Army Patrol Spots Sasquatch in North Dakota, Then the Worst Happens – Bigfoot Story

The Night Patrol

Chapter 1: Orders and Isolation

I’m writing this because I need to get it out of my head. Maybe someone out there will believe me. What happened during my deployment at a remote training facility in North Dakota changed everything I thought I knew about the world. I won’t say which branch or unit, but I did my time and got out with an honorable discharge. This incident is the main reason I didn’t reenlist.

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It all went down in February of my first year in. I was twenty, fresh out of basic, and this was my first real posting. The base was way up north, surrounded by thousands of acres of dense forest. It was used mainly for winter warfare training, but in the dead of winter, when most units were overseas or on leave, the place turned into a ghost town. Maybe fifty people stayed behind to keep things running. I got stuck with night patrol duty because I was the new guy. That’s how it works. Lowest on the totem pole gets the worst assignments.

They paired me with another soldier just as green as me. We’d both arrived at the base within a week of each other, so naturally, we got thrown together for overnight shifts. Nobody else wanted to spend eight hours walking the perimeter in sub-zero temperatures, so they were happy to let us handle it.

The night it happened, the temperature had dropped to around fifteen degrees. Heavy snow was falling, the kind that makes it hard to see more than thirty feet ahead. We geared up around nine in the evening—thermal layers, heavy coats, winter boots, face masks, the works. Even with all that, the cold cut right through. Our assignment was simple: walk the dirt road that circled the training area, check the fence line, and radio in every thirty minutes to confirm everything was clear.

Before heading out, we did our equipment check in the guard shack. Standard stuff: flashlights, radios, sidearms, extra batteries. The sergeant on duty barely looked up from his coffee when he handed us the patrol roster. He told us the weather was supposed to get worse and to call in if visibility got too bad, but he said it in a way that made it clear he didn’t expect us to call. You pushed through unless it was a real emergency.

Chapter 2: Strange Signs

The first hour was routine. We followed the road, crunching through fresh snow, our breath forming clouds that froze in the air. The wind had a bite that found every gap in our clothing. Every half hour, one of us would key the radio and give a status update. The guy monitoring the radio back at base always sounded half asleep. We mostly complained about the cold and the boredom, talked about where we were from, why we’d enlisted, what we planned to do after.

The base perimeter was roughly a six-mile loop. At our pace, it took about two and a half hours to complete a circuit. The plan was to do two full loops during our eight-hour shift, with breaks back at the guard shack between each one. The road itself was barely maintained during winter—a dirt track winding through the forest, following the fence line.

Around the second hour, we noticed the footprints. They were massive, easily three times the size of our bootprints. At first, we figured it was a moose or maybe an elk. The prints ran parallel to our route, staying just inside the tree line about twenty or thirty feet off the road. We stopped to examine them with our flashlights. The snow was fresh, so these tracks had been made recently, probably within the last hour. What struck me as odd was how deep they were—at least six or seven inches into the snow. Whatever made them had to be incredibly heavy.

We followed the prints with our flashlight beams for a bit, but they disappeared into the darkness. My partner made a joke about tracking down Bullwinkle, and we kept moving, but I felt a growing unease. Something about those prints didn’t sit right.

Twenty minutes later, we saw the broken branches. They were snapped clean off, but the strange part was how high up they were—eight or nine feet off the ground. Some of the breaks looked fresh, white wood exposed where the bark had been torn away. The branches were thick, two or three inches in diameter. Whatever broke them had serious strength. My partner suggested a moose rubbing its antlers, but moose don’t stand that tall. Neither do elk. I proposed maybe the branches had broken under the weight of snow and ice, but they were snapped sideways, not hanging down. Something had physically torn them off. We found more broken branches as we continued, always at that same height, always snapped in the same way, forming a pattern like something tall was moving through the forest parallel to the road.

That’s when the feeling of being watched set in, the kind that makes the hair on your neck stand up. I kept turning around to shine my light into the trees, but there was nothing there. Just darkness, falling snow, the shadows of tree trunks.

Chapter 3: The Grunt and the Kill

We picked up our pace, not wanting to admit we were spooked. The forest felt different now. The silence was too heavy, too complete. Earlier, we’d heard wind in the branches, snow sliding off pine boughs, maybe an owl in the distance. Now there was nothing except our footsteps and our breathing, like every living thing had gone quiet, hiding from something.

