Bigfoot? Skunk Ape in the Smokies?

I got this email from a friend of mine. Not a friend of a friend or twice removed, but, an actual close friend. This just happened tonight. They live on the edge of mountains:



Okay, most of you all know I live in the boonies at the end of a dead end
road. Here is the story....

About 8 p.m. tonight the dogs were out in the dog yard raising holy hell.
Barking like I have never heard them bark in their lives. Daughter went to
let them in and when she was on her way back from the kennel building, she
let out the most spine chilling scream I have ever heard. She finally
managed to get in the house and was HYSTERICAL. Totally, completely
inconsolably hysterical. We couldn't understand a word she was saying.
Finally she managed to get "somebody screaming" out of her mouth. Husband goes out with a flashlight and in about 2 minutes he dashes inside and up the stairs to get his pistol. He stands on our porch and shoots a round into the woods THEN unloads the magazine. He then comes back in and gets his shotgun. I'm still trying to get daughter settled down enough to find out
what she saw and/or heard. Husband comes in and gets me to show me something. In our gravel drive-way were 4 prints (the gravel is wet b/c of the snow) of something pawing at the ground.

Daughter finally settles down enough to tell me that she heard a weird
sound, thought it was brother and then shined the light down my driveway
toward the garbage cans. She saw something about 6 foot tall Tahoe so maybe taller>, on 2 legs , swaying/or bobbing back and forth and
had 2 close set eyes that glowed in the flashlight. husband saw something
probably taller than 6 feet , *kicking* its feet like a bull would do in
the bull fighting arena, move from the driveway to over the short end
(about 2 ft) of the retaining wall and WALK into the woods. The first shot
he fired was a random shot to scare whatever away. The rest of the shots
were at "it" as it walked up the woods and over the hill.

Saturday night, I heard what I thought was coyotes but now I'm not so sure.
The sound that daughter describes is what I heard and the sound that husband heard was the same thing.

We have every outside light on, all the motion detector lights on. It's
going to be a long night for us.

3-4 years ago, we kept hearing something at night. It was in the spring, we had the windows open and would hear this sound that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. One morning about 6 a.m. I went out to the kennel to let the dogs out and heard what I can only describe as a cross between a howler monkey and an elk/moose combination.

we have a motion camera we are setting out tomorrow.




[edit on 2/27/2008 by llpoolej]

[edit on 2/27/2008 by llpoolej]

Here is a followup this morning:

okay, second trip outside, now that the drama is over. Husband's brother came
down to see what the commotion was about < daughter had called him freaking
out when husband was shooting> Some of the prints over the retaining wall
*Could* be hoofed BUT not the right distance apart. Are Percheron's single
tracking animals?

Our neighbor has Percheron's and 1 time since we moved in almost 5 years
ago, the gate was open and it was looking in our basement window. Scared
the piss out of husband.

Now I know that daughter would not have been freaking out if she saw a
horse, might have scared her but not to the point the kid was incoherent.

So, from what I understand no one has ever been attacked or hurt by anything but your husband shoots wildly into the woods?

I understand the fright but trying to kill something just because it's outside at night?

I don't mean to give you a hard time and I realize that this may have happened very quickly but shooting is the last thing I would imagine doing.

I live in the suburbs, she and her family live in the mountains near Townsend, Tn(about 30min from here) If you read carefully, you will see he shot into the air to begin with to scare it off and shot at it later, for whatever reason

I wasn't there, so, I can't pass judgement as to why he was shooting at it. Obviously he felt threatened. Knowing him pretty well, he isn't the kind of person to just shoot things for no reason.

Personally, if something was kicking its feet like a bull at me, that was as big as they say, I would not wait and let it harm me before I started shooting. I would bet that I wouldn't get the chance if I took that route.

reply to post by jbondo

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llpoolj said he lives in the Boonies. Usually the law of land in the sticks is shoot first, ask later. When there are usually no people why not put a couple rounds in the air, you may have found tomorrows dinner.

I read the PO very carefully, so I didn't misunderstand anything in it. Furthermore, I didn't pass any judgment, I just said that I wouldn't be shooting at it. Also, you said that it was kicking it's feet like a bull which to me means scraping the dirt from front to back. Then you say it walked off into the woods. I'm still not seeing a threat but I wasn't there.

testrat, I grew up in the mountains and spent many nights deep in the woods. I've seen many weird things and even tracked a pack of wild dogs at night. I could have shot my gun several times during a couple of terrifying moments when the pack was stalking my friend and I. I've also had bullets go whizzing by my head in the woods at night, so I know what it's like to be shot at. Do you think that qualifies me? By the way, rounds that go up have a way of coming back down. That pesky gravity, they even got it in the mountains!

Believe me everyone, I'm not trying to offend or judge anyone here. I know lots of reliable, intelligent people that would have done the very same thing. I know everyone has a different comfort level when it comes to feeling a threat or not.

