Whitehall, New York – 1989
There are those who follow Bigfoot / Sasquatch news and research that believe it to be an illusive species of primate. Keeping an open mind, I believe such biological creatures very well may exist. Just the same, some who follow Bigfoot or Sasquatch news get insultingly angry at my personal accounting of this creature as it's not a version of the topic that they want to believe. Well, you will get that.
The small Adirondack Mountain town of Whitehall, New York is among places renown for "Bigfoot" sightings. I did not know of this when I was assigned to that town as the active-duty training sergeant for its National Guard unit. What follows is my accounting of something that occurred to me shortly after my arrival there.
The Setting
My first apartment in Whitehall was a duplex located on the outer edge of the small village at the end of a quiet, dead-end street named Champlain Avenue. The setting was quite plain – not the setting one might expect for the event I am going to relate.
My apartment was small – but adequate for me. The downstairs was a new kitchen that opened to the back yard, the living room was an extension of the kitchen and had spiral stairs in one corner that led up to a solitary bedroom with a bathroom attached – everything was new – or at least newly remodeled. My backyard opened out into a vast swampland.
The Encounter
I recall that night well. It was mid-week. I had come home from work, had dinner, then spent a couple hours practicing classical guitar – reading it off sheet music and trying to master some of the simpler scores from Bach or Chopin. This was a hobby I was passionate about then, and to a lesser extent - now. I need to make it clear up front that I did not do illegal drugs then or now. I don't personally care for drugs. Regardless, even if I had wanted to do drugs, I was in the active-duty army and was drug tested periodically. I took my career seriously and considered myself a professional soldier. I say all this because this little story is about to get wild. What follows is exactly what happened to me late that night. In truth, this encounter bothers me some to this day just to recall the events.
So on this particular night, after finally tiring of guitar playing, I went upstairs to bed around 10 or 11PM. Note I hadn’t been dreaming at all that I could recall and I had no issues going on when I went to bed earlier; it was a routine, quiet night - until this incident.
Suddenly, I awoke and I found myself laying there in bed flat on my back and I was weeping and sobbing hard – unnaturally hard. Thing is, as I was weeping I was totally bewildered because I had no clue at all as to why I was weeping. I was not thinking of anything gloomy or sad but yet was permeated to my soul with an overwhelming sense of dread and gloom. I recall thinking,
“Why am I doing this? What is going on?”
Yet I could not stop myself and I lay there on my back and I wept and cried and I could not move – could not turn or lift my head or body. My face was actually aching from crying and I let out a steady stream of whimpers as the tears flowed from my face soaking the pillow. It was unnatural.
It was like my mind was bound and jailed inside my head while some thing else manipulated my body and the perversion and horror of it were . . . tremendous and real. My head felt feverish and my face was soaked from the forced tears that continued to flow from my tired my eyes. I was completely unable to understand or stop what was happening.
Neither this, nor anything remotely like this, had ever happened to me before or since. I must say also that I was a devout church-going man during this time and certainly not into anything remotely 'occult'.
As this was going on, I suddenly heard my back door that was just below me on the first floor, slam open very hard with a bang – hard enough that it shook the walls. This was the door that opened out from my kitchen facing the back yard and swamp.
With the opening of the door, I suddenly was released from my possession and stopped sobbing and lay there a moment wondering who was breaking into my place. It was 3AM. I did not know anybody that might just let themselves into my place.
I heard and mentally followed heavy and slow footsteps crossing the kitchen floor – very slowly – about as slow and lethargic sounding as the mummy in the old movies;
thump ! . . .
[sound of kitchen table getting shoved aside roughly]
thump! . . .
thump!
[sound of chair getting knocked over]
thump! . . .
Each step came down with a very solid and wall-rattling heavy thud. Whoever he was – he was large. It was all so unreal. I thought I was being burglarized at this point.
Noteworthy to this encounter is that as I lay there in my bed wide eyed and listening – I could hear my furniture getting roughly relocated as the heavy footsteps proceeded on in slow, rhythmic thuds. Then the sound of a chair being tossed aside with another crash – and now I could tell by the footsteps that it was directly below me in my living room and more furniture was heard and felt being tossed hard. He was coming to the stairs that led to where I was laying.
I had to take action at once!
I quickly got out of bed and grabbed a baseball bat that I had stashed under my bed for such emergency self-defense scenarios. The plan was that I would wait crouched at the top of the stairs and whack this man in the shins – hard – then follow up with a few more thumps and see what was going on. Smack first – ask questions later.
Right about that time, as I formulated this simple plan of action, and as I was heading over to my position by the top of the stairs, I saw something that quite literally froze me in my tracks with icy fear.
Coming up the spiral stairs towards me, gliding smoothly rather than walking, was a huge black silhouette looking form. I stood there immobilized just as I was moments before when in bed. As it ascended the stairs, coming more fully in sight, to my horror I saw the head; then the head and shoulders; and then the torso and legs – all jet back and shadowy with no detailed features. My room and the stairs were fairly lit up from a street light in front of my place that shone through the windows.
