Steve Lindsey: Hello again, we're back from the Hocking Hills Bigfoot Festival. We're fortunate enough to have Debbie with us. She's been kind enough to agree to stop by and tell us her story. First of all, what brings you to the Hocking Hills Bigfoot Festival today? Hocking Hills Festival, the very first one, I had to go because Hocking Hills is where my sighting is. So I'm bonded with Hocking Hills forever. When they came up to the Hocking Hills Festival, like what, three years? This is the fourth one. I think. First one, I was like, I am not missing that. So I've been to all but one so far. We've only been to two. We've absolutely enjoyed it. We plan on coming back. You mentioned the location of your encounter. Please tell us about your encounter. Yeah, it was in Logan. So it started off where me and my family planned. They planned a trip for me because they know that I love Hocking Hills. Always wanted to get a cabin. Tonight, Jerry talks with Debbie and her encounter. Because if you look that up, it's a beautiful, ⁓ beautiful area. Cabins, caves, waterfalls, just beautiful. And I'm a nature person and I just love scenery and I just love being in the country, period. And so my birthday's Halloween, so my birthday was coming up. and they went ahead and booked one. I searched and helped search and I just found this one and it was just up by itself, like on the top of a ridge kind of thing and it was in the woods all by itself. And so we booked it and there was 10 of us going. ⁓ And so we arrived on Thursday. It would have been October 29th because it was two days before Halloween. So we went Thursday and was leaving Sunday. So three nights. So we arrive on Thursday, just looking at the cabin and everything, which was a little creepy because when I walked in, the living room, the kitchen, dining area is all open. It's all one and it's all windows. And no curtains. Like no curtains at all. No curtains. It was really, I was like, where, you oh my God. At that point, I'm sure you're glad there's 10 of you. Yes. So that was a little creepy walking in, but it's fun. You know, that's why we were there, you know? So, um, the, way the cabin looks. So when you go in the front door, you go up and go in the front door, where the kitchen and all that is, if you go out the door, you go onto a top deck. So it's high up. Then you go down the stairs and you go into a game room type area with TV and everything and you go out that door and there's a fire like a fireplace and then there's the hot tub. So right next to the hot tub there's a little grass and then it goes down a ravine. So you're pretty close to the edge. So that side of the cabin woods went down a deep ravine. Then if you go around to the back of the cabin, They had an open area back there like with some grass. You know, and then all but you were all surrounded all the way around with woods. So middle of nowhere. Yeah, so it had to be a full moon also. So it everything going for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the Friday was a full moon. So when we OK, so Thursday nothing, nothing ordinary. We got up Friday. We got 10 people cooking breakfast, a late breakfast. We had tons of bacon going, eggs, you name it. I remember waiting, I had it opening the windows because of all the bacon smoke. So I can imagine all that smell going out there for one. So we're all doing the breakfast. People are going in and out. But the first time I went outside, kind of early afternoon, I went to go get in the hot tub finally. And there was this horrific smell. And I'm in the hot tub and we're all trying to figure out what it is. I didn't know if it was some kind of stinky well water. Now the night before, in the hot tub, no one smelled a thing. No one smelled a thing outside at all. That kind of rules out like dead animals nearby or Yeah, because we didn't. Yeah, that would have been there the night before. We did not smell anything Thursday. This was so bad that you would have smelled it Thursday. So it would come and go like in waves. Like say you're out on the top deck talking and you got hit with it. So after a while, because people would be coming out of the cabin and be like, oh my God, like, you know, I was getting a little angry and upset because we paid a of money for that. And I'm like, if we have to smell this till Sunday. So. So we just let it go. Still, we had loud music going. just, everybody's having a good time. I decorated the cabin Halloween. I had Halloween decorations outside. Just having a good time. They would all, a lot of them were going on little hikes to investigate the area, know, spooky, whatever. So all that was going on Friday, Friday evening. And then Friday night, we all come in. And several of us were down in the game room area watching horror films. It's Halloween, why not? Exactly. And then my son's best friend