Terror in the Woods

I'm thinking, "uh-oh. What's going on here?"

it's flesh and blood that can pick you up and take you away.

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.

it's got to be demonic. I knew it was.

It was something evil.

Hello. Are you okay?

pew! I run to my car.

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.

after we'd come over the rough part, I heard, like,

something walking, like, under the hill from us.

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!

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.

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.

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.

thanks.

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.

bigfoot researchers think this could be a form

of communication for these creatures.

kenny: Something mimicked what he did.