; Phantoms and Monsters: Pulse of the Paranormal

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

'...and that's all I have to say about that'


The following 'true' story has been posted at other blogs and websites over the past month or so. The author, Dennis Daryl, recently asked that I publish. If I am not the original recipient of a witness report or narrative I won't normally post...but the utter improbability of this story has made me think twice. If you have read the book Forrest Gump (the movie left a lot out) then you'll have an idea of what you're about to get into. The prior reviews to the authenticity of this anecdote have been mixed...but here it is for you to ponder:

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If you go to the zoo, always take somethin' to feed the animals...even if the signs say "Do Not Feed Animals." It wasn't the animals that put them signs up. - Forrest Gump

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Living In The Heart Of Bigfoot Country

By Dennis Daryl - It was in the summer of 64 that my life would make an abrupt change forever. I would forever leave my childhood behind at six years old and meet strange new people and creatures that would touch my life. That summer I was six years old being born March 5th 1958 in Fairview Oklahoma. Fairview was a small southern town made up of russian immigrants and ex german prisoners of war. It was a safe place where a kid could play and be friends with the whole town. My dad had another life that he kept hidden from everyone including my mother. He was the average type of father and husband until Fridays came around. Then he would be gone until Monday, and pretending to have been on a fishing or hunting trip. From the airline tags attached to his suitcases, we all knew it wasn’t the truth. My dad was Malvin Leroy Shamblin and my mothers maiden name was Wanda Mae Simpson.

One day while me and my brother Merle were playing with our next door neighbor Pamela Koehn in the backyard, two men in hats and dark sunglasses walked up and carried me and my brother away. They locked us up in a cellar in the country. When my dad paid the ransom to the mobsters, they gave directions to where me and Merle were stashed. Instead of letting the mobsters go, they received a little vigilante justice. Dad and the local business men from around Fairview decided the mobsters fate. They put them in an old electric chair that was on display at a insurance agency and fried them. My uncle John Warren Shamblin had taken me and Merle to the car, so we wouldn’t see the execution. Some of these men had been Nazi war prisoners, and the Nazi’s were tough on crime.

In a few weeks dad moved us to a farm five miles northeast of Colony Oklahoma. My great grandpa James Shamblin had built it many years earlier, when he was in the brick business, hiring the local Indians. At first I hated it, until dad explained ,that living here would keep us safe from his business enemies. The house didn’t have running water, telephone service, or electricity. Mother and my big sisters would cry almost every day we lived here. It was hard work pumping water for bathes, washing, and the garden. That summer the wind seldom blowed, so we spent hours pumping water, because the windmill didnt turn very often. In July a small tornado carried me and the out house into the sky and deposited me into the road. Thank heaven the out house had a wooden floor, and a strong latch. I was unharmed. This is when I first began roaming the countryside and exploring. We had many relatives in the Colony area, and Tarzan was the television show, that I loved the most. At the time, we couldn’t watch television at our house, because of the lack of electricity. I started school here and had a great teacher named Mrs Risinger. She taught the first and second grades in the same classroom. Later when I was in the 5th grade Colony and Corn schools consolidated and became Washita Heights. Our school was leased from the indian tribe. It was part of Seger’s Indian School. Here was the ideal educational and industrial school where children of the forest and the plains, who were strangers to civilized life, whose parents knew nothing but the chase and the warpath, and who had no conception of farming and industry, were taught to be useful, self supporting members of society. The work was done by the students who were given a share in all crops grown. The farming was planned and all work was done under the supervision of John H. Seger.

Riding the school bus was terrible because the high school boys, would fist the little kids in the back and twist our arms. So each day I dreaded going to school. But just as soon as the school bus dumped me off, I would run across the peanut field while stripping off my clothes, so I could become Tarzan Lord of the jungle. I would pretend the fields and pastures were Africa. Gradually our bikes and toys become missing. Mother blamed it on, the retarded Ewy brother named Edmund who lived between us and Ghost Mound. His brother Alfred was his guardian and worked for the city of Weatherford. Neither one ever married, yet always managed to be happy. One day I went walking down the road looking for my bike and Army toys, and something big and hairy ran across the road, I didn’t know what it was, yet it scared me lots at the time. So I quit wandering around after dark. A few weeks later something began pulling parts from our chickens. Dad thought it might be an enemy sending us threats so he moved us a year later to a house, that was a mile and a half north of Colony. Dad taught us to always be aware of what was around us. Never walk any place looking at the street or road.

