn't. I can tell you what I know, and you can believe me or you don't have to. You know, I'm not gonna, I can't force anyone to believe anything, but I can tell them what I know, what I've seen and what I've heard, and they can take the information how they want to. But if I tell them that and they're like, no, no, I still don't believe, and then someone else tells them that, and then another person, like, you know, what? You know, I'm hearing so much Things about this. There's got to be something out there. And then they start digging in, they start looking into it and you know, there might be something out there. And then they go out there and they see something and like, dude, there's something out there. And then there's another person that's like, hey, you know, Bigfoot's real. No, but he's out there. And it's just, it's. It's a matter of time. A lot of people like, oh, you know, it's a matter, you know, they use the, the argument like, you know, well, why haven't we found a body? You know, why aren't there bones? Why aren't there skeleton? You. We're digging up like old fossils of fish and dinosaurs and the gigantic Giganta pickethus or whatever the word is, Big words. And so people are digging them up and like, oh yeah, this was like 30 million years ago, you know, lived on this earth. Why are there no bones of Bigfoot? And I'm like, well, have you ever, you know, I'm like, you know how we bury our dead in the cemetery? You know, we don't dig them up. You know, you bury in the cemetery and we have that place for cemetery. And I'm like, there are places found out in the woods, in caves, in nature where there are bones of mammals, of monkeys that have been buried. And I'm like, maybe, maybe they don't want to be found. Maybe they bury them. Maybe there's a certain place for him and they bury them or they put them in a cave or they put them in a ravine that no one will ever find them that way. There's, you know, they don't want to be found. You know, they say that Bigfoot's the hide and go seek champions because he doesn't want to be found. He doesn't, he doesn't want, you know, like, yeah, they're, they are curious. I hear that they're curious. They'll follow people, they'll watch you in the woods. And people have, you know, some people have, you know, situation of situational encounters that are scary. But at the end of the day, I think it's that they don't want to be seen, they don't want to be found. They, they want to be seclusive. They want to be deep, deep, deep, where no one else is going to be. You know, you're not their kind. Then they don't want anything to do with you because, you know, man, man is different than ape. They're similar as in two but man thinks differently, acts differently, eight things differently. Accidentally, we eat different, we socialize different. You know, we, we live our lives differently than those of, you know, the mammal world or the animal kingdom. And I think it's just that thing where like, they recognize, like, hey, you know that, that man, you know, that guy, you know, he's not me. Like, yes, we look alike, but he's not me. He's not one of me, you know, and this is my domain. This is my territory. He's in my territory. He needs to leave. And then there's, there's situations where people talk about, like, they'll have a gun and they'll raise the gun up to look at it, and it knows what a gun is. Like, it's seen enough hunters, it's seen its own kind die and, and then that's when they get all angry and such. I listened to, to your, your story or a story just the other day on your podcast of a gentleman. He's. He, you said he was a law enforcement officer or ex law enforcement, and he was going down the stairs going fishing, and there was what he believes a juvenile bigfoot at the bottom of the stairs, and he dropped his, he dropped his fishing pole. And when he went down to pick it up, you know, he looked down for two seconds, looked back, and all he saw was the back of this thing going into the bank. And he said when he had that fishing pole and he dropped it, this thing looked at the fishing pole, and when he went down to pick it up, this thing kind of flared its lips up and showed his teeth at him. And, you know, I, I think that maybe it thought that maybe it was. He was gonna hit him with it or maybe it was a gun or, you know, maybe they would be used as a weapon. You know, these, these creatures, they're. They're intelligent enough that they know to elude people. Yeah, there are situations where people see them and like in, you know, this situation. But my situation is we're in the middle of the woods, we're in a military base. Very few people get in the military installations. Not just that. The location of where we were was so much deeper, so much farther than the main area of where all the companies or whatever go to. I actually, I mapped it out. I ended up looking up just on the other side of that ridgeline, there is a like, super classified access center which has like, has like the prison. Prison wire gates around it. And it's just, it's just like a small couple of buildings and all around it. If you look on the maps, it says close to all classifications, meaning no one can go in there. No military, non military, contractors, like you have to have very, very special clearance to get in there. It's kind of like an Area 51 thing. And I looked in, I was like, why is this here? And then I mapped it out. I said, this happened right next to that. I said, I don't believe in, you know, I believe in coincidence, but this was not a coincidence. This is something, you know, this, this has a tie in with this. There's something around, you know, this ridgeline. There's something around this area. And, you know, there's, there's something with this. This is. Has a tie in some way. And it's just one of those things where I'm like, you know, they know that they need to elude or they, they need to not be around people. So here, let's go. Let's go deep, deep in the mountains where we, you know, we can be left alone. Where we can hunt and fish and live alone, you know, raise our young and just not have to worry about people because people just won't understand, you know? You know what I mean?
