♪♪
[ animal growling ]
[ crow caws ]
♪♪
[ distant scream ]
♪♪
[ animal shrieks ]
♪♪
[ wings flutter ]
[ dog growls ]
♪♪
cissy: It was a nightmare.
"any second now, you're going to wake up,"
but I wasn't waking up.
This was happening.
Whatever comes through the door,
through the window,
we're going to kill it.
Just terrified we're both going to be victims.
Sage: Is there a monster in my backyard?
What are you looking at, mom?
It felt evil.
It did.
[ growling ]
something I never want to see again.
Stop!
♪♪
someone or something was going to attack us.
♪♪
somebody yanked him into the room.
Now we're really freaked out.
It was sheer terror.
- Ah, man. - What is it?
S- something scratched you.
Ow!
The entity's anger was escalating.
♪♪
sage: My name is sage eagle-sky.
I've been in colorado for about 30 years.
I live 115 miles west of denver.
We live in an old miner's cabin.
In fact, it's a miner's cabin
that was built in the late 1800s.
It's completely forested,
completely -- very isolated.
It takes us about 30 minutes to 45 minutes
just to get down the mountain
to get to a road to take us to denver.
I don't have a neighbor.
♪♪
just always wanted to live that way.
You know, I wanted to raise my children that way,
and they were raised in that wonderful wilderness
to where our only neighbors
were the mountain lions, the bears, and the moose,
and it's wonderful.
You know, it's very peaceful.
Hey, mom.
Do you need a hand with that?
Yeah. You want to take some in?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, there you go.
No, give me a couple more.
Are you sure? Yeah.
Cissy: My name is cissy sky.
I live with my mom right now. It's just the two of us.
I like the quiet.
I'm not really somebody who feels like they need
to have a lot of people around or be in a big city,
and growing up, it was a blast there
because we just had so much room to just run and play
and just, you know, do things that kids should do.
And there you go.
I think of the forest as sort of like a sanctuary,
sort of like, just, like, a fortress of solitude.
You know, it's just a place that I know
I can always just get away and be at peace
and just kind of relax and know I'm safe.
You know, I've always felt safe in the forest.
I've never felt, like, in danger or scared.
Cissy, at the time, was 21 and had been raised out there,
has no fear of animals, you know,
has a wise fear not to approach something like that,
but still is not afraid.
[ breathing heavily, snorting ]
♪♪
[ loud growl ]
♪♪
my daughter and I were home that evening,
and we were reading.
It was very quiet, and it was very late.
I am so sleepy. I can't read anymore.
It is getting late.
We were starting to get tired,
so we were thinking about going to bed.
[ banging ]
right as we, you know, we were getting up,
we heard this, like, horrible noise
like right on the other side of our wall
that was just banging on the wall of our cabin.
What is that?
And it was banging so hard
that it actually shook the wall that we were sitting against,
and I looked at my mom, and I was just, like, so scared.
It sounded like something bumping up
really hard against the house with their body.
At first, I was like, "is this some, like, person
that's trying to break into our house or something like that?
They just don't think we're home?"
then I thought, "well, why would they be, you know,
hitting the side of the house? This doesn't make sense."
[ banging continues ]
sage: I thought it was a moose. I did.
I thought it was a moose just running into the house,
maybe lost his way because it was really dark that night.
Get down. Get down.
And that's when it increased.
[ banging continues, intensifies ]
[ loud growling ]
this didn't feel right the whole time, though.
It didn't feel right.
It didn't feel like an animal to me.
Cissy: This was like something with hands
was just, like, pounding on the side of the wall
as hard as it could.
[ whispering ] be quiet. Stay down.
I'm going to be right back, okay?
Stay here.
Be quiet, though.
[ growling, banging continue ]
we're probably two hours from law enforcement responding,
so there was no reason for us to call them.
I went and got my 9mm, which was very close by.
♪♪
I just was so scared that I didn't know what to do,
and I thought, "well, maybe if I could
just peek out the window and just see what's going on."
