SC EP:1259 We Thought It Was A Bear

Summary

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Sasquatch Chronicles – Episode 1259

"We Thought It Was A Bear" (May 23, 2026)

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Overview

In this episode, the host welcomes Jeff from California, who recounts a chilling encounter he and his wife experienced in 1994 while camping in the Laguna Mountains of San Diego County. At the time, they believed they had witnessed a bear, but a series of escalating oddities, including bizarre animal sounds and the eerie reactions of a park ranger, led Jeff to reconsider what he truly saw. The episode dives into the details of Jeff’s sighting, his evolving understanding of the encounter, indigenous legends and place-names from the region, and broader speculation about Sasquatch’s origins, including biblical and quantum possibilities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: An Isolated Campground

[03:51]

• Jeff and his wife camp at Burnt Rancheria in Laguna Mountain State Park, East County San Diego, a favorite spot from his childhood.
• Despite perfect weather, the campground is strangely empty – only the couple is present.
• The ranger explains emptiness as due to the first week of school, but looking back, Jeff is unsettled by the isolation.

2. Unusual Animal Sounds

[07:30]

• Night One: Coyotes, familiar and welcome to the couple, run directly through the empty campground – an intense, close encounter.
• Later that night: They hear what Jeff describes as “wolves,” notable for being distinctly different from coyotes and coming from the desert side.
• The next morning, the ranger denies the presence of wolves:

  "There are no wolves here. There are no wolves in Southern California." (Jeff recounting his conversation, [10:45])

• In hindsight, Jeff realizes the “wolves” might have actually been something else.

3. Hiking and the Encounter

[15:00]

• On the Pacific Crest Trail, Jeff and his wife notice how unusually quiet and hot the area is.
• They discover several large, dead branches laid across the trail in an “X” pattern—a detail that later seems significant.

  “There was a pile of dead trees laid across the path almost in an X shape.” (Jeff, [16:30])

The Sighting

[17:15 – 23:00]

• After crossing the “X,” strange, loud sounds begin—Jeff describes it as "like a dying cow" from the other side of a small valley.
• Upon stopping for lunch on a large boulder, they spot a large, reddish-brown creature:

  “I saw a tree shaking… I saw something banging on the tree. At first, I said, ‘Well, there’s that cow. Now what’s he doing banging on the tree?’ … Then I said, ‘There’s a bear. Look at that.’” (Jeff, [20:50])

• The creature is described as upright, banging and backing into a tree, but Jeff—unfamiliar with Bigfoot lore at the time—assumes it’s a bear.
• A fence line separates them from the creature, and the couple is not alarmed due to the distance.

4. The Ranger’s Ominous Denials

[26:00]

• That evening, Jeff reports the sighting to the ranger, stating, "You got a big bear over there."
• The ranger, suddenly intense, insists:

  “‘There are no bears in San Diego County.’ He got real close to me, in my face… and just stared at me.” (Jeff, [27:20])

• This reaction, coupled with his earlier denial of wolves, unsettles Jeff.

5. The Nighttime Terror

[30:00 – 38:00]

• Moving their campsite closer to the trail, Jeff is kept awake by persistent, rustling noises—assumed to be field mice or rabbits.
• Frustrated, he exits the tent loudly to scare them off. The noises stop temporarily.
• The “wolf” sounds return, as does the rustling—feeling increasingly menacing.
• Jeff grabs a WWII bayonet and exits again, now gripped by inexplicable terror:

  “I got overcome with a fear that I cannot explain… I was just terrified.” (Jeff, [37:30])

• Without logical cause, he wakes his wife:

  “‘We’re getting out of here… We’re just getting out of here right now. We’re not staying.’”

• They hurriedly pack the tent (without disassembling) and flee in the night, not looking back, both overwhelmed by fear.

6. Piecing Things Together – Aftermath and Local Lore

[39:00 – 44:00]

• At the time, Jeff makes no connection between the trail blockage, animal sounds, the ranger’s denials, and the sighting.
• Only years later, after reading local accounts (including indigenous lore about “Zoobies” and a rare book by a woman who was shown Bigfoot’s habitat by local Native Americans), did Jeff realize the significance of what he saw.
• Coincidentally, the dirt road near the location is named “Thing Road”—named after local tales of “some Thing” in the valley.

  “If you go on the map and you look up Thing Road… it goes right up the valley… where I saw Bigfoot.” (Jeff, [32:55])

7. Speculations: What Is Sasquatch?

[38:35 – 53:00]

• The host and Jeff shift to theorizing, including:
  • The quantum theory of reality: discussing if belief/talk about Sasquatch manifests sightings.
  • Indigenous reluctance to speak of it for fear of summoning.
  • Biblical links: Jeff speculates about “first humans,” Lilith, Cain, and especially Esau (described as “hairy and red” in Genesis).
  • Host expresses skepticism about the Esau/Sasquatch theory but respects outside-the-box thinking.

