0:05

Snap Judgment Studios.

0:15

I carved her name into the tree.

0:18

The tree grew sick and died.

0:22

I carved her name into my heart. Now

0:27

I'm barely alive. Listen

0:32

to Spooked. Stay

0:34

tuned.

0:40

Why? You can't get enough of Spooked?

0:43

Sign up for a Summer of Spooked,

0:45

our pop-up newsletter launched in partnership with

0:48

KQED to get monthly

0:50

highlights from Spooked episodes, eerie

0:52

stories from KQED, and accounts

0:55

of supernatural experiences as told

0:57

by fans. Head

1:00

to kqed.org slash spooked

1:02

and sign up today.

1:06

From KQED and PRX,

1:09

you've crossed over to Spooked.

1:28

There are communities where

1:31

you will never experience the divine

1:34

unless you first pour libations. Not

1:38

bread, not meat, not prayers, not

1:41

offerings. You must pour the

1:43

liquid.

1:45

Nothing else will call to God. With

1:48

other groups, the ritual must begin and

1:50

end with fire. There is no

1:53

substitution. If there is no fire,

1:56

there will be no God.

1:59

And as whole peoples are wiped

2:02

from the planet, whole traditions

2:04

swallow, we've lost

2:07

so much knowledge, so

2:09

much access. But

2:12

I know this.

2:14

Several cultures have revered gods

2:16

that only answer to the thump of a communal

2:19

drum. As I

2:21

was reminded just the other day,

2:24

walking through my neighborhood and

2:26

happening upon a drum circle.

2:30

This pounding incantation,

2:32

this rhythmic plea for

2:34

the god to appear. You

2:37

can't do this alone. There'll

2:40

be no answer to one person playing

2:42

in solitude, only the rhythm of a

2:44

collective will wake certain powers.

2:48

And the rhythms, sparring,

2:51

beats joining together, breaking off

2:53

the joust of drums and sound and

2:55

thin as the beat builds to

2:57

a frantic staccato, a woman

3:00

leaps into the center of the circle.

3:03

She dances, thrashes

3:05

with the fury transformed, as

3:08

if inhabited by someone, something

3:11

of power controlling her as

3:14

one would a marionette. The

3:17

drummers, they welcome this

3:20

new visitor with reverence, joy, with

3:22

rhythm, they play in celebration of

3:24

the gods presence amongst them. Even

3:28

now, with all we've lost,

3:32

not

3:36

everything is forgotten. Not

3:40

yet. Spook

3:44

stars. Now.

4:38

When you make a call to the powers

4:41

that be, perhaps

4:44

it's not a god that hears your cry. A

4:47

storyteller is a member of the Pawnee

4:49

Nation and he

4:51

knows better than to go looking for trouble but

4:53

sometimes

4:55

trouble finds him. It's

5:00

a good time to be a

5:02

Pawnee Nation.

5:16

My cousin called me up and he told me let's go singing.

5:20

He picked me up and we drove six, seven

5:23

miles deep into the mountains. They

5:28

had a Sundance Arena up there.

5:34

The Sundance, it's a spiritual

5:36

gathering. If you have somebody who's sick or anything

5:38

like that, you go in and pray for them. It

5:41

cleanses your body. It helps

5:43

people.

5:47

We were there in the evening time. There's

5:49

no lights, no electricity.

5:54

The lights that they did have were from headlights. field.

6:00

You

6:02

could see shadows and outlines of people

6:04

dancing and singing. It's

6:06

in a big circle.

6:08

Only ones that are allowed in the circle are the dancers.

6:13

There must have been about maybe seven to eight singers

6:15

there already. They were sitting

6:17

there singing and you can hear their whistles. They

6:19

have whistles that they blow. We

6:23

walked up and we joined the circle.

6:25

We start singing with the drum.

6:28

Singing constantly for hours on end

6:30

with two to five minute breaks in

6:32

between songs. Get something

6:35

to drink and continue to sing again.

6:39

Everybody has a notion you know of a Hollywood

6:42

Indian that ha-ya-ya-ya-ya. It's

6:44

not like that. It's your heartbeat.