We reached the two-mile marker, a wooden post on the side of the road. We stopped to check our bearings and do another radio call. Everything’s still normal, we reported. The voice on the other end acknowledged us, told us to continue.

We stood there for a moment, neither eager to keep going. The grunt came from deep in the woods, maybe fifty feet off the road. It was low and resonant, echoing through the trees. We both froze. I’ve heard plenty of animal sounds, grew up in the country, but this didn’t match anything I knew. It wasn’t a bear, wasn’t a deer, wasn’t any kind of normal wildlife. The sound had a quality to it that felt wrong, almost like it was between an animal growl and something else—something more deliberate, more intentional.

We listened. Nothing else came. Our flashlight beams swept back and forth across the treeline, looking for any sign of movement. The falling snow made it hard to see clearly. Everything beyond twenty feet was just shapes and shadows.

We radioed in, keeping it casual. Just mentioned we’d heard some wildlife, probably a bear or something. The guy on the radio told us to continue patrol and not to worry.

Ten minutes later, we found the deer carcass. It was wedged up in a tree about twelve feet off the ground, torn apart, chunks of meat missing, blood sprayed everywhere, freezing on the trunk and branches. Steam was still rising from the exposed muscle and organs—this kill was fresh, very fresh. I’d seen predator kills before—bears, wolves, cougars. They don’t wedge their prey up in trees like that, and they don’t tear animals apart with that kind of violence. The deer was a good-sized animal, probably 150 pounds or more. Lifting it that high and wedging it in the branches would require enormous power.

But what caught my attention was there were no tracks around the base of the tree. The snow beneath the deer was disturbed, but there were no clear paw prints or hoof prints or anything that made sense. Just some deep impressions in the snow that didn’t look like any animal I knew.

We radioed it in, described what we found. The voice on the other end was more awake now, told us to mark the location and continue patrol. Said they’d send someone to investigate in the morning. We carved a mark in a tree near the road so the search team could find it, then moved on.

Chapter 4: The Encounter

Neither of us talked much after that. We just kept walking, checking over our shoulders every few seconds. The patrol route curved northwest, following the fence line around a dense section of forest, the trees pressed close on both sides. It felt claustrophobic, like the forest was closing in.

We started noticing more of those massive footprints. They appeared in clearings near the road, always heading in the same direction we were going, always staying just inside the tree line, like whatever made them was pacing us, staying out of sight. The tracks were definitely not moose or elk. The shape was wrong—rounded with what looked like toe impressions at the front, more like a barefoot human print, but three times the size. My partner knelt down to examine one, put his gloved hand next to it for scale, and his hand didn’t even cover half the length.

We both knew we were seeing something that shouldn’t exist, but neither of us wanted to say it out loud. The wind picked up, driving snow into our faces. Visibility dropped to maybe twenty feet. Our flashlight beams just lit up swirling curtains of white.

Then we saw it cross the road. We were about fifty yards away when a massive dark figure emerged from the tree line on our left. It crossed the road in three or four strides and disappeared into the trees on the right. The whole thing took maybe five seconds, but even in that brief moment, through the falling snow and limited visibility, we could tell it was walking upright on two legs. And it was huge—at least eight feet tall, probably taller. Its arms swung as it walked, long, reaching below where its knees should be.

My partner grabbed my arm, hard enough I felt it through my coat. We just stood there, staring at the spot where it vanished. For a long moment, neither of us said anything. The only sound was the wind and our breathing, harsh and fast. Then he asked if I saw what he saw. I said yes. He asked what it was. I didn’t have an answer, because the answer forming in my head was impossible.

We radioed in, reported a possible intruder, described what we saw—a large figure walking upright through the training area. The response was not what we expected. The guy on the radio laughed, told us to stop messing around, said this wasn’t the time for jokes and to quit being idiots. He thought we were pranking him. We tried to explain we were serious, but he cut us off, told us to maintain radio discipline.

Chapter 5: The Attack

We decided to shine our flashlights into the woods, see if we could spot anything. Nothing moved. We stood there for maybe five minutes, watching and listening. The wind howled through the branches above. Snow continued to fall, accumulating on our shoulders and helmets.

That’s when we heard movement on both sides of the road. Something was in the trees to our left. Something was in the trees to our right. We could hear branches snapping, snow crunching under heavy footsteps. Whatever it was, it was big and it wasn’t trying to be quiet anymore. We spun around, lights pointing in every direction, but couldn’t see anything clearly. Just shapes moving between the trees, staying just out of sight.