    “If you just look at the verse with his hair, there's more to Sasquatch than being hairy… Their appearance, the way they vocalize… I struggle with that one.” (Host, [46:35])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Unexplainable Fear:

  “It was that kind of fear that as soon as you get scared, you start thinking you're running out of time, that every moment that you're there, the danger is closer and closer.”
  — Jeff ([37:58])

• The Ranger's Stern Warning:

  “‘There are no bears in San Diego County.’ And he just stared at me.”
  — Jeff ([27:20])

• On Seeing the Creature:

  “We saw this great big red-haired, sort of red, brown, red, orange, brown haired bear banging on the tree. … At first I said, ‘Well, there’s that cow… that cow is standing up. That’s not a cow. Cows don’t stand up against trees… There’s a bear. Look at that.’”
  — Jeff ([21:36])

• Host on Witness Interpretation:

  “If you don't believe in Bigfoot… a cow, a bear kind of goes through your mind or your brain tells you that's what you're actually seeing.”
  — Host ([35:51])

• On Place Names and Lore:

  “Thing Road is where I saw Bigfoot. So that's… the punchline, I guess. And that's my story.”
  — Jeff ([33:52])

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Key Timestamps

• Jeff’s Introduction & Background: [03:32]
• Describing the Setting/Camping: [03:51–07:30]
• Coyotes and “Wolves” at Night: [07:30–12:30]
• Ranger Denies Wolves: [10:45]
• Hike and the “X” on Trail: [16:30]
• The Sighting – “Bear” at the Tree: [20:50–23:00]
• Ranger’s Intense Denial of Bears: [27:20]
• Nighttime Fear and Flight: [30:00–38:00]
• Lore: “Thing Road” and old local stories: [32:55–34:00]
• Discussion of other local strange animal reports: [34:05–35:51]
• Reflection on Fear and Sasquatch Theories: [35:51–46:04]
• Biblical/Origin Theories: [38:35–51:58]
• Wrapping Up: [53:18]

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Episode Highlights

• A witness describes a sighting that only makes sense long after the fact, illustrating how common, everyday assumptions can mislead even honest observers.
• Notably, place-names like “Thing Road” underscore how local communities have long acknowledged (if obliquely) mysterious happenings.
• The episode provides a nuanced, ambiguous Bigfoot encounter with subtle but classic signs: tree structures, intense animal sounds, emotional/psychic distress, and inexplicable, bone-deep fear.
• Thoughtful exploration of potential Sasquatch origins—from the quantum manifestation hypothesis to biblical references—opens a wide-ranging conversation that values both skepticism and curiosity.

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Conclusion

Jeff’s harrowing and, at the time, confusing encounter in 1994 fits many hallmarks of Sasquatch lore in retrospect. His story is a testament both to the power of hindsight in assembling the puzzle of unusual wilderness experiences and to the complex layers of local, indigenous, and even biblical narratives that people use to try to understand the mysterious. The host and guest’s engaging speculation serves as a thoughtful reflection on the intrigue and enduring debate surrounding Bigfoot.

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Transcript

[Jeff]

On a late November night in 2012, while driving in the foothills of Washington, two brothers were surrounded by mysterious creatures. Still haunted and forever changed, these men took to the Internet, creating a forum for others. If you've had an encounter and no one else can help, maybe you can contact Sasquatch Chronicles. 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 it 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 him.

[Intro/Outro Narrator]

Hello?

[Jeff]

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.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

Oh.

[Jeff]

This is colonel nathan r. Jessup, commanding officer, mar ground forces, guantanamo bay, cuba. And you are listening to sasquatch chronicles.

[Intro/Outro Narrator]

Boom.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

To the show. Thanks so much for being here tonight. We'll be chatting with Jeff, and Jeff comes to us from California. And back in 1994, him and his wife were out camping and they had a strange encounter. At first they thought it was a bear, but nothing about the bear made sense and they end up cutting the camping trip short. I'll kind of like Jeff going to it. 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. Hope everyone is enjoying some time off during this Memorial Day weekend. Let's jump into it. I want to welcome Jeff to the show. Jeff, thanks for coming on.

[Jeff]

Yeah. Hey, how are you doing?

[Host (possibly Wes)]

I'm doing well, Jeff. Thank you for asking. And I know that you and your wife had this encounter. We're going back to 1994. This is in California. If you would, would you start from the very beginning? Walk me into what? What happened? What'd you guys end up seeing?

[Jeff]

