transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:24] They don't make people that big.

Speaker 2:
[00:31] The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach.

Speaker 1:
[00:38] I've never seen anything move like that in my life.

Speaker 2:
[01:32] This is Phoenix Bunting from Laxville First Nation, and you are listening to Wes Germer of Sasquatch Chronicles.

Speaker 3:
[02:09] Welcome to the show. Tonight, we'll be speaking with Jake, who comes to us from Minnesota. Back in the early 80s, he witnessed something he described as a chimpanzee playing on his tree stand. Then 30 years later, in the same area, he encountered another creature, and it was displaying a behavior unlike anything I had ever heard before. If you've had an encounter, and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is wes at sasquatchchronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out sasquatchchronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Jake to the show. Jake, thanks for coming on.

Speaker 1:
[03:03] No problem.

Speaker 3:
[03:04] Yeah, and you had this encounter. We're going back to the early 80s. If you would, just kind of start from the very beginning. What were you doing and what happened?

Speaker 1:
[03:15] Well, I started to be on this private property around 82 or 1983, somewhere around there. Well, this area that I hunted was just south of a large piece of state land in Minnesota that's open to public hunting. And the occupants of this area, in the 70s, Minnesota DNR, pushed life leases on the owners of their recreational land. So these landowners would sell their land to the state for a chunk of money, and upon their passing, it would become part of the state forest. So at the time this all happened, or at the time it started happening, it was private property. And again, I was a kid, I was none the wiser, but as I got older, it all made sense. And like I said, as a kid, I was none the wiser, I would hear things and observe different sounds. You know, I would rationalize it as like, I'd hear knocks, three knocks, and they were perfectly time. Thump, thump, thump, but a lot higher pitched and more tinny, like it was hitting a poplar, a birch tree. And I would rationalize it as it was the grouse thumping or whatever. I didn't pay much attention until I got older and started learning about, you know, all these Bigfoot encounters and things people had seen and dealt with. So I'd heard that. I'd hear stones clacking. I even heard a few whoops once in a while, but I'd pass it off as coyotes. So that's kind of where my mindset was. I was, like I said, none the wiser, nor did I did anything about Bigfoot or Sasquatch or whatever you want to call it. And first weekend of deer hunting season, I have an old, Wes, are you familiar with those like World War Two era radio men and male pouches? They're a backpack with wide leather straps. They're about three foot wide. They're that olive green canvas backpack, the really wide ones.

Speaker 3:
[05:37] Oh, yeah. I have a replica of one I bought off line. I know exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 1:
[05:43] Yeah, so I would have one of those. And, you know, it hasn't been so bad in the last couple of decades. But, you know, Minnesota winters, especially in November, would get very brutal cold. So I would take this backpack and have it full of extra warm clothes. I would put it out in my deer stand. Well, you know, the day before the opener. So I wouldn't have to, you know, get all sweaty carrying that in and out, because, you know, sweat equals cold. So, and for a couple of years before this encounter, I noticed that, you know, again, I would just rationalize it as a coincidence or I forgot something. But there'd be things missing, because, you know, I'd put, have my clothes in there, and I'd also have a couple snacks in there. Well, my bag of, say, caramels would be missing and gone. And like I said, I just blew it up as I forgot to put it in there or, you know, whatnot. And so, yeah, I would put this pack out there the day before, and like I said, for a couple of years, stuff was missing out of there, and didn't pay much attention to that. And then the day I had the encounter, I realized what it was. I had three different ways I went into this deer stand, depending on the wind. So it came up over a ridge, and it overlooked a big swamp bog. And yeah, I mean, Minnesota's built a lot of that, so. But yeah, so I came up over this ridge, and I hear bang, bang, bang. And I thought, what the hell is that? Somebody in my deer stand? And as I got over the ridge and started coming down where I could see my deer stand, I saw a little juvenile look like, you know, some of these pet chimpanzee or something jumping on my deer stand. And then it was, there's a branch I used. I left, you know, you cut trim foliage away to found a tree to, you know, make a nice spot for your deer stand, but still have cover. And right above my seat, three feet, there was a branch I left that had leaves and what not on it. So it helped hide me. And this thing was jumping on my deer stand, then jumped up, grabbed that log or the branch above, and actually swung around a few times. And then jumped back out on deer stand and was crawling up and down. You know, I have those attachable ladders that, you know, the extension ladders that lock together with pins. And yeah, I was going up and down that, just having a good old time. Well, coming over that, for the wind that day, I came in directly from the east to west. So I came over the ridge, and as of coming over the peak of the ridge, the visual line of sight was about 45 meters. I mean, this guy was a little guy. Like I said, he was, and I hate to reference other primates, but that's all I have to use as a reference. This thing looked like it had the arms of a chimpanzee, but the body of a, like a mountain gorilla, really fuzzy and thick, but its arms were like minimal to no hair. It was really weird looking. And again, the head was also like a great ape, but the features of it were, like I said, it's really hard without a good solid reference. It's hard to put an example on it, but the best way I can describe it where people would understand was it had the body of a great ape and the limbs of a chimpanzee. And it was probably three feet tall, approximately. Oh, you hear the big boots being described as no neck and just broad shoulders. This thing definitely had a neck. I mean, it was probably a good, the bottom of the chin area and the base of the head where the neck would start was probably four to five inches above its shoulders. So I'm sure they grow into that. But yeah, it was very interesting. And the hands is really what gave it away. I mean, didn't have those rough, thick nails like you'd think even a primate has. It was weird, those were more human. You could actually see the white sheen of them. I was close enough to see that. So it started, like I said, it was playing around and finally it saw me. And it did this. Are you studying primates at all, the great apes?

