Episode
Panning for Gold in Bigfoot Country
- Podcast
- What if it's True Podcast
- Published
- Feb 26, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1713
- Processing state
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Summary
Panning for Gold in Bigfoot Country A lifelong outdoorsman from a Texas cattle-ranch background (former pro rodeo rider, music teacher, avid camper, fisherman, hiker, and fossil/rock collector) recounts two eerie, unexplained experiences that ultimately convinced him Bigfoot is real. While renting a remote 26-acre cabin outside Kerrville, Texas, he regularly fed local wildlife. For several nights he heard loud slapping/banging on the cabin walls; one night the impact was so violent it shook pictures on the wall beside his bed. His dogs were terrified. A trail camera later captured a large, shadowy face peering through the brush exactly where the noises occurred. Around the same time, a reported Bigfoot sighting happened just eight miles away. After moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, he had a similar feeling of being watched while alone with his dogs on the remote Holy Ghost Trail (an area locals call haunted); the dogs bolted back to the Jeep in fear. In March 2021, during a solo gold-panning trip to Willow Creek in the Santa Fe National Forest, he discovered a set of enormous fresh footprints paralleling the creek—16 inches long, 5 inches wide, with a 4.5-foot stride. His dogs froze, staring into the brush; he felt intensely watched. He measured and photographed the prints (with his foot for scale) before racing back to his truck. Subsequent research revealed dozens of Bigfoot reports in both the Texas Hill Country and northern New Mexico locations where he had lived and hiked, including one near his old cabin on the exact night of the slapping incident. A hunter had also gone missing in the Willow Creek area, later featured on a TV show. Now living on the Texas coast (where sightings are also reported), he remains an enthusiastic outdoorsman but never hikes or camps wit…