I stood there paralyzed with fear, or something made me so I couldn’t move my feet or arms. I was standing wide-eyed and paralyzed. The ball bat was there in my hands but I could not move. The thing stopped walking and glided to a stop directly in front of me – face to face – maybe just a foot between us – maybe less.
I enjoy illustrating this book and could easily draw this entity out but there is no way I care to do that. Understand, I am uneasy even writing of it. Besides, it is simple enough to physically describe.
It stood taller than my six feet. I’d say it stood around 6’3”. It was very stocky – being quite broad and thick at the shoulders and upper torso. The neck was also proportionately thick. It made no sounds or gestures as it held me transfixed in its fiery stare. I could smell a strong, eggy or sulfur-like odor as I stared back into its flaming portals that were the eyes. I was somehow held and thus forced to stare into its eyes. There were no pupils or irises; these eyes were almond-shaped and just a solid flaming red and orange; not at all unlike hot, burning coals when fanned.
Its face was a featureless jet-black cloud to me with except for its very prominent glowing eyes. The eyes actually glowed red with a light that was in no way the result of a reflection. Its arms stayed at its side and while it was in front of me it did not speak or make a sound.
It is hard to describe my state. I was horrified but that is not what kept me petrified. Like minutes earlier while I was in bed, it again exercised a possession over my body but not my thoughts as I had a heightened awareness of what was going on. Though I was desperate to get free, I was absolutely paralyzed – standing up still clutching my baseball bat with both hands but unable to wield it. There was about a foot between myself and this being that had come to see me.
My fear was near total. I say “near” because I could still think rational enough to frantically tell myself that this must be a wild dream because I clenched my eyes shut hard saying it was a dream and I was going to reopen them and find it all gone. I tried this several times but when I opened my eyes I found it was in fact no dream. I don’t know exactly how long I stood there. I know that I was there long enough to try and rationalize that this wasn’t really happening. I recall desperately thinking;
“This has to be a dream! This must be a dream!”
Unable to move, I started yelling for help as I believed my landlord was home next door but undoubtedly asleep at that hour. My cries for help came out in a pathetic, weak voice and no help came. The thing stood before me in control. As I gazed into its eyes, I thought that it seemed to like my fear – that was the feeling I had – that it was actually feeding off my fear. I was held and forced to face this thing eye-to-eye. I felt mocked and violated.
I closed my eyes again hard and this time I began to pray any prayer I could recall – the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm. Then I plain called out to Jesus. This time, when I opened them, it was gone and I was released from the paralysis. I recall going to my bedside, dropping to my knees, and saying aloud,
“Oh my God! What was that?”
I was exhausted emotionally. I said another prayer and went to bed – trusting my safety to God and His angels. In my estimate, the whole encounter lasted around five or seven minutes.
The Aftermath
The next morning I awoke early for work. I recall as I got out of bed feeling the emotional strain of the night before yet on me. I felt emotionally beat up and traumatized. I sat on my bedside and thought again, “My God, what was that last night?” I decided that it had to have been some kind of really wild nightmare – nothing more. That thought prevailed and I felt better as I got bathed and dressed for work.
But when I went downstairs to get breakfast I was stunned to find all my chairs and coffee table moved and knocked over, my kitchen table also knocked over and moved, and my back door was wide open; all precisely as I had heard just hours before when this being came into my place. The horror of it all hit me in a huge wave:
It wasn’t a dream!
Now I was really shaken up. Understand that this visitation was a sincerely traumatic event.
All said, I still had a job to do and I went to work that morning. When I got there, it was the usual casual morning scene among the four or five other guys that I worked with at the armory. The coffee was brewing and the men gathered around a table in the break room to read the newspaper, talk some man gossip, bust jokes, and maybe talk shop a bit. Of this scene I was a part, but not on this morning. I’d never been shaken like this in my life.
Upon entering the armory, I walked past the break room without saying a word. I must have looked pretty rough because one of the guys must have noticed the way I was looking and left the break room and followed me to my office.
He came in and said “Shenk, what’s wrong?” I told him nothing, but that I had a bad night. He kept badgering me as to what had happened and I kept telling him it was nothing – and I didn’t want to talk about it. He would not let it go – so I told him.
It’s such a wild story. I was really afraid he would think I was nuts. But he wanted to know so I told all that had happened – except for the perverse part, I never shared that with anybody until now. His reaction surprised me. He called the other few guys into my office – and now I was a bit embarrassed. Smiling, as if he had discovered something, he told me to tell the guys what had happened to me. They all stood before my desk in my office and listened. Nobody laughed or scoffed at me.
“Congratulations!” the eldest of them said. “Welcome to Whitehall.”