Matt and his girlfriend were out on that top deck by themselves while we were watching a movie. And my son and his girlfriend, because in the main bedroom when you walk in was the room I was in the first night, but it was too spooky that I didn't go in it the second night, because I was alone. There's a, what do you call it, jacuzzi tub in there. So because it was only 20 degrees outside, people were using that too as a hot tub, just because, you So that smell was only outside. When we were downstairs watching that movie, my son came back up from him and his girlfriend, you know, was, or whatever, went to go do that or whatever. And they come back down and they're like, he's like, mom, that smell came in that room. And he goes, you, we sure it ain't something to do with this water, right? And every, all day long people were jumping in on that thing. I was in it. Never smelled a thing in the house, cabin room or nothing. Now that room. the ground level comes down on the one side of the cabin right up to the window and then What's creepy about that room is when you walk in, there's a door next to your bed. So I'm like, um, you open it and there's your, you step out into the front of the cabin. There's a little porch thing and you step right out. I didn't like that right next to the bed. So then you go into the bathroom, you had your own bathroom. There was a door in the bathroom. And I said, we open it. There's a big cellar right in front of the, and it went into another little room. went right into another locked room. And I was like, okay, now this, creepy so it was so creepy so I chose not to go back in there on the second night. I went upstairs with my daughter's best friend Tunisia so that after we watched them little scary movies or movie We all went up. Well, my other son that were, he come down, told me that they went to bed and that, you know, he was asleep before any of us. So then we went to go to bed. I went to say good night to Matt and his girlfriend out on the deck to let him know we were all going to bed. So then I got upstairs, not five minutes. I got laid down comfortable. The door banged open. Now he's a tall big guy. ⁓ Matt, the door banged open. And me Tenizah were like, trying to go to sleep. And he's got this horrible look on his face and he said, who's messing with us? And I said, what do you mean? He's like, who's messing with us? And he was so hyper. He goes, where's Colin? That's my son, his best friend. I said, he's been in bed for a while. It hit him that it was nobody in the cabin. So he starts to ramble stuff. about things that were happening and the noises and being thrown and I don't even know what was happening. So me and tonight's a jump up more like let's go. So we went down, we went to the kitchen. When I got to the kitchen, his girlfriend was looking out the window with her hand up like she was searching for something. When I got to the door that leads to the deck. in the kitchen, both stair entrances to the patio was blocked by chairs. That's how scared he was. And I said, ⁓ my God. I said, what's a matter? And they tried to explain. It was so hard to explain. Like just all this weird stuff was happening. He would jump around the corner and he'd be like, funny guys. He thought it was us. So there was all kinds of stuff happening from loud noises to he thought things were being thrown. He said something either shook or did something to a tree and all the birds flew out of it at once. All kinds of things were happening. They couldn't explain it. They didn't know what was going on. And ⁓ I guess there was a very loud one. That's what threw him in. He threw the chairs and booked it into the cabin. Can't say I blamed you that. Right. So that's what brought a drop me down to the kitchen. So us four are in the kitchen area. We're looking out windows trying to listen. Don't know for what. ⁓ I said let's turn the lights off now I told you in the back of the cabin that grass area Full moon lit it up. It was like someone had a spotlight on it I said let's turn the lights off in the cab because we had glares on the window and I plus I just wanted to see just black it out As soon as they got that stove light off above the stove and it went black I hear Matt's girlfriend say, it is. So when I looked up out the window, and it had some like trees in the way, so you could see though, whatever just came out of that ravine was low to the ground. So I needed a better look. So I ran to the kitchen window and there's a window below above the sink. I had a straight shot of this thing, like straight in front of me. And then Matt and Tanija followed me and they were right behind me. She stayed over there. As I'm looking at this, trying to figure out what it is, it stands up. I mean, it was like in slow motion watching this thing keep going and going and going and going. and I ain't