Yeah, well, my wife and I, we had just been married. We moved back to California, where I grew up. And we were living in Oceanside. And one of the places where we used to go camping as a family when I was a kid was one of the places I wanted to show her. So we packed up one weekend and I told her I was going to show her. Laguna Mountain in eastern San Diego County, East County. We drive through the town of Alpine, California to get there, which you may remember from the. From the stories about the Zubies. There's some strange coincidences about the area, but nonetheless, we. So we. We headed up to Mount Laguna, and there we were set up for camping one night and. Or for the weekend. I think it was a Friday night. And we pulled in and it was the afternoon we set up camp and I noticed it was empty. We were the only ones there. I thought that very strange. But the campground was dead empty. It was beautiful weather. And when the ranger came around in his little cart to say hi, I asked him about it. He said, well, it was the first week of school. It was the first week of school. And so, yeah, there's nobody there. And I like camping, but I kind of suppose, now that I look back on it, there's a certain security in a full campground that's lacking in an empty campground. And, you know, I had nothing in my mind about anything weird happening or anything. And, you know, we set up camp and the plan was the next day to hike out and see the desert. And that's why I love this campground, because I do love the desert. The neat thing about the Laguna Mountains is you have alpine on one side, and you can be camping in the alpine, but the trail within a half hour will take you out in the dead desert. What you get is you get the mountains on one side with the alpine where you're camping, because that's where the ocean water, the ocean marine climate hits on the other side of the mountain, it's dead desert and drops away into the desert. And the neat thing is you can just see for infinity from the mountains up there into the flat desert. And so that's part of the fun. Well, we set up camp that night and we had our dinner and whatnot. We had our fire. Still, it's an empty campground. We went to bed that night. And now, my wife and I living in San Diego, we love the coyotes. And so, you know, when you hear the coyotes, you hop up from the table, you run outside and listen to them and you watch them. And it's always been a neat thing. I mean, we sort of felt, in fact, camping at a different Place in desert, in Borrego Springs. We woke up one morning to a. I mean, a granddaddy coyote sitting in the. Sitting right in the middle of our camp, just looking at us. He is beautiful and really enjoyed it. Felt a little bit of a kind of neat connection. And he trotted off. So we love the coyotes and we heard the coyotes that night and we were, you know, expecting to hear the coyotes. And when we heard them coming way off in the distance, see, they're coming up from the desert side, up the side of the mountain. And we heard them coming and getting louder and louder and then we got a bit surprised. It was a little nerve wracking when, when the coyotes charged right through the campground. I mean, they came right through the campground on all sides of the tent. And we're inside the tent, but we could hear them. And that was a little bit closer than we were used to. And if you've heard a whole pack of coyotes, they're just yapping and barking and yapping and running and you know, basically it's a stampede. And so we thought, interesting, that's neat. I like that. Well, it'll be a nice big day tomorrow. So we, so we laid down and went to sleep. And we were woken up in the, in the middle of the night by wolves, the sounds of wolves. So now we know the difference between the coyotes because we enjoy the coyotes. They're sort of our friends. But these were not coyote sound, they were wolf sounds. And we could hear them off on the desert side. They were definitely coming up from the desert side. So. So we hear the wolves. I didn't think much of it because I'm, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not well versed enough in forestry to know that there aren't wolves in Southern California. I simply didn't know this. And when the ranger came around the next morning again in his little cart, said, how you doing? And I said, wow, we certainly heard the wolves last night. He said, you mean the coyotes? I said, no, no, we love the coyotes. We saw him run through here. So you saw them run through here, the campground? And I said, yeah, they ran right around us. He said, that's interesting. Yeah, but that's not it. The wolves we heard all night. And he said, he looked at us, he's like, there are no wolves here. There are no wolves in Southern California. We're like, well, okay, well, I heard wolves. And he said, my dog's part wolf. You might have heard him. And I'm thinking, no, we heard lots of wolves in lots of places. And so the idea is, I didn't know until later, but it wasn't wolves we were hearing at all. Now in hindsight, but we didn't know that and I didn't know that. So we thought nothing of it. I mean, literally nothing of it. I wasn't a bigfoot fan or I had nothing to do with any of this at the time. So none of this was coming registering in my head. So the next morning we had our breakfast and the big deal was to go out on the trail. So the pacific crest trail. And I don't know if you want dead locations, but this is the. We were in the burnt ranchera campground of laguna mountain state park. And the way to get there, the only way to get there is up through the town of alpine. So we went out for our hike and it was hot out there because it was, you know, it was spring. So. So in California, starting to get dry and dusty because in California, it's the winter that's green. And by the time we had gotten there, the green was sort of disappearing and it was starting to get kind of crunchy out there desert wise. So we head out on the trail and we were hiking on the trail and enjoying the. The views and whatnot. It was quiet. We did notice saying to ourselves, wow, it's quiet out here. But it was very hot and hot and quiet kind of go together. But we, we saw bigfoot, but we didn't see him face to face Charging through the trees at us. As a matter of fact, we saw bigfoot in a way that we didn't even know we were looking at bigfoot. And that's the truth. But I think by the time we finish here, you'll. You'll. Probably. You might come to the same conclusions we did. So we were out walking on the desert as part of the pch, the pacific crest trail. And we were out walking on the pch and it was just hot. We weren't seeing anything, Nothing coming along. And we had enjoyed the day. We'd been out there maybe an hour. And the strangest thing, we came around a corner and there was a pile of dead trees Laid across the path Almost in an X shape. They were, you know, not big six inch trees. They were. They were like snapped off dead trees, you know, but they were big. They were, you know, maybe three inches, you know, a good handful around. But they were piled up perpendicularly across the trail. And it almost looked like they were laid in an X shape, as if you were looking from