Then the rocks started. A chunk of ice the size of a baseball slammed into the road right in front of us, exploding on impact. Then another hit behind us, closer this time. More came from both sides of the road, a steady barrage from the darkness. They weren’t hitting us directly, but they were close enough to make the message clear: we were being targeted, warned, or threatened.

We started walking faster, trying not to run. Running felt like it would trigger something worse. Our lights kept sweeping the trees, and we could see movement now—dark shapes pacing us through the forest, staying just out of clear view.

We radioed base again, this time not holding back. Reported possible intruders, multiple contacts, rocks being thrown at us, requested immediate backup. My voice cracked as I spoke, fear bleeding through despite my attempt to stay professional. The guy on the radio finally took us seriously—maybe it was the fear in our voices, or maybe he heard one of the rocks hitting near us through the open channel. He confirmed backup was on the way, but it would take at least twenty minutes.

Chapter 6: The Creature

Behind us, we heard footsteps—heavy, deliberate. When we stopped moving, the footsteps stopped too. When we started walking, they started again. Something was following us, matching our pace, staying just out of sight. The sounds from the trees got louder. Branches snapped like gunshots. We could hear something massive moving through the forest parallel to our position. The noises came from both sides now, like we were being flanked, like whatever was out there was herding us, pushing us in a specific direction.

Then the smell hit us. Wet dog mixed with rotting meat and something musky and wild. The stench was so strong it made my eyes water even in the freezing cold. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, carried on the wind and snow. The smell was thick, almost physical, coating the back of my throat and making me gag.

That’s when we lost it. A huge piece of frozen wood, like a log or a thick branch, came flying out of the darkness and slammed into the ground directly between us. It hit with so much force that snow and ice exploded in every direction, spraying us both. The log itself was massive, easily six feet long and thick enough I couldn’t have wrapped both arms around it.

We stood back to back, pistols drawn, scanning the trees with our flashlights mounted on the weapons. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it over the wind. My hands were shaking and not from the cold. Every shadow looked like a threat. Every movement in my peripheral vision made me whip around, finger on the trigger.

The scream came from the woods and it was the most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard. It started low like a growl or a roar, then climbed higher, growing louder and more intense until it reached an earsplitting shriek that seemed to vibrate through my entire body. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t any animal I’d ever heard or could even imagine. It was something else entirely, primal and full of rage and power.

We ran. All protocol went out the window. We just ran as fast as we could through the snow, trying to put distance between us and whatever was in those woods. Our flashlights bounced wildly as we moved, making the shadows jump and twist.

Something burst from the treeline ahead of us, cutting off our path to base. We skidded to a stop, our lights illuminating the creature for the first time. It was massive, eight, maybe nine feet tall, covered head to toe in dark matted fur that looked almost black in our flashlight beams. Its shoulders were incredibly broad, arms long, hanging down past where its knees should be. The body was heavily muscled, powerful in a way that made it clear this thing could tear us apart without effort.

But the face—that’s what froze me. It was almost human, but completely wrong. The features were flattened, pushed in, the brow heavy, the nose broad and flat, the jaw too wide, the mouth too large, with lips that pulled back to reveal teeth that were definitely not human. When our lights hit its eyes, they reflected back with a yellowish green shine. Those eyes held intelligence. Not animal intelligence, but something more.

Chapter 7: The Standoff

The creature stood there for a moment and we stood there and nobody moved. We were maybe thirty feet apart, close enough to see the way its chest moved as it breathed, close enough to see the individual strands of wet matted fur, close enough to smell that horrible stench rolling off it in waves.

Then it beat its massive fists against its chest—boom, boom, boom—like a gorilla, but louder, more violent. The sound echoed through the forest, seemed to shake the very air. Then it screamed again, that same horrible shriek that pierced right through us. This close, the sound was physically painful.

My partner fired a warning shot into the air. The crack of the gunshot was deafening. The creature didn’t even flinch. It didn’t run or cower or show any sign of fear. Instead, it started moving toward us. Not fast, just walking, but each step covered an incredible distance. Those long legs ate up ground like nothing.

