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Hello everyone, my name is a Wiley Bureau.

I'm born and raised in New Jersey.

I was born in Princeton, grew up in central New Jersey.

If there had to be a central New Jersey town I grew up would have had to have been smacked down in the middle.

A little bit about myself, as I've always been into the outdoors I grew up, I've been hiking across So I grew up in New Jersey and like the southern side of New Jersey is extremely developed up to my town.

Basically it goes it's developed all the way into Jersey City up to Manhattan.

Then the northwestern side of my town becomes rural and there's just preserved forests, lots of hiking trails, and basically it's forest and green ways and farmland up to Pennsylvania.

So the street I grew up on was like a side forested road right next to a preserve.

And ever since I was born, my mom put me in her backpack as an infant and would just take me hiking.

And I literally grew up just playing out in the woods as a kid.

So after I graduated high school, I was inspired to join a survival school in Washington State.

And in the survival school, i've I learned how to basically survive with nothing but my hands in the forest.

I can make fire with sticks, I could make snares and trap animals.

I know how to track as well, and I also have can make medicines out of medicinal plants.

I could forge for wild edibles, wild mushrooms, and it was a really great experience.

And after that experience, I did a couple of years of amer Corps, traveling around the country volunteering get immersing myself into different communities, and through there I became a wild and forest firefighter.

So I did a little wild and force firefighting after Air Corps, and I really loved that and I made some great connections.

But I decided after that I wanted to get a four year college degree and environmental science slash ecology.

So I moved back to Washington State and I gained residency, worked a little bit, and then started to study at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where I studied environmental science.

I also got an opportunity to track wolves in Idaho after the wilderness school I went to at nineteen years old, which was a really cool experience.

Most recently, about five years ago, I moved back to New Jersey.

I became an arborist, and that's basically where you prune trees, climbed trees, and I got and dove into the whole plant healthcare aspect, so I know basically every shrub and insect and disease and parasite that can affect these trees.

And then so I did that for five years after college, working in New Jersey, doing tree work every single day, and I got kind of over it.

After five years, I decided to move back to the Pacific Northwest.

So this is the past year.

A year ago, I moved back to the Pacific Northwest to become a wild and forest firefighter again.

And that's basically what I've been doing for the past year, fighting fires all over the mountains of Oregon, all over the mountains of Washington State into California.

And it was an amazing experience because just the Pacific Northwest is beautiful.

The habitat out there is phenomenal, and that's basically where I had my first Bigfoot sighting.

Growing up in New Jersey, I've never heard of bigfoot.

Nobody talks about Bigfoot.

The whole bigfoot cultures really really just doesn't really exist.

I mean, there is forests out here, and there are places that I believe personally there could be bigfoots, but I had never really heard of bigfoot until my senior year of high school.

I was in gym class and I had this really cool gym teacher but really loved and he actually helped me found the Survival Club on my senior year of high school, which still exists to this day.

But anyway, one day in class, he sat the whole gym class down.

There were probably seventy people in the classroom, and he wanted to tell everyone in his Sasquatch story.

And I didn't even know what a sasquatch was.

I was like, what the heck is this guy talking about?

So I kind of, you know, threw the lines together as he was telling a story.

But basically, he was camping with his friends and they had a fire and they drove out there in their jeep and there's this giant log that they were all sitting on next to the fire, and it was a huge, huge log.

And anyway, so it was a pretty quick story.

They all went to sleep, and when they woke up in the morning, that log that they're sitting on was placed on top of their jeep.

And he said he didn't see anything, He didn't even hear anything.

But he says, in order of to have put the log on top of the deep as it was, you would have needed a machinery, an excavator or something.

And uh yeah, So that they woke up and there's this giant log they're sitting on on top of their jeep in the morning, and they all just immediately felt like it was Sasquatch.

This story was told to me like over twenty years ago, So I don't remember if he said he looked for footprints or anything like that, but I remember he said they dislodged the log from the roof by driving backwards and then putting it in drive and pulling forwards really fast, and it slipped off the roof.

But that's the first time I ever heard of bigfoot.

Never thought of it for at least another year.

After that first story, I heard of Sasquatch and I kind of thought it was a funny story, and I liked the idea of, you know, there being an unknown creature out in the woods.

It was fascinating, It was a fun story.

It was kind of cool.

But so a year after that, I graduated high school and instead of going to college, I decided to do something different and attend the Wilderness School.

So I got out to Washington State with my parents.

They flew me out and I moved to this town called Duvall, which is it's a pretty small town.

I think it used to be a logging town and it basically is on the foothills at the Cascade Mountains.

And in order to my parents moved me into a yur and I lived in a year ten miles like through winding roads up this mountain.

It was so high up the mountain that your ears would pop, and it was just a Pacific Northwestern sanctuary.

It was absolutely gorgeous where this year community was, and the yur community was on this beautiful resort called moss Wood Hollow, and I became really close to the landlords there and I could hike through trails to the campus where the Wilderness School was.

So the first day, the first week of class, everyone camped on the property.

And the property is basically in the Cascade Cascade Mountains.

It's on there's a lot of logging land behind the on property, but it's all forests.

Literally, you go in one direction, there's two hundred miles of forest.

So it's kind of a scary knowing that, because you make one wrong turn in the forest and you can get yourself into big trouble really fast.

But so I'm eighteen, I'm out in Washington State, and I'm like, what is this compared to New Jersey.

It just seems so drastic.

The trees were big, it was wet and dank, and it rained a lot, and oh man, I just had never seen anything like it.

I didn't even know there are places like that that exists.

And it was just way better than I could have even imagined.

But with that said, it was my first time leaving with my parents, and like they just left me in the forest and Grove flew back to New Jersey, and I remember being really nervous, but that I stayed in the year for a week before class started and some students started coming and I met up with like four other people and we ended up going on a road trip through the Olympic Peninsula before class started.