They said I had seen what they called Bigfoot. This was a long standing local legend – a rare but sporadically occurring phenomenon to the area. Bigfoot! Well, what else could they call it? It certainly wasn’t an animal or of flesh.
A couple weeks later, the local newspaper ran a story about several locals who had seen a large black figure with glowing red eyes in the area. I can say with all honesty, I had never in my life heard anything of Whitehall’s “Bigfoot” story prior to my own experience – there was absolutely no influence upon this experience.
What follows is a story that ran in the local newspaper a couple weeks AFTER my encounter:
////////////////////START OF ARTICLE////////////////////
"Bigfoot" Sighting Reported by Startled Teen in Hampton
Paul Bartholomew - Special to the Whitehall Times
A startled teenager may have recently glimpsed a creature resembling the legendary "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch" in Hampton.
The 16 year old, wishing to remain anonymous, claims he was walking along 22A South when he spotted a dark figure lurking along the roadside. The sighting reportedly took place around 3 p.m. on Aug.18.
The youth reportedly observed the creature for approximately three full seconds before both took off in opposite directions.
"I could see the back, a big back, and it was dark, it was awful matted and scruffy-like," said the witness.
The youth was accompanied by a dog which apparently reacted to the presence of something.
"The dog...came across the road near to where the thing was standing and it started whining and took off," said the teen.
On Aug. 24, the mystery deepened as the young man and a friend camped out near where the sighting took place. At 2 a.m. it seemed that something was watching them "I stared at it and it stared back and it kind of went away," said the youth.
The witness said he observed two "glowing red eyes" approximately six feet off the ground. The eyes appeared to be circling the camp.
"They weren't just round-like, they were oblong, longer than they were round," added the observer. The youth contacted Dr. Warren L. Cook, Professor of History and Anthropology at Castleton State College (Vermont) and noted authority on Bigfoot. Dr. Cook contacted fortean researcher Paul B. Bartholomew, who investigated the sightings.
Two possible footprints were found at the campsite in direct relation to where the "glowing red eyes" were observed. The clearer of the two impressions measured 10 1/2 inches long by 4 1/2 inches wide, with a stride of 56 inches between them. It is interesting to note that the date of the sighting falls on the 13 anniversary of the Abair Road, Whitehall sightings of 1976. In that instance as many as nine witnesses, many of them law enforcement officials, reported seeing a large, hairy, red-eyed creature walking on two legs and disappearing into the dense rural woodlands. Dr. Cook feels the timing of the sightings are probably not coincidental.
"If these creatures do migrate and feel comfortable and safe traveling a particular route, then it would make sense that they would stay along the same routes," said Cook.
On Aug. 28, high-pitched screams were heard coming from the woods at about 1 a.m. Lasting 30 seconds, with four seconds separating each scream, the mystery vocalizations echoed through Hampton for at least three minutes.
/////////////////END OF ARTICLE////////////////////
Not long after my experience and the newspaper article’s release, a local man who has made it a lifelong project to study Whitehall’s “Bigfoot” sightings, organized a town meeting in the public library to discuss this recent occurrence. An ad in the local paper called upon people to come forward with their experiences. Back in ’89, right after this experience happened, there just was no way I was going to go public with my story. I had a rather public job in this small town and I was still very much an outsider. But mostly, I could not talk about this without getting very shaky – I mean visibly trembling and stuttering in speech to talk of it. It would take years before I could speak of this without trembling.
In more recent years, television ran a story on Whitehall’s Bigfoot sightings. I watched this show with keen interest. It became clear that the people on the show were looking to track down what they thought was an ape-man kind of illusive primate. ‘No! You are all wrong about this!’ Given my own encounter, which is in agreement with what others had seen, it seemed a crazy error on the part of these ‘researchers’. Natural biological creatures do not have the ‘qualities’ that this being has. How could anybody blatantly ignore what witnesses like myself and others have reported? I was finally ready to go public with my own encounter story. I know my story sounds crazy, but I felt that I had to get it out there.
I contacted the researcher who was a central figure in the documentary. This man got back to me and we spoke for a long time on the phone. After telling him my encounter, this man told me that he did not think I was crazy and that a few others he had interviewed had described the same thing – though none had anything as up close and personal an experience as I – not by a long shot.
The researcher told me that another man who had seen this thing thought the same as I; that it was not natural or any sort of earthly animal - but rather some sort of spiritual principality. He sent me a DVD copy of the televised interviews he had done with a few people that had also seen this being in the Whitehall area. One was a police officer and the other the owner of the local golf course. Like me, both men waited until they had retired before coming out with their stories for fear of public ridicule. Both men had seen the large black being with the unmistakable glowing red eyes. One while driving his police car and the other while out maintaining the local golf course. I was told that the man that was maintaining the golf course had also experienced a type of hypnotic paralysis when beholding the fiery, red eyes. These are common aspects of encounters with Whitehall’s so-called “Bigfoot” that researchers deliberately ignore and to be honest; this masking and covering of the facts upsets me.