I could tell her,
and we could get a sense of how to protect ourselves
or at least what this thing is
and if it's going to hurt us.
♪♪
I didn't see anything outside.
♪♪
I told you to stay down.
What are you doing? Sorry.
Shh.
Whatever it was, it was trying to get in without the door.
In fact, I thought maybe one of the logs was going to come in.
It was that scary,
and then it got worse.
[ banging ]
I mean, we were armed and waiting.
The cabin is not going to take much more.
[ growling, banging ]
just be ready, okay?
I said, "if this thing comes -- whatever comes through the door,
through the window, we're going to kill it."
♪♪
[ growling, banging ]
I was literally shaking 'cause this thing was just so...
The sounds were so violent outside.
[ growling, banging continue ]
sage: We were armed and waiting,
and I was ready to take care
of whatever was coming through the door.
♪♪
even though we had our gun with us,
I still didn't feel completely safe
because I thought, "well, if this thing is strong enough
to rattle a house,
how much help is a gun going to be?"
I'm so scared
that all I can do is just pray.
I just felt so helpless.
It was like slam, slam, slam, slam...
[ banging ]
...And it shook us
to where it was almost like a mini earthquake.
I mean, we were huddled together arm in arm,
hand in hand, just terrified.
The sound went on for 45 minutes of just terror.
♪♪
cissy: And I remember when it finally stopped,
it was just kind of like taking in a deep breath.
It was just like a sigh of relief.
It was probably the longest night of my life.
♪♪
sage: I can see that the sun is coming up,
and we were so grateful because we were alive,
and we hadn't heard anything in a few hours,
so I just very, very slowly opened up the door,
peeked around,
and it was gone.
It was gone, and we were very relieved.
Cissy: It was that violent that this --
whatever was hitting the house
totally just vandalized the sides of our house.
I remember looking at that and just feeling like --
oh, my gosh, I was in disbelief.
Sage: The creature or whatever it was
that had slammed into the house that evening
had to be in excess of 350, 400 pounds,
had to have been and just to see where the filler was disturbed,
the height of it, well over six feet,
well over, huge.
There's no way that it could have been any smaller
because this thing was shaking the house.
We're going to get this cleaned up.
I know someone to help us. It'll be okay.
I just told cissy, I go, "life has got to go on."
I didn't want to make a big deal out of it
because it would make it too real.
I didn't want it to be real.
I love my home, and something --
an attack like this was very unsettling.
Ever since that night, it kind of --
just always waiting for something to happen.
You just don't know when you think,
"is there a monster in my backyard?"
[ growling, heavy breathing ]
♪♪
a few months later, my mom and I decided
that we wanted to go for a walk,
and it was just -- it was such a beautiful day.
And it was just one of those days
that you just have to be outside.
We drive to the hiking spot,
which is just, you know, like, 1/2 a mile or so down the road.
I was in two very serious accidents,
and I broke my hip, my left hip,
and tore both my rotator cuffs in both arms,
and this was our first walk after my recovery period,
so we were going out to just have a nice walk.
Cissy: I was packing up my backpack with just snacks and water
that we were going to, you know, use on the trail
and some protection like bear mace
and an air horn just to make sure, you know,
if animals like moose or bears or even mountain lions
may be in a little bit too close,
we usually press the air horn, and they run off.
I felt, really, just on edge.
I wasn't really sure, but I just kind of had
this nervous feeling.
♪♪
come on, mom.
[ grunts ]
you sure you're up for this?
Yes.
I've been two weeks in bed,
and I can't take it anymore.
Besides, the doctor says I should get out and exercise.
Watch your step. Look at this.
I think we have the whole place to ourselves.
♪♪
the area is mainly aspen and pine tree, of course,
and it's beautiful 'cause it's very densely packed.
There was no wind. That's what I remember.
It was very calm and just beautiful.
You could hear everything.
I wasn't very mobile, so we were going pretty slow.