Then the class started and we were all camping on the property.

I was kind of nervous.

I hadn't started the wilderness school.

I didn't really push my comfort zones at that time in my life.

And I put my tent right next to the instructional building which is surrounded by forest, and all the older students and stuff kind of dispersed their tents into the woods and kind of we're just finding their own little, secret cool spots and making their own little campsites all along the property.

Well, there were about thirty people in the program, and we all did our introductions, got to know each other, did like a team building activity.

I remember walking around with this guy and he was a he had long dreadlocks and he was barefoot.

I was like, I would never walk barefoot.

This guy's crazy.

Now actually, now like twenty years later, I love walking barefoot.

But anyway, this guy's got dreadlocks and he's walking barefoot, and he's showing me through this trail and he picks a hemlock.

The new growth off of hemlock and eats it and he tells me it's a hunger suppressant, and I was just like, that's amazing.

And that was the first wild edible I'd ever picked out of the wild meeting, and it was a kind of a I just I knew I was getting myself into a really interesting situation.

So that night I slept pretty well.

I didn't have any issues, you know, everyone else, you know, slept and we woke up in the morning and there was some commotion going on and apparently one of the students who this woman who came from down south, she had to be in her forties or something.

Well, her and this one Native American fellow put their tents together, were not together, but right next to each other.

So apparently at some point throughout the night she a bigfoot was outside of their tent and they both saw it and heard it, and it would it was it wouldn't leave, apparently.

And anyway, the next day the woman left the program.

Didn't say goodbye to anybody, she just left the whole program.

And I hear people like gossiping and stuff, and then I heard bigfoot, and I was like, what's going on.

So in the morning meeting, our all our instructors sit us down and they're like, oh, all right, everyone, I'm sure you've heard by now that whatever her name is left the program.

Yeah, I'm sure you've heard she saw a bigfoot.

And then the Native American did know.

Next story, he's like, I saw it too, it was there.

Oh my gosh.

I wasn't scared.

I didn't.

I wasn't scared at all.

But yeah, she she was very uncomfortable by the whole situation and wanted to go home, and our instructors like, saddus down.

I just thought this lady was crazy.

I was thinking in that moment, like, oh no, what I get myself into.

But all of a sudden, the instructors say, all right, everyone, bigfoot is real.

We don't like to talk about this subject in the wilderness school.

This is not a bigfoot research school.

This is about survival.

So after this morning discussion, we're not going to bring this topic up again.

If you see anything weird that's unexplainable in the forest, leave it at that.

It's unexplainable.

Sometimes you see things that you just can't explain.

And then they started telling us about their sightings, so I guess they call Bigfoot the stick breaker.

And each one of my five instructors went through and told me like, oh, I remember one siding from one instructor and he said he was camping and all of a sudden, he heard a stick break at his campsite, and then the stick broke from the opposite end, and then he said he heard sticks just breaking, like hundreds of them all around his campsite.

That's what I gathered from his story.

And yeah, I guess they call him the stick breaker.

He was like, never say the word stickbreaker out loud.

It just sounds like some superstition to me.

I didn't really know what to believe.

But they all said, Bigfoot's real.

Consider him the protector of the forest.

You guys don't really have anything to worry about.

If you're are a nurture to the outdoors and you give love and peaceful, Bigfoot isn't going to bother you.

But if you're out in the forest and you're harming the woods and you're doing things that are disrespectful to the forest, you might have a scary encounter.

And that's typically what happens.

And then they told us, like they said, there's some encounters where people have broken their legs and a big foot saved them.

And they said, that's like one example is if you're a pure heart, you know they aren't going to have negative intentions towards you.

So I just thought that was kind of interesting.

The woman never came back to the Wilderness program.

We had that conversation, and that was that we never talked about the stick breaker or big foot ever again throughout the rest of the year.

And that the rest of that year, I was doing intensive survival camping all throughout Washington State, Oregon, and California.

So it was incredible and I had some experiences like where I ended up, you know, walking barefoot through marshes and camouflaging myself with mud lee's and stalking animals and hunting, and so I really dove deep into the program and I learned how to push my comfort zone, which was one of the most great lessons I could have brought from that experience.

I even got a chance to do a fire walk.

We had this like ceremony towards the end of the school year, and this huge fire.

It was the flames were twenty foot in the air.

It was like ten by ten foot fire and they burnt it down, we had a ceremony and we all did a firewalk, which was just really amazing experience.

So after that, I moved back to New Jersey and I did a bunch of other things.

I always wanted to move back to Washington State because at that experience, so eventually I did move back to Washington.

I lived out there for a while and I went to the Evergreen State College and that was really cool, and like every once in a while people would bring up Bigfoot and living in that area, you'd see cars with you know, Bigfoot research vehicles and stuff, and I never really thought anything of it.

So I was I had a girlfriend at the time and she was in New Jersey and I had this class field trip where I was in the Willamette National Forest in Oregon, and I was studying lichens out of all things, which was kind of awesome because there's a lot of lichens in the Pacific Northwest.

So one of the days we were there, they split the class into three different groups.

One was going to stay local so around the campsite, another group was just going to go a little further out and look at on lichens in the area, and then the other group was gonna I'm summit a mountain.

Look a look at the different type of lichen species that are up on the top of the mountains in high altitude.

So I was like, I'm doing that.

I've never summond a mountain before, I'm doing it.

And it was really intense hike.

It took us like probably six hours to get to the top of the mountain, like it was dark and everything.

By the time we got back.

It was really intense, but getting to the top of the mountain was incredible.

In the Willamotte National Force where we were, we didn't have service all week, so all of a sudden, I'm on top of the mountain.

I had four bars and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna call my my girlfriend and my ex girlfriend now.

And I was like hey, and she's like, why are you calling me?