6:47

Every time you hear a bump in your heart you hit

6:50

the drum.

6:51

This is the rhythm of everything. This is

6:53

the main rhythm of life you know. I'm

6:59

having a good time and

7:01

you're sitting there singing, you're with friends, you're with family.

7:05

Talking, laughing and

7:08

everybody got quiet. I

7:14

could smell something bad. I was

7:16

like what is that? Just

7:18

a wet dog, mildew

7:20

smell, stagnant water.

7:24

All these different smells mixed

7:26

into one. Some

7:29

of the old folks, you could see them kind of whispering around

7:31

to one another. Everybody's

7:34

straightened up like when a principal walks

7:36

in the room.

7:40

I turned and when I turned

7:43

I seen this big figure standing behind

7:45

us. Between

7:48

eight to ten foot tall. He

7:51

was big, tall and furry. He

7:54

was walking toward the entrance of the Sundance. I

7:58

couldn't see his face. I just saw the outline. I

8:00

knew it

8:02

wasn't a bear. I've

8:04

seen bears before, and bears

8:07

don't walk like that. They'll

8:10

walk on their hind legs, but they kind of stumble

8:12

around.

8:14

This thing will walk like a man. I

8:19

knew what it was immediately, this

8:21

Bigfoot.

8:27

When I was little, you know, everybody would tell stories. Don't

8:31

be going outside at night. Don't

8:33

whistle at night. Don't run at night.

8:36

Don't be looking out the windows. Bigfoot be looking

8:38

in. Every

8:42

tribe has a different name for him. Sasquatch,

8:46

Bigfoot. A

8:48

lot of them call him B.F. or Big

8:50

Guy. Other

8:52

people, they kind of look at him as a messenger of death. We

8:59

got scared and froze. The

9:02

elderly people, they come walking over to keep singing,

9:04

keep singing. Don't stop. It

9:06

kind of goes back to don't run

9:09

from a dog. Just

9:11

stay calm, just relax.

9:13

So we powered through it. We kept singing. But

9:17

everybody kept looking over their shoulders to see, you know, where

9:19

he's at. He'd

9:22

come up to the entrance, and

9:24

he looked at everything, looked at everybody, and everybody

9:26

just kind of spread apart, you know,

9:28

made way for him. It was

9:30

terrifying. Nobody

9:32

bothered him. Nobody said anything to him.

9:36

I kept thinking, I can't believe what I'm seeing

9:38

right now. Just kind

9:40

of just stood there and stared at him.

9:45

As quick as he walked into the arena, he turned around and walked off.

9:52

And he was gone. His

9:55

odor kept lingering. It

10:00

really stinks. Busy,

10:04

busy, we're all busy. The end of summer.

10:07

And just the other day, getting back

10:09

from camping, with my nieces, with

10:11

my kids, in the house, everyone's

10:13

looking for something to eat. And

10:16

I don't want to cook. And

10:18

I don't want to give them junk food either. I love

10:20

these kids. Instead, we eat well.

10:24

With Factor,

10:26

America's number one ready-to-eat

10:28

meal kit. Chef-prepared, dietitian-approved,

10:31

ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your

10:34

door. You can save time and eat

10:36

well, even as you stay on track

10:38

with your healthy lifestyle. Skip

10:40

the extra trip to the grocery store.

10:43

Skip the chopping, the prepping, the cleaning up,

10:45

while still getting the flavor and nutritional quality

10:48

that you need. Because Factor's

10:50

fresh, never-frozen meals are ready

10:52

in just two minutes.

10:54

All you have to do is heat and

10:56

enjoy. Head to factormeals.com

11:00

slash spooked50 and

11:02

use the code spooked50 to get 50% off.

11:05

That's code spooked50 at

11:08

factormeals.com slash

11:10

spooked50

11:12

to get 50% off.

11:14

It

11:16

shocked me. Shocked me

11:18

when I got on Rocket Money and realized

11:21

I was paying money for subscriptions to services

11:23

I'd never even heard of. I

11:26

don't recall signing up for this

11:28

and there they were, taking my money

11:31

every month. Outrageous.

11:34

And I'm putting a stop to it

11:35

with Rocket Money.