above. Now, it's a big trail. I mean, the trail is 3, 4 foot wide, sandy gravel. It's by no means nature natural there. When we saw these. This. This stuff in the road, I remember thinking how very curious. And just stepping around it again. I had no idea of any of this stuff yet. And this is all coming together in hindsight. We walked across the. We'll walk around sort of through, because it was. It was up on one side and way down into the desert on the other. So we kind of walked through it. And I do remember as soon as we went through that, I don't know how far we had gone down the trail when I said to my wife, said, what is that sound? And she's like, well, she's. I don't know what. What she says. I hear she's looking around. I'm looking around. They said. I remember saying it sounds like a dead cow or it sounds like a dying cow. And it was loud. And I mean, I guess when I said a dying cow, I was thinking big animal making noise for some one reason or another. And it continued. And we stopped and we looked around, and I heard it then to stop for a little bit, and we saw nothing. And at that point, I. There was a big boulder there, a great big boulder right next to the path. And we had brought some sandwiches. We were going to have, you know, our little picnic. And we hopped up on the boulder, started unpacking lunch, and we heard the sounds. What is that? I started looking down in the valley, and the valley goes, you know, maybe, I don't know, a quarter half mile down, and then started heading back up the other side. So half up the other side of this gully, I saw a tree shaking. So we're hearing the noises, and it's not like we were close. It was the other side of the valley, and the tree was shaking. And again, I didn't think anything because I didn't know it at the time. And then I saw something banging on the tree. Now, you would say if you see something banging on the tree, it's bigfoot. But I had no frame of reference. I wasn't into it then. At first I said, well, there's that cow. Now, what's he doing banging on the tree? Because that's where the sounds were coming from. And then I looked again, and I said, that cow is standing up. That's not a cow. Cows don't stand up against trees. And so I said, there's a bear. Look at that. And it was a long, you know, it was Further, it was a longer way away. We didn't, we weren't afraid to run. We were on the trail on the other side of the gully. So we saw this great big red haired, sort of red, brown, red, orange, brown haired bear banging on the tree. And we could see it banging up against it and turn around backwards and, and slam into it backwards like it was hanging fists up in the air. But we thought it was a bear. We heard the sounds, we saw the tree shaking and we said, oh, that's, that's interesting. And you know, I thought that maybe I saw a barbed wire fence or something down in the bottom of the. As a matter of fact, I do now remember seeing there was a fence line of some kind between us and it in the bottom of the valley. But even so, I wasn't afraid of a bear that was that far away. And so we made our way around and we were at the end of the trail. We came in. We thought nothing of it and other than normal day stuff. So we weren't even afraid. We weren't, you know, even in a position to understand what we had seen. Originally. It looked like it was slamming into the tree. Not with its fists like a punching bag, it was like slamming into it and then it eventually turned it at one point had turned around and was definitely slamming it into the. Backing into it, you know, like a kid does on the bathroom door when he wants to annoy you a little baby or something. He's going bam, bam with his backside. And so that's what was happening. And like I said, I saw the fists were up in front of it. That's how I noticed, you know, that was turning around backwards because I could see its hands, but I couldn't see hands. They were far enough away for me to think it was still a bear. And so that's, that's how he was. And the tree was shaking. There's a whole row of trees. And this was on the edge of this little forest. There was a little forest going up the hillside and this tree was on the very edge. So we could see wasn't hidden in the forest. It was like the very last row of trees before it tumbled down into the, into the desert scrub on the other side of the valley. And you know, I try to think about how far away it was. Maybe a quarter mile, I don't know. So we leave and we go back to camp. We're still not thinking anything of it. And you can see how I later on, after learning things, in learning things, that when I realized the trees across the path. And right when we crossed over the trees across the path was when the noise, the sounds started, the dead cow sounds. And it was between those trees, across the path and the rock was when we heard it all. And it had stopped. As we stopped to listen to it and look around, it had stopped. Then we went and sat up on the rock is when it started again. And I started to see the tree shaking. So in my mind, in hindsight, I kind of, you know, was something looking at us, trying to wait for us to decide if we're going to leave. And then when we decided to stay and climb up on the rock for lunch, basically to watch him, it was. Was when started banging on the tree backwards and the noises started back up again. So we leave the trail, finish up the trail, go back to town and kind of take a nap in the afternoon. Got up for dinner. And so we saw the ranger come around for the third time. This is the evening rounds. Of course, we were the only ones in the campground, so we didn't have anybody else to talk to. So he pulls up in his little cart, he hops off. And this is the part that sticks in my mind more than anything, even more than seeing the bear or there is that I said to the ranger, you know, we went on the trail today. He said, yeah. And I said, you know, you got a big bear over there. And he looked at me and he said, there are no bears in these mountains. He said, there's no. Oh, he said, there's no bears in San Diego County. That's what he said. There are no bears in San Diego County. And he said, oh, yeah, there is. I just saw him today, and he did the weirdest thing, and this is why it sticks into my head. He got real close to me, in my face, and even at the time, I didn't think about it, but he got in my face like a drill instructor. And he stared me in the eyes and he said, there are no bears in San Diego County. And he just stared at me. And I kind of backed off and said to my wife later, I said, did you see that? Why is he. That was weird. And I remember being struck by it now I see his eyes in my. In my dreams now. And he was not. He was not having fun. And I look back at it now, he was. He might have been saying. I'm pretty sure now he was saying something that I. That I wasn't hearing at the time. And it was the night before that he said, there are no wolves. This time. He Got in my face to say, there are no bears. So here am I looking for the coyote. He's hearing the wolves and then seeing bears. And I can still remember the green of his uniform, the look of his eyes, his hat. And then he got in his little cart and he drove away. And I went