Speaker 3:
[10:25] A little bit.

Speaker 1:
[10:26] Well, you know, I've ever seen a young infant chimpanzee, how they go, ooh, ooh, ooh, when they're feeling nervous or basically calling for mom. Yeah, it did that, but it was a much, much lower pitch. You know, and then I got to tell you, maybe 100 yards away where the swamp opens up to a thick island, I heard what can only be described as a lion roaring through an elephant's trunk, you know, right in my direction. And, you know, the funny part is I had a 300 wind mag over my shoulder, a 44 Magnum and a shoulder holster, and I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could. I mean, I sprinted back to my fricking truck. You know, I could actually feel the percussion in my chest. And like I said, it was a, I don't know sure how far away it was, but I know from my deer stand to where, you know, the island is where it has thick tree growth on it, is a hundred yards. I know that for a fact. And yeah, I could feel the percussion from however far away it was, minimum of a hundred yards. That's what I know. And I just, yeah, nature kicked in, and I got out of there as quickly as I could. I mean, I took off like a little girl, and I'm not afraid to shame it, to say that whatever was roaring, I didn't want any part of it. Especially when you think that this had to be a juvenile. So, you know, you don't want to become, become, I'm sorry, get between mother and his cub. You know, that's a sure way to get ripped apart.

Speaker 3:
[12:07] So yeah, it's interesting that you heard that roar. I've heard that one time before. It was in the same area me and my brother had in our encounter. It was, I don't know, a month later, a couple of months later. We actually heard that. And this thing must have been at least a mile, maybe two miles away. You could almost kind of feel it as ridiculous as that sounds because it was so far away. I don't know exactly what you're talking about. I remember thinking like, is there a lion out here, like an African lion running loose? What was kind of your thoughts about Bigfoot prior to this encounter?

Speaker 1:
[12:47] I really didn't give it much thought. I'm an engineer, so I may see it to believe a type of guy or prove a type of person. And if someone would have told me that story, I would have said, yeah, whatever. But seeing is truly believing.

Speaker 3:
[13:05] Yeah, it truly is. I get it completely. Did you ever go back?

Speaker 1:
[13:12] It took me about a week, but yeah, I had some, a pretty good amount of money in that backpack that was hanging in that, you know, behind the deer stand in the tree. So yeah, it took me about a week to build the courage to go back out there, but I did go back out. And what I found was a very mangled and tore down tree stand.

Speaker 3:
[13:31] Yeah, that's kind of an interesting detail. I've talked to many hunters who have never seen their creature. There's weird stuff going on. And they'll come back in their tree stands torn down. Sometimes it's wrapped around a tree. And I've often wondered, you know, is that alpha male is doing that? Is that juvenile is doing that? When you went back, was there anything taken out of your bag?

Speaker 1:
[13:57] My bag was shredded and everything inside of it was shredded as well. Probably over a 20-meter area. My deer stand was coiled up around a small pine tree at the base of this tree I picked was, you know, a bigger pine. I tend to opt for putting my trees down in pine trees because I'm a smoker. And the thermals that are around all pine trees take my scent straight up in the air. So it really helps with that. So there was a smaller pine at the bottom. And yeah, every stuff was wrapped around that. And yeah, it was, everything was just annihilated.

Speaker 3:
[14:37] Yeah, after hearing this, I really think it must be the alpha males. Why would a juvenile destroy his little playground he's playing on? Tell me about the second incident.

Speaker 1:
[14:51] Well, I went back out there about two years later. Well, see, after this happened, I did start doing my research and realized that, you know, it was a lot more common than I would have ever thought. And I went back. And there was an old guy that lived in the area. His name was John Ridland. And that guy, he was a peer of a permit. Even though he had money, there was rumors that he had all his money. And after his passing, they did, the family did go out there and find mason jars full of money. And I mean, he got his clothes from Goodwill. He rode a girl's bike with tassels on it, one of the old Schwinn's. He would go up and down the road and get road kill, and that's what he would eat. He came up to me one day when I went down there before my second sighting. He just looked at me and said, you better watch out. The one with the straggly looking hair, I think is a mongolite. And he'll mess you up. I thought, okay, Johnny, and you know, again, being a weird old hermit, I didn't pay much attention to it. So I went back in the same area, I went a little deeper, and was scouting out for bear season. Because that particular county has the highest population of black bears in Minnesota, and there's no quota there, so you can just buy a license, you don't have to do a lottery. But here and there, I was doing some recon of where to put my stand up, and where to start baits, and you know how on the edge of swamps, you get those big clumps of dirt? That walking normally, you can almost fall and break your neck, aren't we familiar with those?