I have probably hiked that trail
a thousand times in the 30 years I've lived there,
almost every day, winter, summer,
you know, in any condition.
It's beautiful. It's peaceful.
♪♪
we had a great time.
We were laughing, and we were just --
I had kind of forgotten how bad I felt.
We should turn around pretty soon, though.
Oh, my hip. You okay?
I just got to [grunts] stop here for a second --
my hip.
We were walking, and I felt like
there was something watching us from the right side,
from my right side.
I'll be okay.
♪♪
[ growling, heavy breathing ]
♪♪
out of the corner of my eye,
I saw something, and it was standing,
and it was just looking at me, and --
but it was all out of the corner of my eye.
I noticed it. It was dark.
It was in the shadows, but I saw it.
I could make out a tall, dark creature,
something just looking back at me.
This didn't feel like just another person.
The vibe I got was just --
I hate to use the word --
but it was...It felt evil.
It did. It felt menacing.
And it bothered me,
but I didn't want to mess up the hike,
so I didn't mention it.
I think we should go.
Yeah.
♪♪
[ growling, heavy breathing continue ]
♪♪
I told cissy I saw something and it really concerned me.
Can I have a drink of water?
"whatever it is, I don't think it's a bear.
I don't think it's a moose.
I don't know what it is.
Just be careful."
cissy: She didn't seem overly concerned about it to me.
I just thought, "okay, you know, whatever,
there's an animal maybe out there,"
and just sort of let it go.
Sage: We turned around,
and we started back down the hill.
♪♪
cissy, look, look at all these shell casings.
♪♪
we went down the hill, and I looked over, and I go,
"look at all the shotgun shells,"
and the shotgun shells, there were 50 to 60 rounds
just laying all over the floor.
But look...
It's like someone had a shoot-out.
We were just wondering, "what happened up here?"
look!
They're all going in, like, different directions.
Sage: It didn't feel right again.
It felt like --
I go, "why would someone do this?"
it almost felt like they were trying to defend themselves.
That's all I could think in my head.
♪♪
but I was scared.
I was like, "what has happened here?"
♪♪
well, that was the area where I had seen the creature.
I was probably 10 or 20 feet from where I had seen it,
and...
Mm, it's so scary.
I'm sorry.
I knew it was time to get out of there.
I just felt, like, a sense of urgency.
Ew!
We smelled just this horrible, awful stench
just comes up out of nowhere, and we're --
my mom and I just look at each other, and we're like,
"what is that?"
and it was so bad that it actually --
it burned our noses and made our eyes water.
[ sniffling ]
just leave that. Let's go.
Come on.
[ thump ]
what was that?
So as we're walking,
this huge rock comes flying out of nowhere
and hits this tree that we're walking past.
I thought, "okay, is she tricking me?" you know,
"is she playing a joke?" but as I thought that,
I thought, "well, she can't throw a rock.
Her -- both her rotator cuffs are torn."
cissy knew it wasn't me playing a joke on her, and I go,
"oh, my gosh," and she goes, "mom, what was that?"
and I said, "cissy, just wait," so I looked back,
and it was when I looked back that I saw it.
What's in those trees?
And, um...
I just -- it's something I never want to see again.
[ voice breaking ] it was awful.
It was very muscular and very menacing.
What are you looking at, mom?
Cissy: She is just staring into the forest,
and I don't know what she's staring at,
but she's just looking there.
She was just terrified.
This thing just looked like a giant ape.
Mom?
And it was just looking at me, and I couldn't move.
I was frozen.
I was so afraid. I couldn't move.
And the only thing behind its eyes I saw
was just, "get out of here,"
and I felt like we weren't going to make it down the hill.
I didn't think we were.
I really didn't.
Mom, take my hand.
I knew that it was scary enough for her to be, you know,
kind of frozen where she was,
and I didn't want to look at it, either,
because I thought, "well, if I look at it,
I could very well just be in the same position she's in,"
and then we're both going to be victims.