back to my wife and said, do you see that? That's kind of weird. Why do you get in my face? What was he so upset about? And still I hadn't put anything together. But still I had not put any of this together. This all came in hindsight. And so. So we. It was evening. We. We had our dinner. Oh, yeah, I remember this. There's something I forgot. We. We had asked. The second day, we asked the ranger if we could move our campsite from the one we had, which we had reserved out to one that we had preferred, which was out there on the trail. We're very close to the trail, so we could almost, you know, walk up the little hillside and see down into the desert. So we were really close to the trail. I think it was probably the closest campsite we could get to the trail without being on it. So we packed up and we moved out to the trail to that spot. Basically, we set it for a second night and we went to bed. And there is, to me, a scary part coming. So this, this. There's a scary part coming for me anyways. Still, we hadn't put anything together. We were. We were asleep in the little tent, little two person tent. My wife was asleep, but we were. I wasn't asleep because I was hearing rustling all around the tent. And like I said, the grass had started getting dry. So. So it was my mind that there are rabbits out there. So there are rabbits all around this tent and they were getting noisier and noisier. The rabbits were just keeping me up because I was. Not that they were making so much noise, but they were just snapping twigs enough for me to keep waking up every time I tried to sleep. And I just said to myself, you know, I'm not going to stand for this. And so I unzipped the tent and I went out and I just started making noise and waving my hands and yelling and making circles around the tent to scare all the little rabbits. Actually, I thought. Actually, I thought they were probably like field mice at the time, but if they had been field mice, they were kind of swarming us because I could just hear so much of it. Didn't think anything of it because, you know, had I thought anything about Bigfoot or anything at this time, you'd think I'd be scared out in the nighttime, but I wasn't. I went back in the tent, zipped up, went down to beck to go back to sleep. Started hearing the wolves again from the night before. Started hearing the wolves again. And it was uncomfortable, but, you know, no big deal. We stayed in the tent until I started hearing the wolves, and then I started hearing the rustling around the tent again that I previously thought were mice. Now, I don't know what caused me to do it differently this time, but one of my camping implements is a, is a big, long World War II bayonet. It's got a nice sheath on it. It's strong as a, you know, as a baseball bat, but it's a sharp, it's sharp. I kept it sharp and always carried that with me. So for some reason, I said, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go out there and stop this because I don't want to sleep. So I, I unsheathed that bayonet. You know, it's, it's 12, 14, 16 inches long. So I got my little sword and I, and I unzipped the tent and dove out, because whatever it was out there, I wanted to scare it. I don't know why I was scared, because I guess I thought it was mice or bears, but I was feeling different this time. And I said, I'm not going to stand for this. I took the knife with me or the big bayonet, and I dove out of the tent. And I stand up and I start yelling, you know, get out of here. Whatever, leave me alone. And I'm hacking at the bushes and the, the grass and the brush with the, the knife, the bayonet, and I look, I don't see anything. And I'm sorry, there's no, there's no, you know, movie style Bigfoot sighting here. But all of a sudden, and this was the first time I thought something was weird because obviously thinking there's rabbits, no big deal. Mice, no big deal. I even jumped out of the tent still thinking it was bright rats or mice or something. But I brought the big knife with me, and I was a little bit, you know, nervous, I guess, at the time. And I stood there looking out across the desert side into the dark, and there was no noise. I didn't hear the wolves anymore. I heard nothing. It was dead still, dead still. And all of a sudden, I got overcome with a fear that I cannot explain, Something that made me instantly abandon everything. I, I, I went around to the front of the tent. And I shook my wife awake and I said, we're getting out of here. And she said, well, I said, we're. We're just getting out of here right now. We're not staying. And she said, what's the matter? I go, I don't know. I was just terrified. And when she woke up, it was either me being scared that got her scared, but she got scared too. What we ended up doing was grabbing everything. I just grabbed the whole tent without even taking it down. And all the gear that was inside the tent, I threw it into the back of my truck and I went and grabbed the camp chairs and threw them on top. And by the time we left, I've never looked back. I was just terrified. And I had not seen anything. And I didn't put together anything that had happened during the day even yet. I had. And what the look and what the ranger said about the bear, no bear. And it. And so I still hadn't put in. I had this on. There was no reason for this fear because I hadn't put anything together yet. And we. I threw everything in the back of that truck. We burned out of that campground. And I remember being out on the road heading down the mountain and still looking around behind me as if I'm so scared. I'm scared of something I'm not even seeing. We drove all the way home. And believe it or not, that's hilarious. I remember listening to Art Bell that night. He was talking about something else, but it was heading through the desert and the mountainside, listening to Art Bell at three in the morning after we had just abandoned our campsite. And that turns out to be it. In the end, we went home. And it wasn't until I started, just by cirque happenstance, listening to or reading online about the. About the things that had happened in San Diego County. I first heard a story about the Zoobies and Alpine and the doctor. And then something weird happens now. And this is something for even today now. I looked back at the map years later to see what the area was. You know, what was that valley? See if I could see the spot where I think I had seen Bigfoot, because now I had put all of it all together and it all made sense, even chronologically. And exactly the chain of events that happened all dropped into place as soon as I heard it was Bigfoot that I had seen out there banging on the tree and not a cow and there are no bears. So there I. So I run across a couple of stories. One is the story about the Old lady who lived out in east county, San diego, who wrote the store, wrote the book about the Indian reservation where she had seen. Are you familiar. You familiar with that story? She, she. She had some Indian friends. And then they took her out there and said, we're going to show you where he lives. And they said, we won't go there. She came back again and blocked the road with a bulldozer and all that. Do you remember that story?