I will say this, it's a very interesting scenario and more info would be great. llpoolej, you mentioned some other instances of noise and cries. Can you remember any other details or incidents? Could you get any more info from your friend? I am seriously interested in this case.

Cool story, thanks for sharing.

I wish people would shoot with a camera then we could get hard evidence of bigfoot.

I don't understand the part about the prints. Were they suspicious or not? Animal? Human?

She said she has heard screams that make the hair on her neck stand up, but, assumed it was coyotes or some other wild animal making it and brushed it off. She says that her daughter described it as those same screams that they had heard before, as what the thing was making.

They don't feel it was a bear, as it walked over a 2 ft retaining wall on 2 legs, which, a bear could not do. Basically, the do no know *what* it was. They aren't calling it anything in particular, just something they have never seen before.

I will keep asking them more questions, as I am interested too. Bigfoot/skunkape to me has always been a story, that was a neat legend, but not much else. This ramps it up a notch for me

I am about 80% on the belief side regarding bigfoot and really get a charge out of close encounter stories.

I can certainly feel the hairs standing at attention. Imagine being out in the middle of nowhere at night, especially in the winter....spooky. Then you see this "huge thing" swaying back and forth between two trees or something and suddenly you feel this warm trickle going down your leg.

I know I might have been spooked too, and under such an emotion I can understand just blasting the gun. All things considered however, and of course in hindsight in regards to your encounter, shooting at it could have been a huge mistake. There are two reasons for this, and I will lay them out for you:

1. A person could easily put on the suit of an animal or creature in an attempt to spook folks, or just do some "Jack Ass" kind of stunt. In shooting at it you could very easily murder an innocent person. If it ran toward you, and you felt it was going to attack, you would be justified regardless. Shooting at someone walking alway would get you into serious trouble though.

2. So far, and you might not have known it then, but if it is in fact Sasquatch, they have never attacked a person. The only times I have heard of a story where a Sasquatch made an aggressive move towards a human, was when the person either attempted to throw something at it, or they shot at it. If someone shot at you, or threw a rock at your head, you would be pretty ticked and/or frightened as well, wouldn't you?


It is interesting that you encountered this in this Smoky Mountains,as I have been through the area a few times. It is fairly vast, and not very densely populated. I wish I had known about the idea of a Sasquatch in the Great Smoky Mountains before, I would have asked the Cherokee if they had heard of it before.

Now you say you might have, or your family might have, confused a Coyote noise for that of this "Thing". Do you know what a Coyote sounds like? They give off a "yelp, yelp, yelp awhoooo", or "yip, yip, yip, awhoooo!", as opposed to wolves who only go, "bark, bark, bark awhooooooo!", or "huff, huff, huff awhooooooo!"

As far as Sasquatch, the howls I have heard that are attributed to them are long, deep howls. When I say deep, I mean they make Wolves sound like yipping Coyotes. Usually they have no noise proceeding their howls either. Sometimes Wolves do not make noise before their howls as well, but the purported Sasquatch howls are very unique, and not easily mistaken for other known creatures. Sasquatch has also been known to growl, and grunt just like gorillas.

As a matter of fact, have you ever seen that show called "Survivorman" on The Discovery Channel? The guy who does it is named Les Stroud. He was doing an episode up in Alaska, and he had set-up camp on a rocky shoreline facing the Pacific Ocean. I do not believe he actually recorded it on his film/audio equipment, but he heard a grunt repeat behind him four times. He even said he could not believe it, but from his experiences it sounded like a "Large Gorilla", definitely not a Bear, and it made him bolt up into a standing position, with the hair raised on the back of his neck. This is a guy who does not scare easily, similar to Bear Grylls. Here is the link to his Alaska Journal:

Les Stroud- Alaskan Frontier Adventure.

Now if you want to really hear a "unique" sound, check out this purported "speech" being heard between a Sasquatch and responding imitating human observer:

Ron Moorehead responding to Sasquatch

Sasquatch Alone

Those clips will really make you wonder.

As a matter of fact, here is an entire page of Sasquatch Sounds. I hope this helps you to determine what it was that you folks encountered:

Sasquatch Needs a Friend

PS- I know I kind of addressed this to your friend llpoolej, but it is meant for either of you in regards to the information. Again, I hope it helps.

Lol I do have to laugh at that Horse encounter though, that neighbor's horse must really be bored. He's just trying to watch some T.V. I can only imagine how shocked I would be to find a horse staring in my window, especially seeing as how I live in an urban area.


[edit on 3-4-2008 by TheAgentNineteen]

Wow, thanks for the Les Stroud link. Great point, Les would know if it was a bear, he sees and hears them I would think weekly.

This is an interesting story. I won't make any assumptions about it, as most of the other posters have covered it. It seems to me, if the skunk ape is as smart as many researchers say it is, it probably won't return to the site. If it gets shot at, it was probably frightened away.

I am still on the fence about Sasquatch, but keep the camera rolling just in case.