♪♪
don't run.
Don't run.
What do we do?
Just stay with me.
If you run, it's going to attack.
And I said, "don't run, cissy.
Don't run," because I knew that if she took off,
it was going to take off after her.
I knew with all my heart as a mother
living out there and knowing animals --
this thing meant business.
[ growling ]
I was so afraid because I had just seen it,
and I was kind of in shock.
I was in shock.
♪♪
I really didn't think we were going to make it back
to the car alive, I didn't.
One of us wasn't going to make it back,
and I figured it was probably going to be me
because I was so slow, and I just couldn't do it.
I was so, so sick.
♪♪
give me the air horn.
I looked down, and I saw in her --
the netting of her bag, of her backpack,
we had an air horn, and I said,
"give me the air horn, you know, right now."
[ air horn blares ]
when I turned back around,
I didn't see the creature anymore.
Come on. Come on.
And so we got away.
[ growling, heavy breathing ]
sage: But it was still coming at us.
What is that?
I can't say.
We hear this heavy, guttural breathing
that it's just -- it's really just menacing, the sound is,
and it actually just makes my blood run cold.
It really was just the most terrifying thing
actually thinking, "we could almost die from this thing."
♪♪
[ growling, heavy breathing ]
we heard the strangest sound. I don't know what it was.
It was kind of a growl. It wasn't a bear, though.
It was just a very strange vocalization
that I've never heard in that forest before or any forest.
♪♪
stop it!
I turned around. I was so angry, and I was so afraid.
Stop!
And I yelled, "stop!"
as loud as I could, as low as I could with my voice
because I was trying to just make myself
bigger than I was, you know?
We were so afraid, so I yelled, "stop!" as loud as I could.
Stop!
She just yells for it to stop it, and so it --
actually, it did.
She just yelled loud enough
to where this noise just stopped.
Stop!
[ growling, heavy breathing stops ]
♪♪
I said, "get going, cissy. Get going down the hill."
we just start walking as fast as we can.
♪♪
there were dozens of rocks being thrown at us.
Big rocks like the size of softballs.
Come on.
Cissy: I remember I was just watching this
almost like it was a nightmare like when you just feel,
"you're going to wake up any second now.
You're going to wake up," but I wasn't waking up.
This was happening.
[ growling ]
come on. Come on. Come on.
♪♪
and I was just so grateful that we even made it
to that point alive.
Come on. Go. Get to the car.
[ loud roar ]
as we're trying to just make our way to the car,
we hear just the weirdest sound come out of the trees.
[ loud roar ]
go, cissy, go!
To me, it just sounded like going to the zoo
and going to the ape enclosure,
but it was really loud.
♪♪
this thing was probably, you know, way up on the hill
and just did it to kind of say,
"I let you go. I let you live today."
♪♪
[ roaring ]
♪♪
cissy: I think that it was trying to get us out of its territory.
Whatever it was definitely did not want us there,
and I think that was a warning
of what was probably going to come
because had we stayed there,
I think it would have gone into a full-blown attack.
I feel like I have this monster living in my backyard now
that I just kind of have to live with.
You know, and how do you live with something like that?
I don't know what it was.
I don't know.
The closest thing I could think of, it had to have been bigfoot.
It had to have been.
There are just certain things paranormal
that we are not able to explain,
and we just have to move on with our lives and say,
"this happened. It was out of the ordinary.
It was paranormal."
I will always live there, but I just know
that there are certain things we cannot explain.
We can't.
We can't explain this
just like we couldn't explain the cabin that night.
We have to go on. We have to live.
We can't let these things define us
to where we move away, and then we hide,
holed up in some, you know, city apartment
or something away from nature.
No, I refuse to let that happen.
I refuse.
♪♪
the scariest moment of the hike was seeing that thing,
seeing that thing in the darkness,
in the shade
and watching my daughter try to run
and knowing that it was going to hurt her,
knowing that it was going to get her.
That was the scariest -- knowing.