[Host (possibly Wes)]

No, I don't think I'm aware of that one.

[Jeff]

Oh, my goodness. So apparently she wrote a book, and there are so few copies that nobody has it. But there's a story about a woman in southern california who the indians knew where bigfoot or whatever they called him lived. And she says. And they said, we'll show you. And they took her out and they pointed her up a valley. And this was east county, San diego. And they said, well, we're not going to take you there. You might be home. And she questioned them about them. And she lived out there in the desert, like I said, an old lady all by herself. And eventually she came back to go actually see it because she had some teenagers that were going to take them there. When they came up around the road, the indian tribe was standing in the road saying, no, you need to leave. You're not coming here. We're not going to take you to show them. And that's another story that you need to look up or. And find because, you know, the story of her is known. There's some newspaper articles, I think, from the 1970s about her. Her book itself is on published from what I've heard. But nonetheless. So she talks about this little town. I see these little. When I'm looking on the map, I start seeing these little outbuildings and stuff in down this valley. There's no town there, but there's a bunch of marked buildings. Came across some three, not three wheelers, like dirt bikers who had gone out there. And they said, yeah, there's a little. There's a little village down there that's abandoned. And because I read somebody about driving out on that trail and down in the valley, Nonetheless, here's the punchline. The punchline is that if you go on the map and you look up thing road, T h I n g Thing road is the dirt road that goes up the very valley that I saw bigfoot at, that has the village down the way where there had been stories in the past of locals about some thing. And that's why the road is called thing road. And it Goes right up the valley. I mean, right next to that fence line where I saw the bear or Bigfoot. So if you get a San Diego topographical map and you look on down from Burnt Ranchera Campground in Laguna National Forest or Laguna State Park, Cleveland national Forest, you'll see thing road. And Thing road is where I saw Bigfoot. So that's. That's the punchline, I guess. And that's my story. And at the time, I certainly. I never put any of it together until strung all this stuff later.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

So, yeah, I'm gonna have to research that. Thing Road. That is interesting. I know that there is a thing road near the Winchester house, but you're in a completely different area.

[Jeff]

Winchester house is up in Los Angeles, but this was down in San Diego, and it's out on the desert side. I mean, if you go down far enough in the desert, you're gonna hit Borrego and Borrego Springs. Which is another weird thing that happened to me in Borrego Springs is that I was camping at a different place called tamarisk grove. And it's out in the desert, but there's this grove of tamarisk trees out there. And we were sleeping, and I heard an owl. And the owl was right above our tent. And I said, that owl is barking, and that's not a hooting owl. And then we were at the gift center, the nature center the next day, and I told the people there, and I said, you know, I heard a barking last night. And they said, well, where were you? And I said, we're in the tamarisk grove. And she got surprised look on her face and called her friends over and pulled out the map and started looking at it and said, where did you see. Where did you see the. Where did you hear the barking? And I said, right here. I showed them where I was, what time of night it was. And they said, they're back. And I said, what do you mean they're back? And they said, they've been gone a long time. And they had me sign and say, congratulations, you're the first sighting of this owl that has been seen in a very long time. So they told me it was an owl, and it probably could have been an owl, but this is the same desert, the exact same desert 15 miles away on the same side of the mountain. But that's my story and my side story.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

Yeah, I appreciate sharing. Makes me wonder about that behavior of the creature. I find it fascinating, too, how if you don't believe in Bigfoot, people, you know, like a Cow, A bear kind of goes through your mind or your brain tells you that's what you're actually seeing. And you know in your heart that's not what you're. I mean, the way you describe it, it doesn't sound like a cow or a bear. When you got out of your tent that night, what do you think scared you so much? Was it just because of the silence?

[Jeff]

What scared me was whatever was going around the tent. It was making noise in the bushes. And I. You know, I'm a military veteran, and I don't get scared of things in the dark. And I guess I don't get scared of things in the day either. I just grabbed that big knife and jumped out of the tent, knowing that I wanted to surprise whatever was out there. And, man, when you got that great big bayonet in your hands, he's not afraid of anything. So it was the noise that got me to jump out of the tent, and I was going to surprise him the second time, and that's why I took the knife with me. And that's when I jumped out of the tent. And I remember looking up the hillside, There was a little bit of a berm, maybe 8, 10ft away from the tent was where it started going back down and into the desert. And looking out there under the black, it just terrified me. And I don't know why I wasn't scared. When I got out of the tent then it just turned, and I don't know why. I don't know what I was afraid of, but I was just dead afraid. And it was that kind of fear that as soon as you get scared, you start thinking you're running out of time, that every moment that you're there, the danger is closer and closer. So by the time we were done throwing camp stuff into the back of the truck and burning out of there, I was just. We were just shaking. We had no reason to be. I still hadn't put anything together. The only thing that was there was the fear.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

Yeah. Well, thank you for your service to our country, Jeff. A lot of eyewitnesses talk about that, you know, and I've experienced it, and I don't know what to make of it where it's just that overwhelming fear when you really haven't seen anything, you haven't heard anything. And I know your sighting was kind of a brief sighting. I mean, you were thinking it was a bear, and nothing about it sounds like a bear. But what do you think Sasquatch is, Jeff? What's your take?

