♪♪
[ animal growling ]
[ crow caws ]
♪♪
[ distant scream ]
♪♪
[ animal shrieks ]
♪♪
[ wings flutter ]
[ dog growls ]
♪♪
I'm thinking, "uh-oh. What's going on here?"
it's flesh and blood that can pick you up and take you away.
[ animal growling ]
it was just like hell broke loose, really.
It was angry.
It wanted us gone.
It was, like, right on us.
This could be a potential fatal encounter.
[ screams ]
♪♪
it's got to be demonic. I knew it was.
It was something evil.
Hello. Are you okay?
[ screams ]
pew! I run to my car.
[ thudding ]
jessie: All of a sudden, I hear footsteps.
I called my mom, and I said,
"I think there's someone in the house."
♪♪
my name is michael cook.
I love the woods. I love being in nature.
When I was 16 years old, I believe that I saw a bigfoot.
Over the last 20 years, I believe I've had encounters
with three different creatures, all of them bigfoot.
In October of 2018,
I had heard accounts of creatures in berea, kentucky.
We decided, "you know what? It's worth checking out."
♪♪
thanks for inviting me, michael.
Just don't expect too much is all.
I decided to take my new girlfriend, gwendoline,
to go up and see where this happened.
The love and all that was still fresh, and I was like,
"babe, I'm gonna take you out squatching," is what we call it.
I actually met michael on a radio show,
and once I heard him, I looked him up on facebook,
and it was just the relationship after that.
Yeah, it was good times.
That day, I came in with an open mind
but not expecting anything.
Oh, here comes big kenny.
So, our friend, kenny, was with us,
and I'd known kenny for a little while.
Kenny was always wanting to go
and do stuff with the bigfoot research.
Michael. Kenny.
Hey, buddy. Good to see you.
Good seeing you, buddy.
Gwen, this is kenny. Kenny, gwen.
- Hi, gwen. - Hi, kenny.
Looks like we're the only ones here today.
Yeah, it's starting to look that way.
Hey, you know what, let's get our gear
and get this day started, okay?
- Okay. - Cool.
My name is kenny smith.
I'm from southeastern kentucky, mountains everywhere.
It was a really nice place to grow up.
That's what, you know, we did for pastime
was being in the mountains.
I never felt afraid.
Everybody ready? Yeah.
All right. Let's get going.
♪♪
we started hiking around 3 o'clock that day,
and I told them to be out by dark.
♪♪
thanks for inviting me along, guys.
Oh, anytime, man.
♪♪
the berea pinnacles... it's in the foothills
of the appalachian mountains.
♪♪
it's 9,000 acres of untouched wilderness.
♪♪
wow, look at this.
♪♪
there was trees that were broke off about 8 foot high,
and there was some swayed trees where they're bent down,
almost looked like they'd been held down
to where they'd bend perfectly without breaking.
See? This is what I was talking about.
♪♪
when I was a kid, my grandpa had told me about seeing a bigfoot,
so I just was always really fascinated about bigfoot,
and I hadn't ever had no experiences of my own.
I just wanted to go and try to experience something.
All right. Let's keep going.
♪♪
the thought of running up on something that huge and wild
was terrifying to me.
♪♪
it's beautiful.
Told you so.
Mike: So, these trails... they run every which way
on these mountains, but they all take you to the same point,
which is a lookout.
You can see everything.
♪♪
wow.
This was almost worth the effort.
Kenny: It was a beautiful place, but I was really out of breath.
By the time we got to the top, I was just ready to go home.
I realized we spent way too much time out there.
Okay, guys. It's getting late.
We should start heading back.
I was a little bit upset at the thought of not having
no bright lights to be able to see.
You know, there's bears around.
It was scary.
♪♪
[ distant thudding ]
after we'd come over the rough part, I heard, like,
something walking, like, under the hill from us.
[ thudding continues ]
you okay, kenny?
Shh!
Shh, I can hear something.
I've been in the mountains.
I've heard deers walk, you know,
run through the mountains and other animals.
This was something on two feet.
Bears don't walk on two legs. Deers don't walk on two legs.
And I knew that we were the only ones...
only people in the park.
Shh! [ animal growling ]
can you hear that?
It was maybe 50 feet under the hill,
not far at all.
I started feeling really scared.
I started thinking, "maybe there is bigfoot here."
♪♪
I don't hear anything.
Shh, shh, shh.
I hear something over on my left-hand side.
We wasn't alone, and my experience with this stuff,
I was 99 percent sure that it was a bigfoot.
I didn't alert kenny or gwendoline.
I didn't want to scare them 'cause neither one of them
had had any kind of encounter with any of these creatures.
