Introduction
Greetings, dear reader, and welcome to
this 27th article in the Appalachia—Upper
East TN topic section. My
story took place in the region. Yes, it is a true story.
The above citation from Google Maps shows the approximate location on
the knoll, identified by the red locator balloon.
The
inspiration for this article came to me on Friday the 13th, 2023, as
the next section explains. The life context was the 2023
Israel-Hamas war, which Hamas started on 10/7/2023. It is still
ongoing. This man of peace is praying for peace. The annual Heritage
Days Festival in my hometown, Rogersville, Tennessee, started on
that Friday the 13th. Also, that evening, the Rogersville High School
senior class of 1978 held its 45th reunion (counting the graduation
year as our first reunion). The event was held at the Davidson
Farm/Country Store beginning at 6 PM. Once again, the start time
was too late for my wife and me to attend. Finally, thoughts came to
my mind about the next-day birthday of our niece, the youngest
daughter of my youngest brother and his wife. She would turn 14 years
old. Interestingly, an annular solar eclipse occurred on her
birthday. Source: NASA:
2023 Annular Eclipse: Where & When.
This
is my true story. It
begins with further elaboration on the inspiration for this story.
Afterward, I
present my written story in this article and then orally in the
embedded podcast. The conclusion is up to you, dear reader.
Inspirations
for This Article
There are three: initial, childhood,
and current. This section elaborates briefly on each.
Initial Inspiration
My good
friend, Jim, is mentioned favorably in the first
and second
articles from 10/24/2021. The
subject line of Jim's 10/12/2023 email was “'Bigfoot' caught on
camera in Colorado?”
His email included only a link with no comments to the following
article: “'Bigfoot'
caught on camera during couple's romantic getaway in Colorado:
Shannon and Stetson Parker shared videos and pictures that they claim
prove Bigfoot's existence.” Fox News, by Chris Eberhart,
10/12/2023.
About halfway into the article, it states:
The pictures and
videos from a moving train are the latest blurry visuals that some
people claim prove
Bigfoot is real.
On Friday the 13th, I read the article,
saw the photographs, and watched the videos. That
was the initial inspiration for this article.
Childhood Inspirations
Childhood
inspirations for this article are at least two.
The one-minute Patterson film tops the list. Since childhood, I have
watched it several times. Television shows about Bigfoot still
feature it. Seven frames are available to view online at IMDb.com:
Patterson-Gimlin Film: Original title: Bigfoot, 1967.
Additionally,
grade school friends and I saw the 1972 movie “The
Legend of Boggy Creek”
at the Roxy Theatre in my hometown. (The theatre is gone now.) The
movie frightened us, especially since we frequently camped out
overnight in backwoods locations. The official trailer, just under
two minutes long, is viewable online at Legend
of Boggy Creek: The Legend of Boggy Creek.
(The movie can be purchased or rented on YouTube.) I bought the movie
on DVD several years ago. My wife and I watch it about once a year.
It still bothers me.
Ongoing Inspirations
The
first two ongoing inspirations are the television shows Animal
Planet: Finding Bigfoot and Travel
Channel: Expedition Bigfoot. Mrs. Appalachian Irishman seems to
enjoy watching the shows with me. She never says, “Not another
Bigfoot show!” The remote stops on those shows, whenever I
catch them, while browsing through thousands of channels with nothing
much to watch. The shows are somewhat intriguing and don't bother me.
The evidence presented is often sketchy.
The
rather personal and ongoing inspiration, of course, is my story.
The written version is next. My embedded audiovisual version follows
afterward. This is a true story.
My Written Story
The events took place on subsequent
Fridays in the fall of 1977. I will never forget what happened.
The First Friday
It
was a Friday in late September 1977, at the beginning of my senior
year in high school. The location was in northeast Hawkins County,
Tennessee. Bill and Randy, two friends both my age, lived
a few miles away. Those two friends, Bill's younger brother, my
younger brother (closest to me in age), and I camped out overnight
more times than I can remember. We even camped out in tents during
the winter on snow-covered ground. Those were some rather memorable
cold nights and mornings!