I don't know how I knew, but I knew that it was going --
if she ran, it was going to get her.
There was nothing I could do.
Being very powerless, that was the scariest,
and it bothers me to this day.
It really bothers me.
♪♪
someone or something was going to attack us.
♪♪
get down!
Somebody yanked him into the room.
Now we're really freaked out.
It was sheer terror.
Ah, man. - What is it?
Something scratched you.
Ow!
The entity's anger is escalating.
♪♪
my name is alex destefi.
I grew up in modesto.
It's about two or three hours away from san francisco.
♪♪
a lot of farmland in the area.
Sometimes, you'll get a huge gust of wind,
and you just smell, like, the cows,
who are dispersed out in the outskirts,
but the downtown area, it's a lot smaller
than philadelphia or san francisco.
I just try to spend all my time outdoors.
I, you know, go biking, skateboarding or play football
out on the street with the other kids.
♪♪
outdoors, I was always riding bikes with my friend, ryan.
We used to just, you know, hang out.
♪♪
one day, we found this one house
that had been up for sale for a long time.
It was a big house. It was on a lot of land.
It was fenced off.
♪♪
ryan, man, what are you doing here?
What are you doing here?
I'm just looking at this abandoned house.
It's empty, for sure.
Cool.
♪♪
we should check it out.
I'm in.
Want to do it tonight?
I'm down tonight.
Ryan suggested that we see what's inside.
If ryan wanted to do it, I was in.
Ryan is the daredevil, and he was always there
to take it to the next level,
and we lived in a boring neighborhood,
so I was in.
Let's do it.
♪♪
we got to the house probably some time after midnight.
♪♪
and the way we would get in is on the side of the house,
and it just so happened that the door in the back
was open and unlocked.
But before we go into the house,
this feeling of dread starts to come over me.
♪♪
I can see from the corner of my eye
some black figure
jump out of the bushes and into the tall grass,
so I snap my head over really fast to see what it was.
I thought maybe some squatter was trying
to scare us out of his house.
I kind of just stayed there, examined that whole area
to see what was going to come out,
but nothing did.
♪♪
[ door creaks shut ]
♪♪
the only source of light in the kitchen
was the streetlight that was across the street.
Other than that, all the way down the hallway,
it was pitch-black.
♪♪
there were some tools on the floor lying about.
Other than that, the kitchen was empty.
The cabinets were empty.
♪♪
looks like whoever was working here left in a hurry.
Yeah. I'd say.
♪♪
we should take a look around the house,
check nobody is here.
You go ahead. I'll stay here.
Even though there's construction tools,
it didn't look like anyone was doing any construction in there.
[ indistinct, ghostly whispers ]
♪♪
ryan hung out in the kitchen
while I took a look around the house by myself.
There was a living room
that connected directly to the kitchen.
♪♪
in the hallway, there's a few tools here and there.
♪♪
yeah, so I was a little scared at that point.
♪♪
[ indistinct, ghostly whispers ]
♪♪
I actually went from fear to kind of excited.
It was something new.
The adrenaline rush from, you know,
being somewhere I wasn't supposed to be.
♪♪
the place is empty.
Cool.
♪♪
I had looked above me, and above me on the doorway,
there was a --
I guess it's like a plaque.
It was like a metal plaque.
♪♪
it looked like a rusty shield
but, you know, old.
♪♪
what's going on over here?
I'm trying to take apart this drill.
Is it coming along?
Slowly but surely, yeah.
[ metal scraping ]
what was that?
I don't know.
It sounded like metal scraping against rock
and a kind of a bang against the wall.
When I turned around, I just saw nothing.
It was all pitch-black down there.
I got really scared.
We went to go investigate what it was.
♪♪
is that the...? Yeah.
How'd it get down here?
At our feet at the end of the hallway was the shield.
Maybe I had hit it with the back of my heel,
and it just skid down the hallway.
T- t-this is way too weird.
I was actually relieved to see that it was the shield
and not some homeless guy
squatting at the other end of the house.