We fired more warning shots, three or four rounds each, aiming over its head, trying to scare it off, trying to make it understand we were dangerous. But it kept coming. I aimed at its legs and fired. I know I hit it at least once because I saw it react—its leg buckled slightly, a spray of something dark. But it didn’t go down. Just stumbled for half a step, then kept coming. It roared, a guttural roar of pain and rage.

Then it charged. Not walking anymore, running, moving faster than anything that size should be able to move, covering the distance between us in seconds. Its long arms swinging, massive hands reaching for us. My partner tripped, went down in the snow. The creature was on him in seconds. It grabbed him by the jacket with one enormous hand and lifted him completely off the ground like he weighed nothing. My partner was screaming, legs kicking, trying to get free. The creature pulled him close, examining him with those glowing eyes.

I fired at the creature’s leg again, emptied half my magazine. The creature roared again and dropped my partner, who fell hard into the snow. The creature turned toward me, and I kept firing. So did my partner. We both emptied our magazines—fifteen rounds each, thirty shots at close range. Some of them had to have hit. I saw at least three or four impacts on its torso, dark wounds opening in the matted fur, but the creature kept coming. It seemed hurt, moving slower, favoring one leg, but still coming.

The creature swung one massive arm in a backhand motion. It caught me across the chest and shoulder and sent me flying backward. The impact was like being hit by a car. For a second, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. I just lay there gasping, staring up at the falling snow.

My partner was trying to get to me, stumbling through the snow. The creature was between us, turning its head from one to the other like it was deciding what to do. Its chest heaved with each breath, blood dripping from multiple wounds. It took a step toward my partner, then turned back toward me. Then it roared again, a sound full of pain and fury.

Chapter 8: Escape and Aftermath

We both stared at the creature, waiting for it to make its move. It took another step toward us, then stopped. Just stood there swaying slightly, breathing hard. The intelligence was back in its eyes. It was hurt, and it knew it, and it was deciding whether we were worth the continued fight.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the creature turned and limped back toward the treeline. Slow, deliberate steps. It stopped at the edge of the darkness and looked back at us one more time. Then it vanished into the forest.

We ran again, just pure survival instinct. My chest screamed with every step, but I ignored it. We could hear crashing in the forest behind us, but it was slower now, more distant. Whether from the bullets or something else, the creature wasn’t keeping pace like before.

We got on the radio, screaming for backup, trying to explain what was happening. The voice on the radio was different—someone senior. They kept telling us to stay calm, asking for our location, saying help was coming. We could see the base lights ahead, maybe half a mile away, but it looked like a hundred miles. Every step was agony.

The creature made one final attempt. We heard it crash out of the treeline behind us, and then something huge flew through the air—a massive log at least six feet long and a foot thick slammed into the ground just a few feet to our right. If it had hit us, it would have killed us instantly.

But we were almost there. We crossed into the lit perimeter of the base under the floodlights. We collapsed just inside the fence, gasping for air, hearts pounding like they were trying to break through our ribs. I looked back toward the forest. The creature was standing at the edge of the darkness, just barely visible in the shadows where the floodlights couldn’t quite reach. It was watching us, standing there, watching. I could see its eyes reflecting the light—those same yellowish green orbs glowing in the darkness. It stood there for what felt like a long time, but was probably only thirty seconds. Then it turned and walked back into the forest, disappearing into the night.

Chapter 9: The Aftermath

Backup arrived minutes later—four soldiers with rifles, all in full gear. They helped us up, asking what happened, where the threat was. We pointed toward the forest and tried to explain. They could see we were in bad shape—torn uniforms, covered in snow and ice, my partner bleeding from a cut on his forehead, my shoulder a mass of bruises.

Our commanding officer showed up shortly after, along with base security. By this point, there were maybe a dozen people standing around. They set up a perimeter with floodlights pointed toward the forest and sent a team out to try to track whatever we’d encountered. They found evidence—massive footprints everywhere, even clearer now because the snow had stopped falling. They measured them, took photographs, found the deer carcass in the tree, found the spent shell casings from our weapons, all thirty of them, scattered in the snow, found the massive log that had been thrown at us, still embedded in the ground. There was even blood in several spots, dark drops in the snow that formed a trail leading back into the forest. The tracker team followed the trail for about a hundred yards before it disappeared in rocky terrain.

We were taken to medical. My partner had bruised ribs and some cuts and scrapes. I had a massive bruise covering most of my shoulder and chest. The medic asked how I got hit that hard, and I told him the truth. He didn’t say anything, just wrote it down and gave me painkillers.