Speaker 3:
[16:31] I am, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[16:33] Yeah, well, I was hopping clump to clump, and I was holding on to a tree stand on this clump, and something behind me pushed me over into the swamp, and it wasn't a stumble, because I felt it on my back. And I thought, what the hell? And I stood back, and I got back up, and once I regained my composure, I turned around, and this straggly looking thing, he was big, but he was straggly. You know, early mangy looking critter. And at that point, he was probably, again, 40, 45, 50 yards away, he was moving away after he shoved me. And I got the feeling he didn't mean me any harm, but he also did not want me there. So I got a good look at this guy. So imagine that guy for a little mascot, whatever you want to call him, from the Tale of the Crypt, that skull looking guy. And you can take that and make him a little more hairy, and give him probably a five foot shoulder span, but he was very straggly. And eyes were super sunk back in the back of his head. Now I know what Johnny Redlin was talking about when he said that, you know, there was something wrong with this guy, because, yeah, I mean, his features just were not right. I mean, I'm not saying I've seen a thousand of them. I don't know what they're supposed to look like, but this thing did not look right at all. And, you know, you could see his gray skin underneath the black hair and was like all flaky. I mean, I would venture a guess from what I've researched that he wasn't normal. I don't know if it was a biological defect or what, but yeah, it was just an achy looking thing.

Speaker 3:
[18:31] And Jake, what you were looking at, did it look more like a human? Did it look more like an animal?

Speaker 1:
[18:38] Yes, it looked like a really, really big human. You know, you hear about these, you know, 36-inch forearms and this from other sightings. I mean, it's not like he wasn't big as he was, but he was very, you know, the only word that comes to mind is straggly. I mean, he had big biceps, he had big forearms, huge thighs, big chest, big shoulders, but looks straggly is that the mass didn't match the size of the frame, if that makes sense. I would almost describe him as, you know, if I didn't know better, I would say he was the mess head of the big foot world. He was just a scrawny looking thing, but still big, if that makes sense to you.

Speaker 3:
[19:26] Yeah, in a weird way, that does make sense. So you get pushed down. Tell me what happens next.

Speaker 1:
[19:34] Well, get the hell out of here, kick back in, and I was a little more genteel about it this time. I just started going back the way I came, and, you know, kept a good close eye on him. And he came two feet towards me, and then five feet back up. It was strange. You kept doing that all the way out to where I hit the, there's an old two rut. There was a house back there. Like I said, it was a life lease. The guy had about a 45-foot house, believe it or not, with an indoor pool in the middle of this big woods. So he had a nice two rut driveway that went back to the main road. And this thing was coming a couple steps towards me and several steps away until I hit that, his old driveway. And then it just vanished into the woods.

Speaker 3:
[20:22] Yeah, and that's what I find weird about his behavior of coming two feet towards you and kind of backing up, would you describe that like a bluff charge?

Speaker 1:
[20:35] Uh, no, I wouldn't even say it wasn't a charge. He was literally just as I was walking out, he was paralleling me, but he was taking, like I said, two or three steps. It wasn't like he was rushing or he wasn't like a full back, doing a blitz. He was just literally walking, but it was, maybe it was very unsettling. His body language was what he was doing. His hands were shaking, his shoulders were kind of trembling. It was really weird. I mean, you could see the muscle, you know, muscle that all primates have from their, their neck to their shoulder, especially males. I forget the name of the word for it, but you know what I'm talking about, right?

Speaker 3:
[21:20] Yeah, I think you're talking about the trapezius, kind of the upper trapezius.

Speaker 1:
[21:24] Yes, thank you. Well, you could see him trembling. It was just bizarre. And like I said, all the way out, and it was probably a quarter mile. He did this. Like I said, he wasn't acting threatening, but it was almost more threatening when the way he was acting in my head anyway, because like I said, he would come, he paralleled me out, he would come two steps, always two steps forward towards me, and then he would back up three to five steps away. And then, you know, I do three strides, and he'd do it again. It was just bizarre.

Speaker 3:
[22:03] How far away from you, Jake, was this creature when he was doing this, where he'd kind of move up on you, then back off, then move up? What kind of a distance are we talking about?

Speaker 1:
[22:15] He kept about 15 to 20 meters away at all times. Because unfortunately, where he was, in the way, like I said, he was parallel on me out, I had to hook, he was east of me, and I had to hook east at one point, because there's a standing water swamp that hooks around a piece of woods. So I actually had to go towards him at one point. He kept that same distance away from me all the way out till I hit that driveway.