Note: what follows is a rare place in this chapter where I speculate and attempt to uncover clues. I could well be way off track – but here is what I have come up with as food for thought:
I have never personally placed much stock in “bigfoot” or “Sasquatch” lore and I can not say such an ape-like natural creature does or does not exist. But I am absolutely convinced that what Whitehall has is no primate-like Sasquatch but a rather darker spiritual principality.
Most of Whitehall’s Bigfoot or Sasquatch researchers and hunters tend to discredit and ignore the paranormal aspects of first-hand encounters with this being. They want to paint it as the primate Bigfoot creature that draws in the interests of Sasquatch hunters – and that can be good for tourism. I understand that Whitehall even passed an ordinance to protect its “bigfoot” as an endangered species and has erected a statue of it someplace. Of course, in my own sincere opinion, this is flat out ridiculous.
Do an Internet search of the following words: “black entity spirit red eyes” and you will find quite plainly that the same exact thing I and the others encountered in Whitehall has been encountered for untold ages. There are many reports of encounters with a huge black entity with the hallmark glowing red eyes that evokes strong feeling of fear and dread; sometimes acts of violence occur. Some witnesses describe it as having matted heavy black hair and others don’t. Most sightings are in Britain with many also now found in North America. Researchers make no bones about clearly labeling it as a paranormal entity. As one who has had a close-up encounter; I whole-heartedly agree.
Some years ago, somebody in Whitehall heard wind of these sightings and falsely labeled a demonic visitation (such as which has been going on elsewhere for ages) as “bigfoot” and that label stuck. Many of these same bigfoot hunters, while interested in first-hand encounters, willfully ignore or discredit the paranormal aspects of such encounters that virtually all who have seen it up close relate. This upsets me some. I can not easily abide with deliberate corruptions of facts.
I have mulled this over in my mind for a while. I believe I might have encountered before in the minor swampland out on Winter’s Road. I examined a satellite image of the area and, combined with local history and lore, I put together some speculations of my own – not that I recommend anybody go looking for this.
This thing came into my house through my backdoor. Directly behind my house on Champlain Avenue is a small swampland. However, this smaller swamp is in ways linked to a far larger and environmentally protected swamp known as Ward’s Marsh. Other swamps are tied into these. Whitehall is where 125 mile long Lake Champlain terminates on its southern end and subsequently much of the area is fairly deep in places with swamps of the sort a flatboat or canoe would be needed to navigate. In such swamps there are little dirtball islands with trees and grass here and there. Moreover, the human history of this area could tie into this particular clue or speculation.
The European history of Whitehall goes back to the 1600’s with a geographically significant role in King George’s War, the French and Indian Wars, and the American Revolution. Native American history includes that of the Mohawk and Mohican. The point is that a great deal of human history has been focused in this little area.
Large black humanoid-shaped entities, sometimes described with thickly matted hair and always attributed with glowing red eyes can be found in Old World and modern Britain, I guardedly speculate that perhaps there is a connection to Old World occult practices that were brought to this region by Old World immigrants. Maybe the first 17th century settlers brought some Old World witchcraft practices and opened a door there – or something to that effect. The swamps in and around Whitehall correspond with the alleged sightings of this entity – this much I have noted and can personally confirm. Maybe it is a coincidence – maybe. Adding to the mystique of the swampland is something a local man had told me.
I can not substantiate what follows and only relate what I was told:
A middle-aged man I knew in Whitehall, who had had lived in the town his entire life, told me of strange sightings of mysterious people and activities that were occasionally seen to gather on some of the tiny dirt-clod sized islands within the swamp – presumably in the Wards Marsh area. This man told me that on such rare occasions huge bon fires had been seen out in the swamp along with clearly visible groups of people dancing around these fires. These bon fires were out in the swamp far enough that would have required a small boat to go investigate. Story had it that by the time police or locals would get a small boat and go investigate (usually the next day after such sightings), the fires and their mysterious attendants seemed to have vanished as there was never a trace of fire or any human activity to be found. This man said it was held by some that these were witches of some sort partaking in some dark ritual.
I know this is all a broad stretch of speculation – but then this whole story is quite a stretch: through the years, a tall smoky-black figure with glowing red eyes, witnessed by scores of people (to include myself) in this one small area; with each witness describing roughly the same thing. So in light of these claims, where do you start to put the facts together? I personally know that this exists and is not a “natural” being. So I know won’t be looking for any “natural” trails.
I have learned that there are different kinds of fear and horror: there are many things that we can see, hear, read, or imagine can evoke fear and horror. Then there are entities, such as what I relate of in this story, that project fear and horror to a truly incapacitating degree. To this day, I don’t care to think about this event – I do so now just for the book.
