We were about to stop and help him.
That's the part I keep thinking about, even now.
Because at first, there wasn't anything about it that didn't look like a man.
Just someone standing there at the edge of the road, right where the trees begin, in
a place nobody should have been.
But we slowed down.
We were already thinking they might need help, and we were deciding whether or not to
pull over.
And then, right before we got close enough to see the face clearly, he dropped.
I'm not meaning like a person crouching, or like someone slipping and falling.
He dropped down onto all fours in one smooth motion.
And when he ran, well, there was no doubt left for us.
That was no man.
That was Bigfoot.
Looking back, I think both of us knew.
Something wasn't right before we ever got close to it.
We just didn't want to say it out loud.
Me and my friend Aaron had been fishing all day.
Nothing unusual about the day itself.
In place we'd gone to for years.
Way out past the county line where the roads get narrow, and you hardly ever see another
person.
The day had been sunny and calm.
We'd just enough breeze to keep things cool and comfortable.
We packed up late, much later than we should have.
By the time we got on to the main road, the sun was already dropping behind the hills,
and everything had that dim gray look to it, where shapes start to blur, and distances
get harder to judge.
Now that's stretch of road.
I've driven it more times than I can count.
Two lanes, woods on both sides, no houses for miles.
It's a nice, if boring, stretch of road.
In all the times I've been down that road, I have never seen a person walking.
It's just too remote.
And maybe that's why it hits so hard when we did see someone out there.
We were still fifteen minutes away from town when Aaron pointed and said, "Hey, you see that?"
At first I didn't.
But then I looked where he was pointing, and the headlights reached just far enough ahead.
I saw it.
I saw someone standing on the right side of the road.
At first glance.
I was sure it was a person, probably because, well, that's what I expected to see.
Tall and standing on two legs, just inside the tree line, like it had just stepped back
from the road when it heard our car coming.
And then I thought about how odd that was.
We hadn't passed any broke down cars.
There was no car parked nearby.
There was no trailhead for miles that I knew of.
Nearst housing was still several miles down the road.
No reason on earth for someone to be out there at that time of night.
Aaron slowed down just a little, not stopping, but still easing forward.
And the closer we got, the more something about it all felt wrong.
The person or the shape that we saw.
It wasn't moving.
I mean, not even a little.
I had a quick thought go across my mind.
Maybe it was one of those great big stumps that people carve up with chain saws.
I don't know why it would be out there, but it was the first thing that came to mind because
it was so still.
But at the same time, I knew that wasn't right either.
It stood so still.
No swaying.
No weight shifting from foot to foot.
It didn't turn its head, didn't roll its shoulders, didn't pivot at the waist.
Nothing.
It stood there still as a statue.
The closer we got, the bigger I realized it was.
Not just tall, but broad.
Thick through the shoulders.
And a wide beefy chest that had to be heavily muscled from the look I had of it.
Isn't that big?
That isn't fat.
Has to have a lot of muscle just to move.
At that second, I was still going with the idea.
It was a person, a really big person out there walking.
So I said, "When do you think he's doing out here?"
Aaron didn't answer.
He just kept easing the car forward.
We were both trying to figure it out without saying what we were actually thinking because
by then, well, everything was really off and we both knew it.
When we got closer, within about twenty yards, the headlights hit it clear and bright.
And that's when everything changed and we knew.
We knew.
There was no clothing, no outline of a jacket.
No color differentiation, no baggy parts, and no texture we could see that was anything
cloth related.
Just a lot of dark hair covering it everywhere we could see.
And it was thick and matted in places.
The arms we saw hung low, much lower than they would have been on a person.
I hadn't noticed that until we got closer.
And it's head.
The shape of it wasn't right.
It was like a big melon, someone plopped down on the shoulders.
Much too large for a human.
And I knew it when I got close enough to see it.
I got a look at the face.
Heavy brow.
Wide face with a flat nose.
Wide mouth.
And then the eyes.
When its eyes caught the headlights, they reflected back at us in a day.
It all amber glow.
And that's when I knew for sure that wasn't a man or a person of any kind.