Speaker 3:
[22:44] What do you make of him doing that behavior?

Speaker 1:
[22:48] Well, like I said, with no baseline of how they're supposed to be, I really don't know. It was, you know, but I've spent as an engineer, I'm a federal contractor, so I end up all over the country. Normally, I have to have all my stuff with me. I'm a structural engineer, so I've got a lot of tools I carry with me so I can't fly. I have to drive. So I've been listening to a lot of different podcasts and encounters and things, and I've never heard anything like this before. So that's why I figured that you and your listeners would enjoy this one, because it's something new. And like I said, I don't know how to describe it, but it was very unsettling.

Speaker 3:
[23:30] Yeah, I would imagine, I would have taken the whole behavior as aggressive. You know, him pushing you in the back and kind of pushing you over, that's the wrong way to start a relationship, or probably would have put a bullet in him just for doing that. What do you make of his behavior throughout this whole encounter? I mean, him pushing you and then kind of like almost bluff charging you out, but not really.

Speaker 1:
[23:57] Well, like I said, you know, it was unsettling in real time. Hindsight's always 20-20, but I mean, I think if he wanted to be aggressive, he would have done, he could have done more than giving me a shove because I had no idea he was there until I felt a shove on my back. And then even then it took me a few minutes to lock on to him, you know, as he moved away quickly. And I went back there a week later. At that point, I was irritated. I was mad. I thought, all right, I've been hunting down here since I was 12 years old, you know, and now at that point, I'm in my third late mid to late thirties, and I'm thinking, no, not not going to happen. So I actually went back and again, arm to the teeth. And this time I wasn't going to take any crap. If something was going to, you know, pace me and try to be a jerk. I understand that's probably their home territory, whatever their range territory, whatever you want to call it. But I went back out there. I went to the spot I got shoved. And there was a track there, because, you know, it was real mushy, mossy stuff, where, you know, a footprint takes a month to go away. Like I said, I went back about a week later. And yeah, he, I can tell where he, from his trackway, he had basically circled me for about a hundred yards before I was shoved. So he was north of me, somehow was able to get around me without me detecting him to get behind me to the south to give me a shove. And I had stuff with me. I mean, again, I was no expert by any means, but I would have had some plaster with me if I'd have known better. But I found his tracks were 14 and three quarters inches long. I mean, I had that eerie, you're being watched feeling, but I did not see anything. And on the way out, I did hear a double whistle when I hit the two-road or driveway, whatever you call it. And that was no bird because it had the percussion behind it.

Speaker 3:
[26:09] How tall was this creature? And if you would, I mean, would you describe it more human? Would you describe it more like an animal?

Speaker 1:
[26:18] Well, his looking at him, I would say he was more human. But he acted more like an animal. Like I said, it's really hard to describe. But, you know, the only thing I could really do to enhance this, and I probably should have done it by now, is if I ever get a chance, I'm going to have a sketch artist, you know, do this thing up because he was bizarre looking. You know, he's not this big mountain of a beast like you seen here. But, you know, he was straggly in comparison to his frame and size. I would guess based on the features where I saw him, I did pick one branch that was approximately where his head was. And I measured that. It came back at 9.3. So that's real close to like I said, that's not exact, but it's within two or three inches of his real height. So.

Speaker 3:
[27:16] And what year did this happen in, Jake?

Speaker 1:
[27:20] That was 1996. I'm sorry, 19. I'm sorry, 2009.

Speaker 3:
[27:29] You know, a lot of times when these creatures get close like that, you would think if they go hands on, they're going to hurt you. I mean, he did push you, which would have pissed me off. But why do you think that he didn't cause any real harm towards you? He didn't really hurt you.

Speaker 1:
[27:48] Um, you know, I've thought about that a lot, and I don't know. The best thing, you know, if you're going to go off of animal instinct, I'm very familiar. Like I said, I had been down there for, you know, almost 30 years at that point. Doing, you know, bow hunting, rifle hunting, bear hunting, grouse hunting. I mean, I've been over every inch of that. You know, that's an 890-acre range where I was at. I've been over every inch of that thing that, you know, is passable. That's not underwater bog swamps. So maybe it's familiarity. I don't know. Maybe that was him that was stealing my snacks out of my backpack. I have no idea. But he, he didn't try to do what baffles me is you hear these things, people, you know, see a sighting and they, they vanish. Well, this thing was not even coming close to trying to hide when I was trying to get out of there. Like I said, he, he was paralleling me out. And that whole back and forth thing was really bizarre.

Speaker 3:
[28:50] Do you think it was the same one that you ran into in the early eighties?

Speaker 1:
[28:55] No, no way. The first one I saw was very healthy looking, very, like I said, you know, like you would see at the zoo type of primate, you know, that you, that juvenile, there, there's no way that could have been the same animal.

Speaker 3:
[29:11] You know, when he had that encounter back in the eighties and he saw what you describe as like a chimpanzee playing on it, and then many years later, you're running into this thing, how far away is the distance between those two places?