A buddy named Gary, my age, lived
closer by in the Sunset Hills subdivision. (He passed away two years
ago at the age of 61.) Gary had never been camping overnight. He was
interested in a young lady, Helen, who lived farther back and near
the woods in the same subdivision. Gary wanted me to take him camping
on the knob, which was high above and far behind her house.
Apparently, Gary wanted to prove his devotion to the young lady. I
agreed to take Gary camping overnight on a Friday after school.
The knob was on land that Randy's
family owned. Neither Randy nor Bill wanted to camp with Gary and me,
but Randy's parents allowed the two of us to camp out overnight on
their land.
The early evening weather was mostly
cloudy and warm as Gary and I started hiking up north through the
woods to reach the knob. We needed only tee-shirts, but we carried
light jackets. The ground was dry, since it had not rained in days.
We hiked up to the ridgeline, which runs west to east. Over the
years, Randy's family and their cattle blazed the narrow trail up to
the ridgeline. We called it the main trail. Gary and I reached a flat
and fairly open spot on the ridgeline where Bill, Randy, and I had
camped before.
From that location, Gary and I
continued west (or left) and hiked up a short and steep distance to
reach the knob. At the knob, the mountain sloped sharply down on
three sides (to the south, farther west, and north). The short,
steep, and narrow trail from the ridgeline to the knob had been
blazed by bears, deer, wolves, foxes, and other animals. We called it
the animal trail. The Dublins, as locals called the thick and hilly
woods, are behind (or northeast of) the ridgeline and knob. Hunters
spotted bears in the Dublins at times. Bill, Randy, and I had camped
overnight in the Dublins before. One night, we thought that we saw
deer eyes near our camp. The next morning, we saw bear tracks in the
damp ground not far from our campsite.
Returning
to that Friday evening, dusk began to fall quickly, once we reached
the knob, the highest point on that mountain. We started
to set up camp beside and south of a large tree. The ground was
fairly flat there. Nearby and to our northeast, several large rocks
protruded from the ground. A large fallen tree was about fifteen
yards to the east of and below our campsite. We passed that fallen
tree to reach our makeshift campsite. I unrolled my sleeping bag.
Gary unrolled my brother's sleeping bag, which he had borrowed. We
didn't set up my tent. Turning cooler, we put on our light jackets. I
got out my cooking kit and the food and gathered fallen branches to
start the fire. Dry leaves on the ground made starter kindling.
Not
long after I struck the match and started the kindling, Gary and I
both heard the same sound. “What was that?” we
both whispered as we looked in surprise at each other. Crouching
beside the slowly building fire, we remained silent, listened, and
looked around. We could see trees, branches, rocks, and the fallen
tree. Darkness had fallen.
The moon, still mostly full, would appear at times as clouds passed
by. The moon was behind clouds
at the time.
We
heard loud, deep, gruff, and growling sounds. It was like heavy
breathing taken between steps when something large is walking. We
could hear footsteps in long strides between the sounds. The steps
sounded like a two-legged, not four-legged, mammal. At
17, I had hiked and camped in the woods often. I knew how a
four-legged animal, such as a deer or a cow, sounds, when it is
walking or running on dry and leafy ground. The
sounds and two-legged steps were slowly approaching us, coming up the
same trail that we had come up on to arrive at our campsite.
We heard what we heard, but we
could not see what was making the noise. The
entity, whatever mammal it was, was still several yards below us and
to our east.
The
unseen mammal, still breathing gruffly, stopped behind the large
fallen tree, about fifteen yards east of and below us. We
could hear whatever it was shaking nearby tree branches and rustling
leaves on the ground. The unknown being moved a few feet to the
north, which was to our left, as we faced the fallen tree. It was now
behind a large rock outcropping. Remaining there for a while, it was
still breathing gruffly and shaking nearby branches and rustling
leaves.
Gary
asked, “What should we
do?” I said,
“Let's roll up the
sleeping bags. I'll pack up the food.”
We did. The entity was still behind the rock outcropping, making the
gruff sounds, shaking tree branches, and rustling leaves. My backpack
always included a small bottle of kerosene to use to help start a
fire if needed. I also carried a hunting knife in a sheath on my
belt. I had already added larger and longer tree limbs to build up
the fire.