exaggerating how tall this thing was. So it goes from lower to the ground all the way up, then it's just standing there. The shoulders was like two big guys on each side. Okay, it was a monster. I'm staring at this thing. Then what it... What got me the most is I'm staring at this thing. I hear Matt, the big guy, he's bouncing around behind me. Do you see that thing? Then I hear Tanija, who's a skeptic, say, do you see the shoulders on that thing? So I knew they were seeing what I was seeing. ⁓ So I'm standing there in shock. Then just like you, just as calm as can be, like they do it every day. He just calmly started walking right towards me. He was coming right for me. So ⁓ as he started taking those steps and swinging those arms and I saw that in the moon, I saw his fingers go below his knee and started making those steps walking straight for me. I freaked out, started screaming, he's coming for the cabin. And I turned, he heard me. Matt and tonight I just saw him because I didn't take I then left the window. I was screaming. He's coming for the cabin. He's coming for the cabin and I hear them say he went back down on whatever all fours are to the ground and went down the ravine. I didn't care. I went running through the cabin. I got everybody up. I had three three of my children there that night. So I get up. Everybody gets up and I just a mess and we were all hopping around like what so we all went out on the top deck it lit up out there and all ten of us heard everything it was coming from everywhere the ravine lit up the three distinct things that I remember was it sounded one sounded like a woman screaming from the ravine The second was this long, big howl sound. And me and my daughter looked at each other and said, that's from that Finding Bigfoot show. And we recognized it immediately. Like immediately. That us now learning now that's the Ohio. And then the other thing that was distinct in my kids to this day still make fun of it. It sounded like caveman talking. And they make fun, they walk around like, ooh, ooh, like to each other all the time now because they make fun of it. Did it not scare them very well? They didn't see it, but they knew that what I saw, what Matt saw, what Tyjee saw, they knew and they can hear everything that's going on. But later on, they started to joke about the caveman chatter. You know what I'm saying? It sounded like men, but they did not make sense. I remember that. I remember just all kinds of noise. I didn't pay attention at the time. it was just probably just the trees and all the everything. It was just noisy. Okay. Then we started to hear stuff into the front of the cabin. So we then all moved together in a pile down the thing into the front. We're in the driveway. We're aiming towards the front of the left of the cabin. there's a little island they made and then not a couple steps back would be the would be the wood line. So it wasn't a big they could probably just step in one step to the we saw a shadow go from that to the wood line. but it sounded like trees were falling and trees were breaking and it was insane and we would see the shadow over there. Then you got back here behind us still going crazy. So then we realized we have several around us. We don't know what's going on. We are around us. It's around it almost. We're in a little all bunch cuddled together in the driveway. So after that went on, we all went back into the cabin. because it got started getting quiet. Some went to lay down, some did not. I never went back to bed. I didn't know what to do with that. We went through every scenario possible while we waited for the light to come out because my son's like I'm going straight out there. He wanted to see if there's footprints. He wanted to see what the heck's going on. My one son 6'2". So we were curious. So we went through every scenario and the ravine we ruled out a human immediately because The way that me and my daughter tried to go down that ravine as far as we could and you can only go and then you can't. Like it's down. For someone to crawl out of there, if a human crawled out onto the flat grass, how do you have time to sit there and put some stilts on to stand that tall? You go carry him up the thing and then sit there and I didn't see you put stilts on, I just thought you stand straight up. So no, that wasn't a human. There was no way possible nothing for a human. at all. So we ruled that out. So they wake up. So the light, it was like three, four in the morning. We didn't have long to wait. Soon as light, they run out there. Now when you get down there to the, it was closer than what I thought. When he come out of the ravine, you have to crawl out because you can't walk through that mess. So there was like a little big circle hole there that he had come out. And all that grass that was was batted down, the whole entire all the way to the backwood. So it was hard to tell. You didn't have a distinct footprint, but it was all batted down. Like it's been used tremendously. So they, well that was funny because my son and my daughter, he stood there. My son stood there. said, I'm gonna look through the kitchen window. That thing made him look like a peanut. That's how I know that thing was 8 to 10 at least. 