I was sure happy to live once again in a house filled with modern conveniences. Now that I was seven years old dad began dumping ever more responsibilities on me. Each morning I had to feed the livestock, and work in the fields for eight hours along with my sisters Malva Fay and LaDonna Gail. When I was eight I was expected to move irrigation pipe, along with my sisters, and then work ten hours in the fields. At the end of a hard day, there were always the heavy irrigation pipes to move across the peanuts and cotton. Me and my brother got to sleep in the upstairs part of the house. There were some of a famous Nazi’s old uniforms hanging in the closet, two pairs of his boots, his engraved rifles and swords, and a chest full of his personal effects. Mother wasn’t sure if they belonged to dad or Buell Lasley, the houses former resident. One of the two mom said probably brought them back from Germany as war souvenirs. My dads military records showed he got to watch as the first atom bomb was exploded in New Mexico July 1945, while he watched in the distance. He was one of the few survivors. I took the papers to school for show and tell, and the principal alerted the Army. They came to school and took the classified papers. Said they had sent them to dad by mistake. Now all his records have been sealed permanently. So as a kid I wondered if this famous Nazi had maybe survived and was living in America. Mom cleared the Nazi’s stuff from our room, after about two weeks. When I was eleven me and my brother found 47 sheets of gold coins, under each was a description in a language we could not read. There were about 20 coins on each sheet. Whoever brought the Nazi stuff probably stole these coins from a museum or a millionaires collection in europe. When we showed dad the coins, he zipped out the door with them, and said he was returning them to Buell Lasley the rightful owner. Me and my brother kept one sheet for ourselves and buried them in the backyard, after making a treasure map. When we moved from there in 69, me and my brother couldn’t find the coins. Of course we didn’t have a metal detector because I was only eleven years old. My great grandpa was the first white man, to settle in western Oklahoma among the indians.

I was seven years old when I joined Cub Scouts in Colony Oklahoma. Our den masters were Herschel and Glen Rhoads plus Clifford Payne. They took turns having the meetings in their homes. Jack McLemore was in charge of the much older Boy Scouts. A year later the Cub and Boy Scouts had a joint camping trip to Paynes Lake. We all had a great time, until bedtime rolled around. Since there were twice as many Boy Scouts as Cub Scouts, they decided to put each Cub Scout in a tent with two Boy Scouts. I was having none of this because big boys beat me up on the school bus every day. So as the rest of the Scouts went to sleep, I wandered around the lake. Clifford Payne stayed up and fed the campfire. He kept a watchful eye on me and my flashlight. Every hour or so he yelled at me to go to bed. Before long he jumped in his pickup and went for my dad. So angry his wheels were spinning in the deep sand. Clifford died in his forties because acting as a deputy sheriff, he entered a drug dealers house in the middle of the night, and got shot. He should have identified himself as law enforcement.

After he left, I felt it safe to climb twin mound, which is located beside the lake. It was easy because there was a full moon. As I was scanning the lake and pastures around me, I noticed movement near the lakes drain below the dam. It looked as if two tall bears were noodling catfish from under the streams banks. After a while I hurried to the road as dads pickup pulled up. He scolded me and said I could sleep in the truck that night. When I got back to camp, Clifford insisted that dad use his belt on me for being a spoiled baby. Dad got shamed and beat me so bad, I had welts on me for a week. Said no Shamblin in history ever showed any fear and I was a miserable little coward. From that day forward I fought vigorously anyone who hurt me, no matter how big or old they were. Never wanting my dad to feel ashamed of them. That’s how I got my nickname Rooster, ready to swing my fist at a moments notice. And to fight long and hard until there was nothing left in me. Riley was so furious because he thought I made the bear story up, to cover up for not minding him. The next week I went to the encyclopedia and found our bears only live in forests. Trees are in short supply in western Oklahoma. Windbreaks or shelterbelts were planted in a variety of settings, such as on cropland, pasture, and rangeland, along roads, farmsteads, feedlots, and in urban areas. They were established to protect or shelter nearby areas from troublesome winds. They were put in after the Dust Bowl and trees growing around lakes creeks and rivers, and that’s about all. This was my first Bigfoot sighting, unknown to me at the time. Between 8-14 I called them bears, like the ones I had seen at the Oklahoma City zoo. The hairy animal that crossed the road when I was six, most likely was a Bigfoot. It also probably stole our toys and hurt our chickens.