I thought you didn't have service, and I was like, I'm on top of a mountain and that was so stoked, and she got mad at me.

She was like, oh, you went to the top of a mountain without me, and I was like, well, that's not the point I'm calling you.

I'm on top of a mountain.

I thought about you.

But anyway, she was like really upset that I had done it without her, even it was kind of out of my choice.

I just took an opportunity to take a hike while I was at a field tripping class, so it was kind of ridiculous.

But unfortunately she ended up moving back, which wasn't a good plan.

We never really worked out.

We were more hiking buddies than like girlfriend and boyfriend.

We were just more friends and got comfortable and ended up dating for seven years.

So she moved back to Washington and I promised her I was going to take her to the top of a mountain.

I was living in Olympia and one of the closest parts of the peninsula to me is Staircase.

It's near Lake Cushman.

But the Staircase Trail is always so busy.

There's tons of people out there, and there's actually a bunch of people that have gone missing out there, which is kind of interesting.

There's even a person who went missing out there who was from New Jersey who I knew at the Evergreen State College and he went missing, and yeah, I think I heard they found his body like two years later.

But people go missing out there, which is always you know, in the back of my head.

When I'm out in the woods, I'm always trying to be as aware as possible.

So there's another trail, not staircases like Past staircase, and you have to cross the Lake Cushman Bridge and there's this trail called Copper Creek and Copper Creek Trail and there was no cars parked there or anything like that, and I was like, let's take this trail less people.

You could get to the summit and let's check it out.

So we're hiking up there and we're just having such an amazing time.

It was just so beautiful, and I've been studying trees and moss like and so I'm just teaching her everything that i'm seeing.

I'm like, look at that, Oh my gosh, look look at that tree.

You know, we're just like totally got just we're just in the moment, just really enjoying it.

And we didn't see anybody.

But something weird happened.

We were starting getting higher and I swore I heard voices and it sounded like a group of people coming.

So we were like, oh, there must be people up the trail.

I'm sure that we'll pass them, and you know, ten minutes later, we didn't pass anybody, and I kind of just like blew it off.

I was just like, oh, I must have just heard some noises.

It's no big deal.

I just kind of forgot about it, you know.

It was kept hiking, saw a cool rock with moth all over it, got distracted at some point.

It was weird because my name is Wiley, and we didn't see anybody on the trail the whole time.

We saw one person, and it was weird because like, I heard someone calling my name and I'm out in the middle of nowhere.

I hadn't seen anybody.

I hear someone calling my name, Wiley, Wiley, and I'm like, what the heck, and I don't see anybody.

And all of a sudden, a dog whies past me on the trail, just running down the mountain, and I was like whoa.

And then someone is following the dog and they're like Wiley, and I looked at them and I was like, yes, how can I help few.

It was really weird, But after that we just kept hiking.

We found this like creek that was like spring fed, and it was just so clean and gorgeous and we're like playing around the water, splashing each other and I'm just giggling, frocking about, and then I got this weird feeling like my ex was four to eleven and she's just really tiny person.

I was just I felt like, all of a sudden, like I was being watched.

And then I felt like a little vulnerable, like if anything happened, we're out in the middle of nowhere, like who would even know?

Would I be able to protect us?

Like I just got these weird, really dark vibes, real fat, real fast.

And then it was gone like that, and I was playing in the water, and then we started hiking again, and then We're getting so high in elevation that I'm starting to see like high alpine tree species like Alaskan yellow cedars and silver furs and subalpine furs.

And it's always fun when he gets so high up and you could tell the the trees are getting a little bit more dispersed.

There's fewer and fewer trees because we're getting so high up in elevation.

But we didn't get high enough to above the tree line.

But all right, so this is where the encounter really starts.

So I'm we're getting close like I could almost I could pretty much see the summit, like maybe I was like maybe two three hundred yards from the summit, and all of a sudden, I hear this.

I feel this like weird vibrating sensation from my core before I heard even any noise or anything.

I just feel this like vibrating from my core.

And then all of a sudden, that vibration.

We both felt it.

All of a sudden, this vibration turned into a a whoop.

And it wasn't just like a whoop, it was like a o.

It echoed through the valley, and I'm like, I just I'm in school, studying wildlife by all, and I'm thinking, what the heck is that?

And it happens again.

Before I could even think about what that was, I could start feeling the vibrations in my stomach again, and then it's whooping and you could feel the whoop and it's just echoing throughout the valley, and my intuition is saying, this source of the noise is coming from the top of the mountain there, and I'm trying to think, like what makes this noise?

And all of a sudden I hear a reply from across the valley from another mountaintop and all of a sudden, there's two creatures whooping back and forth.

One had to been like a mile away and then the other one.

We're still going up the hill and we're getting closer to the whoops and they're getting louder and louder, and I'm like, I'm looking up towards the top, trying to find the source of sound, and that's when I saw a black silhouette standing up huge and instantly, right when I saw it and made eye contact with it, it ducked down.

And as soon as I saw that, I knew at that moment, I just was witnessed a big foot, and it was Uh.

I was really really excited because I had been studying wildlife biology and I didn't really have any like intimidating feelings, so and I kind of wanted to get a picture, so I ran me and her were like, I think that, well, I just saw a bigfoot and we're going up there to try to like get a picture.

Because when it when I saw it, I saw it silhouetted at the very top of the hill, right where we were headed, and it was completely aware of me, because right when I saw it, it ducked and it ducked and went right back into a whoop.

So I'm going to the top of the mountain, and like you know, when you get to the top of a mountain, it's it's peaked, so there's like there's cliffs all around, and like there's not too many places to hide, and I don't see anything, but the whoopings are still going on, just as loud and as rapid as ever.

And we're up there and I could not find the source of the whoop.

It was almost as if it was happening all around under me at once.

Right on top of that hill.