Final word on this: it is a strange universe we inhabit: multi-dimensional, crowded and hotly active. You need true and mighty Friends in high places when it comes to the spiritual realm. Take assurance in the following word of God:
I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow--not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. Romans 8:38
There are those who follow Bigfoot / Sasquatch news and research that believe it to be an illusive species of primate. Keeping an open mind, I believe such biological creatures very well may exist. Just the same, some who follow Bigfoot or Sasquatch news get insultingly angry at my personal accounting of this creature as it's not a version of the topic that they want to believe. Well, you will get that.
The small Adirondack Mountain town of Whitehall, New York is among places renown for "Bigfoot" sightings. I did not know of this when I was assigned to that town as the active-duty training sergeant for its National Guard unit. What follows is my accounting of something that occurred to me shortly after my arrival there.
The Setting
My first apartment in Whitehall was a duplex located on the outer edge of the small village at the end of a quiet, dead-end street named Champlain Avenue. The setting was quite plain – not the setting one might expect for the event I am going to relate.
My apartment was small – but adequate for me. The downstairs was a new kitchen that opened to the back yard, the living room was an extension of the kitchen and had spiral stairs in one corner that led up to a solitary bedroom with a bathroom attached – everything was new – or at least newly remodeled. My backyard opened out into a vast swampland.
The Encounter
I recall that night well. It was mid-week. I had come home from work, had dinner, then spent a couple hours practicing classical guitar – reading it off sheet music and trying to master some of the simpler scores from Bach or Chopin. This was a hobby I was passionate about then, and to a lesser extent - now. I need to make it clear up front that I did not do illegal drugs then or now. I don't personally care for drugs. Regardless, even if I had wanted to do drugs, I was in the active-duty army and was drug tested periodically. I took my career seriously and considered myself a professional soldier. I say all this because this little story is about to get wild. What follows is exactly what happened to me late that night. In truth, this encounter bothers me some to this day just to recall the events.
So on this particular night, after finally tiring of guitar playing, I went upstairs to bed around 10 or 11PM. Note I hadn’t been dreaming at all that I could recall and I had no issues going on when I went to bed earlier; it was a routine, quiet night - until this incident.
Suddenly, I awoke and I found myself laying there in bed flat on my back and I was weeping and sobbing hard – unnaturally hard. Thing is, as I was weeping I was totally bewildered because I had no clue at all as to why I was weeping. I was not thinking of anything gloomy or sad but yet was permeated to my soul with an overwhelming sense of dread and gloom. I recall thinking,
“Why am I doing this? What is going on?”
Yet I could not stop myself and I lay there on my back and I wept and cried and I could not move – could not turn or lift my head or body. My face was actually aching from crying and I let out a steady stream of whimpers as the tears flowed from my face soaking the pillow. It was unnatural.
It was like my mind was bound and jailed inside my head while some thing else manipulated my body and the perversion and horror of it were . . . tremendous and real. My head felt feverish and my face was soaked from the forced tears that continued to flow from my tired my eyes. I was completely unable to understand or stop what was happening.
Neither this, nor anything remotely like this, had ever happened to me before or since. I must say also that I was a devout church-going man during this time and certainly not into anything remotely 'occult'.
As this was going on, I suddenly heard my back door that was just below me on the first floor, slam open very hard with a bang – hard enough that it shook the walls. This was the door that opened out from my kitchen facing the back yard and swamp.
With the opening of the door, I suddenly was released from my possession and stopped sobbing and lay there a moment wondering who was breaking into my place. It was 3AM. I did not know anybody that might just let themselves into my place.
I heard and mentally followed heavy and slow footsteps crossing the kitchen floor – very slowly – about as slow and lethargic sounding as the mummy in the old movies;
thump ! . . .
[sound of kitchen table getting shoved aside roughly]
thump! . . .
thump!
[sound of chair getting knocked over]
thump! . . .
Each step came down with a very solid and wall-rattling heavy thud. Whoever he was – he was large. It was all so unreal. I thought I was being burglarized at this point.
Noteworthy to this encounter is that as I lay there in my bed wide eyed and listening – I could hear my furniture getting roughly relocated as the heavy footsteps proceeded on in slow, rhythmic thuds. Then the sound of a chair being tossed aside with another crash – and now I could tell by the footsteps that it was directly below me in my living room and more furniture was heard and felt being tossed hard. He was coming to the stairs that led to where I was laying.
I had to take action at once!
I quickly got out of bed and grabbed a baseball bat that I had stashed under my bed for such emergency self-defense scenarios. The plan was that I would wait crouched at the top of the stairs and whack this man in the shins – hard – then follow up with a few more thumps and see what was going on. Smack first – ask questions later.
Right about that time, as I formulated this simple plan of action, and as I was heading over to my position by the top of the stairs, I saw something that quite literally froze me in my tracks with icy fear.
Coming up the spiral stairs towards me, gliding smoothly rather than walking, was a huge black silhouette looking form. I stood there immobilized just as I was moments before when in bed. As it ascended the stairs, coming more fully in sight, to my horror I saw the head; then the head and shoulders; and then the torso and legs – all jet back and shadowy with no detailed features. My room and the stairs were fairly lit up from a street light in front of my place that shone through the windows.