[Jeff]

You know, It, I want it before I, it wasn't brief. We watched that stupid thing bang on the tree for a good couple of minutes and it didn't stop and it was just loud. And finally we left. But I thought I was looking at a bear and I, you know, but nonetheless. Well, you know what, as to your second question, I, I'm, I'm a little nervous about that because I'm starting to. This is going to sound nuts, but I'm starting to listen to quantum theory stuff. And quantum theory talks a lot about manifesting things that we really do build our universes. And the thing that has always bothered me and really has me spooked to this day is that why is it that oftentimes when you hear a story, when someone tells their Bigfoot story, even on your show, you ask them, well, what about the next time? And the next time it's like if you see Bigfoot, you see him again, and if you see him, he follows you home. And I've heard that on your channel also people having their trailer banged on, you know, 20 miles away from where they saw Bigfoot. And you know, the Indians talk about how they won't talk about it, that talking about it might bring it about. That fits in with the quantum thing. The reason it spooks me is not because I'm afraid of quantum stuff, but I'm kind of looking at the, the whole, if you talk about it, you make it happen and you invite it. But I don't believe that completely. I also believe that it's a flesh and blood animal, at least while it's here. That's why it can simply disappear. That's why it's never been seen. It's as if it comes and goes when it wants. And that's why it's not afraid of anything. I also have a reason as to why I think he's not afraid of people at all. Well, obviously his strength is going to keep him from being afraid of anybody. But why does he walk out in front of people in cars? And this is gonna, I'm gonna sound really ridiculous, but I've, I'm a longtime Christian. I've done a lot of Bible studying through my days and, and I do a lot of research on ancient history, ancient books, and sort of an ancient sociological amateur archaeologist. And, and anyways, you know, the two story. There's a number of stories in the beginning of the Bible. And I'm not talking about the Nephilim and I'm not talking about the watchers. I believe them to be Something very different. But the two stories that do get me is the one, and I guess I'm saying this is what I believe Bigfoot is. The one story is in the Jewish Talmud, not in our Bible, but it's the Jewish Talmud. And I guess it's older than our Bible. And it talks about Adam's first wife, Lilith. And Adam's first wife Lilith was unhappy with him, and it is said that she left him and God banished her out to the desert or it could be the wilderness. You know, we're talking about people trying to explain what they see, you know, just when they're. When humanity has never been more than a dirt farmer yet, you know. So apparently the Bible says that the Talmud says she went out and she had children with the quote unquote devils and that her offspring were something other than what we are. Then it comes around that when. When you come to Adam and Eve, there are people that believe that this there, that since there are two, two creation stories in Genesis in the Bible, the first one is, I think God made them equal. And then the second, or wait, they made him equal from the dirt, I think is the first one. And the second one is. And that's where the Jewish Bible says that that was Lilith. And the second one that we have in our Bible is when God took the rib of man to make the woman again. That leads us to Cain and Abel. In Cain and Abel, we know the story of them, how one killed the other, and it was Cain that was run off into his own civilization. And I believe that's when they talk about the men of renown and whatnot. And so, so there's that the second wife. And so anyways, what they say is that there may have been two civilizations of humans at the time. There may have been the pre humans, which were from the first batch of humans. And then there were the second humans. And those are us, the intelligent species. And so in effect, I'm sometimes thinking, well, Bigfoot's the first humans and we're the second ones. And there's another theory that, oh my goodness, my Bible people are gonna just hate me for this kind of stuff. There are people that believe that the. The stories of Cain and Abel and Joshua and Jacob are conflated in the early manuscripts. And I'm not going to argue that. But the point is, if you look in the Bible and you read the Bible about Isaac, Esau. Esau and Jacob. Yeah, Esau and Jacob, the brothers. There's a lot of weird stuff about Esau and Jacob. And it Says outright in the text that Esau was born what they called Ruddy. And then he was, he was, he was red. He was coming. He came out covered with hair, with red hair. He was covered head to toe. In here there's the prophecy that says the older will be. Will overcome. Basically it says that the younger brother will be superior to the older brother. Although they were born twins. It was Esau that came out first. The so called quote unquote ready Ruddy R U D D Y ruddy man, which means hairy and red. And then the second to come out was. Was Jacob. And the thing says that the. The younger will rule over the older, which means Jacob will rule over Esau, his people and I just lost my train of thought. You're going to have to let me help me find it for a second.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