Couldn't hear anything.

So we just sat there on top of that mountain and awe, listen to these creatures whoop back and forth.

And you know, I've thought about this for a long time, like what kind of obviously they're communicating back and forth, but like, what is that?

Was that a mating call?

Like I have no idea, but they were doing whoop whoops to one another, and uh, they were just completely communicating, And yeah, that was incredible.

So that was my first bigfoot experience and that kind of got me into like really really into the subject, and I started researching it and then I started finding out that one of the lead investigators of I forget their research name, it's out of Washington State, but one of the researchers had a big foot siding on that exact same trail, and they were just like sidings siding report after siding report after siding report on the exact same trail, which, like in my head, I was like, oh wow, I guess I was in a big Foot hot spot.

So after that, I like I was a bleeper.

I was a knower.

I knew bigfoot was real.

I'd seen it with my own eyes, just a glimpse, but witnessing that, the strength and the power of their whoops, there's nothing like it.

There's nothing out there that makes that sound, that gives you that sensation.

It's it vibrated the inside of my core more than standing next to the base out of a concert.

It was a really really cool sensation.

But if I experienced them of the infrasound, which I must have, because I felt a vibration before I heard anything, it wasn't a negative feeling.

If anything, it got me.

It gave me energy, It got me excited.

I got I don't know, I don't know how to describe it.

I can't say that every experience I had was that thrilling and exciting, but it led me down a wonderful road of getting into the whole Bigfoot subject, which is just my opinion on what it is and what it could be has changed and evolved over the years, and it's just an amazing subject where I've learned so much about so many different topics.

So I really feel blessed to have had that experience.

But so me and that girl and eventually broke up, and I moved onto eleven acre property in the Capital State Forest, which is part of its in Olympia, Washington, and the landlord was great.

I me and him just hit it off.

I consider him one of my brothers.

And he's an interesting character because his grandfather was Charles Limberg.

Charles Limberg was his famous pilot.

I think he flew the first plane over the Atlantic Ocean.

So through his inheritance, he was able to buy this eleven acre property and it was a wonderful place to live.

So at one point I got this hammock tent and I was, you know, I'm a really good I'm really into tracking and stuff, and I found a game trail on the outskirts of one of his properties, and I was like, oh cool, because living out there, it was very common to see elk.

Going from downtown Olympia to his forested property, I would see elk, bald eagles, there were rivers around there that had salmon.

I've even I would see black bears every once in a while across the road.

It was really wild habitat.

I found this game trail.

I was like, I wonder what made this well.

I got this hammock tent and I had this like little four foot ladder.

So I hung the tent like literally seven feet above this game trail, thinking like, oh, if an elk is using this trail, I don't want to notice me or hit me.

So I put it high enough that was thought an elk with antlers would be able to clear my hammock.

So anyway, it got dark, I had my head lamp.

I crawled up into the hammock.

I had the ladder resting up against the side of a tree, and I fell and I slept great up until like three in the morning.

Before I tell you what happened, I just want to give you a little background on where I was living.

So this property, I had like seven roommates and there's just one dude who uh just was like a video game nerd, and he would be in the basement all night long playing video games.

And he had a pit bull.

And this pit bull was a sweet sweetie pie, but it wasn't afraid of anything.

It would it would hear an animal and just chase it for miles into the forest and the income back.

And like I noticed a few times I was outside and like the dog only growled at me if it was dark, and like some dogs wouldn't do that because I felt feel like they could catch my scent.

But I just felt like this piple didn't have the best sense of smell and if it was dark out and saw me, it would start growling at me until I like would be like it's okay, boy, it's okay, it's just me.

And then it was like always really nervous about me being in the dark.

So I don't know, it was just that was kind of interesting.

Otherwise during the day that was so friendly and loving and like attention.

But anyway, that guy would just let the dog out randomly.

I never know when he's gonna be letting the dog out.

But so I'm like, from the hammock that I'm sleepkin, you could see the porch lights of the house that I was living in, so I wasn't like so far away.

I was close enough to feel safe, like, oh, if something happens, I could just go back inside and sleep in my own bed.

But I'm sleeping, and this hammock's like, like I said, seven feet above this game trail, and all of a sudden, I feel I'm in my hammock passed down and I feel something poking me.

And I opened my eyes and my hammock is swaying back and forth, and I'm like, what the heck?

And I got really really nervous, and I instantly her Son's heard something breathing right next to me.

And like when you hear something scary in the forest and you're in your tent and you're alone, there's a few things that go through your mind.

It's more like fight or flight, And I was experiencing that, and in that moment, I decided I was going to fly.

I was out of there.

I was like, I'm going to my own bed, but I could hear this thing breathing, and I'm trying to quietly unzip my tent and it wasn't quiet.

It was like.

And I was like no.

And as soon as I started unzipping it and made that loud noise, whatever it was that was like ten feet away from me, I couldn't see anything.

It was dark.

Whatever it was stomped on the ground really hard.

I could feel it and hear the stomp, and then it yelled at me.

It went and I at that moment, like I thought my heart stopped and I was out and I was like, I don't care if you get me.

I just I tried jumping out of the hammock and I couldn't get my I couldn't reach my feet on the ground.

I end up like swaying and falling on my backside.

And I was like, okay, I'm getting out of here.

And as I'm walking out of the forest, I come into the yard, the guy downstairs lets his pitbull out, and the pitpole immediately notices.

The commotion starts barking and growling and running towards me.

And I was like, oh, no, shoot, there's a pitbull coming towards me, and there's something in the woods behind me.

I don't know what to do, so I'm like, I'm pleading to the dog.

I was like, hey, hey, it's okay, it's me.

It's me and the dog all of a sudden starts whimpering, whimpering, and it tucks its tail down underneath its legs.

I've never seen this dog scared before, and it could sense that there's something in the forest behind me.