It's nothing, guys. Come on. Let's go.
Whatever this was was following us,
was paralleling us.
Was it hunting us?
Mike: Come on.
♪♪
[ animal growling ]
♪♪
well, that was the hard part, guys. Well done.
"all right, guys.
I think this is a good place to stop, take a breath,
get us a drink of water."
♪♪
gwen, do you have your flashlight?
We weren't intending on being out until dark.
I know michael hadn't brought any flashlights.
I had left my flashlight in my other bag that was in the car.
We don't have any flashlights?
I don't think so.
Hang on.
[ laughs ]
just so happened I recalled
that I had three small lights in my bag.
Well, it looks like someone thought ahead.
Kenny was our saving grace.
He brung three flashlights, very dim flashlights,
but they were flashlights nonetheless.
[ grunts ]
thanks.
♪♪
[ trees rustling ]
♪♪
I had a weird feeling back there, mike,
like something was following us.
Yeah, me too.
I just remember saying,
"I'm pretty sure something's following us."
we want to see what exactly it is that's creeping around
just outside our flashlight view.
Mike: We can't see past 10 feet because the lights are dim.
We see just enough not to trip over anything.
Hey, guys, listen. Relax. Relax.
This is why we're here, right?
That's when I decided to do a wood knock.
♪♪
[ knock echoes ]
♪♪
bigfoot researchers think this could be a form
of communication for these creatures.
♪♪
[ distant knock ]
kenny: Something mimicked what he did.
Something else knocked on a tree.
At that moment, that's when I realized what it was.
It had to be bigfoot.
No other animal has hands to pick up a stick
and knock, you know, hit a tree.
It had to be a bigfoot.
I started getting really afraid.
Okay. Everybody, be calm.
Gwen, get your phone out.
We'll see if we can get this on video right now.
Gwen: Mike said, "we need to get footage of this.
We need to get video. We need to get audio."
take a sec.
We've heard footsteps, movement,
and a definitive wood-on-wood knock,
tree knock, not 200 feet from us.
I thought, "we are communicating.
See how far we can go."
[ breathing shakily ]
[ static crackles ]
gwen: It died.
What do you mean, "it died"?
♪♪
here, look.
There. There you go.
♪♪
just keep filming, gwen.
No matter what happens, just keep rolling the camera, okay?
♪♪
[ trees rustling ]
[ creature growls ]
we heard something come in a little closer.
The wood knock happens up on the ridge.
The footsteps happen down below us.
Now, wait a minute.
How can that one come down here that quick?
I believe that we've got two creatures,
one over here, one back here.
They're watching us right now.
This way.
That way.
♪♪
we start hearing things go on all around us,
and I'm thinking, "uh-oh, what's going on here?"
[ distant knocking ]
[ creature growling ]
I was so in my own world listening to everything
and sort of, like, in a panic.
Listen. Listen.
It's communicating with us.
Here, let's try this.
♪♪
[ knock echoes ]
♪♪
my nerves at that point got a little crazy.
[ distant knock ]
♪♪
I have a little bit of indian history,
and my grandma had a lot of indian in her,
and I know it was a symbol that she used to draw a lot.
She never really told me much about it other than
the circle meant life luck.
Gwen, what are you doing?
Gwen: I didn't want to look silly,
but I felt comfortable in my little circle.
Hey, gwen. Are you okay?
Just go.
Here, give me the phone, okay?
♪♪
[ distant knock ]
♪♪
and all of a sudden, from nowhere, here's a growl,
you know, just this... [growls]
I said, "did you hear that?"
[ creature growling ]
kenny: I heard a growl.
It sounded, to me, demonic.
And that's when everything got a little crazy.
[ creature roars ]
♪♪
[ distant knock ]
♪♪
[ static crackles ]
♪♪
gwen: It was a lot of excitement, a lot of fear,
and I hadn't really thought out the dangers
of what I was getting myself into.
[ creature growls ]
it was just like hell broke loose, really.
It was... they went wild.
[ creatures roaring ]
gwen: They're very animalistic-sounding.
They were real low and really growly and really loud.
[ roaring continues ]
just the sound that they were making was terrifying.
I mean, it was bone-chilling.
It would sound, like, way back on the mountain
and then sound so close to us.
It was, like, right on us.
[ creatures growling ]
[ trees rustling ]
we were surrounded.
I mean, they were all right on us.
Gwen: As long as I was in my circle, I felt okay.
I knew if I left my circle
that it would become more frightening.
[ creatures vocalizing ]
start hearing chatter back and forth
like they're talking to each other,
but it's not like humans talk.
It's [speaks gibberish].