The
mysterious, two-legged mammal, still making the gruff noises, moved
back onto the path near the fallen tree.
We still could not see what it was. The darkness, distance, and thick
tree cover blocked our view. Suddenly,
we heard it start to walk slowly up and closer to us!
Instinctively,
thinking this creature will either kill me or I will kill it, I
poured kerosene from the small bottle onto the fire. That stoked up
the flames. I took my hunting knife from the sheath with my left
hand. With my right hand, I picked up the largest burning branch. As
the entity, which I still could not see, continued to come up and
closer, I jumped up forward into the air with my knife in one hand
and the fiery branch in the other. Also, I yelled as loudly as I
could! When my feet hit
the ground, around ten feet away and farther down from where I had
jumped, I realized that I had not died or struck anything.
A
steep and deep ravine was below us and to our southeast. Gary
and I heard, after my jump and hollering, the strange creature
running in long strides on two legs, as it sounded to me, down into
that ravine. We could hear tree branches snapping and leaves
crunching as it ran. The strange entity stopped. We couldn't see it.
It stayed silent and was no longer making the gruff breathing sounds
or shaking anything. The forest became completely silent.
I
whispered to Gary, “Let's get out of here.”
Using my flashlight to help us see the trail, Gary and I hiked with
our gear down and out very quietly and slowly, heading east and down
to the main ridgeline. I was cupping a hand over the flashlight, so
the light would not be too visible. At the main ridgeline, we turned
south (to our right) and headed down to come out of the woods. The
forest was still completely quiet. We could hear only our breathing
and muffled footsteps, as we hiked slowly and quietly. We didn't
speak to each other. The
moon had been behind clouds all this time.
Gary
and I reached what I call the lower camping spot.
It was a small and level clearing, not too far into the woods. Bill,
Randy, and I camped there often. The trail from the ridgeline, down
which we had hiked, was now behind (or north) and above us. The
ravine, down into which the unknown mammal had run from the knoll,
was just to our west. We wondered if the entity was still there,
silently near us. At that
moment, the clouds parted. The nearly full moon shone brightly. We
could see better by the moonlight.
I
affirm—to the Lord
above, before whom I will stand on judgment day, and to you, dear
reader—that Gary and I
both saw far behind and above us on that ridgeline, where we had
been, a tall and bulky figure standing upright on two feet.
It did not move. We were relieved that it wasn't near us in the
ravine. Cold chills ran through me. We could make out what appeared
to be two legs, a large torso, two arms, broad shoulders, and a head.
What looked like two eyes appeared to glow green. It was not a tree
that looked like such a figure to our frightened imagination. Trees
were visible and very distinct around that figure. The entity, from
that distance, seemed to be staring at us. It must have moved
stealthily from the ravine up to the ridgeline.
Gary and I turned away and quickly
hiked south, back to where his car was parked near Randy's house. He
drove me home and then drove himself home. My parents were surprised
that I had returned, since they expected me back the next morning. I
told them what had happened. Believing me, they were thankful that
Gary and I had not been hurt. I went to bed.
The Next Few Days
I don't think that I saw Bill, Randy,
or Gary until the next week at the high school. Gary and I didn't
talk much about our experience in the woods. We did share what we
remembered with each other. Those memories were identical. Gary said
that he would never go camping again. We lost touch after high school
graduation, and he passed away a couple of years ago. I don't know if
he ever camped out again.
I shared the experience with Bill and
Randy. Bill believed me. Randy, however, made fun of it. I challenged
them, especially Randy, to camp out at the flat and fairly open spot
on the ridgeline, where we had camped before. I did not want to
return to that knoll. To this day, I have never been back to it.
Bill and Randy agreed that we would
camp out that coming Friday after school on the ridgeline campsite.
We did.
The Next Friday
That next Friday, Bill's younger
brother and my younger brother (next to me in age) joined us. There
were five of us. Randy brought a loaded pistol. Chidingly, I asked
him why he brought a pistol if he didn't believe what I had told him.
The temperature was still warm enough,
so we didn't pitch tents. We built a fire that faced the north slope
of the ridgeline. Next, we lined up our five sleeping bags in a row
fairly near to and south of the fire. The knoll was up and to our
west (or left) as we faced the fire. Since no one else wanted the
spot closest to the knoll, I took it.