And the dog's whimpering like and it comes to me and puts its head in between my legs and hustles me back to the front door.

Literally just put I mean, it starts whimpering and it comes over to me and escorts me to the front door as fast as it could behind me, pushing me towards the front door.

I've never had anything like that happen with a dog, and I've never really had a dog before.

But it's just crazy because I've never seen that dog afraid of anything.

So I really feel like I was touched by a big foot while I was in my hammock that I don't know what else could reach me and poke me like that.

I felt, I felt fingers like at first I thought someone was waking me up.

It's very strange.

So after that experience, I did a little bit more research, and I found out that there are bigfoot sightings in Capitol State forests.

And there's this electrician that worked on campus at the Evergreen State College and he had a got Squatch sticker on his car.

So I went up to him and I was like, oh, you believe in bigfoot.

He's like, oh yeah, he's an old guy.

He's like, oh yeah, of course it looks real.

Oh.

Me and my friends we go out into Capitol State Forest.

And we do wood knocks and I was like, oh cool, and he's like yeah, one time we were doing wood knocks and like we did two wood knocks and ah, son, we got a reply.

For fifty feet away.

He's like, we were so scared.

We were running out of that forest like little schoolgirls.

Like, oh, my goodness, is so funny.

He's the way he just told me is great.

So yeah, there's definitely bigfoot and animals out in Capitol State Forest.

And uh.

It was weird because like I didn't connect the dots to it being a big foot until later down the road.

But that experience never left my mind and I would frequently think about it.

But just after listening to so many podcasts and doing so much research, I came to the conclusion that what else could have pushed me in that hammock that night?

So so eventually I graduated UH from the Evergreen State College and I moved back home to New Jersey and I got a job working for a tree company, like a really big tree company that's very scientific based, and I became a plant healthcare specialist.

Then I got my arbor's license, and I was climbing trees and taking care of different trees and shrubs.

And I did that for like five years, and I used that company to transfer back to Oregon.

So when I moved to back to Oorg and I had a job.

But after working there for like three years, I'd gained a bunch of vacation time paid vacation and it wasn't going to roll over, so basically I had to use it.

I had seventeen days.

So my friend, I'm gonna give a little shout out to my friend, my friend, good friend of mine, Mike fam a loot.

He runs a bigfoot research thing out of New Jersey, because when I moved back home, I was like, oh, man, I wonder if there's like bigfoots out here.

I wonder if there's like people that are into the subject.

So I figured i'd look it up online and Mike was the first person that popped up.

So I reached out to him, and I was like, hey, man, if you ever need company out there when you're squatch and I'll come out with you.

I love tracking and I have a you know, a good background in the outdoors.

And he was all about it because he's the type of person that just goes out big, putting by himself on the wilderness.

But he's he's a he's an old school footer.

He grew up and inspired by the Bigfoot show back in the early two thousands or mid two thousands, and he always has a camera with him and he always does whoops and knocks and wood knocks.

And I feel like, you know, after my background with the wilderness school and environmental science, the best way to really find an animal is to be quiet.

It's quiet your mind, and to track, find game trails, find areas where get to know the landscape, get to know the area, where's water, where's food going to be?

And like, if you think like the animal, you could actually put yourself into the situation where you could possibly be more likely to see an animal like that.

And that's what I do when I'm tracking whatever animal, whatever animal track I find, I try to think, like that animal, what would I do if I was a raccoon?

What would I do if I was in mountain line?

And that's just one of the ways I go about tracking.

So anyway, Mike was excited to have me come big footing with him and he was about to go on a road trip to Florida bigfooting.

So I joined him and it was amazing.

But I really did it just to camp.

I wasn't really big footing.

I really just did it to see Florida, to get out into the wilderness, to spend some time with one of my buddies, and just make the best of the whole experience.

And we did that.

That is exactly what we did.

But camping for seventeen days takes a lot out of you.

We were rough in it, like you know, I went through two tents because the weather was bad and it got really sandy and one of my tents ripped and was leaking, and we were roughing it.

So what Mike really does for a living, and he does these like bigfoot like PowerPoint presentations at libraries and he charges like the library and he makes barely any money doing that.

But he had a bunch of these library things set up in Florida, all over Florida.

So this time we're camping in Okawa National Forest and I was really excited to get out there because it was gorgeous.

There's Spanish moss and I think they're called live oak, and you know, there were all types of animal tracks.

I was seeing bear tracks, alligator tracks, and our first night, two bart owls came into camp and it was really magical and like basically I heard him.

I heard him off in the distance, and I almost playing my speaker and I played some bard owl calls to get him into our camp and it worked flawlessly, and they came into camp, and it was really Okla National Force is a really beautiful spot, and my friend has a really good camp spot there that's you know, kind of like private.

No one really knows about it.

It's pretty secret.

So anyway, we he's doing his he had his PowerPoint thing at like seven thirty, so it was an hour drive, and we drove an hour.

He did his PowerPoint, which I had watched like ten times already at this point and I was just like really bored by it.

And anyway we got through that, I'm kind of tired and like the whole home, I was hungry, and I was just like ready to get to camp.

So we finally get the camp and like we were tired, and we ended up making some sausage peppers and onions and it was really good.

And we're just kind of listening to music, just taking it back, not doing anything, trying to recuperate from this camping trip.

And my friend Mike was even more tired than me.

I was actually kind of getting a second wind because, like you know, I came out there to do some.

Big footing and it's dark out and we're in cal National Force.

I remember asking.

I was like, Mike, let's go on a night hike.

He's going to night hike and he's like, straight up no.

I was like, come on, man, let's do a night hike.

And he's just like his eyes are basically closing as he was like no.

So I'm just like kind of awake, hanging out by myself when Mike's like half asleep, and I hear stick break and you know, like animals don't typically come into your campsite, especially when music's playing, Like animals are evolved to be afraid of humans.