The next year when I was nine years old my mother hosted a family reunion. After just about everyone had done gone home, me and my cousin Cheryl Renee Goss continued to play under the huge native elm tree, which was about a quarter mile north of the house. I was the first one to notice the bear looking animals running towards us from the west. They probably had been dining on prairie dogs, just over the hill I figured, because there was a bunch of them. I didn’t scream bears or my cousin would not have moved, just begin arguing with me, since she knew bears weren’t in these parts. So I yelled pack of wild dogs at the top of my lungs. This sent Renee racing up the tree, and me following behind, just to make certain she climbed high enough and out of reach. As the bears came running at high speed under the tree I covered Renee’s mouth and eyes to shut her up, or else they would know our location in the heavily leafed tree. Because of the tree branches I couldn’t get a good look at the bears who ran on two legs beneath us. After they crossed the road, they began eating on Richard Humbarger’s peanut vines, and later went into his creek. Renee was crying hysterical as we walked back to the house, and soon both my big sisters came running, to see what was the matter. When I was nine dads mobster friends began hanging around, trying to catch a few words with him. My dad was really rude and seldom said a word to the mobsters, mom ignored them entirely. It was awkward watching television in silence with people who had come so far to do business, knowing they were going to be disappointed. So I decided to entertain them, when they came knocking. I took them fishing at Worth Richmond’s lake about a half mile north of us, and a quarter mile east. The men seemed to enjoy our fishing, and I enjoyed hearing about far away places like Chicago, New York City, Boston, Houston, Moscow, London, Paris, and Berlin. They were ever so anxious to take part in my dads business enterprises. However dad didn’t want any more business partners he said. Dad made contracts with companies to deliver goods, the goods never got delivered and he would split the money with top management. I figured this out from reading dads mail. He also forced people to sell him their mineral rights, refineries to buy stolen crude oil, and ranchers to sell him their cattle and tractors for cents on the dollar. At one point dad had over two hundred oil wells. Some of the locals got to calling him JR Ewing, like the tv show Dallas.

Ever since I was small I raised many breeds of chickens and sold hatching eggs. My goal has always been to save the rare breeds from extinction. Dad only cared about his fighting chickens which he fought in countries throughout the world. I was in charge of the breeding program for all of the chickens. It was a huge responsibility because dad wagered a huge amount of money on them. He sold his brood cocks for $10,000 -$25,000. And the battle stags sold for $2,500-$4,000. Over the years I got better at selecting breeding stock and our roosters almost never lost in the gaff. In the long knife luck plays a large role, so the better rooster can lose, because the weapons are so lethal. Dad fought lots of mains for between one and five million dollars. I never attended the fights because dad didn’t want me taking up gambling. We moved to the Ghost Mound area when I started the 6th grade. Men who became business partners with my dad soon became broke. So they began mailing threatening letters to the house. Mom and dad felt the move was the safest thing to do. Besides my family had plans to take over horse racing and pro sports, both of which would have a big impact on gambling, if you knew who was going to win. My mothers parents Melvin and Alta Simpson were mostly into importing cocaine from Columbia and heroin from Karachi Pakistan by the tons. Alta sponsored these poor kids through church organizations. When they became old enough she turned them into mules around the world. Both sides of my family were heavily into organized crime. I think on the Herrian side of the family in Corsica, they have been crooks for generations.