I stood there paralyzed with fear, or something made me so I couldn’t move my feet or arms. I was standing wide-eyed and paralyzed. The ball bat was there in my hands but I could not move. The thing stopped walking and glided to a stop directly in front of me – face to face – maybe just a foot between us – maybe less.
I enjoy illustrating this book and could easily draw this entity out but there is no way I care to do that. Understand, I am uneasy even writing of it. Besides, it is simple enough to physically describe.
It stood taller than my six feet. I’d say it stood around 6’3”. It was very stocky – being quite broad and thick at the shoulders and upper torso. The neck was also proportionately thick. It made no sounds or gestures as it held me transfixed in its fiery stare. I could smell a strong, eggy or sulfur-like odor as I stared back into its flaming portals that were the eyes. I was somehow held and thus forced to stare into its eyes. There were no pupils or irises; these eyes were almond-shaped and just a solid flaming red and orange; not at all unlike hot, burning coals when fanned.
Its face was a featureless jet-black cloud to me with except for its very prominent glowing eyes. The eyes actually glowed red with a light that was in no way the result of a reflection. Its arms stayed at its side and while it was in front of me it did not speak or make a sound.
It is hard to describe my state. I was horrified but that is not what kept me petrified. Like minutes earlier while I was in bed, it again exercised a possession over my body but not my thoughts as I had a heightened awareness of what was going on. Though I was desperate to get free, I was absolutely paralyzed – standing up still clutching my baseball bat with both hands but unable to wield it. There was about a foot between myself and this being that had come to see me.
My fear was near total. I say “near” because I could still think rational enough to frantically tell myself that this must be a wild dream because I clenched my eyes shut hard saying it was a dream and I was going to reopen them and find it all gone. I tried this several times but when I opened my eyes I found it was in fact no dream. I don’t know exactly how long I stood there. I know that I was there long enough to try and rationalize that this wasn’t really happening. I recall desperately thinking;
“This has to be a dream! This must be a dream!”
Unable to move, I started yelling for help as I believed my landlord was home next door but undoubtedly asleep at that hour. My cries for help came out in a pathetic, weak voice and no help came. The thing stood before me in control. As I gazed into its eyes, I thought that it seemed to like my fear – that was the feeling I had – that it was actually feeding off my fear. I was held and forced to face this thing eye-to-eye. I felt mocked and violated.
I closed my eyes again hard and this time I began to pray any prayer I could recall – the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm. Then I plain called out to Jesus. This time, when I opened them, it was gone and I was released from the paralysis. I recall going to my bedside, dropping to my knees, and saying aloud,
“Oh my God! What was that?”
I was exhausted emotionally. I said another prayer and went to bed – trusting my safety to God and His angels. In my estimate, the whole encounter lasted around five or seven minutes.
The Aftermath
The next morning I awoke early for work. I recall as I got out of bed feeling the emotional strain of the night before yet on me. I felt emotionally beat up and traumatized. I sat on my bedside and thought again, “My God, what was that last night?” I decided that it had to have been some kind of really wild nightmare – nothing more. That thought prevailed and I felt better as I got bathed and dressed for work.
But when I went downstairs to get breakfast I was stunned to find all my chairs and coffee table moved and knocked over, my kitchen table also knocked over and moved, and my back door was wide open; all precisely as I had heard just hours before when this being came into my place. The horror of it all hit me in a huge wave:
It wasn’t a dream!
Now I was really shaken up. Understand that this visitation was a sincerely traumatic event.
All said, I still had a job to do and I went to work that morning. When I got there, it was the usual casual morning scene among the four or five other guys that I worked with at the armory. The coffee was brewing and the men gathered around a table in the break room to read the newspaper, talk some man gossip, bust jokes, and maybe talk shop a bit. Of this scene I was a part, but not on this morning. I’d never been shaken like this in my life.
Upon entering the armory, I walked past the break room without saying a word. I must have looked pretty rough because one of the guys must have noticed the way I was looking and left the break room and followed me to my office.
He came in and said “Shenk, what’s wrong?” I told him nothing, but that I had a bad night. He kept badgering me as to what had happened and I kept telling him it was nothing – and I didn’t want to talk about it. He would not let it go – so I told him.
It’s such a wild story. I was really afraid he would think I was nuts. But he wanted to know so I told all that had happened – except for the perverse part, I never shared that with anybody until now. His reaction surprised me. He called the other few guys into my office – and now I was a bit embarrassed. Smiling, as if he had discovered something, he told me to tell the guys what had happened to me. They all stood before my desk in my office and listened. Nobody laughed or scoffed at me.
“Congratulations!” the eldest of them said. “Welcome to Whitehall.”