When you're playing music and stuff and being not quiet, it's not likely that an animal is going to come into camp.

So except for owls, that's different.

But I hear a stick break and I was like, interesting, I heard a stick break, and then like I just kind of like was listening and I heard it break again closer, and I was like, I held a mic.

I was like, hey, Mike, you hear that sounds like something's coming into camp.

And I had a thousand lumin flashlight on me, so I clicked on the flashlight and not even like forty feet away, I see I shine six or seven feet up a tree, and I'm like, oh, Mike, there's something right there.

And like before I could even say that, the thing pops out from the other side of the tree and then it all goes behind the tree and then pops out on the other side of the tree, and then it like goes lower and it starts doing this swaying.

It's like looking at me, but from behind the tree, but swaying.

It was the most rhythmic sway I've ever seen an animal.

Due it was super bizarre, and I'm just like, what the heck.

And I was like, Mike, I think there's a big foot here, and like it jumps.

It moved from like the tree was behind twenty feet like completely silently.

I heard one stick break.

In my intuition, I could almost know it was weird.

I knew where it was going.

I turned my flashlight back at it, and it was like twenty feet twenty five feet closer behind another tree, and I could really see it now and it's swaying back and forth.

And this this is when I realized, like, this is a big foot.

I'm shining a thousand women on light at it.

It's six feet off six and a half seven feet off the ground, basically looking right at me from behind a tree.

I was like, Mike, I think there's a big foot here, Mike, And Mike's just like yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'm like I hear it move again.

And there's a road and it was coming out towards the road and I ran over to this table, kind of following it with my lap flashlight and I'm like shining my flashlight off of it for a second.

And it's funny because on this little coffee table, camping coffee table.

There's a flare, a thermal camera, a flear, and an apple and like just in the heat of the moment, I grabbed the apple and the thing comes out onto the logging road and I'm shining my thousand lumen light directly at it.

It's just standing right in front of me, thirty feet away, maybe twenty feet away, and I'm shining a thousand lumens at it.

And it's standing out in the open right in front of me.

And I take the apple and I'm looking at it, and I'm just in shock, really, And I took the apple and I throw it to it, and the apple perfectly.

It bounces it twice and rolled right up to its feet and it looked down at the apple and looked back up at me and did this hypnotic sway right in front of me.

It just starts swinging back and forth.

It's like going in a circle and then turning the circle from the other direction.

And I have to say I wasn't hypnotized, but I could see how it was.

It just it looked like one of those clocks like the hypnotists would swing back and forth.

It was such a bizarre, like ancient, weird feeling I was getting from this creature.

And I'm also yelling to Mike, like Mike, get over here.

Now.

There's a big boy, and like he's like okay, okay, like kind of annoyed, doesn't believe me at all, and the thing is swaying at me, and like he's before he started walking over like me and this thing are looking at each other, and I'm trying to read it.

I'm trying to think, like is this thing like it's swaying staring at me right in the eyes.

Is this thing like sizing me up right now?

Like what is it's intentions?

I could not tell And I didn't feel that scared, but I'm looking at it and I'm just like trying to figure out, like am I in danger?

Like I don't really know what to think right now because this acting really strange, swaying back and forth looking at me, and the way it moved to the forest was incredibly quiet, Like whatever this thing was, it was complete ninja.

So I called my friend Mike.

I was like, Mike, get over here now, and he like he was ten feet away and he's like it was interesting, this sasquatch or swamp ape.

Skunk Cape was so aware and it was interesting because Mike was like ten feet towards like behind me, to the left, kind of there's like a road that goes around the bend, and he was like, there's a bunch of forests and he was kind of around the bend, probably out of eyesight, and but the thing knew where he was.

And every step he took, the skunk Cape, I think it might have been, took a step backwards, completely in sync with his steps, and he another took another step back towards me.

Mike did, and the thing step backwards right and basically with every step ten steps he took towards me, the thing took a step back.

And right when Mike got up to my side, almost at the exact same movement, is exact same step, like he steps right next to me, and at the while he's stepping next to me, the bigfoot steps into the shadows and you can't see it.

And I was like, Mike, did you see that?

And He's like nope.

I was like, no way, because like when he was standing right next to me, I was still looking at it, but it just vanished, but you could hear it you could hear a stick break going around our campsite in the forest, and it went down towards this like swampy Bob.

You could hear one stick break like every thirty forty feet and then another stick breaking.

You can hear it going through the forest really quietly and kind of.

Rapidly around our campsite.

And I was like, Mike, you hear that, And he looks at me, He's like yeah, And I was like, you're listening to a bigfoot right now, walk past our campsite.

And it was just incredible.

And the next day we went into the Everglades and met Dave Sheeley and saw his gunk ape research plays, which is kind of kind of fun.

But so those are basically my three like bigfoot experiences I found tracks before.

I've definitely felt like I was being watched many times.

And I literally just moved back to New Jersey two days ago from Oregon, so driving across the country all week.

But so yesterday was my second day home and I went out to play some pool with one of my buddies and I got back around eleven thirty and I just I found this tree.

It was like twenty degrees and I found this tree that I loved to climb when I was growing up.

And it's dark, and I'm like walking through my yard and we live in a very rural area, and I decided to do a sit spot and just sit and lay back on this tree and meditate.

And this is last night.

So I'm meditating on this tree, and I'm always scared in the dark around around here.

When I don't have a flashlight, I just always have some weird, uneasy feeling.

But anyway, I was trying to meditate, and I was clearing my mind and I'm breathing, and I was just trying to put off good energy, good intentions, and just you know, if an animal did walk up to me at night and I got really scared and nervous, I feel like that kind of energy wouldn't benefit me.

But if animal walked up to me and I was calm and collected, it's going to react differently.