11:37

Rocket Money is a personal finance app

11:39

that finds and cancels your unwanted

11:41

subscriptions, monitors your spending,

11:44

and helps you lower your bills all

11:46

in one place. Stop

11:48

wasting money on things you don't

11:51

use. Cancel your unwanted

11:53

subscriptions and manage your money the

11:55

easy way by going to rocketmoney.com

11:58

slash spooked50.

11:59

That's rocketmoney.com

12:03

slash spooked. Rocketmoney.com

12:07

slash spooked.

12:12

We finished the song and after the

12:14

song, we

12:17

all took like a five minute break. Everybody

12:21

was in shock and awe. Did

12:23

we just see what we saw?

12:26

The old folks, they came around, said you guys did good,

12:28

you did real good. Everything's

12:30

fine, you're okay, he's gone, you're

12:33

okay. Don't be telling

12:35

everybody on the news about this.

12:37

We

12:37

just kind of laughed about it and just enjoyed

12:40

singing again.

12:43

I wasn't really dying to tell anybody. Years

12:49

ago, our community had a really

12:51

large problem with people looking for Bigfoot.

12:56

People would go on private property and

12:58

they would ask questions they shouldn't be asking.

13:02

They would go into areas that

13:04

weren't allowed to anybody

13:06

other than tribal members. Nothing

13:09

was off limits to them.

13:13

I don't care whose field I go through, whose house I

13:15

go to, I'm gonna get my evidence. That's

13:18

why we don't speak on it that much.

13:23

But

13:23

anyway, thought that was the only time

13:26

I was gonna run into him.

13:29

That was the only time. And that

13:31

was the only time I ever got to see him. That

13:33

was the only time I ever saw Bigfoot. Fast

13:44

forward years later, I was working at

13:46

a truck stop around 12 miles outside of town. Me

13:51

and my co-worker were working. It

13:54

was just us two. Late

13:56

at night, you know, it really dies down.

13:59

We're sitting there and we're just

14:03

kind of waiting for time to drag on. I'm

14:07

sitting there talking to my co-worker and

14:09

I look out the window. The window's

14:11

black.

14:15

They can't see anything.

14:17

I was like, why are the lights out? He's

14:20

like, I don't know. Maybe the lights blew out. So

14:23

we start flipping

14:24

the switches. And we couldn't figure out what

14:27

was the matter. Where

14:29

are all the lights? And

14:33

so both of us had our hands cupped, looking out the window. All

14:38

of a sudden, the night starts to move. We're

14:41

like, what? So we kind

14:42

of back up and look. We

14:46

realized what we were looking at.

14:50

He was so wide he took up this big bay window. That

14:53

bay window was probably

14:56

about seven and a half foot. And

14:58

he was well above that. He

15:01

backed up and he bent down and

15:03

looked at us. The only thing

15:07

that separated us was a little pane of glass. You

15:09

can't really see nothing

15:11

but the reflection of his eyes.

15:17

Brown big eyes.

15:19

Looking back at you, it scared

15:21

us. What

15:24

I was scared about was him breaking the window and reaching in.

15:28

We start screaming. I

15:33

locked the front door and

15:36

he just stared at us through the window. We

15:38

didn't know what to do. We

15:41

climbed over to the counter and

15:43

we looked at him for maybe 15 seconds. All

15:46

of a sudden, he just walked off to the side.

15:50

I walked out of the way of the window.

15:53

You could see the lights behind him after that. Fast

15:57

as he was there, as fast as he was gone.

16:05

It took us a good minute to figure out what we wanted

16:07

to do. I was like, you want to

16:09

open those doors and keep going? We

16:12

looked at each other and at the same time, nope,

16:15

we're closed. We

16:17

counted our tail fast and we

16:19

were out of that place in under five minutes.

16:24

Both of us were scared running to our car trying

16:26

to figure out where he was at in case he was riding

16:28

around in the area still. You're

16:31

going to watch me when I go to my car. Yeah, you

16:33

watch me. Make sure we get to my car okay. When

16:36

I was flying down the road to my boss's house, I was

16:39

like, I can't believe this is happening again. I

16:42

went back to the elder telling me, you're fine.