- [75:03]
B
Yeah, I definitely understand what you're saying. Text do you think sasquatch is more of an animal? Do you think it's more of a man? I think.
- [75:11]
A
I think it's more of a man, honestly. I think a lot of people say it's like the missing link. You know, you have, you have apes and then you have man. Where's the guy in the middle? You know, I think it's. I think, I mean, I think it's animal. I, I think, you know, it's, it's been living, you know, it lives in the, in the woods. But the thing is, is man, we, when, you know, to survive, man hunts and men fish. We, you know, we make fire and stuff. We build these, these huts or we build roofs to cover us. Deer don't build that beard laid. The deer don't care. Like, they'll go in a cave right now. They'll lay down. If it's raining, they'll lay down on the snow. You see elk, they're out in the snow all the time. There are these bigfoot nests and there's these coverage. There's a. Frames and there's, there's these markings. It takes two hands to do and it takes muscle and it takes intelligence. You know, you have to, you have to know how things are put together to put this together. And it's put together that way and Then there's, there's, you know, it's matted down or it's a giant area or you look up in a tree and there's like it's matted down you up there. It looks like a bed's laying up there. Like these things know, you know, not just like animal, you know, animals don't do that. Like, yeah, birds make the bird's nest. So it's kind of like a bird's nest. But a bird's nest does that for security, for comfort, so it can raise its young safely, can lay on top of them and keep them safe. The same thing I think goes for, you know, Bigfoot. They, they put it up there or they, they put to get off the ground or, or that way they have a security point. They can look out of this point. They can see their whole 360 surroundings and they can see something coming before it. Seeds, you know, they see it coming and I think it's just, it's that thing where like yes, it's still. I think it's an animal, but I think it's a lot more man. It's, you know, it's, it's muscle mass and it's, it's all this, this the same anatomy of a man and it's, it's. I can't explain face. You know, I can't explain the shoulder and all that. I think it's just the evolution over. Evolution over time things change. And I think over the many, many hundred years that back in time when the land bridge was at. There was a lands bridge, I think everything crossed over well, I think these things crossed over on the land bridge and now they're all over and you know, they're, they're, they're in certain places, they're all over the place, but they're all, they're all similar in a way as, as where some are more animal like, some are more man like. But I honestly, I honestly think it's more manly of a, of a creature than, you know, than an animal.
- [77:43]
B
Yeah, I could definitely understand the way you fill tax. I've often said even their, you know, appearances aside, their behavior alone a lot of times makes me think more human than animal. It's definitely a mystery and I, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share it. I'm honored you'd come on and share this account. And thank you again for your service.
- [78:07]
A
Yes, sir. I appreciate, man, I really appreciate having me on. I, I, you know, I, I don't, I don't think my story is as great as other people's, but, you know, everyone has to count. And it's, it's such an honor to be here. I'm, I'm happy, you know, be fighting for the country. I appreciate, you know, your support. And as everyone, you know, we can't do what we can't, what we do without, you know, the love from the country and, and for everyone else that they have for us. So I, I really appreciate you, Wes. I. Thanks for having me on.
- [78:38]
B
Absolutely. Thanks again, Tax. And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is wes@sasquatchchronicles.com and if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone, It.