Mike: I heard something else in there,
kenny: Not really a whistle, but some kind of...
Mike: It was more like some kind of...
Some kind of chatter.
That was enough.
I had to get out of there.
I was just gonna take off and run myself.
[ creatures roaring ]
♪♪
mike, we have to go now!
Mike: I rushed over and touched kenny,
and I could feel that he was scared.
♪♪
I realized I had to get these two out of here.
Yeah, you know what? You're right.
I'm ready to get out of here, too.
[ creatures roaring ]
come on, gwen. We got to go. We got to go.
They're getting closer, okay?
Gwen: Michael said, "it's time to go."
you guys just go ahead. I'm better off here.
And I said, "no, I'm okay in here."
I said, "just go ahead."
he said, "no, you're coming. You need to come with us."
no, we can't stay. We got to go.
Come on. Let's get out of here.
Come on, guys. We got to go.
Come on. Let's go.
♪♪
[ snarling ]
♪♪
once I left my circle, that's when I felt the real fear.
Mike: Come on, guys. Let's go.
Look. Walk slowly. Don't run, okay?
If we run, this thing will chase us.
This thing is a predator.
If we run, we're dead.
I hear this stomping coming toward us at a very fast rate.
Do, do, do, do.
Shh!
[ distant thudding ]
[ branches cracking ]
and you could hear each heavy footfall
as it just came rushing, just loud footsteps.
[ thudding continues ]
I was like, "oh, my god."
listen.
[ thudding ]
[ branches cracking ]
♪♪
kenny: You've heard people talking about
your life flashing before you.
I was going through my mind of like,
"if we get attacked, you know, what's my family gonna do?"
I honestly thought we would die.
[ creature roars ]
[ thudding ]
gwen: It was angry. It wanted us gone.
It wanted us out.
That was pure fear.
[ creature roars ]
[ thudding ]
[ thudding stops ]
♪♪
and this thing stops right out of flashlight range...
Like it almost saw me reaching, pulling my pistol out.
♪♪
[ breathing shakily ]
where'd he go?
♪♪
this could be a potential fatal encounter.
[ creature growling ] there he is!
♪♪
[ creatures growling, roaring ]
♪♪
[ branches cracking ]
♪♪
[ creature growling ]
gwen, hurry!
Gwen: As we're making our way down,
we're hearing these noises off to our left and our right,
but we're more concerned about whatever had just charged us.
Hurry!
These are creatures that can actually hurt you,
that can pick you up and take you away
if it really wanted to.
Mike: Listen. Kenny: Hurry!
Listen.
I think it's gone.
Are you sure?
There was nothing coming from in front of us,
but it was from the sides and the back.
It felt like they were trying to push us out of the mountains.
[ branches cracking ]
[ creature growls ]
♪♪
how much further to the parking lot?
Still a ways to go yet.
Just about every time we stopped,
we heard a wood knock, or we heard footsteps,
or we heard rocks getting thrown.
[ distant knock ]
♪♪
I got real terrified.
♪♪
[ panting ]
♪♪
when we got down the bottom of this trail,
there's a shelter house.
I think we can rest here.
Do you think we lost it?
I think so.
Kenny: Okay. We're gonna be okay.
They're not gonna come this far down.
We're too close to, you know, our cars.
Gwen: It was a lot of excitement, a lot of fear.
It was a lot of emotions mixed together.
What just happened?
[ breathing heavily ]
[ thud ] aah!
Aah!
It sounded like a gunshot.
When the rock hit, it sort of froze us.
[ thud ] aah!
♪♪
[ thud ] aah!
Run!
And then another one, bang!
We got to go!
I just wanted out of there.
Run! Run!
Run!
And as soon as we hit the pavement of the parking lot,
we just heard this low, loud whoop.
[ creatures calling ]
♪♪
and you could hear them going, "whooooop,"
all the way up the ridge.
"whoop! Whoop!"
all the way up to the top of the mountain.
"whooooop," like they were celebrating
that they had run us out of there.
[ creatures calling ]
♪♪
I was thinking, "how am I gonna tell anybody what happened?"
[ breathing heavily ]
[ engine starts ]
[ creature growls ]
[ screams ]
gwen: Aah!
♪♪
[ birds chirping ]
♪♪
kenny: I remember we had recorded
the whole time everything that happened.
Either michael or gwendoline would have the camera.
[ kenny laughs ]
let's see. Let's see.
We should upload this now.
We were looking at the video at the car.
This is amazing.
We have the best footage
that's probably ever been made with vocalizations on it.
Here it is here, I'm sure.
Yeah, right here.
♪♪
yeah, I'm sure this is where it was right now.