That's a big foot.
And before either of us could react, it moved.
And when it did, it took all doubt that we might have had about it being something not human
and pushed it out the window.
It didn't turn or step away.
It dropped down onto all fours and one clean, controlled motion.
Like it had been waiting for just the right moment to do exactly that.
Then it ran.
And I mean it ran in a way that I've never seen anything in real life move like that before.
It didn't go crashing through things or even bounding like a deer.
It sort of flowed with long, powerful strides.
Its arms and legs working together, flawlessly.
This was a movement that was born of natural fitness.
It had been doing it its whole life.
It covered the distance from the roadside into the trees in maybe two seconds.
And as it ran, I got one more clear look at it, this time from the back.
Its back was wide and muscular.
I saw the muscles in the headlights moving under the hair.
Everything I saw was a testament.
This creature was made of pure power.
And right before it disappeared into the woods, it made a strange sound.
Low, deep.
Not exactly loud, but heavy and resonating.
It was something that seemed to come from deep within its chest.
A growling grunt is the best way I can describe it.
I was going to tell Aaron to get us the heck out of there, but he was already hitting the
gas pedal hard.
We'd gone down the road maybe a mile or two with neither of us speaking.
Finally, I blurted out in the darkness.
That was a big foot.
Aaron nodded, still staring straight ahead.
There are a couple of seconds he said, "Yeah, I know.
That was a big foot."
He looked over at me for just a second, and that was that.
No debate, no big talk about it, no trying to explain it away.
We both had seen it clearly.
And well, once you've seen something like that, there's no mistaking it.
Now what sticks with me the most isn't even how it moved or how fast it moved.
It's how it stood there still, like it was waiting for us to slow down and stop.
Like it knew we would do that right there.
And you know, we almost did.
For just a second, we almost did stop and pull over.
And God only knows what would have happened if we had.
My truck died in the worst place it could have.
Middle and nowhere.
Corn fields on both sides, no lights, no houses.
At first, I was just irritated.
Then I saw the corn moving.
At first, I told myself, "It's just the wind."
The air outside was completely still.
And then I saw the shape of it, pushing through the field fast.
And right then I knew.
Whatever it was coming through that corn, it was coming straight for me.
I used to take that road every night without thinking about it.
Same drive, same stretch of farmland, same routine.
After a while, you don't think about it being isolated or lonely.
It's just part of your nightly drive.
That night started no different than any other.
I got off work around 11.30 pm, tired, just wanting to get home.
There was a stretcher road about halfway back home where the fields opened up on both sides.
This night was late in August.
And those fields on both sides were full of corn.
Nice and high.
Eight, maybe nine feet tall.
So thick, you couldn't see through them, and so tall you couldn't see over them.
Driving through there at night, with the headlights lighting up the corn along the road, it
felt like you were driving through a tunnel.
The corn there was so thick and tall on either side.
You had to bend over a little and look up straight through the windshield if you wanted to see
any stars above.
One night I was about halfway through that stretcher corn fields when my truck suddenly
stalled.
My only warning was a light sputter, and it just shut down.
I coasted to a stop and I sat there on the side of the road for a second.
I was looking at all the dash gauges trying to figure out what just happened.
I still had electrical.
My headlights still worked, so it wasn't the battery.
I had plenty of gas.
I had no clue.
This truck was barely a year old.
I figured, well, let me try to turn the key, and let's see what I get.
Nothing.
That's what I got.
I tried a few more times, hoping.
Same thing.
Nothing.
I leaned back, frustrated and tired.
That's when I noticed the movement.
At first it was subtle and often the distance, just something way off to the right.
I thought it was the wind, but then I realized, nothing else out there was moving.
The rest of the corn was standing perfectly still.
The air wasn't moving out there.
The rows were being pushed aside in a V-shaped pattern, two lines, and both lines were aiming
straight toward the road, straight at me.
I sat there watching it, trying to make sense of it.
I thought it might be wild hogs there on the corn.
We do have them, and they do like corn.
But hogs don't move through the corn like that.