Me and my siblings could all read and write by the time we were five years old. We all represented our schools in competitions. Starting school at Hydro in the 6th grade was okay. None of the high school boys on the school bus wanted to fight the younger boys. Had a great teacher Mrs Opal Hargrave. Besides school work, she had us growing plants and making ceramics. My dad tried his best so that we kept a low profile, so nobody would report him to the feds. In the seventh grade he quit letting mobster associates visit. We were required to attend church every Sunday and Wednesday, so we wouldn’t turn out like my dad. However many people in the area still knew about my dads wicked ways. Many Sundays we had to hear the sermons about my dads sinful ways. It was in 1970 that I learned about my dads other marriages, from a friend at school. Seems he had five wives prior to my mother, and never messed with divorcing any of them. He was 30 and mother 19 when they married. I kept the information secret from mother until dad died in 1999 from lung cancer. Living one half mile east, and a half mile north from Ghost Mound was a blast. Each day nearly me and my brother would climb it, and look over the countryside. Sometimes we would see the bears walking upright across the cotton and peanut fields. This didn’t keep me from playing tarzan and running nude along the creeks fields and pastures. Animals got to know me from my roaming and leaving food for them. Each day I chopped up five gallons of fruits, vegetables and meat, and scattered them along my paths. Soon some of the animals began following me, and I felt just like Tarzan. I carried a long spear as I ran, just in case any mean cow or bull, wanted to chase me. Near Thanksgiving of 1970 when I was twelve years old, me and my brother just go off the Hydro school bus, and was putting our school books away. When through the front door a man walked in carrying a pistol. He told me and my brother to get into the deep freeze. It was a new one, mother had just began to use. So there was plenty of room in the chest freezer. The keys were still in the lock. Guess he wanted to have my parents discover two frozen sons. We tried very hard to break the lock using our legs and back. When we ran out of oxygen, we took breaths through the drainage hole, which I cleared by pushing the pencil I found in my pocket through. Eventually the lock broke, and we escaped. That was the second time we had almost been killed by dads enemies. I prayed he would quit cheating people. Rex Bottom told my mother, that I had been running the creeks like a wild boy, not even wearing any clothes. I thought I was careful not to be seen by the neighbors. So August 1970 my days of pretending to be tarzan ended with shame. Dad made me any my sisters practice using the guns every tuesday night. He was always afraid somebody would harm us, while he was away on weekends.

Johnny Mays had a farm pond a quarter mile up the canyon from ours. We enjoyed fishing there and catching frogs and camping. Often we would see bears east off at a distance with their young cubs. Now I believe they were actually Bigfoot families. We would be scared and climb the trees, figuring the tree branches couldn’t support their weight, and home was too far to run to without getting caught. My brother was two and a half months younger than me, born December 8th 1960. When my brother Merle was in the 5th grade he invited Dennis Dick to come spend the night at our house from school. Merle had already been to his house several times. I recall this day very well. After getting off the school bus, Merle and I took Dennis Dick to climb Ghost Mound. At the top of the peak the height and high wind terrified my brother’s friend. Fearing he would be blown off, he clung to a large boulder on the top. I had to drag him down several hundred feet, as he kept grabbing the boulders on the way down, and I had to pry his fingers loose. We spent the next few hours fishing at the pond behind the house. I didn’t want to share our room with my brothers friend, so I suggested he and Merle have a campout. Telling them it should be loads of fun. We had a Rambler station wagon parked under a huge cottonwood tree, that we didn’t use any longer. Dennis refused to sleep in a tent, because he heard the coyotes off in the distance. But I convinced him sleeping in the station wagon would be safe, he could even roll up the windows and lock the doors, if he got scared. I made a bed for them in the station wagon, then retired to my bedroom. At about 3:00am I heard muffled voices coming through my open bedroom window. I climbed through the window, so I would not awaken my cranky dad. As I walked up in the bright moonlight, I could see the station wagons windows were rolled up, and it wasn’t even raining. The car was rocking back and forth, so the boys must be playing inside. All the sudden I saw some tall dark shadow flee from jerking the door handle. So I ran across the yard for a baseball bat. The boys were badly shaken up and didn’t want to leave the safety of the car. So I decided to sleep in the front car seat for the rest of the night to protect them, from whoever it was. About an hour later, while I was fast asleep. Someone began jerking on the doors, and hitting the windows hard with their fists. The car was under the tree, so its shadow kept the moonlight away. The flashlight my brother and his friend were using lost its charge, and the car wouldn’t start, so I couldnt drive away. Because the battery was low. The light from the inside car lights didn’t help me identify the attacker. And I was only thirteen years old, no match for a big criminal. Finally I thought to honk the horn, and out came my dad with a 45 Colt automatic pistol in both hands. We yelled it was only us, then he cussed and sent us to bed. The next day we looked over the station wagon and it was covered in scratches and the entire top of the car was caved in. Dad then sold it for junk to the Hydro Salvage Yard.