Speaker 1:
[29:27] As the crow flies, probably somewhere around an eighth of a mile, maybe a little bit, maybe a little better. I wish it would have been, you know, five years later, because I had a decent smart phone with, you know, a camera on it, but it wasn't and I didn't.

Speaker 3:
[29:43] So yeah, I hear you. Let me ask you, when you were looking at the face, would you kind of describe the face of this thing that you were looking at?

Speaker 1:
[29:54] Yes, like I said, as I was saying, you know, from you hear these traditional sightings and, you know, renderings, people have done drawings, whatnot. It didn't look like that. Like I said, the eyes were way sunk back in the back of his head. His nostrils were wide. But again, kind of counter sunk into the skull. It was just really, really bizarre. He had more of a mouth of a human than of a primate. So that's what really I found bizarre. I mean, there was no slathering, bangs or anything. And he wasn't, you know, other than huffing and breathing, he wasn't, you know, like, again, I hate to go back to primates because that's the only reference point I have. He did curl his upper lip a couple of times, and, you know, in primates, that's a sign of, you know, aggravation or annoyance, you know. Everyone thinks, oh, cute, the chimp is smiling. No, the chimp is nervous or aggravated. And he was, like I said, he did a couple of times curl that upper lip. And you could see clearly see canines and, you know, typical looking teeth, but nothing that really stands out. I mean, they weren't really huge, you know, I mean, they were scalable to the body frame, but they didn't have these, you know, big canines or, you know, incisors that people talk about it. Now, like I said, he had more of a human face, but like a deformed human face is the best way I could describe it, I guess. And he was doing, I know it was a male, because he was doing a penile display, and I'm, you know, I'll try to keep it family friendly here, but you know what, what chimps do when they're displaying, right?

Speaker 3:
[31:33] Yeah, I appreciate you keeping it family friendly. I do know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1:
[31:38] Yeah, he was very similar, with a much larger feature than a chimp, obviously. It was just bizarre.

Speaker 3:
[31:46] And I know we're in 2009 now, and the other encounter was in the 80s. Did you know what you were looking at, or were you just kind of thinking, I ran into some weird monster?

Speaker 1:
[31:59] Like I said, after I saw that juvenile, I started doing a lot of homework, especially when the internet came out and became a good database. So I was positive of what I was looking at. But what threw me, especially hindsight, was it wasn't this big, hairy, strapping beast that you hear about all the time. It was really quite freaky, like I said. And maybe he was weird compared to others. We've got to go back to what Johnny Ridland said. I never said a word to him about it. He just told me, watch out for the straggly looking one. I think he's a mongoloid. So Johnny passed away that same year. I wish I could actually talk to him a little more. Maybe he knew more than most, you know, than you would think, because he lived less than half a mile from this piece of land. So, you know, it's hard to say. But I would say that it's something just did not feel right with it. It wasn't like, you know, I was being chased out by a bear because, you know, they look nice and healthy. This thing wasn't right, I don't know. Like I said, maybe it was Mongoloid-ish. I don't know. Because like I said, I don't have a good baseline comparison, but it didn't seem right at all.

Speaker 3:
[33:23] And I know you went back and found those tracks, but beyond that, have you ever gone back to this location?

Speaker 1:
[33:30] I don't get back there much now, since then the gentleman that owned it passed away, and it's now part of the state forest. So they logged off a bunch of it. I've only been back a few times since then, and nothing happened. And I went back, then I looked for tracks and whatnot. Yeah, I never found anything.

Speaker 3:
[33:52] Let me ask you, Jake, I've interviewed many hunters, and it kind of affects everyone differently. Some hunters kind of give up hunting, other hunters don't. But especially after having these two encounters, how did this kind of affect you?

Speaker 1:
[34:11] It makes me a lot more alert on my way to and from my deer stand, believe me. And, you know, for the first two, three years, you know, I'm one of those guys that I'm out there a good hour before daylight. Just, like I said, mask my scent and, you know, get the woods nice and quiet and the critters run around in early morning, and, you know, birds chirp and whatnot. And that doesn't happen unless you're out there well before daylight. And it makes you think twice about walking out there in the woods on a trail, you know, and I was one of those people that I would have little reflective, you know, stickers on the tree I would put on every year. If I could pop my flashlight on for a second and shut it off as I see the reflective trail through there, make sure, you know, I'm headed the right way. Makes you think long and hard about, you know, heading out at, you know, quarter to six in the morning when it doesn't get daylight till seven.

Speaker 3:
[35:10] Yeah, nothing wrong with being more aware of your surroundings and being more alert of what's going on around you. When it pushed you, do you think it was trying to hurt you?

Speaker 1:
[35:21] I think it was just trying to prove a point that, one, I wasn't wanted, and two, I could take you out anytime I wanted to type of mentality. I mean, that's kind of what I, again, hindsight, that's kind of what I took from it.