8 to 10 fifths. Yes, because he made him look so small. know it would be a total absolute guess. you were to guess, look at the beard on that lady. If you were to guess at the weight of this thing, what would you guess? I'm not good with weight, but if you take a 10 footer with a, that's got massive shoulders, he's got about, I don't know, I don't know what you guys would consider the weight on that kind of thing. ⁓ Yeah, but he was huge. That's all I could tell you, he was huge. So. They were out there messing around, my son and my daughter. They were making those sounds back and forth, ugh, ugh, to each other thinking they were funny. And sure enough, coming out of that ravine was one right back at them. And they come running back in the cabin and I said, well, it just happened not long ago. Go down there and make fun of it some more. I said, no, no, My other son woke up, he went to the front of the cabin to smoke. He wanted to go over by that little island where that activity was. He saw in the, he looked down and he saw, just looked disturbed the leaves so he batted them away and there sure enough was a humongous footprint. So he came and got us. We took pictures of Matt who has the biggest foot next to it. ⁓ And I said when I saw that huge footprint, said that matches the monster I saw. ⁓ I have them somewhere but I was on these woods are haunted show and they got it. it's at the end. I think on one of them because we didn't know because we don't know what we're doing might be a shoe print like in the middle of it a little because someone might have stepped on it but that has nothing to do with you the toe and the whole shebang. ⁓ So when I saw that footprint I was just like It invalidated, I'm sure, lot of what you thought you'd saw the night before. So, I didn't know, I had to go until Sunday now. I didn't know what to do with that. sure enough, the rest of Saturday, it was so peaceful. Everybody kept saying on Friday they felt weird and they were being watched. That was another thing brought up. It was a weird day. Saturday was so peaceful. Nobody felt weird. No smell. We never smelled it again. We never smelled it again. That smell was gone. We were there all the way to Sunday. No smell. And we didn't smell it Thursday. We didn't smell it Saturday and Sunday. And so we went home. I didn't know what to do with that. Sure, we would. My mind was... I didn't know what to do with it. You're not supposed to see a monster come out of the woods in reality. To be real. And then it won't come at you. Like he was, he was, he was walking so calm. Like he does this all the time. So I reached out to, I think it was Cliff and Matt moneymaker I didn't know that I didn't know anything about that stuff but I said what do I do with it so only people I knew from a show that had been recently out Matt sure enough contacted me which surprised me because I was like ⁓ my god so he called me he we went over everything he googled we were googling you know seeing where I was and after I was done he said I was just there a week and a half ago, ⁓ a mile from that cabin, from the sighting. He told me exactly what I saw, and I said to him, said, well, you know, I turned the lights off, you know, and he's like, yeah, as soon as you turn those lights off, he knew to come out, he was curious. I said, what, he's gonna come look at the windows? He said, yeah, they're curious. I said, well, that's even scarier. And, Yeah, so he said that, you know, they're curious and they, I said, you know how many people probably get watched at Hocking Hills and people, places like that in those cabins and don't know it? We wouldn't have known it. True, I would too. The only way we would have known is one of us saw eyeballs in a window, cause we wouldn't have known. And he was coming straight for that cabin to right for the windows, man. Can't imagine the feelings that you must have went through at that point. And people think I'm crazy cause then I wanted to go back out. I'm like, listen. I had to get over the fear though, because I've been working on it. I know how big they are. So I'm just intrigued. I want to know everything about them. want to, you know, I'm not out there to prove, I know I'm not out there to prove it. know where they are. I saw it. I already know what I saw. I'm just curious about them, you know? So ⁓ I'm not out there to go, ⁓ you know, I'm out here to prove and catch one. I know. ⁓ So that just started my road down that path