The stalks weren't shaking or swaying like they would if an animal was down-lug going
through the bottom of the stalks.
The stalks were forcefully being pushed aside in uniform lines.
And whatever was doing it was moving fast, continually correcting its course, so it stayed
on vector with me.
And it was moving faster than anything should have been able to move through that heavy
thick corn at night.
I was hearing a steady crashing sound in the corn.
Heavy and rhythmic, and getting closer.
I turned the key again, but the engine still would not turn over.
I could see just the tops of the stalks shaking now, parting in that narrowing V-shaped as
it closed in on the road and me.
And that's when I knew for sure.
I saw it, change its course just one row of corn stalks, so it would be dead-centered
on me.
I knew whatever it was, it knew right where I was, and I was the target.
I set a prayer and cranked the key one more time.
The engine turned, coughed, and started.
I was putting the truck in gear when it burst out of the corn.
I could hardly believe my eyes.
I think my heart skipped a beat.
You know, people always say they don't know what it was when they see it.
I want to ask them, "How could you not know?"
Maybe 50 years ago I could believe you wouldn't know, but not in today's world.
Bigfoot has been all over the media, the TV, everywhere.
If you live in North America, you have to have some kind of knowledge of Bigfoot.
I sure did, and I wasn't a Bigfoot believer kind of person.
I didn't watch the shows, I didn't read the books, I never even, I don't think, sat
for a documentary.
It just wasn't an interest, but I knew what one was.
So I saw it, and that was the only word that I knew could come to mind.
Bigfoot, incredibly tall, massive, huge, gargantuan, all of those fit, but none of them are accurate.
None of them can be, it's real size.
It was incredibly scary looking, and it was covered everywhere in a dark brown hair.
I had no questions at all about what I was seeing.
That was definitely a Bigfoot.
I had the truck in gear, and I was hitting the gas.
I looked over to see that it was running right alongside my truck, and it kept matching my
speed as the truck sped up.
When I hit 40 miles an hour, I looked over, and it was still right there with me.
It's arm swinging wide and long.
I looked over, and it looked over through the window at me, and our eyes locked for a long
heartbeat.
You know, there was something in that look.
Some might call it intelligence.
I call it awareness.
I'm not sure, but there was something there.
That was no dumb animal looking at me.
As I passed the 40 mile an hour mark, it slowly began to drop away.
As I went forward and knit fell backwards, I felt a hard slap on the back passenger side
of the truck bed.
I mean, it hit it hard.
I looked up into the rear view mirror, just as I saw it slowing down to a jog, like it was
going to stop running.
The red taillights lit it up for just another moment, before it all faded into the darkness
as I drove away.
I kept driving.
White neckling the steering wheel.
My heart pounding so hard, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
I made it home, and I was still very shook up.
I was almost too scared to get out of my truck.
I pulled into my garage, checked on my mirrors, and put the garage door down the whole time
checking the mirrors, then and only then would I get out when the garage door was closed.
That experience has stayed with me.
If I think about it, the adrenaline and all the feelings come rushing back to me.
They did so as I was writing this email.
I had to stop twice and go calm myself down before I could come back and finish.
And I'm going to tell you one other weird thing.
I took my truck back to the dealership, and I had them go over it with a fine tooth comb.
They could not find a single thing wrong with it, not so much as a fuse was blown.
That truck was barely a year old, but brand new off that lot.
It's been two years since that night, and my truck has never faltered again.
So tell me, am I crazy to think the big fit somehow caused my truck to stop like it did
right there?
I mean, I think it's a crazy thought myself.
But you know, it's just too coincidental for me.
I also don't drive that road once the corn gets more than two or three feet high.
Before then, I will drive it during the day, as long as I can see across the top of the
corn all the way across the field.
But once it's high enough to hide something, I won't drive it at all, and never at night.
I think about that night a lot, even all this time later.
Because I have to tell you, once you've seen something like a big fit, you don't ever
forget it.
You've been listening to The Buckeye Bigfoot podcast.
Find more stories, hundreds more, over on our YouTube channel.
Just look for Buckeye Bigfoot.
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