It was on a windy hot scorching day in mid July 1972, that I finally laid eyes on Bigfoot. Dad had requested that we help Richard Waters out with chopping weeds from his cotton. The day earlier we had chopped the weeds from the farm, in which he lived on. He had a hippie couple working for him from California. They were middle aged and used drugs while they worked. They were suppose to meet us the next day, at Richard Waters cotton field north of Hydro on the South Canadian River. His son Rodney Waters has later since built a home there. When we arrived at 1:00pm the small foreign car was parked next to the field and a small table was set up with sandwiches and potato salad. Only a bite or two was taken from the sandwich and salad. We looked around for the couple but couldn’t find them, in this remote area. Mother said they probably got too hot and walked down to the river for a swim. There was an old farm house on the property, that nobody had lived in for decades. Next to the house was a big peach tree, full of big ripe peaches. Me, my oldest sister LaDonna, and little brother Merle headed up our rows, in the baking heat. My mother Wanda and sister Malva went over to the tree, to get a peach. We just had lunch so the rest of us, were not hungry. After me Merle and LaDonna were about four city blocks down our rows, we began wondering what was taking mother and Malva, so long to start up their rows. Suddenly mother came rushing from behind the old house and was waving her arms frantically. We all figured they got into a nest of yellow jacket wasps, and was trying to fend them off. A few minutes later Malva went running for the car. We thought she got stung several times, and was wanting to go home. All the sudden one of the bears, like what I have seen while growing up, was walking along the barbed wire fence north in our direction. Mother went dashing to the car, and was trying to get Malva to unlock the doors, so she could drive the car to us. The bear moved forward until it was across from us. The car was too far away to make a run for it. I was 14, but my little brother was just 11 at the time, and couldn’t run very fast. I tried to talk my brother and sister into making a run for it, while I kept it busy chasing me, by running close to it. LaDonna decided our best chance was to stick together. So I came up with the idea to charge the bear, and yell while swinging our heavy steel hoes. As it crossed the fence and got closer, it became quite obvious that it wasn’t a bear. It looked like a big hairy human with huge jaws and bright golden eyes like a lemur. If you look up Homo Erectus, it will give you a good idea what the Bigfoot looked like. It looked very angry and I figured we were all dead. However we charged the beast and it stopped dead in its tracks. We began shouting and charging once again and the Bigfoot turned and walked over to the fence and crossed it. It stood and looked at us for about three or four minutes, doing what appeared to be sign language with its hands. Then it turned and ran, like nothing I had ever seen. Its running stride must have covered 30 feet. And it ran as fast as a cheetah. It kept its body perfectly 90 degrees as it ran, Its head could turn and watch us ,as it ran away without stopping. Several minutes later some Army helicopters flew over, probably from Fort Sill Oklahoma. They were flying low and in the same direction that Bigfoot went. I thought maybe this beast was something that belonged to the Army. Some type of remote controlled robot. So my fear went away. I just couldnt get a grip on what we just saw, because it made no sense to me. The couple never came after their belongings from Richard Waters house, and he eventually had the car towed away. I guess the Bigfoot must have killed them before we arrived. I dont believe Richard ever reported the couple as missing.