We both let out a sigh of relief,
and we picked up the shield,
and I took it back down to the kitchen.
I had decided to hang it back up
so I don't kick it again and scare ourselves.
[ banging ]
we start hearing the banging.
♪♪
we make our way towards the banging.
[ banging continues ]
we had made a pact that
no matter what happens in there, we have to stick together
'cause once we separate, then who knows what can happen.
♪♪
[ banging continues ]
♪♪
[ banging stops ]
♪♪
I thought maybe I'm going to have to, you know,
tussle with this homeless man in there,
but there was nothing in there, no one in there,
no damage, nothing, empty room.
♪♪
now, we're really freaked out.
Somebody has got to be messing us, man.
We're going to find you!
Ryan is saying, "there's someone in the house.
Someone is messing with us."
I was like, "I checked out the whole house.
There's no one here."
so, I'm -- you know, I'm not sure what's going on.
[ banging ]
we start hearing the banging again
from the other end of the hallway.
♪♪
I can see this metal piece sticking out of the wall.
Whoa.
♪♪
[ banging continues, intensifies ]
we make our way back into the kitchen.
♪♪
found nothing.
In the kitchen, there was a door leading into a living room
that connected directly to the kitchen.
♪♪
[ doorknob rattling ]
I'm super scared.
I -- you know, I'm frozen,
and I'm waiting for someone to come in and open the door
and just attack us.
♪♪
[ doorknob rattling ]
I was scared. You know, I was thinking that
someone was going to come inside,
so I got to brace the door.
And then it went silent.
[ rattling stops ]
we wait outside the door trying to listen to see
if we can hear the banging again
or someone, you know, talking, muttering or footsteps in there,
but we heard none of that,
so we decided to make our way in.
♪♪
nothing had changed.
It didn't look like anything had happened in there.
This place is haunted.
Ryan was dead set like, "there was a ghost in there."
I didn't know what to think when he said that, honestly.
♪♪
[ screaming ]
♪♪
it looked like somebody yanked him into the room,
but I couldn't see anyone in there.
Alex, help me! What's happening?
I can see on his face that he's terrified.
Now, I believe ryan.
It must be a ghost or something paranormal was happening
that it's definitely not a person doing this.
Come on, through here.
He was freaking out by that point.
He said, "I want to leave."
I can't find my knife.
Where is it? I don't know.
He checks his pockets, and he says,
"hey, my knife is gone."
I'm not leaving without my knife.
He's going to go back for that knife with or without me,
but I was going to go -- let him go alone.
Alright. Let's go.
Come on.
[ banging ]
when we go back, we can hear the banging again.
We make our way down the hallway,
searching the floors of the hallway.
We don't see anything.
I have my light in front of me,
and as I'm coming up on the door...
♪♪
...Something stabbed ryan's knife in the door.
It took a lot of force to stab it in there.
The knife was in there pretty deep.
I was thinking that thing is angry.
♪♪
I take that knife in the door as a sign as,
"don't ever come back here."
♪♪
my back.
There's something on my back.
He asked me, "alex, I need you to look at my back.
Ah, man. What is it?
S- something scratched you.
Ow!
He had three thin scratches that started
from his right shoulder blade
and ended on his left hip,
and then from his left hip, they continued to his right hip.
♪♪
those were some pretty fresh and deep scratches.
There's something demonic in there.
Let's go.
I know that it must have been evil
because of the actions it was doing.
I always thought about the house after that experience.
Sometimes, I asked myself, "did that really happen?"
it's really hard for me to believe myself.
I have to talk about it out loud with ryan
and make sure that I know what happened,
but I don't know have an answer for what happened in there.
I never went back there because I felt like
it was escalating the entity's anger.
Before the events that happened in that house,
I never believed in that kind of thing.
You know, I always heard about it, but after the events,
I'm a firm believer in the paranormal.
If there's one thing I learned,
don't poke your nose in places you shouldn't belong.