I feel like animals consent your energy.

So anyway, I'm like sitting back there.

I didn't have it.

No animals walked out to me, But I was just trying to put off the really healthy energy waves.

And I heard something in the forest and it was like, I don't know, So what I heard was.

Low.

It wasn't loud, like if you were inside a house with your windows shut, there's no way you would hear this.

But it sounded like something was crying, like I heard.

A oh oh.

And like I'm just looking in this really low not loud at all, like oh, And it sounded like whatever was making that noise was sad, and I was like, but also I'm like, what the heck is making that noise?

So I whistled at it and it stopped making the noise and it heard me, and then it started doing it again.

The noise was closer, it was doing the and then I clicked at it like and it stopped, and then it clearly knew where I was.

I felt like, whatever is making that sound saw me, heard me, and completely it tried to avoid me.

So whatever it was just kind of like I heard, I whistled at it.

I heard it get closer, and when I heard it make the noise closer, I clicked at it, and then it stopped and just completely avoided me.

I don't know what it was, but what I There has been one documented big foot sighting in the Sara Lends across the street from my house, and that was documented by the BFRO, So I do believe that there could potentially be something out there.

I think it's that thirty six thousand acres of preserved forest land and I had a few I've heard a few interesting calls out there.

So, like while I was doing the tree work, I was a full on bigfoot believer at this point, and I'm always and every time I'm in the woods, I'm somewhat, you know, kind of pick my eyes out big footing secretly, especially with if I'm with a girl, I won't even tell her, but I'm actually big footing, but they don't need to know.

So anyway, I told her.

I was like, I did a big foot call because we were just out in the forest and it's kind of fun to do you every once in a while.

I was like, you got to try, And I told her to try a big foot call, and she.

Released this scream and she did like a whoop scream and it was like really cute, but she embraced it and did it as loud as she could.

And about two hundred yards before behind these houses that are tucked into the forest, I heard something mimic her scream exactly.

It mimicked her scream, but it was about ten times louder.

And from my mind's eye, I'm trying to locate where that sound comes.

And I have a really good idea of where the creature was in the forest when it made that sound, because because I know these forests so well, and I have like a visual idea of where it was in the forest.

And I really think that I heard a female sasquatch a call back to my ex girlfriend at the time.

So two years go by, and uh, there's an eclipse happening, and me and my buddy are going into the Sara Leans to look at the eclipse and we're having a good time.

There are a bunch of other people out in the Sarawlands on this hiking trail looking and observing the eclipse.

You know, so, but they're often different parts of the forest.

So my friend, he's a he's a real wild one.

He starts doing.

A a wolf call really loud, and I did a sasquatch call really loud, and other groups of people in the forest around us started calling back to us, and we got like a group of ten howling back, and then we howl and they howl.

Back, and it was it was quite a hoot and a haller.

And we waited like five minutes and my friend let out another howl and I was like, all right, bro, I think everyone's done.

But some thing replied back to them, and it was the exact same female voice screamed that I had heard two years back reply to my ex girlfriend, and it was identical.

Whatever creature made that sound replying back to my friend was the exact same creature that replied back to my ex friend.

And also where the sound came from, because I know these woods really well.

It came from private property, which is basically like out of the park, not part of the hiking land, and it's secret back there.

People don't go back there, and that's where it came from.

And I truly believe that there's a family of bigfoots out here.

And now that I moved back, I'm going to be spending more time out in the forest trying to see if I could make any connections or have any encounters.

But that's it for me and my bigfoot experiences, and I hope everyone really enjoyed my stories, and if anyone ever wants to contact me, you could find me Wyley Bureau on Facebook.

Please feel free to reach out.

I'd love to talk more about my experiences.

While you sure have had some interesting experiences, it sure does make you wonder what's next, because it's pretty clear you're definitely on their radar.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know what to think about that.

I don't know if it's just luck, or if like they have an ability to be able to sense certain individuals, or maybe it's my energy.

It's a really interesting phenomenon.

Yes, it is.

And one of the interesting things about you and your experiences is how very they are.

Most people when they have more than one experience, it's almost like their new experiences are kind of a repeat of their first experience.

But with you, you're definitely on their radar, and I think because of that, that's probably one of the reasons why you keep having these experiences that are so different from one another.

As far as your bigfoot bucket list goes, is there anything left in that bucket list that you want to check off?

Still?

No, I think that's basically everything from my bucket list.

I haven't had too many intents encounters, nothing really too scary other than the hammock, and that's basically it.

You know, I'm always looking, I'm always listening, and I'm always looking at the ground for footprints and stuff like that, stick brakes, just any kind of sign.

But that's just what I do when I'm in the forest.

If I find an animal track, I like to follow.

It doesn't matter if it's a big foot, a mountain lion, or even a raccoon.

It's just I love being outdoors.

It's one of my passions.

And I feel like, you know, if people, if they've put out those intentions of maybe they want to see one, but they also put out like loving intentions towards the force that they're going in, having good energy, maybe you will see one.

But I feel like the more time you spend the outdoors, the better chance you have of seeing one.

Yeah.

Well, you're not going to see one on your couch in the basement at least normally, or not unless you have a window or something so.

Or watching the TV.

Right, that's right, that's right.

You've had more than one experience that could cause an aversion to being out in the dark in the woods, and you mentioned that right there by your house.

You do have at least a slight aversion to the dark.

But when you were out in the Pacific Northwest, did you have any aversion out there or is it only in Jersey?

Oh, one hundred percent, it's even scarier in Pacific Northwest.

I feel actually more comfortable here in New Jersey because the Pacific Northwest is so wild and there's so much space and forest.

It's like you look at those mountains and you're like, all right, there's definitely something hiding out there, like no one is, you know, like no one's really out there.

Like I could look at a mountainside and be like, I bet there's nobody, no humans out there right now.