Dad was farming partners with forty or more farmers. He provided the tractor machinery and seed, and they provided the land labor and irrigation if needed. We were not allowed to report the Bigfoot sighting because dad didn’t want the extra attention. In fact he never allowed us to call the law. He always preferred taking care of problems himself. When I was sixteen we moved from Hydro to Weatherford, which was okay by me. Just about every man and boy in Hydro is bisexual, so I never wanted them as friends. The coaches liked to kick me and walk on my hands while I was doing push ups. Some of the other teachers beat me with the paddle for no reason. It made them feel really big beating up on Bud Shamblin’s son. They didn’t have the courage to stand up to him, so they took out their frustration on me. I never told dad about it because I knew they would end up hospitalized or in an accident. Many of the local farmers had lost farms to dad in poker games. From the first day we moved to south airport road the trouble began. In 1974 we moved in a house from Colony, to a location a mile and a half south on Airport Road and a quarter east. Our address was Rt 5 Box 164 Weatherford Oklahoma 73096. The first day the house was moved in somebody knocked out the windows. A week later somebody stole all the power tools. So we built a shop which had a strong lock. After a few months of remodeling we moved in. However the bad stuff kept happening such as moms veggie garden would get raided, and the fruit trees would get pulled out of the ground. Eventually we got everything established in the garden and in the orchard. We built a barn and chicken coops to house my 50 breeds of chickens and jungle fowl. It was a constant battle stopping the thieves and vandals from stealing our things and destroying our automobiles. Even though I stayed up all night long sometimes, I never caught the vandals and thieves. We kept a big chest freezer in the shop full of steak to eat. One night somebody ripped off the entire lid and stole all the meat. We then had dads best friend Floyd Goss install lighting all around the property. I loved watching wildlife so I always spread peanut butter and honey on our back fence posts. So I could watch the deer raccoons and opossums. This may have been what first attracted our unwanted guests. Vandals would drive steel fence posts through our car tires, drive wooden spears through our car and truck radiators, hurl bricks from the canyon near to us, send waves of homemade arrows at us. And many more wacky things. We had no idea who the crazy people were. Why didn’t they just puncture our tires with a cordless drill, or shoot store bought arrows at us.

A few years later when I was 22 years old the puzzle began coming together. Ripe strawberries, currants, and blackberries began disappearing, before mother had the opportunity to pick them. The sheets that she put on the clothes line would be ripped to pieces, while she was indoors cooking meals. One Friday morning when dad was on his way, out of town for the weekend as always, he found a pickup that was totally destroyed, and the seat had been torn out and was missing. This sent my dad into a rage, and he went door to door in the neighborhood, trying to find the guilty person. While he was gone, I threw all of his guns into the pond behind our hous. Dad never really forgave me for that, although I knew it was the right thing to do. I had a pen of really huge Poland China sows, where the vegetable garden use to be. Mother finally gave up having a garden because seventy percent of it would end up get stolen. These 800 pound sows were really mean from being tormented by the vandals. I was selling show pigs to kids in 4H and FFA club. Most of the sows had already farrowed and were suckling pigs in the garden. Mother went to check on the last sow to farrow one morning and came running back to the house yelling one of the sows is eating a gorilla leg. As I began to dress, I thought what she was seeing was probably a large dog or coyote being eaten. I did know pigs love the taste of meat. Once there was a car wreck by Carnegie, where the car landed in a pig pen. By the time help came the people were already eaten. If a chicken ever got caught in the pig pen, it was quickly devoured. As I rushed upon the scene I found a sow with a large leg in its mouth. The leg was covered in short brown fur. The calf of the leg was just as large as the thigh. The sows kept trying to bite me because of the baby pigs, so I had to keep kicking they away with my cowboy boots. The sow wouldn’t release the leg, so I could take it to my college for inspection. I was a senior at SWOSU. I went into the house and got the pistol mother kept in her purse, to shoot the sow, so I could retrieve the leg. When I returned two sows had began eating on the thigh portion of the leg. It looked like I was going to have to shoot three sows to get at the mysterious leg. Mother came up behind me with a stick of firewood, and it was lights out. By the time I came to, the leg had long since been devoured. So now I began to figure it was the Bigfoots that had been tormenting us. Like the one we saw in the cotton field eight years earlier. We must live near their village I thought, or a place special to them. Why else would they spend six years trying to run us off. I told mother it was just a cows leg the dogs had drug up. The truth would have made her too scared to sleep at night or leave the safety of the house. Mother apologized for hitting me over the head, with a stick of firewood. She said the neighbors would have called the law, if I began killing all three sows.