They said I had seen what they called Bigfoot. This was a long standing local legend – a rare but sporadically occurring phenomenon to the area. Bigfoot! Well, what else could they call it? It certainly wasn’t an animal or of flesh.
A couple weeks later, the local newspaper ran a story about several locals who had seen a large black figure with glowing red eyes in the area. I can say with all honesty, I had never in my life heard anything of Whitehall’s “Bigfoot” story prior to my own experience – there was absolutely no influence upon this experience.
What follows is a story that ran in the local newspaper a couple weeks AFTER my encounter:
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"Bigfoot" Sighting Reported by Startled Teen in Hampton
Paul Bartholomew - Special to the Whitehall Times
A startled teenager may have recently glimpsed a creature resembling the legendary "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch" in Hampton.
The 16 year old, wishing to remain anonymous, claims he was walking along 22A South when he spotted a dark figure lurking along the roadside. The sighting reportedly took place around 3 p.m. on Aug.18.
The youth reportedly observed the creature for approximately three full seconds before both took off in opposite directions.
"I could see the back, a big back, and it was dark, it was awful matted and scruffy-like," said the witness.
The youth was accompanied by a dog which apparently reacted to the presence of something.
"The dog...came across the road near to where the thing was standing and it started whining and took off," said the teen.
On Aug. 24, the mystery deepened as the young man and a friend camped out near where the sighting took place. At 2 a.m. it seemed that something was watching them "I stared at it and it stared back and it kind of went away," said the youth.
The witness said he observed two "glowing red eyes" approximately six feet off the ground. The eyes appeared to be circling the camp.
"They weren't just round-like, they were oblong, longer than they were round," added the observer. The youth contacted Dr. Warren L. Cook, Professor of History and Anthropology at Castleton State College (Vermont) and noted authority on Bigfoot. Dr. Cook contacted fortean researcher Paul B. Bartholomew, who investigated the sightings.
Two possible footprints were found at the campsite in direct relation to where the "glowing red eyes" were observed. The clearer of the two impressions measured 10 1/2 inches long by 4 1/2 inches wide, with a stride of 56 inches between them. It is interesting to note that the date of the sighting falls on the 13 anniversary of the Abair Road, Whitehall sightings of 1976. In that instance as many as nine witnesses, many of them law enforcement officials, reported seeing a large, hairy, red-eyed creature walking on two legs and disappearing into the dense rural woodlands. Dr. Cook feels the timing of the sightings are probably not coincidental.
"If these creatures do migrate and feel comfortable and safe traveling a particular route, then it would make sense that they would stay along the same routes," said Cook.
On Aug. 28, high-pitched screams were heard coming from the woods at about 1 a.m. Lasting 30 seconds, with four seconds separating each scream, the mystery vocalizations echoed through Hampton for at least three minutes.
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Not long after my experience and the newspaper article’s release, a local man who has made it a lifelong project to study Whitehall’s “Bigfoot” sightings, organized a town meeting in the public library to discuss this recent occurrence. An ad in the local paper called upon people to come forward with their experiences. Back in ’89, right after this experience happened, there just was no way I was going to go public with my story. I had a rather public job in this small town and I was still very much an outsider. But mostly, I could not talk about this without getting very shaky – I mean visibly trembling and stuttering in speech to talk of it. It would take years before I could speak of this without trembling.
In more recent years, television ran a story on Whitehall’s Bigfoot sightings. I watched this show with keen interest. It became clear that the people on the show were looking to track down what they thought was an ape-man kind of illusive primate. ‘No! You are all wrong about this!’ Given my own encounter, which is in agreement with what others had seen, it seemed a crazy error on the part of these ‘researchers’. Natural biological creatures do not have the ‘qualities’ that this being has. How could anybody blatantly ignore what witnesses like myself and others have reported? I was finally ready to go public with my own encounter story. I know my story sounds crazy, but I felt that I had to get it out there.
I contacted the researcher who was a central figure in the documentary. This man got back to me and we spoke for a long time on the phone. After telling him my encounter, this man told me that he did not think I was crazy and that a few others he had interviewed had described the same thing – though none had anything as up close and personal an experience as I – not by a long shot.
The researcher told me that another man who had seen this thing thought the same as I; that it was not natural or any sort of earthly animal - but rather some sort of spiritual principality. He sent me a DVD copy of the televised interviews he had done with a few people that had also seen this being in the Whitehall area. One was a police officer and the other the owner of the local golf course. Like me, both men waited until they had retired before coming out with their stories for fear of public ridicule. Both men had seen the large black being with the unmistakable glowing red eyes. One while driving his police car and the other while out maintaining the local golf course. I was told that the man that was maintaining the golf course had also experienced a type of hypnotic paralysis when beholding the fiery, red eyes. These are common aspects of encounters with Whitehall’s so-called “Bigfoot” that researchers deliberately ignore and to be honest; this masking and covering of the facts upsets me.