We were debriefed separately by our commanding officer and base security. We gave them the whole story exactly as it occurred. Later, I found out my partner’s account matched mine perfectly. Every detail. We filed an official incident report, careful with our wording—an encounter with an unknown large animal or possible intruder. We avoided words like Bigfoot or Sasquatch, but we were detailed about everything else. The report included our spent ammunition, injuries, the disturbed snow, and the blood samples.

Our commanding officer took it seriously enough to forward it up the chain of command. The base commander ordered a full search of the perimeter the next morning. Twenty soldiers swept the area in daylight. They found more massive footprints, measured them, photographed them. Each print was roughly eighteen inches long and seven inches wide at the ball of the foot. The stride length was over six feet. They found more blood, always leading deeper into the wilderness. They found broken branches at heights between eight and ten feet. They found the deer carcass still wedged in the tree. But no sign of the creature itself.

Chapter 10: The Joke and the Truth

Within two days, the whole base knew about the incident. The story got exaggerated and twisted as it spread. Details were added, changed, made more ridiculous. Other soldiers started making jokes. In the mess hall, someone would make ape sounds when we walked in. People would ask if we needed a zoologist for backup on future patrols. Someone started calling us the Bigfoot hunters. The nickname stuck.

At first, we tried to defend ourselves, explain that there was physical evidence, that our injuries were real, that the footprints had been photographed and measured. But every time we brought it up, it just made the jokes worse. Someone printed out a cartoon picture of Bigfoot and taped it to my locker. When I tore it down, two more appeared the next day. My partner found one on his bunk. Then someone made fake Sasquatch hunting permit badges with our names and taped them to the bulletin board. The base newsletter ran a satirical piece about mysterious creatures. The article suggested soldiers suffering from sleep deprivation might experience vivid hallucinations. It was written like a joke and people found it hilarious.

Even some of the officers made subtle comments. During formation, our platoon sergeant mentioned making sure we all got enough sleep so we didn’t start seeing things. Everyone laughed. He was smiling, but the message was clear—nobody in leadership was taking this seriously anymore.

We learned to stop talking about it. What was the point? Nobody wanted to hear it. Nobody wanted to believe that something unexplained could exist on a military base in North Dakota.

But my partner and I knew what we saw. We knew what happened, and we never forgot it.

Chapter 11: Aftermath and Reflection

Months passed. We finished our assignments at that base and moved on to other postings. The jokes followed us for a while, but eventually faded. We stopped being the Bigfoot guys and just became regular soldiers again. The official incident report was filed away somewhere in the military bureaucracy. No follow-up investigation ever happened. No official inquiry. The blood samples were probably tested and then forgotten. The photographs of the footprints went into some file that nobody would ever look at again.

I stayed in touch with my partner for a few years after we both got out. We’d talk sometimes about what happened, usually after a few beers. He’d ask if I still believed what we saw was real. I’d ask him the same. The answer was always yes. We both knew. We were both there. Thirty people laughing at us didn’t change what happened, but it changed us.

My partner told me he never felt comfortable in the woods anymore. Even on regular camping trips, he’d get that same feeling we had that night—the feeling of being watched. He said he’d find himself checking the treeline constantly, looking for movement, listening for sounds that didn’t belong.

I had similar experiences. I took a hunting trip a few years after I got out, tried to get back into something I’d enjoyed before the military. But I couldn’t shake the anxiety. Every snapped branch made me jump. Every shadow looked like something it wasn’t. I ended up leaving early, telling my friends I wasn’t feeling well. Never went hunting again.

The nightmares came and went. Sometimes months would pass without one. Then I’d have three in a week. They were always the same—running through the snow, something chasing me, never being able to move fast enough.

I tried to research similar encounters. Found a lot of stories online, some more believable than others. Lots of people claiming to have seen something in the woods—different states, different circumstances, but similar descriptions. Massive bipedal creatures covered in fur, incredibly strong, capable of moving through forests without being seen. There were reports from other military bases, too. A few soldiers from different branches had filed similar reports over the years. Most were dismissed or explained away.

I found forums where people discussed these encounters seriously, without the jokes and mockery. Reading their stories helped in a way. Knowing other people had experienced similar things, had seen similar creatures, made me feel less crazy. Some of the details were different, but the core experience was the same—the overwhelming size, the intelligence in its movements, the primal fear it generated.