The evening camping routine started.
Using our cooking kits, we make supper from food we brought with us.
It was a delicious beef and bean stew. We ate well.
In the darkness, we talked and kidded
with each other as teenage boys do. The sky was fairly clear. The
moonlight was better than the Friday before. We were enjoying another
overnight camping trip. At times, Randy kidded me by asking, “Where's
the creature?”
All
of a sudden, while we were talking, all five of us heard the same
loud, deep, gruff, and growling sounds, like heavy breathing, that
Gary and I had heard the Friday evening before on the knoll.
The vocalizations were from far below and north of us. Whatever was
making the sounds was at the bottom of the ravine, down around the
steep north side of the ridgeline. We
also heard sounds of tree branches shaking and leaves rustling.
We already had a good-sized fire going.
We added on more wood. I poured kerosene from my small bottle onto
the fire. We now had what looked like a bonfire. In a clear area, we
knew that we would not start a forest fire.
The five of us remained silent,
listening to the growling and branch shaking. Eventually, the noise
stopped. I don't recall how long
we heard all that. It must have been several minutes. We never did
hear anything walking as Gary and I had.
I did not hear a howl on either Friday evening.
The five of us determined that it was
safe to spend the night on the ridgeline. Each of us in turn,
however, took a turn watching while the others slept. None of us
heard the disturbing sounds again. It was gone. Randy, however, did
turn from skeptic to believer. Finally, he believed the story about
the experience on the knoll that Gary and I had on the previous
Friday.
Early the next morning, we fixed our
breakfast, packed up our gear, and hiked back down and out to Randy's
house. Our camping group never
did camp on the ridgeline again.
As the years went by, I lost contact
with Randy. Bill and I keep in touch. At times, he still asks me if I
remember the experience that the five of us had camping on the
ridgeline. My younger brother and I rarely talk about the experience.
When we do, we both remember the same details.
My Verbal Story
Over the decades, I have shared both
sequential Friday encounters with family members and several friends.
I do not seek opportunities to share it. It comes up in
conversations. For a week each summer from 1982 to 1984, I served as
a counselor at Hillbrook
Christian Camp near Knoxville, Tennessee. Occasions arose to tell
my story to many of the campers and other counselors.
After Mrs. Appalachian Irishman and I
were married, we served as counselors at Bootheel
Youth Camp near Bloomfield, Missouri. We served for a week each
summer from about 1986 to 1993. Again, as others told their campfire
stories, I told my story. From year to year, boys who had heard my
story the previous year asked me to tell it again.
I don't seek opportunities to tell my
story. It still bothers me and gives me cold chills to tell it. While
writing about the experience in this article, I have felt cold
chills.
The verbal sharing of my story on
Appalachian
Irishman – Podcasts (YouTube) is titled, “My
Bigfoot Story: Yes, It's True (published 10-18-2023; episode 21).”
Verbally, I tell it in a more natural style than I have in these
written words. The episode is just over 30 minutes long.
The verbal recording was from my home office. I had wanted to hike
House Mountain and record it from the middle bluff. The weather was
seasonably warm and clear with a crisp and blue sky. Molly, our
eight-year-old “puppy,” however, was favoring her left front leg.
I decided to stay at home to tend to her. Later on, Molly seemed to
be better! She was back to running around as usual.
Conclusion
Thanks, Jim. Your 10/12/2023 email
inspired this article and the embedded audiovisual episode! I will
respond by email to your email once this article is published so you
can know.
This has been my true story.
I call it my Bigfoot story, since I don't know what else the creature
could have been. I have
thought that it could have been a bear, but a bear doesn't run
upright on two legs. Of course, a bear can stand upright on two legs
for a while. Further, I have thought that it could have been a large
man in the woods trying to scare us on both Friday evenings. The
loud, deep, gruff, and growling sounds could have sounded like a
bear, but they did not sound like any man I have ever heard.
My mind remains open. Sufficient
evidence appears to indicate that Bigfoot (Sasquatch, Yeti) may
exist. I may have heard one in a close encounter and seen it from a
distance back in September 1977.
The conclusion is up to you, dear
reader. What do you think the creature was?