As we started to share it and save it,
it crashed, malfunctioned.
[ static crackles ]
it's all glitches.
Wha...
we don't have anything. No.
It was at that moment that we realized all the video footage
that we had thought we'd gotten was gone.
♪♪
mike: We're devastated.
47 minutes is what we recorded, and only 9 1/2 were saved.
[ sighs ]
♪♪
I really believe bigfoot is able to interfere with cameras
and videos to prevent us from getting evidence
because maybe they're putting off some sort of interference.
Mike: Wait.
Do you hear that? Kenny: Mm-hmm.
What does that sound like to you?
Somewhere like a whistle, like...
Hmm.
Yeah, I've heard that, but there was...
I heard something else than that.
Not really a whistle but some kind of...
It was more like some kind of...
Some kind of chatter.
I know that there's something there.
I know that it's real,
but it's changed the way that I do things.
Mountains are just behind my house.
They could be there, you know, and you hear of people
all the time getting missing and never being found.
Maybe that's what's happening, you know?
Those things are out there, and they're scary.
[ creature growls ]
you can't forget something that affects you that deeply,
something that pushes your
fear level to the breaking point.
You just can't forget a moment like that.
♪♪
when you go in the woods and you don't fully believe
but you want to stay open-minded,
just because you don't believe, don't come unprepared.
Make sure that you're willing to put yourself at risk
because those things are out there, and they're scary.
[ creature growling ]
♪♪
it's got to be demonic.
I knew it was. It was something evil.
Hello. Are you okay?
[ screams ]
pew! I run to my car.
[ thudding ]
jessie: All of a sudden, I hear footsteps.
I called my mom, and I said,
"I think there's someone in the house."
[ ghostly shriek ]
♪♪
susan: This happened in 2013
in a town called gettysburg, pennsylvania.
My name is susan barton.
I live in dover, pa,
which is about 30 minutes away from gettysburg.
♪♪
gettysburg is a very small town.
People don't usually move in and out of it.
People have been there for years.
♪♪
I had a normal life... wife, housewife,
all that kind of stuff... job, but then I retired.
I was kind of at a crossroads and asked jessie, my daughter,
because she was still living with me.
I said, "what should we do?"
I've always been interested in the paranormal,
what is out there, why it's out there.
Why are these spirits still walking around,
communicating with people?
I decided to become a paranormal investigator.
I take out tourists.
They call and make reservations,
and we take them out on small...
in little, small groups to come out and experience the dead.
That's what they want to see.
How's it going? Good.
I think battlefield tours would be interesting.
So many traumatic deaths happened here.
That sounds like a really great idea, mom.
Anywhere in gettysburg, it's gonna be haunted
'cause so many men have died in that area.
♪♪
susan: Gettysburg is very famous for the battle
that changed the course of history.
It was a three-day bloody, bloody battle
which ended many, many lives.
800 people died in gettysburg at the meadow,
and it turned out to be the most haunted battlefield
in the united states.
[ indistinct shouting ]
♪♪
I went there to investigate it.
It's total silence as you walk in this eerie woods.
There's no birds.
I found out a woman by the name of ida
lived there in the early 1800s before the battle.
She was in love with an american indian.
They had two children.
In that time, people didn't like that,
but they were far enough away from the town of gettysburg,
so they left them alone.
♪♪
[ branches cracking ]
♪♪
she was pregnant again.
Somebody found out.
They got mad, started a rumor, said she was a witch.
The hatred caught on.
Went out there.
They grabbed her husband.
They killed him in a most horrific way
I could ever imagine.
[ man screams ]
they slow-roasted him in front of her and her daughters.
They took her to a tree.
They put her on a horse, put a noose around her neck,
and then they slit the children's throats.
[ children scream ]
♪♪
and then she knew she was next.
Instead of dropping her and breaking her neck fast,
they just pulled her up real slow,
and just... she suffocated.
[ rope creaks ]
♪♪
before she died, she put a curse on the tree.
And whoever goes on it,
whoever touches it is going to be cursed.
♪♪
[ woman screams ]
[ ghostly whispering ]
♪♪
my job was to take these two women out to three locations
that we found to be the most haunted in gettysburg.
[ crickets chirping ]
susan?
Hi.
- Hi. I'm patty. - Hi, patty.
- I'm talia. - Hi, talia.
Are you guys ready for the tour?
So, I wasn't feeling up to going on the tour,
so my mom was going on one alone.
If you guys just want to follow me, let's go.
Talia: Sounds good. Okay.
The 12:00 to 3:00 is a really popular investigation.
It's called the devil's hour.
[ ghostly whispering ]
♪♪
no one is around. It's pitch-black.
