Latest / Sasquatch & Sourdough / Ep. 55 | The Oz Factor: Why the World Suddenly Goes Quiet (Bigfoot & Appalachian Encounters)

Transcript

Ep. 55 | The Oz Factor: Why the World Suddenly Goes Quiet (Bigfoot & Appalachian Encounters) · Sasquatch & Sourdough

0:16
SPEAKER_00: There's a moment just before the light is gone when the woods don't feel empty.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Not loud, not frightening, just aware.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: A trail you've walked a hundred times suddenly feels different.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: And the quiet is an absence, it's presence.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: You catch yourself listening like something might answer.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: And what's strange is that feeling doesn't push people away.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: It pulls them in.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: They come back with flashlights, cameras, recorders.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: They return to the same places again and again, not because they understand what happened there, but because they don't.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Because something in them recognizes that moment as meaningful, even if they can't explain why.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: There's an old line tucked into the book of Proverbs that speaks directly to this instinct.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: It says, it is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search it out.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Not everything hidden is hidden to keep you out.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Some things are hidden on purpose.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: The verse doesn't describe a world where everything is obvious or where truth is laid out plainly.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: It describes a world where things are veiled, where meaning is layered, where what is real isn't always immediately seen.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: And then it says something even more unexpected: that the act of searching, of noticing, of leaning in toward what isn't really fully revealed, is part of our design.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Not a flaw, not an accident, not a distraction, a calling.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Because if God conceals and we are made to search, then the pull toward mystery, the instinct to look twice, to listen a little longer, to return to the place where something didn't quite make sense.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: That isn't accidental.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: It's recognition.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's why moments like that stay with us.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Why people go back to the same stretch of woods, the same quiet road, the same place where something shifted just enough to be noticed.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Not to prove anything, not even to solve it, but to encounter it again.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Because something in us knows there's more here than what we can see.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's where the story really begins.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Sasquatch and Sourdough.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: There are stories we carry that don't fit neatly into the world we were told was real.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Moments that feel strange, unsettling, or unexplainable, yet somehow meaningful.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Sasquatch and sourdough is a place to bring those stories.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Here we explore the unexplained, the supernatural, folklore, history, and high strangeness through the lens of faith, scripture, and discernment.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Not to sensationalize the unknown, but to examine it slowly, thoughtfully, and with the reminder that God is present even in the most unexpected places.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: This is weirdly encouraging content for curious minds, faithful hearts, and anyone who's ever felt like the world is weirder than they ever imagined.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Sasquatch and Sourdough.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, welcome back to Sasquatch and Sourdough.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Christina, and I am so happy to be back with you guys.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's been like 17 months.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: This has just been such a weird season.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, this like weird couple weeks in between winter and spring.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we were sick.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: I had basketball playoffs with my son.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: It was just like everything was happening all at once.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: And my voice was just not ready to record anything.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's been a while.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: It's been a minute, but I'm glad to be back.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to my friend uh Robert from the Pilgrim's Gray Chronicles.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: I had to cancel uh a recording with him.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: I was supposed to be a guest on his show.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't checked him out and you're a big lover of all things Tolkien and Jesus, please check out Pilgrims Gray Chronicles.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: It's a great, great podcast.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think you guys would really enjoy it.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: So shout out to Robert.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully uh we'll get a chance to connect at some point.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: I also wanted to give a shout out to a gal on Instagram who gave me a really good encouraging message.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not gonna give you her handle, but you know who you are.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: You're the only person on Instagram in the past month that has given me a comment and said some really encouraging things.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: So I thank you so much for that.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to give you some honor on air.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, my friend, and welcome to the folks in Motherwell, Scotland.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: It's always good to have you guys with us.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, I really just wanted to jump into I was reading a lot in the book of Proverbs uh this past couple weeks.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And while I was kind of preparing this episode, a scripture jumped out at me and it really got me thinking about just things hidden in plain sight.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Um so the the scripture is uh Proverbs 25 uh 25 2.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: And it says, it is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search them out.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna do a deep dive into the book of Proverbs.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: It is basically a book of wisdom.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: If you need to get yourself uh wise, and if you need to, as my mother would say, learn how to act, definitely get you in the book of Proverbs.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: It will give you all of the all of life's wisdom.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, so I just kind of it got me thinking, you know, about things that are hidden in plain sight and how God is so good about not so much hiding things, but revealing things in his time.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: And I just kind of, yeah, the episode episode kind of disturb from there.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So let's jump into uh that in a little bit, but I also wanted to share something that has been oh my gosh, kind of it doesn't really tie into hidden in plain sight, but it is such a hopeful little story that I saw on Instagram.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: It's like kind of trending now.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you guys have seen it.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh basically there is some good in this world, Mr.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Frodo, and it is a pack of dogs in China who escaped like a they were on a truck to go to like a terrible, awful meat market, and it was like people's neighborhood dogs that had gotten like captured to go to this place, and they escaped, and not only did they escape, but they found their way home, and it was like a pack of like seven dogs.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: It's like all over the internet, it's amazing, and it was led by a corgi, and I just thought that was amazing.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: So, yay, homeward bound is a real thing.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, there is some good in this world, and we're gonna celebrate it here on this podcast.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: So, uh, if you guys are new here, I did want to just let you know.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: I try to let people know on the front end and not on the back end of the podcast.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're new, welcome.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy that you found us.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is a weird, encouraging place, and you're gonna find all kinds of weird, encouraging content here.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Please, um, best way to get in touch is through Instagram.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can just find us on Instagram, Sasquatch and Sourdough, and you can send me a message or a DM.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: I get um I get a good amount of, I guess I do more of my content sharing on Instagram.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: It's just easier for me.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm not producing an episode, uh, you can get in touch with me and kind of figure out and find out what's going on on the show there.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can also go to the website, it's uh sasquatchandsourdough.com.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: You can check out the encounter map, you can add in your encounter or a prayer request there, or you can send me an email directly at saswatch and sourdough at gmail.com.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: So that's all the housekeeping stuff.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Hooray for those little doggies.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: They made it back.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: I just love that it's of course it's a corgi too.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: Like it would never be a lab, as my lab lays here.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it would be a corgi for sure.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, I give you hidden in plain sight.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: There's a pattern people describe not of seeing something, but of the world changing first.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: The air goes still, sound drops out, the environment feels sealed off, like you've stepped slightly outside the normal flow of things.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Jenny Randall's calls this the odds factor, a state where the familiar world feels subtly altered, isolated, almost like reality has shifted just enough to be noticed.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: Not fear or danger, just the sense that something is about to happen or already has.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes nothing visible follows.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: No figure, no voice, just the awareness that something is there.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Not hidden because it's gone, hidden because it hasn't fully revealed itself.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so when I was looking into this, I um this just the kind of concept of hidden in plain sight.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Um I have not ever heard of the Oz Factor.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's definitely, I think, a phenomenon that I've personally felt before, and I'm sure a lot of listeners have felt.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I just I never knew it was like kind of called a thing and had a term, but here we are.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Um so the Oz Factor is a term coined by ufologists and um or ufologist and author Jenny Randall's, and it refers to the experience of being isolated or transported by the real world of everyday life into another environment which is quite similar to the real world, but changed enough to be noticeable and disturbing.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Such reports have been common in both UFO and paranormal accounts, but had also been pushed aside.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, their evidential value being somewhat limited until Randall's called attention to such experiences as a common element in some types of UFO encounters.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: So she kind of coined this phrase.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, and here is this is actually from encyclopedia.com, and it says folklorist Peter M.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Rajous Rejoyswitz recounted such an experience in 1980 while working on his PhD dissertation, which happened to be on UFOs.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: While working in the library, he had a strange encounter with a man who approached the table at which he worked and engaged him in conversation.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: As they talked on the subject of his dissertation, the man suddenly shouted accusingly, Flying saucers are the most important fact of the century.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Are you not interested?
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Shortly thereafter, he left.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Peter was relieved at his departure, thinking the man was disturbed.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: However, as he tried to return to work, he had a feeling that was all that all was not right.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Unable to stay seated, he wandered through the library.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: He noticed that no librarians were staffing the desks and that no patrons seemed to be in the library.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: In a mild panic, he returned to his work and tried to settle his mind.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: An hour later, when he finally left the library, all seemed to have returned to normal.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Such experiences often appear as an aspect of a longer story of paranormal encounters, doing more to describe the atmosphere surrounding more speculative or definitive experiences.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Also, such stories appear closely related to the phenomenon like deja vu, which makes an impact upon the person experiencing them, but only minimally impress one uh to whom the story is told.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Stories abound of people who have felt a presence, sensed some guidance or seen something that led them to sense that they had been unwittingly pulled away from their normal sequence of experiences.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: It is almost impossible to further investigate uh these accounts, however, reality-shattering they might be to the person experiencing them.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's crazy.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Ugh, let me know if you've ever experienced something like that.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is actually kind of a cool account.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: I found this on Reddit.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's the thread, uh, it's called Backwoods Creepy.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: And so this person uh handled Knight's Curse.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: They kind of go on to like how they have they'd never heard of the Oz Factor, and they started doing some research.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: And then once they came upon some similar stories, realized that they did have something that happened to them.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so they go on to account it says the night in question happened in the autumn in a patch of woods that ran through the town we lived in.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: There were many trails to get to places, i.e., our city park, high school, and several of our friends' homes were within walking distance thanks to the woodland trails.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: These woods we have traversed many times, both in the sunny daylight hours as well as the dark of night.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: We could navigate each trail with our eyes closed.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: We had taken the trail to see a friend of ours, and I remember wanting to leave before dark due to the fact that I knew that there wouldn't be much moonlight that night.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to travel in utter darkness.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: This night I felt something ominous in the air.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: My friend shared my unease, and we decided to leave slightly early.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: We still didn't beat the encroaching nightfall.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: We were midway as darkness fell.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: We paid it no mind since we were well versed with the terrain when suddenly silence, complete and utter quiet, like the likes of which neither of us had ever experienced.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: No breeze, no crunching of fall leaves, no animals, just utter eerie stillness.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and we both had the sudden urge to flee.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: No words were spoken, as we just took off in sheer terror.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: We ran as fast as we could until we reached the creek and we threw ourselves down into it.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: What happened next will haunt me for the rest of my life.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: We hit the ground hard and we gasped for air when we felt the swoosh of something from above us, as if we'd been narrowly missed by an airborne predator.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: We laid there in silence for a long time, listening for any signs of whatever it was that unleashed such a uh primordial urge to flee.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: It seemed like an eternity be um before sound finally returned to the woods, and it was in that moment we ran all the way to her house since it was the closest.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: We didn't sleep that night.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: We never again ventured to the woods after dark or even remotely close to it.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: We don't talk about it, um, our experience much either.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: When we do, it is in hushed voice and usually amongst the two of us.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: I am still unsure of exactly what we experienced that night, but our terror was real, and sometimes in the dark of night I wonder, what if?
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: That is pretty crazy.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: It says it was oh, she gives an update.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh the year was 2005 in Canton, Texas.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so she was like two hours east of Dallas.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go down this.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a whole bunch here.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: If you have time and if you want to, like go down the Oz Factor Rabbit Trail uh on Reddit.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole bunch.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that whole encounter is literally something that I could have experienced in high school and probably did.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Such a like goth girl in the night going down trails, I probably shouldn't have.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh, with my friend Kim Tina.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: If you're listening, shout out Kim Tina.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm breaking my own rule here.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm not gonna go down this rabbit trail, but I did find another one.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: Um and this was five years ago on Reddit.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Um and the Redditor is Naughty Buttons.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh she says, not sure about the Oz factor, but my late husband, who had spent a lot of time in the woods hunting deer and elk, told me how he felt the he only uh only time he was afraid out in the woods.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: He was sitting beside his small campfire, alone except for our black lab.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: He was in his late 40s and he had come to love the peace and stillness of the forest and the feeling of being close to nature.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: He was a commercial fisherman and had fished the waters of Alaska, uh, Washington State, Oregon, and sometimes Canada.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Except for getting uh caught in storms, he had never felt afraid or threatened.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: He always was responsible and respectful of the woods until this one time when the dog became terrified of something just outside of the campfire light.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: I have already posted the full story a while back, but as to his emotions and deep gut-wrenching fear, his truck was close by and he had his rifle at hand, but he said he suddenly felt his gun would do him no good, and he felt there was a power in the trees around him, and that something was watching him, and he was afraid he was just going to disappear forever.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly how I felt.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: His mind was spinning, his thoughts were fast and disconnected.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: He did not want to see what was getting close to him, and he actually shut his eyes.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Our dog began to bark uh and back up toward the truck, whining.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: My husband became so terrified he couldn't breathe.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: He felt like he was going to pass out, but he knew uh that would be maybe fate of maybe a fatal thing.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: He had shot at bears and mountain lions before uh when he felt threatened uh um in the deep forest.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: He said, he also said that darkness became blacker and all of a sudden the night colder.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: He felt like he had no power and that he was being stalked.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: He said it passed through his mind that he could never take our daughter hunting in the woods, as he knew he now knew there was a danger that no one knew out there, something no one had ever talked about, but it had his emotions gripped in cold in a cold, cold vice.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: But his strongest fear was that he did not want to look into the trees, and he felt the shadows had gotten darker and were shifting.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: The truck was within a few hundred feet, and he got up slowly and backed all the way to it.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: The dog had already jumped into the back and was waiting for him.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: He said he felt as if he if he stayed any longer, he would never leave the woods.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: He was afraid of being taken by more than one thing that whatever was there was alive and thinking, and so far just watching.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: He made it to the truck and having left the keys in, called the dog to come in through the back cab window and locked everything and got the hell out of there.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: He only told me and one or two other people about um about it and never again, and never again hunted alone, which is always the smarter way for many reasons.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: He said he felt like he was going to pass out during the time that it was happening, maybe about a half an hour or so.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: He knew it was not a bear or a big cat, as the dog would have been as the dog would have been all over that, but the dog was afraid too.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: He thinks it was not a regular animal.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: He left all of his gear there, and the next day took a couple of buddies and went back to uh to get it.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: His friends got creeped out just being there.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: He only hunted daylight hours after that and never wanted to meet never wanted to take me with him again.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh she says, sorry for the long, got carried away.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh yes, and when the kids and I went, we'd go camping in the Area, uh they would go in a large group.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: He would always say there were things out there we should we should be staying away from, but he could never say what.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And she says it makes me think of Shakespeare quote in Hamlet and Hamlet.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than the than are dreamt in of in your philosophy.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a good one.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's the Oz factor.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Let me know if you have ever encountered that, because that is creepy and really weird.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: There is an account from the Appalachian Mountains near a place called Dismal Falls, where the terrain itself feels different.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Steep, isolated, quiet in a way that doesn't feel empty.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: One hiker described moving deeper into the holler, passing waterfalls that felt peaceful at first until something shifted.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: Not dramatically, just enough that the stillness felt heavier, like the space itself was paying attention.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: At one point, he noticed movement just off of the trail, something slipping through the rhododendron.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: No sound, no broken branches, just the sense that something had been there and chosen not to be fully seen.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Later at the base of the falls, he looked up and saw a woman standing above him, old, cloaked still.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: She didn't approach, she didn't call out.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: She simply stood there long enough to be recognized.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And then she was gone.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: When he climbed up to where she had been, there was nothing there.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: But the encounter didn't end.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: As he made his way back down the trail, he saw her again, closer this time, not distorted, not monstrous, just a person who didn't quite belong.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't her from the that her form that unsettled him.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: It was her eyes, so pale that they were almost white.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: He would later describe the experience as not being chased or threatened, but just as being seen.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And that what stayed with him, not what she was, not where she came from, but the sense that he had stepped into a place where he was no longer the only one aware.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Even the landscape supports that feeling.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: The area around Dismal Falls has long been described as one of the most foreboding and isolated regions of southern Appalachia.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: With steep terrain and an atmosphere people often describe as unsettling, even within any even without any encounter.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's what makes accounts like this linger.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Not because something impossible happened, but because something quietly present allowed itself to be noticed.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Not fully revealed, just enough in plain sight.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this was incredible.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Um what an eerie, eerie, eerie account of the white-eyed witch of Dismal Holler.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: I actually found this um account on Backwoods Creepy again.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: This has been like such a this is such a good thread.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Um okay, so this goes on to let me see here.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: It says it was deleted.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: In the summer of 2015, I decided to hike a spot called Dismal Falls in Transylvania County, uh, North Carolina, known as the Land of Waterfalls.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: The country is just running wild with creeks and tributaries.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Very beautiful, but it's always had a mysterious feel.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: I've always felt a mysterious sense of curiosity while visiting in the area.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Dismal Creek was different, though.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: A man by the name of Jim Bob Tinsley wrote a book called Land of Waterfalls about southwestern North Carolina and described Dismal Creek Creek as the most foreboding place in the southern Appalachias.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Keep in mind that I only learned this after my visit.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: And had I known of Tinsley's apprehension, I likely would never have visited.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: The hike itself is ridiculously demanding.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Grades of over 50% make up the majority of the hike.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: And that's not an exaggeration.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: There are four waterfalls on the way up to the creek.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: The first two feel very sublime, safe, but there's something channeling through.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: About the time you hit the third falls called Grotto, the feeling of dread starts to become very prominent.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: But a sense of beckoning drew me onward.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: A very difficult feeling to describe.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: I turned to look behind me and thought I saw someone disappear into the rhododendron and mountain laurel surrounding the trail.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: I only saw the back of what appeared to be a cloak.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: There was no sound, it didn't make sense.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: The leaf litter gives away even the smallest uh insects.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: I should have heard something.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: I attributed this to a combo of dehydration and sheer exhaustion.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: I've seen shadow people in the woods before due to that, so I really didn't put much stock into it.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't shake that feeling of dread though.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: I continued the climb, step after grueling step, and after cresting over the ridge, I was in dismal holler.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: I found myself looking down a nearly 70-degree angle with a rope anchored to a tree.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: I semi-repelled down to a second rope and finally to the bottom.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Then came a wet rock scramble to the base of the falls.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: The falls were breathtaking.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: A 200-foot gentle cascade with a 40-foot sheer drop in at the top.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: In incredible.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: There was a woman up there.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: She was pretty far away, but appeared to be old and wearing a cloak of some sort, gray, tightly curled hair.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: That's all I could see from my vantage.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: She was facing me for a few seconds before turning and walking off of the view.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: I immediately got up and started scrambling up the mossy-soaked rock cascade toward the top of the falls.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: I got there after a very treacherous scramble, only to find nothing.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Hands on my knees and taking labored breaths, I heard a voice from the bottom of the falls.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Hey, it said in a strange, spectral voice.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: It sounded hollow.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: I turned to look and there she was, disappearing into the rhododendron once again.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: I was in total and absolute disbelief.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: I felt sick to my stomach.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: I carefully picked, I carefully picked my way down to the base again and started the trail out.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: I just felt I shouldn't be there.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: Like I seen something I shouldn't have.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a longtime Busman and I'm not afraid to say that I'm tough as bleeping nails, but I wanted to run out of that holler crying.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I finally made it up to the top using the ropes for help.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: As soon as I crested the ridge, my nose started bleeding.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Only a few drops, I kept moving and was essentially running down a mountainside.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: I got to the bottom and followed the path indicated by the Karen.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: I kept running and came around a blind curve.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: I nearly ran into her at full speed.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: In trying to stop, I took a hard tumble, and when I opened my eyes, she was standing over me.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: She looked very Scottish, the curly hair and fair skin.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: She didn't look particularly gruesome or hag-like.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: She was very old, but it was obvious that in her youth she had been beautiful.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Her eyes, though, the eyes were very alive and full of vitality, very useful youthful, and the irises were so light blue they were almost white.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Though her form appeared benign, I had the distinct feeling that she did not mean me well and she didn't want me there.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to crawl away from where I had fallen, but I was backed up against a rock.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: I edged along until I regained my feet and backed away from her.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Her expressionless gaze never left me.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: I ran until I was well off of that mountain.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: When I stopped running, I was on a more well-established trail.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: When I had come into the area, when I had come in the area, I felt fine, but now I could feel the dread still.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: All was silent as I hiked out, not a single animal sound.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: I was almost out when suddenly a bobcat appeared on the trail ahead of me, seemingly from nowhere.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: I stopped and looked as it had looked at me.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: It had her eyes.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: I knew they were her eyes.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: I told her I wouldn't be back and told her that her mountain was beautiful.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Then I left as she disappeared into the rhododendron thicket.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Ew.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, guys, that is so haunting.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: It's like that's crazy.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't even like know what to say.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: That is absolutely crazy.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: And you know what the crazy thing is?
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Like, I always pray before these episodes, and I'm just like, okay, God, you just go ahead.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, lead this episode, however you're gonna lead it.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: And I literally was gonna talk about the Brown Mountain lights.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: I had no idea about this creepy encounter, and here we are.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: That is just wild.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: And what a beautiful I mean, like what a beautiful place to encounter and how he had to, I mean, he this guy really had to work to get there.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: It's not like he's just walking down the trail and something weird happened.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is this is wild.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, what an account.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: Alright, tell me what you guys think.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: I would be remiss if I did not find an account from the BFRO.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: This one actually comes out of Nebraska, and I just wanted to kind of remind us if we could just pray for Nebraska.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: There's a like a crazy amount of wildfires, there's fires and all kinds of stuff happening there.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, so they definitely need our prayer.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: So just like if you would join me in lifting them up.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is actually from Knox County, Nebraska, uh, in 1979 in the fall.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: And this is approximately 40 yards away, standing on the edge of a ravine.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: High difficult or height difficult to estimate because of standing a little downhill, somewhere around seven feet.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Gray hair over entire body, muscular, very thick neck, was standing very straight, turning head side to side, as if trying to smell for something, looked directly at me and I ducked down.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: When I looked again, nothing was there.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: I heard a scream the previous day, but attributed that to a bobcat.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine was in a deer stand approximately one and one quarter mile away as the crow flies, down from the ravine in the direction in which I thought it went.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: He told me that I wouldn't believe what ran by his deer stand.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: He described to me the same thing that I saw.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: He was very upset.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it says also notice as stated earlier, the previous day I heard a scream.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: It was very long and loud, almost like a woman's scream.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: I thought someone fell off of one of the cliffs in the area.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: When I described the scream to people, they said it was a bobcat.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: It must have been.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if this is related or not.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: And then it says, other witnesses, a friend of mine hunting with me as described above.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: He will not talk about it for fear of being ridiculed.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: Time and conditions, it was about an hour before sunset.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you guys so much for listening.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said, if it's your first time here, go ahead and check out the Instagram channel.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's usually where I spend most of my time in between episodes.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I hope that this blessed you.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: And I've got a little out cold outro coming up.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: But if you like what you hear, go ahead and like, share, subscribe, all that stuff.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: So I know that you like what I'm doing and the direction that I'm taking this show.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: By the time you leave the trail, nothing has really changed.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: The trees are where they were, the path still leads out, and yet something feels different.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Not because you found an answer, but because you realized you weren't wrong to notice.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: The stillness that came first, the moment the world went quiet, as if something had stepped just beyond the edge of what you could see, the movement in the trees that never fully revealed itself, but stayed just long enough to be known.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: The figure in the holler, still watching, not approaching, not retreating, just present.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Not everything announced itself.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: And still it mattered.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Because maybe the pattern isn't in what appears.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's in what allows itself to be noticed.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: The world shifts, the veil thins, something is there, and for a moment you're aware of it.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: And then it's gone.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: But not completely, because something in you recognized it.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: There's a story easy to miss of a man standing in fear, surrounded by what he could see, and beside him, someone completely at peace.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Not because the danger wasn't real, but because it wasn't in the whole picture.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: And when his eyes were opened, nothing new arrived.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: The hills were already full, already alive with something unseen.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Not hidden because it was far away, hidden because it wasn't yet revealed.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's closer to how the world actually works.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: Not empty, but layered.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Not silent, just quieter than we expect.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Because God does something in the hidden.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just conceal, he forms, he invites, he hides things in a way that doesn't remove them.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: He hides them just beyond the surface so that they can be found not all at once, but slowly, through attention, through return, through the willingness to notice what doesn't immediately explain itself.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Because the search itself is not wasted.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: It's shaping you.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: The instinct to look twice, to pause, to go back, that's not distraction.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: That's design.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's why these moments stay with us.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: Not because we've solved them, but because they opened something.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: A sense that there is more here than we've been told.com or check out our encounter map on the website at sasquatchandsourdough.com.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: Remember, until next time, the truth is out there.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: God is with you, and everyone always ends up in the kitchen.