Yeah, I know what you're referring to, Jeff. I believe the verse says the older will serve the younger one. And if my memory is right, I believe it's in Genesis 25. But the weird part is I get that question all the time. I will say it's probably in the top 10 questions, believe it or not, where people think Esau is Sasquatch. And I don't get it. For life of me, I really don't get it. On a future show I'll be having an author coming on who wrote a whole book about Esau being Sasquatch, and I'll release it later. But I mean, I really push back on this guy. And normally I don't, but I really push back on this guy. It was a fun conversation. I want to come across that way. But if you just look at the verse with his hair, there's more to Sasquatch than being hairy. Their appearance, how long their arms are, how big their jaw is, how big they are, the way they vocalize. And people read that, I think in the Bible, and they think, well, you know, Esau had, you know, he came out hairy. Well, sometimes babies come out hairy. And maybe Esau suffered from hypertrichosis, I don't know. But we know who his parents were, we know who his brother was. We know the nations that came from Esau. There's nothing in there that leads me to believe. And I haven't been convinced yet, but there's nothing in there that makes me believe Esau has anything to do with Sasquatch. But I hope people enjoy the upcoming show. And like I said, I'm open to listening to everyone. I'm not a stubborn man by any means, but even after I spoke to that Author. I still don't buy it, you know,

[Jeff]

and I, I agree with you. I see all of that. And the problem is when, like my experience taken apart, I agree with you. But there is one thing that punchlines us thing all the way through. My initial concept of I'm. I'm afraid of, of quantum things is that do you remember what the Bible said God did to Cain that he not abolish him? What's the word? He sent him out. What's. What's the word?

[Host (possibly Wes)]

Yeah, you're on the right track. He sent him out, I guess you could say exiled him.

[Jeff]

He exiled him. And Cain said, but you can't do this. They're going to kill me. Everyone will kill me. And what did God do? God said to him, I will place a mark upon you that nobody will kill you. And it's really strange. It's weird language that I have to think about over and over again. And it bugs me because God didn't say, I'm going to put a mark on you that anyone's going to find. He's going to kill you. He said he put a mark on him that when anybody sees that, they will not be able to kill you. And when I think of Cain and I think of Bigfoot and I think of what could a mark be? What could possibly be put upon a being to where anybody that sees him will not kill them? And my brain says this, it says either one, he's terrifying, someone's going to kill him, or two, he can disappear. And if it's. He can disappear. What happens if these ideas about Bigfoot being this ancient human race but they can disappear is A, why they've survived so long, B, why they are not allowed to kill or not allowed. It appears that they don't literally attack humans. They just like to scare the hell out of them. Well, wouldn't that be Cain and. Or Esau? No, I'm sorry, I'm losing this now. It's the ADHD kicking in. But he can't kill his brother, so A, he can hide. B, he's terrifying. See, he's always been here. It's another race of humans. And that's why they're so human, like, because they are humans, but they have this curse.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

I don't know what the mark of Cain was. I don't think anyone really knows what the mark of Cain was, but that mark on Cain. Well, let me back up. First of all, Cain's children didn't suffer that curse, if you want to call it that. And it wasn't until. I mean, it's been a while since I've read this. I think it's like Genesis 4. It wasn't that Cain couldn't be killed, because he could, but if anyone killed Cain, vengeance would be taken on that person sevenfold. And I think it's kind of a stretch. I mean, I like the fact that you're thinking outside of the box, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to go, well, he could be invisible. He could. You won't find that information anywhere. And we know you know the other. And I personally think Kane died in the flood. He wasn't like he. He wasn't given immortality. And I believe there's a record of Kane's family tree, I guess, or bloodline, you know, his kids and their kids and their kids and their kids. But there's nothing in there that really describes them like Sasquatch, Cain and Esau were. Weren't out there banging on trees in the middle of the night doing wild calls like the Ohio Howl. I struggle with that one too, but that one does come up. I understand where you're coming from, Jeff. I mean, you're not the first person to think about that.

[Jeff]

It.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

Kane comes up a lot too. I like outside of the box thinking. I just struggle with Esau and Kane having anything to do with Sasquatch. But maybe I'm wrong. Who knows? You know, it's one of those things. I. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share your encounter. I really enjoyed chatting with you.

[Jeff]

Yeah, I guess I kind of put it all in a blender. Be quite honest. There's a lot I haven't put together, but all those thoughts live in my head.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

No, I understood where you're coming from. I mean, I get where you're coming from. I don't think it was in a blender. I think your. Your ideas are a lot of people's ideas. I mean, I've had so many emails about especially Esau being Bigfoot and people asking me to do shows on it. They're like, oh, Esau was Bigfoot. You gotta do a show on it. You're not gonna like my answer if you think Esau is Bigfoot. But that's my opinion. And like I said, I mean, I'm wrong every day. So I don't think I'm right about everything. But it would take a lot of convincing for me to buy into that theory. But again, I like outside the box thinking. I think some of the coolest ideas come from that. But I enjoyed the conversation. Thank you again.

[Jeff]

Yes, you're very welcome and appreciate the show. Stay on and stay happy. Thank you.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

Thanks again, Jeff. And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is wesasquatchchronicles.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.

[Intro/Outro Narrator]

Nosing Hand up in the heart the lights on my wheels on tone go alone the lights on baby you should know that you gone with the lights on this is my home memories of you dear until you your eyes close at the sky I'll miss my ride memories of you de ik power grow wider the lights on so put my spill a little wiser. This is my home closer now memories of you dear until your eyes close it the sky I'll miss my eyes memories of you. This is my home p memories of you dear until your life close up the skies I'll miss my memories of you. Sam. I make a stay.

[Host (possibly Wes)]

It.

[Jeff]

Sa.