and I haven't stopped. And we've had things happen at Salt Fork, me and my daughter, and she's right there next to me with it. Things have happened with her. ⁓ So yeah, just that's what got me in this whole thing. You mentioned that you went back out. Have you ever been back to that cabin? Really? once. Well you know what we did? We didn't really like stay but we went up that driveway and sat you know like at two in the morning. It was the Hocking Hills Festival. We, I wanted to go sit go in the woods somewhere. We didn't know where to go. I said let's go, I go let's go back and sit in that driveway thing because it's like a road. It's so scary. You sit there it's pitch black. We had a couple things happen that was weird. But it took me a while. If I'm out with somebody or I'm out in the woods and I hear it and I think it's kind of close, I will freak the freak out and I'm gone. Right? They finally got me to calm down. My daughter's like, stop running. Right? So I've been working on it. So even if I think they're right there, I'm fighting it. But... I think it's because I know how big they are. I don't think people realize how big they are. And that coming out, okay, for example, was sitting at Salt Fork. And everybody went, I had broke my ankle so I couldn't really hike. So everybody took off and me and this one girl, she didn't feel good. So we were sitting there and I said, nah, I'm gonna tell you right now, we're gonna start hearing stuff cause we're left alone at the camp, the whole camp thing. I know in one by yourself or twos is when you're gonna have something. You start having three or more. Well, the one time there was a bunch of you in the cabin, so not always, right? Sometimes when there's several of not ever. Well, they thought we were all sleeping. True, very true. And they do the same thing at South Park. They've walked out when they hear me snore. Like when they know you, when they're snoring, that's when they'll take a step. So they're smart. So. Yeah, I'm working on the thing, but I was sitting at Southport with her and I'm looking at somebody's camper, right? In the moonlight, and the woods was right there. And in my head when I hear the cracking going on or a tree break, I look over there and all I see, my head, is if that thing stepped out, he would tower over that camper. And that's freaky. Very. So that's what I'm seeing, and the girl next to me might not see that because she doesn't know how big it is, but that's why I freak out. I certainly understand that. I don't, I feel calm because I'm telling you the thing would have, could have took us all out. You don't feel like it meant harm to No, no, not at all. And we were surrounded. So it helps make it little easier to go back out into the areas where you've and the things that I've experienced since is the same kind of feeling. I'll be doing it. I think they're very curious. about stuff and yes and I don't I mean don't get me wrong there's all bad apples out there and everything bad apple and maybe certain areas have more but I don't think in Ohio so far in my area in the areas I've been around I don't think they are I'm sure in the years since this has happened you've probably told the story several times you may have come across skeptics what do you say to those skeptics? you tell the story? I have family members who hope to see it to believe it. I said, well, I know I'll tell it. I will tell it. And you know, I'm one of your loved ones. You should believe me because you know that I'm not a liar. You know that I'm not this. You know I'm not crazy or nothing. You know me. ⁓ I don't, I really don't care. Like They have to experience it themselves. And the only way they're gonna is if they get a shocking visit like I did or if they're out in the woods doing something. But all I know is nobody, skeptic or not, can sit here and I know he's real. I've seen him. You'll never convince me otherwise. I know what I saw. I had two other people that saw him with me. All 10 of us experienced the rest that you can't explain. the noises and everything that we heard is unexplained. Yes, all unexplainable. And it all goes together in a puzzle piece. Once I saw it, it all fits together. But the skeptics, you know, I got a bunch of people that say, well, I gotta see it to believe it. Guess what I did. I did see it. My response. Yep. And you know what? I mean, that makes sense, right? Anytime we actually experience something firsthand, it's gonna change your perspective forever. Hugely. Yes. I mean, you went through it, so. Changed me completely, and now I just have a huge Bigfoot family, I call it now. love them to death, and just a whole new world. and different people. I love it. Very nice. David, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your story with us. I appreciate it. Thank you again and you have an awesome day. You too.