Speaker 3:
[35:35] Yeah, I'm not sure how I would have reacted with it pushing me, especially being armed. I think I would have started shooting. I think I would have been so pissed off. And that's just ego talking. I've seen them. I probably wouldn't have done anything.

Speaker 1:
[35:51] Even being straggly looking and weird looking, you could have snapped me like a twig. And I'm, you know, at the time I'm still 6'4. And at that time, I was extremely fit and, you know, 240 pounds of solid muscle. And I have no doubt that that straggly thing could have busted me up.

Speaker 3:
[36:13] Yeah, it's easy to be tough and talk a big game until you run into one. And then that ego seems to fall apart pretty quick. You know, going back to your first encounter, I know you said you thought chimpanzee. I kind of think that's where my mind would have gone to. Like, is there a chimp out here running loose? But in Minnesota, that makes no sense.

Speaker 1:
[36:37] Until I heard the roar, I thought, you know, somebody's illegal pet got away. And that is the very first thing I thought. But once I heard that roar, I knew that was not the case. And plus, like I said, you know, I got a good, I don't know, 3 to 5 minutes of looking at it until it started making that whimpering noise. And, you know, I'm assuming it was Mama that did the roar. And like I said, after a good, good, close look at him, there's no way that was a chimp or a, you know, mountain gorilla or any type of, you know, natural known ape. The torso was too long. Like I said, hardly any hair on the arms, but the torso and head were matted, matted buzzy type hair. You know, there's no way that could have been a known primate.

Speaker 3:
[37:30] And I might have missed that in the beginning, but it obviously had seen you. That's why it was whimpering right before you heard that roar.

Speaker 1:
[37:38] Yeah, that's what I said before, when it finally saw me and it just did the, you know, that was for, you know, roar, roar, roar, but much lower, deeper and louder. That's when the roar from hell came blasting across the woods.

Speaker 3:
[37:58] Yeah, roar from hell is a good way to put it. It'll want you to know where you stand in life pretty quick. You know, it'll definitely check your ego. Let me ask you, out of all the years of hunting this area, have you ever seen the lights?

Speaker 1:
[38:19] I've seen that a couple of times. And like I said, in my youth, before these sightings. But there's, like I said, this is a nasty, on the edge of a, right in the middle is a nasty bug, swamp that runs through there. And I always, you know, put that up as discharge methane, because there's a lot of it there that comes out. So, is that the case? I don't know. But yes, on two occasions, usually when it was foggy early morning, I saw lights out there. Now, like I said, it's hard to describe without having a visual of the way this woods is set up, but imagine a nice big ridge at the bottom is a massive, god-awful swamp that goes on for miles. And, you know, you've got, I don't know, probably 150 yards, or, you know, maybe 200 meters of pure bog until it's standing water swamp. And, you know, a lot of beaver dams, and, you know, that kind of paints the picture or something right now. You see it out of the middle of nowhere in Alaska is what it looks like. And both occasions, like I said, it was early morning, heavy fog on the ground. You know, coming up out of the swamp, there's orbs, and I'd say the first time was about 300 meters. Second time was about 450. I glassed them with my binoculars, and like I said, I rationalized it as, you know, methane. And they were clearish blue, and at that distance without binoculars to the naked eye, I would say they were eight inches to 14 inches in diameter. It's hard to gauge at that distance, you know, but from that's what it looked like to be to me from that, at that distance. You know, if I could have been, like I said, they look much bigger with binoculars, close to, you know, I'd say about 20 inches to maybe 30, was with my 1040 loop holds. So.

Speaker 3:
[40:26] Looking back now at those moments, do you think it was methane?

Speaker 1:
[40:31] I don't know. Like I said, I'm an engineer. I've studied it. I have no, no rational explanation part. Cause I mean, like I said, when I saw it, I was a lot younger before I was, you know, highly educated. And yeah, I just, oh, that's just methane, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, doing my research on methane, it doesn't do that. So at least not in that color. So I, I don't know what it was.

Speaker 3:
[41:01] Well, let me ask you, Jake, you know, being an engineer and kind of having a scientific mind, I've seen the lights on two occasions. And on both occasions, I can tell you that I had the feeling like this thing was watching me as much as I was watching it. It seemed to be intelligent. And I really have no way to measure that or really articulate that more than a feeling. But you'll often hear that from eyewitnesses to where when they run into these balls of lights, they'll say that they'll say this thing seemed to be very intelligent, seemed to be controlled as it was moving around. This wasn't something random like methane gas or something natural. But you also find where hunters will run into them in the woods, and they'll describe these weird balls of light that they run into. I just wish there was a great answer. I wish I could give a great answer to someone, a natural explanation being like, oh, it's X, Y, and Z. That's what people are actually seeing. But I don't know that I can. And the lights really caught my attention when I would talk to eyewitnesses who have these creatures on their property. Usually, the conversation would go, they would tell you about the encounter and running into these creatures. And then they would always end the conversation with, oh, and by the way, I'm also seeing these weird balls of light. Sometimes people run into these lights and there's no Sasquatch around. There's nothing really weird going on beyond these weird lights. And other times, it seems like they hang around where encounters happen or on people's property. As far as being an engineer and kind of having that scientific mind, what is it you think people are actually seeing?