I bought three male Old English Mastiffs to protect us from Bigfoots and thieves. Each of them weighed over 200 pounds and were lean and strong. Lots of chickens were getting stolen, and I wasn’t certain Bigfoot was the blame for all of it. Because our gamefowl was very expensive, so cockers who couldn’t afford them, might be inclined to steal them. Many of my rare breed chickens were European and Asian imports and I had a small fortune invested in them. The dogs did a great job protecting the acre of land ,we were living on. Rottweilers and German Shepherds we had died from a broken neck or broken ribs. So finally we were having no problems here. Some of my friends brought over their trail hounds and we scoured the local sections for signs of Bigfoot. They lost several dogs to wooden spears and primitive arrows, so they called off the hunts. They figured some psycho must be livng on the local creeks. I don’t think I ever convinced them there were Bigfoots. My friends tend to believe only what they see, with their own two eyes. It wasn’t long before cattle and horses near to us, began getting mutilated. Their legs being bound with heavy gauge barbed wire, and meat cut from their body, with them still alive and writhing in agony. Knives were always getting stolen from our tackle boxes, in fact all the fishermen in my area were losing hunting knives and fishing equipment from their fishing camps. Seems ole Bigfoot likes to steal what he can use.

It was Christmas 1984 and many relatives were joining us for Christmas. We were busy opening the presents, when my brother looked out the kitchen window and whispered Dennis somebody is carrying away your chickens over the back fence. It was beginning to get dark and the yard light couldn’t illuminate the area because of the barn. I sprang to my feet and ran to the fence and climbed over it. It just struck me. I hope this thief isn’t armed. The thief came into view with the chickens in each hand. I grabbed his arm and demanded he release them. All the sudden this huge fist struck me in the jaw, and drove me back six feet into the small cedar trees. This made me terribly mad because I wasn’t being hostile towards him. In a few seconds I responded with four quick jabs to his stomach, and heard him lose his wind. I was a scrappy 6ft6 300 pound kick boxer who hammered his thick skull and hairy body. All the sudden he began biting and scratching me with these huge finger nails. Next he flung me into the cedar trees, where my brother had built a tree house. I yelled for my brother and cousin to get back across the barbed wire fence, because we were no match for this giant of a man. It clamped its huge hands around my throat, I knew this guy was planning to finish me off. So I screamed at the top of my lungs to release the dogs. We had them in pens because of the relatives being here. My mothers cousin Dorthy Nelson from Tonkawa Oklahoma was running our way, she had pulled her revolver from her purse, planning to rescue me. In the darkness she could accidentally shoot me by mistake. When she heard me scream for the release of the dogs, she stopped and opened their doors. The dogs were already foaming at the mouth, ready to bite my attacker. They hit Bigfoot like a freight train, pushing him into the ground. I was terrified they would bite me by accident. The Bigfoot screamed in pain as the punishing jaws tore at his flesh. From the scream, I knew it was not human. Soon Bigfoot was up and running with the mastiffs on his heels. When they took me to the emergency room, I was covered in bites and scratches. I have no idea what the emergency department thought about all my unusual wounds. Dad said I looked like a bear had attacked me. It fractured my skull and bruised me from head to toe.

My family moved from here in 1992. I moved a girlfriend in, and we stuck it out until 1994. Eventually all my dogs died at the hand of a Bigfoot, wooden arrows, wooden spears, cement blocks, and beaten with a fence post. Even electric fences didn’t stop them. Meth makers began taking over the area, so my family moved away. It seemed every place I moved the Bigfoots would soon follow. Neighbors complained that someone was trying to scare them in a gorrilla or bear suit. We would have the same pounding on our walls at night. I contacted the Bigfoot research people, and sure enough Bigfoots were being spotted in my vicinity. I have no clue why these creatures are attracted to me. Finally I moved so far away, that they might never find me.

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"Keep your bullshit detector in good workin' order." - Forrest Gump

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