But I also found a lot of fake stories, people making things up for attention or exaggerating something minor into a dramatic encounter. That made it harder to know what to believe. And it made me understand why so many people were skeptical about our story. For every real encounter, there were probably a dozen fake ones.

Chapter 12: The Lasting Mark

I never stopped wondering what it was we encountered. Over the years, I developed my own theories. Maybe it was a relic population of something science hasn’t classified yet. Maybe it was something known to indigenous peoples but deliberately kept hidden. Maybe it was just an anomaly, a one-off creature that shouldn’t exist but somehow did.

The thing that bothered me most wasn’t the creature itself. It was the response afterward. The physical evidence was there—the footprints, the blood, the destroyed deer carcass, our injuries, our spent ammunition, the massive log that was thrown, all of it documented, photographed, measured. But none of it mattered because the explanation that it might be something unknown was too uncomfortable. It was easier to mock us, to turn the whole thing into a joke, than to seriously consider that something unexplained might exist.

The military filed the report and moved on. The other soldiers laughed it off, and my partner and I were left carrying the weight of it alone. We still had each other, though. That helped. Having someone who was there, who saw the same thing, who experienced the same terror—that validation meant everything.

My partner eventually got married, had kids, moved to the suburbs. Last time we talked, he told me he still thinks about that night sometimes. His wife knows the story but doesn’t bring it up much. His kids think it’s a cool, scary story their dad tells. They don’t realize it actually happened.

I never married, moved around a lot, worked different jobs, never really settled anywhere. People who know me would probably say I’m restless. Maybe that’s true. Or maybe I’m still running from something I can’t outrun. I still avoid the woods when I can. When I can’t, I’m hypervigilant. Every sound gets analyzed. Every shadow gets examined. I carry a flashlight even during the day. It’s exhausting being that alert all the time, but I can’t help it.

The thing that sticks with me most is the moment when the creature stood at the edge of the darkness and watched us. It wasn’t attacking anymore. It wasn’t threatening. It was just watching. And I got the sense that it was intelligent, that it was making a choice to let us go. That it could have killed us if it wanted to, but it decided not to. That intelligence is what haunts me. If it was just an animal, it would be easier to process. But this thing made decisions. It stalked us strategically. It threw rocks to intimidate us before attacking. It used the darkness and the forest to its advantage. And when we reached the base, it stopped at the lights and watched us go. That wasn’t animal instinct. That was something more.

Epilogue: The Unanswered Question

I’ve thought about going back. Not to the base—that’s not possible anyway—but to North Dakota, to that general area. Maybe drive around, see if I can find where it happened. I’m not sure what I’d be looking for. Closure maybe, or evidence that it’s still out there. But I probably won’t go, because part of me doesn’t want to know. Part of me wants to leave that night in the past, let it stay as this terrible thing that happened once and then ended. Going back might make it real again in a way I’m not prepared to handle.

I’m writing this because I need people to know. Even if they don’t believe it, even if they laugh like everyone else did, at least the story will exist somewhere in someone else’s mind. Maybe years from now, someone else will have a similar encounter. Maybe they’ll search online and find this account. Maybe it’ll help them feel less alone, less crazy, less like they’re the only person who’s ever seen something they couldn’t explain.

To anyone who does believe this story, thank you. That means more than you know. To anyone who doesn’t, I understand. I probably wouldn’t believe it either if I hadn’t been there. All I can tell you is that it happened. Every word of this is true. I saw what I saw. I experienced what I experienced, and nothing anyone says will ever change that.

The creature is out there. I don’t know if it’s still in North Dakota or if it’s moved on. I don’t know if it’s alone or part of a larger population. I don’t know if it’s the same species people have been reporting for decades or something entirely different. But it exists. I know because I looked into its eyes. I saw the intelligence there. I felt the ground shake when it moved. I heard its screams. I still have the scar on my shoulder where it hit me—a discoloration in the skin that never quite healed right. My partner has his own scars, physical and otherwise. We both do. We carry them every day.

So, believe it or don’t. Mock it or take it seriously. That’s your choice. But somewhere in the forests of North Dakota, in the deep wilderness where humans rarely go, something walks on two legs. Something massive and intelligent and powerful. Something that science hasn’t explained and the military chose to ignore. It’s out there.

And I hope to never see it again.