Speaker 1:
[42:58] I'm at a loss. I don't know. I mean, you know, I mean, I'm going to say this. It could only be something extraterrestrial or something. I mean, they don't move logically enough to be a natural phenomenon from what I've researched.

Speaker 3:
[43:16] You know, the main thing that draws my suspicion about these lights is the fact that they sure seem to show up a lot when these creatures are around or around areas where these creatures are being seen. Like I said earlier, man, the first time it really captured my attention was when people would describe having these creatures on their property. And then they're like, oh, and by the way, I'm also seeing these weird lights. And that's when I was like, wait a minute, tell me about these weird lights. We'll get to Bigfoot in a second. And it would happen over and over and over again in interviews. And like I said, I've seen them twice. And I'll send you the video if you want to watch it of the one me and my brother captured. It was in that area where we saw those creatures, not at the same time, completely different time where nothing happened, but we just saw this weird light. And it was just this ball of light. And it was blue. In the video, everything's chrome green because it was shot with a night vision camera. And then the other one that I saw was at the Browns property. It wasn't blue, but in both occasions, I can tell you, I just had a feeling like this thing is watching us. This thing is intelligent. And again, I have no way to measure that or kind of explain myself when I say that. It was just more of a feeling. And the one I saw at the Browns property wasn't blue. It was kind of, and I know you and I kind of grew up around the same time frame. It was kind of an orange. Remember those crappy flashlights in the 80s? And they had that kind of that orange, yellowish light to them.

Speaker 1:
[45:05] Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. The ones that took two double Ds.

Speaker 3:
[45:11] Exactly. And they have that orange kind of a dull light. You think those batteries would pump out more light, but they never did. I mean, that's kind of what we saw at the Browns property. I don't get it. I don't get why these lights show up or what they are.

Speaker 1:
[45:28] I don't know. It's bizarre. And like I said, I've done research on it. I've tried to apply logic to it. And it's like I'm coming up with a blank. I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[45:41] Yeah. I just hate it when eyewitnesses come on and they're like, what are these lights? No clue. Why are they showing up on our property when Sasquatch shows up? Great question. No clue. It's frustrating, man. Let me ask you on both occasions, you got a really good look at both of these creatures. Ask everyone on the show, what do you think they are? And because you got such a good look, what do you think these creatures actually are?

Speaker 1:
[46:11] Well, obviously, they're definitely flesh and blood, from least what I saw. I mean, do you hear about the shape shift or stuff? I really don't buy into a lot of that. But again, I like facts, though. I don't know. I mean, like I said, I would definitely say they're flesh and blood. If there's some other aspect of them, I don't know. But like I said, I definitely think they're flesh and blood, and I don't think they should be messed with. I think they should be respected and just left alone. Because, like I said, that thing could have messed me up, and I would have never known it until it was happening. And I'm not easy to sneak up on, believe me.

Speaker 3:
[46:54] Yeah, I agree with you. I think that they are flesh and blood. Would you say they're more animal? Would you say they're more human?

Speaker 1:
[47:02] I would say they're more animal. I said the critter I saw, at least the adult, I said I believe that going up, what Johnny warned me about, I think there was something wrong with this one. You know, in the biology pool, like, you know, I'd say mongoloid or retarded or, you know, however, wherever you want, word you want to use for that. I think this one was off compared to what a normal one would probably be. He was just, he looked too weird and he acted too weird. I mean, there was no, no logic at all to what he was doing. I mean, like I said, he wasn't, if he was trying to bluff charge me, he would have came up a lot closer than what he did. The only time he got close was when he was behind me and I wasn't aware of his presence. After that, he kept his distance. So he wasn't scared of me, but he also wasn't being that aggressive. I believe his body language was aggressive, but like I said, it's really hard to put actual description to what he was doing. I haven't never seen it before or since.

Speaker 3:
[48:10] You know, the only thing I really have to compare this with would be known primates. And I'm not saying Sasquatch is by any means a known primate, but I don't know how else to compare this. A lot of times when you'll see like chimpanzees or gorillas, they don't just like bum rush you and attack you. It's almost like they kind of have to work themselves up or work up the courage to kind of attack you. And you'll see it with chimps to where they'll do a display. Even gorillas, they'll do this weird display, and then they'll attack you. I almost wonder if that's what he was doing when he kind of rushed towards you and then back off, rushed towards you, and then back off. I almost wonder if he was working up the courage to actually attack you.