16:46

And I kept saying that, going down the road. I'm

16:48

okay, I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm okay.

16:56

We pulled up to the boss's house and she was like,

16:58

what's going on? And we told her what happened.

17:01

She said, you did the right thing, good call. It

17:05

took a lot of convincing to get my coworker to

17:07

come back to work, to work nights after that.

17:13

Years later, they built on a casino next door

17:15

to that truck stop. I

17:17

worked there, it was a cashier. I

17:21

just came into work. And

17:24

a friend of mine, he was a surveillance officer.

17:27

He said, come here, come here, come and look at this, come look at this. You

17:30

got to come see this.

17:32

They had cameras all over that place inside

17:34

and out. So I go

17:36

in the little surveillance room and

17:38

he pulls up the video.

17:42

Right behind the casino, they

17:45

have a big dumpster back there, eight, 10

17:47

foot tall. And

17:51

they put the door in the gas station, they make hot food, chicken, corn

17:53

dogs, burritos, things like that. At

17:56

the end of the night, when they don't sell

17:58

anything, they throw it in the trash.

17:59

back in the dumpster. I'm

18:02

sitting there watching the video and you could

18:04

see him at the corner of that video. It

18:08

was dark but the one big huge

18:10

outside light in the corner of the parking lot. So you could

18:12

see his silhouette of it real clearly.

18:14

He was really furry,

18:17

he's dark, he was tall. Reached

18:20

in, no problem. Like he'd done it

18:22

several times, he just grabs a bag out and he walks

18:24

off.

18:27

My friend looks at me and says, you know what that is. I was like, man,

18:30

that is crazy. My coworkers say,

18:32

yep, that is. He reached over and hit delete.

18:42

They had an unwritten rule. If you see

18:44

anything on the cameras like this, delete it. They

18:48

don't want evidence because it

18:51

goes back to people wanting to see this thing and act a fool, you know.

18:53

My personal opinion, when people

18:56

go looking for him, they're

18:58

looking for him for the notoriety,

19:02

the fame. They need that validation. The ones

19:05

that don't have an agenda, they always tend to run into him. This

19:07

is the luck of the draw, it just

19:11

falls in your lap. I'd

19:15

rather avoid him at all costs but

19:18

you never know. I've seen him twice. Nothing

19:21

bad has happened but I'm

19:24

not going to press my luck.

19:42

Thank you

19:43

so much to our storyteller

19:45

for sharing his experience. The

19:47

original score for that piece was by Yare Bundy.

19:51

It was produced by Ann Ford.

20:02

Now, you may know that

20:04

there are places that the GPS

20:06

still can't map.

20:13

Places

20:19

where things can still hide in

20:21

both the shadow and in the light. And

20:23

I know, because you write

20:26

and you email, I know that a lot

20:28

of you are intrepid. You

20:31

travel off the beaten path and I wonder

20:33

if in the woods, the jungle,

20:36

the desert, if you've ever stumbled across a creature

20:38

that by all rights shouldn't

20:40

be there. If you've

20:43

seen

20:43

something you're afraid to tell

20:45

someone else, well, you

20:47

know, we're all friends here. Tell me. Spooked

20:51

at stampjudgment.org. I promise

20:53

I'll only reveal your story

20:56

to the legions of spooksters walking the path

20:58

of the shadow. Let me know. Spooked

21:00

at stampjudgment.org. Because there's

21:03

nothing better than a spook story

21:05

from a spooked listener.

21:17

Spooked is brought to you by the team that thinks

21:20

Bigfoot would rather be left alone.

21:22

Comes

21:23

of course from Mark Rischich. He's out in these woods

21:25

trying to take him or

21:27

her a casserole. Told

21:30

him not to. There's Davey

21:32

Kim, Zoe Frigno, and

21:34

Ford. Dave Gagnez,

21:37

Teo Dacote, Marissa Dodge,

21:40

Leon Morimoto, Miles Lassie, Yari

21:43

Bundy, Doug Stewart, Paulina

21:45

Creaky, Elizabeth Z. Pardue,

21:48

Adityu Matu, and Lulu Garcia.