You can't see anything in front of your face.
♪♪
you walk there, and you can feel the heaviness of that battle.
There was thousands that died.
♪♪
[ woman shrieks ]
♪♪
what's that?
It's my spirit box.
It sweeps through radio signals for the sounds of spirits.
If there's anything out there, it'll pick it up.
Okay. This way.
As we're going to our location, I start turning it on
and explaining how it's gonna work.
♪♪
here it is... the tree.
♪♪
don't touch it.
Why not?
It's cursed.
Typically, you want to stand in one spot
to start the investigation with a spirit box.
Ida, if you're there, please give us a sign.
When we got there, I knew what had happened in that meadow.
That's where ida was killed.
[ woman screams ]
and nothing was coming through, and I'm getting really
frustrated because these women paid quite a bit of money
for a private investigation.
I wanted to blow their minds,
so I kind of got a little aggressive,
which I never usually do.
Ida?
Ida, I demand you show yourself.
What right do I have to make a spirit talk to me?
[ spirit box oscillating ]
♪♪
[ static crackling ]
it's white noise... chi-chi-chi-chi-chi.
[ static stops ]
then all of a sudden, I hear the white noise stops,
so I thought the battery died.
Let's keep going.
♪♪
I just froze.
♪♪
and you could see the grass just crunching down
like a footprint coming towards us.
♪♪
susan: I put my flashlight on it,
and you could actually see what looked like footprints
just squishing the grass down.
And I just kept staring at it
and wondering, "how is that happening?"
[ animal grunting ]
and then we heard this horrible grunt, this pig noise,
and it was so loud, and it was right there.
It didn't come out of the spirit box.
It just came right out of midair.
Come on. Let's get out of here.
Go.
The ladies... they ran, went in their cars, and they took off.
I still remained because I wanted to know what was there.
Who are you?
[ animal grunts ]
this grunt all of a sudden came through again,
and it was enough to alarm me to the point
where I started running.
♪♪
it's got to be demonic.
I knew it was. It was something evil.
And as I was running to my car, I see a man...
Susan: Hello?
[ animal grunting ]
...Just, like, sitting there.
He was dressed in confederate clothing,
and I thought he was a reenactor.
Hello. Are you okay?
[ grunting ]
the same grunt comes out of him.
The same exact noise. [ laughs ]
so I'm...
I'm... I'm panicking.
It's horrible.
It's the worst thing a person could go through alone.
It's like you're in a haunted house
by yourself, and you can't get out of it.
It wouldn't stop.
[ grunting continues ]
♪♪
I took a photograph. [ camera shutter clicks ]
♪♪
[ camera shutter clicks ]
[ growling ]
[ camera shutter clicks ]
♪♪
[ camera shutter clicks ]
♪♪
I'm not gonna disrespect another spirit, ever.
♪♪
[ thudding ]
jessie: All of a sudden, I hear footsteps.
[ thudding continues ]
♪♪
it progressively got louder,
and more footsteps kept going back and forth.
It was thump, thump, thump, like, real, like, heavy.
This was full-on loud footsteps.
[ thudding ]
♪♪
I called my mom, and I said,
"I think there's someone in the house."
I just heard someone in the front moving around.
"I'm scared." [ laughs ] she said...
Call the cops. I'll be right there.
I was frightened.
It scared me.
Jessie: I don't know who's gonna run downstairs
with a weapon or something.
It's jessie, right? Yeah.
Are you okay?
Yeah.
And the cops came over.
♪♪
- susan: Are you okay? - Yeah.
We hugged each other right away. We were so scared.
There's a cop looking around.
And the cop came back down and said, "windows are all shut.
There's nothing upstairs, no sign of breaking and entering."
you sure it's empty?
Empty. Checked everywhere.
After what happened to me that night and I heard something
was going on at my home, I thought we were in trouble.
I thought something came home with me.
♪♪
we were so scared.
We felt like we were being attacked.
It felt so real.
♪♪
susan: So after that night, I talked to my daughter,
and I told them I was gonna stop investigating for awhile.
I took the whole summer off,
and I hired extra people to take my place
because I needed to find answers.
I needed to know, first of all, was I offending god?
♪♪
I had a priest who's our demonologist.
♪♪
he specializes in demons.
He came over and blessed the house.
♪♪
jessie: I panic when I'm home alone now
because it was so intense for me that,
I mean, I stay home during the day alone,
but at night, I don't want to anymore. [ laughs ]
it was just too scary.
♪♪
susan: However, through the months,
I would still feel very cold, but it wasn't touching me.
It wasn't hurting me.
My life was normal.
[ grunting ]