Speaker 1:
[49:01] That could be. I mean, I know exactly what you're talking about. Like I said, primates have been an interest of mine my whole life since I was a kid, since I first saw them at the zoo. And I've actually studied primates long before this happened. Just my interest in primates, not Bigfoot. And yeah, that was actually running through my head as I was trying to get out of there with him doing this was, you know, especially with chimpanzees, they'll give you that false sense of security. And you know, while their hair is standing up and they're all aggravated, they'll turn their head away. Yeah, that's what I was thinking was, is this thing that's trying to give me a false sense of security that, you know, he's just here and not really going to do anything? I mean, between, you know, to be honest with you, that's what I was thinking as I was trying to get out of there was, is he just building up to the big charge, but it never came. He just, once I hit the road, he just occurred.

Speaker 3:
[49:58] Let me ask you, Jake, if you had the chance, would you ever want to see another one?

Speaker 1:
[50:04] Yeah, yes, as long as I was well-armed. And I'm not talking about a 30-30 year. I mean, these things are, you know, even him, you know, he was big in the other, you know, renderings I've seen, you know, it's going to take more than nine millimeter to take this thing down. So as long as I was well-armed, if I had a 338 Lapua in my 500 Smith and Wesson, I'd feel pretty secure in seeing one. But other than that, I wouldn't want to.

Speaker 3:
[50:32] Yeah, I hear you. I always say I'd like to see another one, but maybe from a helicopter holding a rifle, I would love to see another one. It's probably a terrible thing to say, but that's kind of how I feel. And you're an educated man, Jake. Why is it you think we haven't been able to catch up with them?

Speaker 1:
[50:52] Well, if you weigh that down into pure science, the only thing that can really catch anything without being able to mask it is thermal. Because, I mean, you can hide from thermal, as I'm sure you probably know, but if you hide from thermal, now you've got a glossy-looking block. So you're still detected even if you're not detectable. So I think once, as thermal keeps getting better and better and better each year by leaps and bounds, I think it's just a matter of time. I think that they're products of their environment, and they know it well. I mean, their master is a camouflage. So I mean, I can, I've had people walk within five feet of me in the woods and they had no idea I was there, wearing a ghillie suit during the foliage time of year, and they were completely clueless, and I could have reached out and touched them. So, and I don't live in the woods, so I think that they're familiar with their own house, and it's just a matter of time. I think as thermal gets better, especially with these drones, we're gonna be able to get some hard core proof here, in my opinion. I just think, like I said, it's just that they're good at hiding in their own house. Like, you know, you or I in our own yard, in our garage, we could hide from, you know, say, law enforcement or whatever, until they tore the place apart. I mean, I think they're just a good product of their own environment, and I think it is just a matter of time. You know, and I don't necessarily believe that one has to be killed to, you know, prove it. I think as the, like I said, especially thermal. Thermal doesn't lie. So I think as that gets better, it's just a matter of time before they can't hide as well as I think they do.

Speaker 3:
[52:46] Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Seems like a lot of work, though, to catch up with something we've been chasing forever. It doesn't seem like it would take that much work. But, you know, who knows? Hopefully, one day it will be solved. I'll tell you what's strange about these creatures. You know, like in your situation, especially that second one, Jake, if it would have been a bear or a cougar, and most of the time they'll flee from you, but if they don't, they're going to hand it to you. And a lot of times with these creatures, even when they're aggressive, which I would consider that second encounter very aggressive, rarely does anyone get killed or even really hurt. And that's strange when you compare it to like normal wildlife. It's almost like these things either have like a weird humanity in them.

Speaker 1:
[53:39] I don't know. Well, I would say, you know, like I said, even what the one I saw the adult, if, you know, even if there was something wrong with him mentally, he didn't, like I said, he didn't want me there, but there was no, didn't seem anyway, other than, you know, what was already in my head from studying primates, you know, my preconceived notions of like what a chimpanzee would do versus what he was doing. And, you know, the only logic I can put to that part was, like I said, what I've studied on chimps, because it was a very similar deception before attack, you know what I mean? So I just don't think they just want to be left alone, I think, in my opinion.

Speaker 3:
[54:28] Yeah, and you could be right, Jake. You know, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share these two encounters with us. There's many times where I've talked to hunters who've had their tree stands, like, torn down and like wrapped around a tree. I mean, there's no way humans doing that. But it was insightful, man. I appreciate your time, and I really enjoyed chatting with you.

Speaker 1:
[54:55] Yeah, there's absolutely no way that the damage done to that deer stand was done by a human. They had a chain on it and a nylon backup safety strap around it, and the chain, the loop and screw were broken and tore off, and the nylon backup strap was actually ripped. So no way a guy did that. It wasn't cut, wasn't it? I was too afraid for that, so it was torn.

Speaker 3:
[55:22] Yeah, I believe you. It sounds like other witnesses that I've talked to who kind of described the same thing. But I appreciate you coming on again, Jake.

Speaker 1:
[55:33] Well, no problem.

Speaker 3:
[55:34] And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at sasquatchchronicles.com. And if you get a chance, check out sasquatchchronicles.com. You can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone.