Date:
7/4/17 11:01
(Note
to the reader: due to the sensitive nature of the ongoing research
discussed in this post, I have been asked to keep some details
private, including the location of the place we visited.
Details
that I do write about are all previously known aspects found easily
on the internet.)
SAR
I
got the call from JB; 'I'm planning a trip to (undisclosed location)
with Adam Davies and another guy...do you wanna go?'
JB and Davies
I
agreed, and I have not turned down an invitation to go into the woods
with JB on a Bigfoot research effort because he is smart and engaged
in the research and he's funny. What's the point of getting into a
hobby if it doesn't make you laugh on occasion.
There
is a more serious aspect to the subject of course. Acting on tips or
hunches, when we are in the field we observe the protocols of
evidence gathering like detectives, latex gloves and tweezers,
measuring tapes and hydro-cal at the ready, we catch up on deep
details as we drive to each research area, interspersing the tension
with dirty jokes.
In
this case, our focus was on the strange reports of knocking noises
coming from a tree next to a mossy knoll in (undisclosed location) as
reported by the third in our group, Davies, who I met this same day
for the first time in JB's driveway.
Adam Davies
Adam
Davies is a British citizen who has the credentials of an adventurer
and the requisite garb of broad-brimmed hat, expedition backpack and
gore-tex zipper pants. In the front seat of the Mystery Machine on
the freeway he is effusive and in a low-britisher accent he says,"I'm
not gonna guarantee that we will find anything, yeah, buh, we've had
activity here before that scared the livin' shit out of us!"
What Mr. D is referring to is his previous visits to the location
that included not just knocking noises, but growls, laughter and even
a roar.
After
years of JB and I walking lonely forest trails poking sticks into mud
and photographing broken limbs with nothing useful to show, with
Adam's energy this trip was showing some promise. We arrived at the
small mountain town just before 9:30 am and following a couple of
turns the road narrowed into a gravel track. As we gained elevation I
noticed the terrain of moss-covered tree limbs and deep river gorges
surrounded by steep and thick forest, rugged, snow-covered peaks
forming a basin around the remote campsites we passed.
The Big Guy, returning with stump bait
At
about sixteen miles off the highway, we arrived at our pre-determined
camp.
I
had been to this site five weeks previous with JB, to reconnoiter the
area and on that visit we set up a trail camera overlooking a large
pile of scat that JB found just 20 feet from the tent pad there. For
this visit the first thing we did was hop out and check the camera.
Unsurprisingly,
it had not been tampered with as it is camo-colored and JB is always
careful to add extra foliage around it to ensure it goes unnoticed.
We were to wait for the fourth of our party Russ Acord to arrive as
he had offered to provide electronic gear to upload any results.
Because it would be Russ's first visit and he was still absent we
decided to backtrack down the hill to make sure Acord had not gotten
turned around and lost.
In
my van again, Adam suggested we go directly to the spot where the
big, double tree was and so we pulled into a turn-out near the grassy
knoll and parked. "Ok, we neeeed to be quiet, yeah, as the Big
Guy has a bit of a temper, he can get real aggressive very quickly,
yeah!?", Adam said,nervously fidgeting in his seat. Mr. D gave
us both tasks, I was to walk up to the knoll first with my camera on
record with him on my heels, JB coming behind with his audio recorder
running.
The Big Guy's Tree
Here
is where shit gets weird.
Stopped
about twenty feet from the knoll, with my video camera recording I
heard two distinct thumps. 'Whump' 'Whump'...with Davies just behind
me, he said, "Did you hear it?" And I replied, "Twice,"
in soft voice, absolutely surprised.
I
was puzzled, but strove to remain calm and as Adam climbed the small
knoll, happy to get results so quickly, JB arrived to acknowledge
that he too heard the strange thumps. What the hell was this?
I
held my recorder as still as possible while Davies spoke to the tree,
"Hi Big Guy!!..we're so glad to know you're here!
Part
Two – 'How Strange'
'How
strange'....
That
is my single comment, whispered near the end of the video recording.
Davies leaning against the double tree, JB fumbled for some dropped
apples. All of us in mild shock that the desired result had been
realized. We had heard 'the knock', (the 'thumps', more accurately)
that Davies had heard when he visited with his former fiancée,
Ms.Simmons, the same thumps Ms. Simmons had heard with her
father, Don Simmons the progenitor of this quizzical hunt.
Lori Simmons and Adam Davies
(campsite blob on left)
Standing
next to the tree, Adam was giddy. "He knocked for me, yeah!...ya
heard it didn't cha!?" Adams's need for consensus is quite
understandable, given the vagueness of this noise. As we continued to
loiter at the tree and a 'gifting stump' next to it, I let my video
camera drop to my side, still running, and you can hear me ask JB
about coins we had left on the stump from our visit a month ago. This
is when the video stops, and we heard no further noises emanating
from the tree.
My
notes from that Friday:
{
'6-23, 11:50 am. Clear, sunny, very light wind in upper tree canopy.
On
arrival I heard two dull thumps come from the area around a large
twinned for tree. Underground? One additional thump is heard as AD
touches tree.
JB
arrived just behind, also heard the last thump. What the
hell..'}
The
three of us recollected in the road next to the tree and stump. Adam
reminded us that we need to make our connection with Acord since he
has the rest of the camping gear, including the electronic equipment
needed to upload and analyze our video and JB's audio recording. Back
in the van, Davies was still excited, and I was still in a state of
confusion, we compared mental notes as we drove through the
connecting roads looking for Russ.
What
Just Happened?
{Note:
a little background- Lori Simmons invited JB via Facebook to the tree
location in 2014. Lori's father, Don Wallace had lived in a cabin
here for decades and had determined that a bigfoot -who they dubbed
'the big guy'- was living in the deep woods near his place and
tracked it until his death in 2010. Lori continued his search,
focusing primarily on one location and one particular tree where her
Dad suspected the creature lived. Lori met Adam Davies, also via
Facebook, and they visited the site together in 2012. They shared a
romance, became engaged and subsequently broke it off a few months
later.}
Lori Simmons and her dad, Don Wallace
With
JB being mostly quiet and Adam continuing to bubble over, I
considered the personal equation at work. While JB and I had no real
stake in whether a non-human life form existed here or not, Adam had
already been involved in the story from prior visits. He had first
come here at the request of Ms. Simmons for a camping trip back in
2012 during which they had set up a trail camera overlooking their
campsite picnic table and which they claimed had captured an
anomalous 'creature' apparently sitting at the table. The game camera
photograph was included in Ms S's book and was summarily scanned by
skeptics and torn apart online, complete with the requisite red
circles, arrows and paragraphs suggesting everything from an actual
bipedal creature, a photoshopped artifact, Davies himself in a poncho
to an errant plastic bag stirred by wind.
Because
I like to do my cryptid homework before I go into the field, I was
already aware of this photo but out of respect for my new, foreign
friend, I was keeping my opinion to myself. I knew there would be
time to ask Adam about his claims and this photo, this being a
three-day expedition. For now, we still needed to locate Russ Acord.
Back at the formal campsite, we unloaded some of our gear and before
we had stacked the firewood I had brought, a truck had rounded the
corner and lurched into our site. I dropped the last armload of wood
and waited as the door of the big white crewcab popped open and a man
stepped out like he was on a mission. A full six feet
plus, combat boots, short-cropped graying hair and chin beard, a
serious look on his face and an even more serious sidearm on his hip,
Russell Acord shook my hand and surveyed the campsite.
His
truck was amazing. I tried to focus on greeting the man, but I was
riveted on how nice his vehicle was, a snow white late model Ford
F150 4x4 Crewcab with a matching canopy, the sides emblazoned with
tasteful, if over-the-top vinyl graphics of a stylized Apollo-like
Apeman cradling the earth on his shoulders and the letters 'I
B C'
beneath followed by 'International
Bigfoot Conference.Com'
I like Ford Trucks...
Especially this one...
This
guy was all business, and I pulled my gaze away from the machine to
see Adam come up the path to hug the military man. After greeting
both Davies and JB, Acord stalked back to his truck and began the
unloading. I stepped up to help and he wavered at first, "I got
this.." but relented when he saw that I had not left and was
admiring his amazing inventory of cool shit. In the bed of the
bitching F150 was a slide-out drawer system chock-full of camping
gear.
Acord
yanked a big duffle out of the rear and handed me another smaller
bag. Without exchanging words, we marched down to the 14 x 14 tent
pad and began the set up. I like well-made stuff, appreciate the
thought and engineering that goes into machinery and durable goods
and this tent was a Cadillac. Rubberized base, triple stitched seams
and heavy aluminium poles, after Russ had scratched his head for a
moment over the layout, he remembered the procedure and while the
other two looked on we erected the big six man canvas palace in just
a few minutes. Then it was on to the gear.
In
the Bigfoot Truck were several armored travel cases that Acord
fetched out and plopped onto a folding table he had struck. We all
gathered round as the cases opened, revealing the techy treasures
inside. Rugged looking laptop - check, digital Nikon 35mm camera -
check, nylon encased binocs with nightvision - check,
full on fucking nightvision IR mono-scope-check,
additional dual-scope gen 4 IR nightvision goggles, just wow.
This shit was expensive, top-of-line, Mililtary-grade equipment and
as RA sorted the stuff I detected a small grin expanding on his face.
He loves this stuff.
|
Russ shows off his gear |
And
we loved this stuff. As Russ demo-ed the Night vision binos for Adam,
I thought of how we would use the gear to find our quarry.
Deep,
wee-hour sojourns through some pitch-dark trail to stake out an open
area with a baited trap? Long distance early morning scanning of
water courses far below our position for Bigfoot crossing a river?
The weekend was looking increasingly promising but before we could
agree on a plan to deploy the observation gear, Adam took the reigns.
"Ok, let's get Russell down to the Big Guy, yeah, and see if we
can get him to knock!" We stowed the expensive stuff back in the
BF truck and as Acord offered to drive, I put up no resistance. We
piled into the great white crew cab and floated down the pot-holed
track back to where the ‘Big Guy’ lived.
I'm in the trees, Dude
Note:
one aspect of this habituation location that was overlooked
previously. It is the manner in which the tree is approached and in
how the Big Guy is greeted. For my part at this point in the story, I
am still scratching my head over the nature of the noise source. JB
is seemingly less 'on the fence' about it and refers to the tree and
stump location as if it was a living entity, but Adam, who has a
vested history here, is fully convinced that a creature lives inside
or underneath the big double tree and he addresses it the way one
would speak to a zoo ape, a child or possibly a senior citizen with
dementia.
AD:
"Hey Big Guy!...we've come back to see you....are you here? We
brought you some apples!"
It's
a bizarre thing to witness, as JB and now Russ Acord join in at
Davies request. "Say hello to him guys..", Adam half
whispers. His child-friendly approach is not his own idea, but a
method he learned from his ex-fiancee, who had learned it from her
father. The goal here is not to antagonize the Big Guy, as Adam
explained in the truck later. "He's got a quick temper,
yeah!...he fucking WENT
OFF
on us last time we were here, yeah, he fucking
ROARED
at us, scared the shit out of us, yeah!" Adam’s foot and leg
vibrate nervously as he relates the event, suggesting that even if
he's wholly mistaken about the nature of the phenomenon, he believes
something is inside that location and it's not always friendly.
It's
useful to remember that this is a guy who travels the planet looking
for cryptid animals like the Orang Pendek and the Tibetan Yeti. His
adventures are chronicled in The History Channel and on Monster
Quest. When it comes to hard trekking in Nepal, sleeping rough in
mosquito-swarmed Congo and struggling through border crossings
surrounded by machete-wielding guards with bad attitudes, when it
comes to adventurers, Adam Davies is the real deal.
And
here he is sweet-talking a tree like it was a recalcitrant dog.
|
The Big Guy Tree |
Part
Four – Where Is He?
Back
at the Big Guy tree access road, Acord wheeled the big truck into a
neat four point turn and sidled into the turnout, turning off the
motor.
Davies
whispered nervously, "Ok, we have ta talk quietly now, yeah,
because the big guy can hear us all over, yeah?" Adam assigned
tasks to each of us, just as he had done previously and we exited the
truck one at a time per his instruction. I felt a little stymied by
the control he exerted over the situation, but I fell into line
because it's his gig as the first investigator here and it is how I
would wish to be treated if it was me.
Adam
grabbed a bag of green apples from the floorboard, hopped out quietly
and sauntered up the road the 40 paces we had parked at from the
tree.
JB
followed, audio recorder at shoulder height, Russ was behind me with
his camcorder running and I had my cell camera in one hand with my
audio recorder in the other hand, held up to show any clear spikes in
the wave form display so we could have a running time signature to
compare each noise the big guy might make.
In
terms of a scientific research approach, how we tackled this inquiry
is perhaps imperfect at best. A real, data-driven, fact establishing
effort would require more stringent methods like the inclusion of two
professional videographers staged at predetermined points, a
professional audio person with much more high end gear and maybe an
impartial observer taking notes. This is, after all an officially
undocumented phenomenon, and because the elements at work are
ephemeral more than physical, in terms of discovery science, having
repeatable phenomena to compare and analyze is crucial.
Adam
Davies is familiar with how undiscovered species are cataloged,
having worked with DNA scientists and film crews from Nat.Geo while
searching for evidence of the Orang Pendek. That cryptid primate
peculiar to Indonesia remains unofficial, but the 100-plus year
history of sightings and encounters of the creature is difficult to
ignore.
Davies
was a member of a party that visited Sumatra to search for the Orang
Pendek in 2003 and they managed to find a footprint and hairs that
they submitted for DNA analysis. The footprint was determined to be
that of an unknown extant primate, but the hairs found were human,
further clouding possibility of a true, new taxonomic
classification.
Without
the benefit of bones, fossilized or fresh, full documentation of new
species can never be established by scientific standards. This is how
real discovery science is accomplished, and though our foray here in
the woods of the North Cascades is less than scientifically perfect,
you have to start somewhere.
I
held the pair of electronic devices as steadily as I could while Russ
passed around me at Adam’s request and stepped up to the mossy,
doubled tree.
Davies
kept calling to the air around us, "Hey Big Guy..we've come to
see ya...i brought my friends....say hello you guys." JB greeted
the phantom entity as did Russell, but I stayed quiet so as not to
step on the audio in case of a response. We waited. JB sorted apples
on the stump, Adam walked around the back of the tree and I
endeavored to keep the camera on him as he was the only member of our
group who was out of sight. He reappeared on the opposite side as
Acord walked up to physically hug the tree. I stifled a chuckle as he
turned his face to the camera, huge silly grin. The seemingly stern
guy has a sense of humor.
Acord is a little weird
(click on any photo to enlarge)
For
the next five minutes I kept my recorders running without any clear
offering from the Big Guy. Adam stomped his boot at the tree base a
couple of times hoping to elicit a response, but my arms were tiring
and I knew that video clips longer than a couple of minutes are hard
to send over the internet so I clicked the off button while JB and
Acord moved off the stump location look for clues within the
immediate area.
Davies
joined them and I followed and before we had gone twenty-five feet,
JB spotted an unusual thing. Hanging from a mossy branch about 18
inches from the ground was a mesh bag with what looked like some
decaying fruit inside. It was obvious then that others had been to
the site and had left bait.
I
surveyed the surrounding trees for game cameras but saw nothing.
(Note: JB and I DID find a game camera pointed at the Big Guy tree on
a previous visit here, so the phenomenon is clearly being researched
by others.)
Disheartened,
Davies murmured loudly, "Maybe the Big Guy has moved on...he's
not here, anyway." This was directed at the Big Guy as opposed
to a real sentiment Davies held, but as we made our way back to the
truck we experienced no more noise, saw no other evidence of baiting
or tree cameras. It was time to move on ourselves.
|
Davies, JB and Acord next to the Tree |
My
notes from June 23rd, Friday
Big
Guy Tree Video Clip 1 – First visit
Site:
large double fir tree, joined at base, a nearby stump is associated
with the phenomenon
As
a gifting site, ie., apples, coins, routinely
Aprox.
10:45 am
Weather:
clear, sunny, almost no breeze.
Video
Clip length: 2:34 seconds
Note:
AD, JB and SAR only. AD instructed us to approach the tree one at a
time.
SAR
to go first and begin filming, AD to follow and JB to come third with
audio running.
I
walked up and as I readied the video camera, I heard two dull thumps
come from the area of the tree and stump. The clip begins immediately
after with AD walking into the frame.
AD:
Hey, was he knocking?
SAR:
Twice
AD:
Oh! You noticed it! (Turning toward tree) Hey, how are you? (Turning
partially back toward camera) There you go! He knocked, didja hear
him? Jason, he’s knockin' for ME!
JB:
(faint) I heard it.
AD:
Huh? He knows me…did you remember me Big Guy? Hey, that’s pretty
cool,(turns toward JB) have you got the apples?
JB:
(still off camera) I brought one.
AD:
We're gonna bring you an apple, is that OK?
JB
to SAR: Ok, This is the first time you’ve heard this sound,
right?
AD:
(Turning back toward the camera) yeah, it’s cause he, he knows
me…come in, come in, it’s fine. (Sees JB has apple) Oh, there you
go.
SAR:
(quietly, behind camera, regarding the two thumps that happened
before fiming) That’s rather strange.
Note:
the tape continues but no further sounds are heard aside from source
indeterminate
clicking.
----------------------------------------------------------
Big
Guy Tree Knock Video Clip 2
Time:
aprox. 1:30 pm
Location:
back at tree/stump location
Weather:
clear, sunny. Slight NE breeze in upper tree canopy.
'Our
party of 3 (AD/SR/JB) reaches the tree/stump and AD goes up first.
I
follow and stand right next to the tree.
As
the clip begins, AD is to the left side of the tree, I am directly in
front.
AD:
'We're gonna bring things, Okay?' Then moves behind the tree.
At
00:4 and 00:6, two static clicks are heard in the recording (source
indeterminate)
At
00:10, two additional static clicks are recorded (source
indeterminate)
I
pan up the tree, to the right of the tree.
At
exactly 00:11 seconds into the clip, a low thump is heard.
I
assumed AD had done it, and panned quickly around to the left the see
if he was there.
AD
was not where I suspected, but had walked quickly back to JB's
location.
How
quickly AD made it back to JB’s location was surprising.
Looking
in my direction, AD says 'yeah?'
JB:
(asking SAR) 'Where you there when that happened?'
I
respond, expletive, 'Fuck yeah!'
SR-
camera operator- My summation:
Having
visited the site on two previous occasions, I was aware of the claims
made of knocking noises being associated with the location. Growls,
laughter and a roar were also claimed to have been heard by AD on
previous visits. These sounds are all ascribed by AD to be emanating
from inside or below the tree by a 'Bigfoot', or some other
intelligent entity, which he has come to know as 'the Big Guy', a
term originally used by LS.
AD
also ascribes emotional swings to the Big Guy, from happiness to
anger, from being docile to becoming dangerously aggressive in an
instant.
On
my arrival on this date, I approached the tree with the same open
mind and quiet as previous visits and did hear the low thump noise at
00:11 seconds. I did not hear the static clicks (my description)
during the visit, but only later when reviewing the clip.
While
the thump noise is curious and very unlikely to have been created by
someone in our party, I cannot dismiss the possibility that it was
created by wind in the upper tree limbs, which are thick and
well-enveloped around the upper trunk.’
Part
5 – After Dark Sortee
Time:
aprox. 11:00 pm
Location:
main campsite
At
Adam’s suggestion we plan a night trip to deploy Russ’s Infrared
night vision equipment.
Russ
unpacked the gear and demonstrated how to use it to gave Adam a head
mounted unit, while JB was tasked with operating a binocular with IR
recording capability.
I
had recently purchased a FLIR device that attaches to my tablet and I
readied it.
Our
first stop was at the Big Guy tree location and standing near the
entrance to the access road, outside the pickup truck it is pitch
dark, even disconcertingly dark.
Davies
suggested that we walk down to the tree location while wearing the IR
headsets, but soon they discovered that it was difficult to do
because of the disorienting nature of the equipment to any sense of
balance in the blackness and on the rough, uneven road surface. They
tried walking arm in arm, then with JB in the lead as a guide, then
suggested that I go down alone as a sort of guidepost but without a
flashlight because of its tendency to obliterate the night vision
capability of the head gear. I declined because,frankly this
proposition felt scary. Also I don’t have very good regular night
vision and didn’t relish the idea of falling on my face, so Davies
suggested I wait in the truck while the three slowly walked down to
the tree.
I
carefully the 20 paces back and got in and the cab lights went off as
I heard the three men shuffle down the gravel road. For the next 25
minutes or so I waited, sometimes looking at my tablet, sometimes
just sitting in the pitch black cab listening, until the guys
returned and got back in the truck. Verdict: No results.
Adam
then suggested we try another location and we drove further down the
road to take a spur road down to a river crossing. I felt a little
like a soldier in a Humvee on a night maneuver, expecting radio
transmissions with
‘whiskey, foxtrot, tango…bridge is in view.’
We
stopped on the bridge and idled for a moment until Acord deftly
backed the rig around and parked on the east end. We got out and
walked onto the bridge in the starry, moonless night.
The
heat from the day rose noticeably off of the bridge and with my FLIR
attachment on my tablet I saw deep yellows and oranges delineating
the flat, square outline of the concrete structure. Russ and Davies
had made it over to the west end of the bridge while JB and I scanned
the river banks and treeline for any heat sources that might indicate
a living creature. I snapped some still images of the river and of
the guys at the bridge end and that’s when I heard the noise. A low
hum that rang in a rhythmic pattern, ‘woooo….wooooo….wooooom.’
I
whipped the tablet to the west in the direction of the sound and saw
a stooped form near the bridge abutment rail.
‘wooooo….woooooooo….woooooooooo.’
It
was then that I realized it was Acord himself, playing with one of
the Tibetan Singing Bowls he had brought.
A
cool idea, and a good contrast to the high end electronic equipment,
I was impressed by the concept as an organic tool to potentially draw
in a sentient creature. Our goal was never to hurt anything or
anyone, despite the firearm Russ kept. Guns are often seen as counter
to having a Sasquatch experience in the nighttime woods, and perhaps
this is why we got no useful results, but I pass no negative judgment
on the presence of a weapon. As fragile life forms in comparison to
animals like Mountain Lions and Bears, it is prudent for humans to
have a way to protect ones self. I didn’t bring a firearm on this
trip but did have bear spray back at the campsite.
The
night being a bust for Bigfoot, we drove solemnly back to camp.
PART
6 – The Portal Incident
Back at the camp, Davies had promised to relate the story about the
infamous ‘Portal Incident’.
The
Portal Incident is important because, if true, it represents one of
the first times a paranormal event like a door between worlds may
have been witnessed by more than one person. (Note: The Skinwalker
Ranch story has very similar aspects and occurred sometime around
year 2000., ref.,www.skinwalkerranch.org)
That
is the case here, and to re-brief, it went as follows.
Adam
and a friend, John Carlson made arrangements back in June of 2014 to
visit a Sasquatch habituation site controlled by Matthew Johnson.
Matthew Johnson came to internet fame as a man who had a scary
Bigfoot encounter near the Oregon Caves Monument trail and then
basically became a self-proclaimed Bigfoot expert through a series
ongoing habituation camps in his hometown of Puyallup, Wa. and in
southern Oregon. At his southern Oregon site, which he called SOHA,
the three men set up camp for a three night stay and on the second
night they had some ‘activity’ in the form of noises in the
trees, silhouettes of something large and vocalizations that Carlson
said was like that of a primate (meaning, Ape).
On
the third night of their camp-out, all three men apparently saw a
reddish glowing rounded area of dull light form on one aspect of
their campsite and within that circle were two small entities that,
according to Carlson, had evil intent. Davies stopped short of the
summation of evil intent, but acknowledged that he felt threatened by
the creatures, to point of fearing for his life.
At
this point, I will recall our own camp-out as Adam Davies relates the
story. Back at camp, we got the fire going and staged our chairs. I
got out my cigars a offered them and Adam pulled the cap from his
McNaughton’s bottle. He sat, contemplating the fire, but his foot
was vibrating, propped on his knee, he was clearly nervous. As he
began to speak he stammered a good deal, searching for the words and
over the course of a few minutes, with the whisky and the fire glow
he settled in to an absolute whopper of a scary campfire story.
The
first two nights at SOHA were relatively mundane, with footfalls and
blackish forms moving between the deep forest tree line. But the
third night was dramatically different.
‘So,
there we were at the campsite, and it’s the 3rd night, and I
see….about 150 feet down the road….a light. It’s a horizontal
strip of light, about the width of the road comin in there,yeah?
It’s
me and John (Carlson) and Matt has gone to bed….and we see a
mist…it’s glowing,its red and then we see these two
little….entities…and Matt Johnson, he says they were, like
‘ewoks' or whatever, or little hairy Bigfoots, but they were not
hairy, they were smooth and black…they were small and stocky, with
red eyes like dots.’
Note
from SAR: I am on my second whisky rocks by this time and it’s
really going down easily. In a word, I am buzzed, and even though I
have read the details previously, I am riveted by his story and his
nervous, halting delivery. Adam continues: “Johnson, that fucker,
he went to bed!”
By
this time, Davies was well into his bottle too. “These things….they
were just standing there, yeah?...so we were startled, yeah?...and so
we swung the flashlights at em..and they DISAPPEARED!”
I
was digging the narrative, and I mumbled things like, “fucking
awesome” I think. It had been a long day of driving and monkeying
with game cams, but we were wide awake as Davies continued, “We
stayed up all that night, yeah, and they didn’t come back, but when
Johnson got up that next morning, he said ‘It’s ok, the Bigfoot
told me it’s nothing evil.’ He said they spoke to him in his
mind, mindspeak, yeah? and that they wouldn’t hurt us…but like I
told John, I was NOT going to BED!...I was concerned with living!”
The
next day, Davies said, was surreal, as they went into town to the
grocery store, the gas station, etc., Adam and John both felt like
they were dreaming. It was likely mild shock and lack of sleep, but
they stayed awake through that final afternoon and ate dinner on the
fourth night.
“We’d
picked up Matt’s 10 year old son, Grady the night before, yeah, and
with him in camp, hearing us talkin about the weird events of the
previous night, I think it sorta freaked the kid out, yeah?
He
was walkin around, saying things like, ‘Are we gonna DIE?’, to
his Dad, yeah and he wanted to call his mother y'know?”
It
got darker and they readied their cots for the night and Davies said,
“So the fucking things, they’re deeply unpleasant….we didn’t
want to, we couldn’t fucking sleep…it happened once, I wanted to
see if it would happen again.”
At
this point I summoned the presence of mind to ask Adam, “what about
cameras…or audio recording?” He didn’t hesitate, “it was so
dark…I didn’t think we'd get photographs of ANYTHING!”
He
took a long swig of his mostly drained whiskey bottle, then “So
we’re windin down, yeah, and a similar thing from the previous
night happens…a see-through mist, red glow, and a TREE, a gnarled,
twisted tree is there, yeah…we can see it clearly and these two
entities are there yeah, and…” a low expletive escaped my mouth
as I listened to Adams story….two non-human creatures, witnessed by
two seemingly sane people, in a glowing red portal…it’s just
crazy.
When
I asked Adam Davies if he will be going back to Johnson’s portal
location, he became dismissive and said, “Fuck him,” going into a
short tirade about how Johnson is wrong about the nature and intent
of the creatures. “he thinks they're friendly, yeah, but I felt
like it was a battle, yeah? I didn’t sign up for a battle with
extraterrestrial creatures!”
What
Davies really thinks he encountered varies as he speaks. He stopped
short of using the word ‘demon', and when pressed he concluded,
“they weren’t friendly, these things had technology that was
beyond us, yeah?...they weren’t just after a peanut butter
sandwich! There was certainly a malevolence about them, they were
CHARGIN’ us!”
At
this point in Adam Davies story, I lost my focus. The combination of
the long, hot day and the libations clouded my head because I cannot
recall how Davies related the last bit of this fantastic story. It
was a
lot to think about,
but it was still odd, and out of character for me as a writer,
because I pride myself on my ability to absorb the salient points of
any story for later dedication to my hard drive, but for the reasons
above, on this occasion I have a blank spot.
Luckily,
now that the meat of this amazing story has already been served, the
clean up has been handled by an interview both Adam Davies and John
Carlson did in 2015 with the Podcast radio host Tim Binnall on his
site, Binnall of America. I will finish the story now, with details I
pulled from listening to that podcast.
Johnson, Davies and Carlson, pre-weirdness
Part
7 – What Really Happened?
On
the fourth and final night of Adam Davies and John Carlsons visit to
Matt Johnson’s Southern Oregon Habituation Area, the two newcomers
were exhausted.
“There
was a deep sense of dread,” said Carlson, as they settled in for
the night.
A
couple of hours after Johnson and his boy went to their cots on the
opposite side of the campsite, Davies and Carlson again saw the red
mist and the gnarled tree.
“If
I had been then only one there, I would have thought I was
hallucinating.” John Carlson.
Disputing
Matt Johnson's suggestion of benevolent beings, Carlson said,
“These
black things with glowing red eyes, they were NOT friendly.”
"Blzxzat, do you see what I see?"
Describing
in more detail the actual portal itself, he said, “the creatures,
they were moving within the orangey,red glow, it went with them as
they moved.” Because of Carlson's religious upbringing, and his
state of abject terror in seeing the creatures running up the road
directly at them, he invoked the name of Jesus. “when they came at
us, I called out ‘I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ!...and
we turned on the flashlights and they disappeared.”
I
contacted John via his blog site and over a few weeks came to learn
his feelings about the events of 2013 with Matt Johnson. He asked me
to keep his words confidential, so the quotes above are gleaned from
his blog and from the internet.
“It
was a fairly traumatic experience,” he told Tim Binnall in the
Podcast they did in 2015.
“I have a theological point of view, I
think they were demonic.” Carlson writes a blog from his home in
New Jersey called `The Paranormalist' and he covers the weird topics
usually associated with the paranormal like ghosts, monsters and
demons. He links Johnson’s portal location with the portal story
found in George Knapp's book ‘Hunt For The Skinwalker.’
Following
a night of high strangeness like the one Davies and Carlson
experienced at Matthew Johnson's SOHA, if true, is enough to induce
symptoms of shock, if not a clinical case of PTSD.
We
have two seemingly sane, intelligent men (I exclude Matt Johnson here
not because I think he’s insane or stupid, but because he is the
host at this habituation site) who have a shared experience that is
by nature inexplicable and therefore not normal, but paranormal.
A
claim of an extraordinary nature like this would be easy to ignore if
it was made by a single individual, and if, upon investigation that
individual had a history of unsubstantiated, wild stories (ie; Rick
Dyer, Tom Biscardi or bigfoot comedian Peter Cain) this train never
would have made it to the next stop.
But
because we have two individuals who have no apparent history of
hoaxing and who stand to gain nothing (but derision) by going public
with these amazing details, it is much harder to dismiss outright,
and as Dr. Meldrum is known to repeat, this situation ‘deserves
further study.’
Therein
lies the difficulty with this story.
Johnson, Davies and Carlson, post-weirdness.
Matthew
Johnson has continued his trips to southern Oregon (now named SOIA,
for ‘interaction area) with regularity and is still claiming that
extraordinary, and I mean really crazy stuff, is happening at his
area there.
And
Adam Davies returned in 2015, without Matt Johnson's approval or
attendance, bringing other researchers with him, including Russ
Acord. They had camera malfunctions, saw unusual color on night
vision equipment but had no other unusual experiences.
Davies
said during his interview with Binnall, “There are other portals
out there, I’m investigatin' ‘em, I’m not gonna name ‘em.”
concluding, “it was the worst, harrowing experience of my life.”
So
what did happen in the foothills of Southern Oregon on those two
summer nights to create such disparate, apparently extranormal
experiences? Matthew Johnson maintains during conferences and on his
YouTube posts that Davies and Carlson have the situation completely
backwards, that the two small entities the two men saw were not,
smooth-skinned, evil monsters but small bigfoot-type entities put in
place to PREVENT the men from entering it. Johnson claims that
through ‘mindspeak’ he communicated with a large Sasquatch who he
says was in charge of the situation that there was never any danger.
He
has continued his visits to that location in general, having found a
new site specific spot through a telepathic connection to the Bigfoot
people there and he has brought multiple witnesses along to back up
increasingly unusual claims like the ‘immigration’ of thousands
of Bigfoot souls, who, escaping a dying planet with the help of
Johnson and friends with a purpose built energy machine, arrived in
the habituation area as ‘orbs', which then became absorbed by trees
in the area, where they reside today. “They’re IN THE TREES!”,
Johnson exhorts to his audience.
One of these two is Johnson
Further,
Johnson has come to refer to the entities he interacts with there as
‘the Xanue’ (pronounced ‘jaw-nu') where he brings interested
individuals to experience whoops, stick breaks, loud stomping and
touching that they claim results in healing. (More recent Youtube
posts by Johnson have revealed that he has identified individuals and
refers to them by name ‘Zorth’ is one, and Johnson does admit to
some negative aspects with the revelation that ‘Treykons' are
apparently unfriendly, cannibalistic Bigfoot creatures.)
Why
Davies and Carlson have not gone back, and have cut off direct
communication with Johnson varies. Carlson was traumatized by the
demonic aspect, citing a PTSD-like result that he links with
experiences he had as a child. Davies is just pissed off.
“When
we the red mist came up, Johnson had gone to bed! I was concerned
with living!”
End.