Note: what follows is a rare place in this chapter where I speculate and attempt to uncover clues. I could well be way off track – but here is what I have come up with as food for thought:
I have never personally placed much stock in “bigfoot” or “Sasquatch” lore and I can not say such an ape-like natural creature does or does not exist. But I am absolutely convinced that what Whitehall has is no primate-like Sasquatch but a rather darker spiritual principality.
Most of Whitehall’s Bigfoot or Sasquatch researchers and hunters tend to discredit and ignore the paranormal aspects of first-hand encounters with this being. They want to paint it as the primate Bigfoot creature that draws in the interests of Sasquatch hunters – and that can be good for tourism. I understand that Whitehall even passed an ordinance to protect its “bigfoot” as an endangered species and has erected a statue of it someplace. Of course, in my own sincere opinion, this is flat out ridiculous.
Do an Internet search of the following words: “black entity spirit red eyes” and you will find quite plainly that the same exact thing I and the others encountered in Whitehall has been encountered for untold ages. There are many reports of encounters with a huge black entity with the hallmark glowing red eyes that evokes strong feeling of fear and dread; sometimes acts of violence occur. Some witnesses describe it as having matted heavy black hair and others don’t. Most sightings are in Britain with many also now found in North America. Researchers make no bones about clearly labeling it as a paranormal entity. As one who has had a close-up encounter; I whole-heartedly agree.
Some years ago, somebody in Whitehall heard wind of these sightings and falsely labeled a demonic visitation (such as which has been going on elsewhere for ages) as “bigfoot” and that label stuck. Many of these same bigfoot hunters, while interested in first-hand encounters, willfully ignore or discredit the paranormal aspects of such encounters that virtually all who have seen it up close relate. This upsets me some. I can not easily abide with deliberate corruptions of facts.
I have mulled this over in my mind for a while. I believe I might have encountered before in the minor swampland out on Winter’s Road. I examined a satellite image of the area and, combined with local history and lore, I put together some speculations of my own – not that I recommend anybody go looking for this.
This thing came into my house through my backdoor. Directly behind my house on Champlain Avenue is a small swampland. However, this smaller swamp is in ways linked to a far larger and environmentally protected swamp known as Ward’s Marsh. Other swamps are tied into these. Whitehall is where 125 mile long Lake Champlain terminates on its southern end and subsequently much of the area is fairly deep in places with swamps of the sort a flatboat or canoe would be needed to navigate. In such swamps there are little dirtball islands with trees and grass here and there. Moreover, the human history of this area could tie into this particular clue or speculation.
The European history of Whitehall goes back to the 1600’s with a geographically significant role in King George’s War, the French and Indian Wars, and the American Revolution. Native American history includes that of the Mohawk and Mohican. The point is that a great deal of human history has been focused in this little area.
Large black humanoid-shaped entities, sometimes described with thickly matted hair and always attributed with glowing red eyes can be found in Old World and modern Britain, I guardedly speculate that perhaps there is a connection to Old World occult practices that were brought to this region by Old World immigrants. Maybe the first 17th century settlers brought some Old World witchcraft practices and opened a door there – or something to that effect. The swamps in and around Whitehall correspond with the alleged sightings of this entity – this much I have noted and can personally confirm. Maybe it is a coincidence – maybe. Adding to the mystique of the swampland is something a local man had told me.
I can not substantiate what follows and only relate what I was told:
A middle-aged man I knew in Whitehall, who had had lived in the town his entire life, told me of strange sightings of mysterious people and activities that were occasionally seen to gather on some of the tiny dirt-clod sized islands within the swamp – presumably in the Wards Marsh area. This man told me that on such rare occasions huge bon fires had been seen out in the swamp along with clearly visible groups of people dancing around these fires. These bon fires were out in the swamp far enough that would have required a small boat to go investigate. Story had it that by the time police or locals would get a small boat and go investigate (usually the next day after such sightings), the fires and their mysterious attendants seemed to have vanished as there was never a trace of fire or any human activity to be found. This man said it was held by some that these were witches of some sort partaking in some dark ritual.
I know this is all a broad stretch of speculation – but then this whole story is quite a stretch: through the years, a tall smoky-black figure with glowing red eyes, witnessed by scores of people (to include myself) in this one small area; with each witness describing roughly the same thing. So in light of these claims, where do you start to put the facts together? I personally know that this exists and is not a “natural” being. So I know won’t be looking for any “natural” trails.
I have learned that there are different kinds of fear and horror: there are many things that we can see, hear, read, or imagine can evoke fear and horror. Then there are entities, such as what I relate of in this story, that project fear and horror to a truly incapacitating degree. To this day, I don’t care to think about this event – I do so now just for the book.
Final word on this: it is a strange universe we inhabit: multi-dimensional, crowded and hotly active. You need true and mighty Friends in high places when it comes to the spiritual realm. Take assurance in the following word of God:
I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow--not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. Romans 8:38
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