Anything could be hiding back there, no one would know.

But when I was in the Wilderness School, because I lived in that your community, I didn't have a car, so like there were a lot of events going on during the night, like fires and stuff on the camp.

While I was in the survival school and I was eighteen, but I ended up having to walk without a flashlight through the dark to my ur many times, and a lot of the students lived down the road a mile down the road, two miles down the road, and sometimes I'd kick it there and it'd be like midnight and I'd walk two miles without a flash flight through the Cafcade mountains, like ten miles up these winding hills, and I have to say, every single time I did it, I felt nervous.

And there are a lot of weird things that happened in that woman near school.

There was one time like I had my sleeping bag on the ground and I was like feeling around for my flashlight and I felt something squishy and I basically we had done class and it was dark out, and I basically just threw a pat on the ground in the dark and just slept on the ground with my sleeping bag and I'm touching something.

I felt something squishy, and I finally find my flashlight.

I was like, what the heck did I just touch?

And it was a decapitated goa heead and I was like, what on earth?

Like, I have no idea how it got there.

I'm assuming probably someone in the wilderness school, I guess found it and tried to butcher it, because like skinning hides and I'm you know, I'm working with animals and trying to butcher them and stuff is kind of one of the things that you do in the wilderness school.

But yeah, no, I felt very, very nervous all the time.

But I try to overcome that fear when I'm out in the woods.

You know, I feel like a lot of it's just in your head, Like is there that much of a difference between being out during the day and being out during the night.

I mean, yes, there are more predators out at night, but it's really easy to pyke yourself out.

So I believe, I truly believe that if you could keep your wits to you and not be afraid and have that energy, you will be safer in the forest.

Because if you have your wits too, you're going to be more aware, You're going to be able to think more rationally, and when you're panicking and scared, it's just you make decisions that sometimes aren't the best.

So I try to stay as common collected whenever I'm in the woods.

It really is a dichotomy because number one, it's not good to be fearful out there in the woods, because yeah, that's not going to do you any good.

But on the other hand, yeah, there definitely are things out there in the woods that they can harm you.

So having at least a healthy amount of fear that can actually save you and benefit you.

So yeah, it's kind of frustrating.

And humans, I mean, I grew up thinking humans were the top predator.

We were the main apex predator of the whole world.

So like, after having these encounters, it's kind of humbling knowing that there's other things out there and we're not the top predator.

And even before I ever saw a bigfoot, like when I was in the wilderness school and stuff, I'd be hiking, you know, in the forest by myself, maybe with a couple other people, but I never felt like I was top predator on that forest.

It is a very humbling forest.

And yeah, I always felt humbled when I was hiking around there, and I was always respectful and just you know, put love out, loving energy towards the forest, loving energy towards the little plants and the trees and the rocks and the moths.

So I just really I do thrive when I'm outdoors.

And uh, yeah, it's not healthy to be afraid, and being afraid is not gonna probably not going to help every situation, just like being stressed doesn't really help get the job done.

But yeah, it's really interesting.

Never a dull moment.

And yeah, I guess I kind of misspoke being afraid it's not a good thing.

But I do think that if you're weary, that's definitely your best interest.

Yeah, just having that, I'm having a mindset that we're the we're you know, humans have that mindset like we're above nature, we can surpass the nature and build and you know, but the fact of the reality is we're just apes where we give ourselves a way too much credit and Bigfoot a lot not enough credit.

In my opinion, I think that, you know, my opinion on what Bigfoot is has changed so much of the years.

I started as thinking of flesh and blood gigantopithecus, and then I went down the paranthepis he believed flying.

And you know, the longer I've been into it, the weirder stories I've heard.

I just I don't like to assume anyone is lying.

So I really take people.

I take people seriously when they tell their stories.

But I also can sense, like I feel like, deep down you can tell sometimes when someone's not telling the truth.

So you know, some of these stories you hear, you can just tell these people aren't telling you what they saw.

So I have an open mind to basically everything out there.

I'm open to the belief that anything is possible and anything can exist, and I love living life with that perspective.

It really just makes life more interesting and fun.

And yeah, I'm so excited to just be able to get back out into the woods and just experience life and connect with animals and nature.

It's just really exciting and knowing there's creatures out there like that.

And like you said too, with like the dog man for example, you know, sure they could be dangerous and they can hurt you, but typically these animals just want you off their territory and they're they're willing to scare you to make that happen.

So just be I think just being respectful and giving animals their distance and being respectful can you can avoid a lot of harm.

I'm just glad that you're able to head into the woods and do all these things that you'll love to do.

So thank you all for that.

Yeah, well, it's become a passion because, like I was studying wildlife biology and one of my favorite things about that subject was tracking elusive animals.

So like, when I thought that there could be a possibility of a big foot lurking around the woods like It's just it became such a passion and such an interest for me because like the idea of like discovering an unknown species like the bigfoot would be the greatest scientific discovery of our time.

But with that said, now, if I ever did see a bigfoot again in the forest, I wouldn't take a picture.

I don't want to prove that it exists.

I'm going to let the animal be in look in peace.

So I do like joining those bigfoot investigative campouts and stuff because it's fun.

You meet cool people, But I'm not here to make any groundbreaking scientific discoveries.

And I hope they can thrive on their own in their secrecy, because that's what they like to do.

One of the many things I like about you, Wiley, is the fact that when you are in the woods doing these investigations, you're having every bit as much fun just being in the woods and enjoying nature as you are being in a place where you could possibly have another sasquatch experience.

I love that.

I have to say one more thing about seeing a bigfoot, like I have never had an encounter when I was actively pursuing seeing one, Like if I'm out there and I'm doing wood knocks, it does not work like that.

For the most part.

Every time I've had any kind of experience, I was not expecting it.

It just happened.

So I don't know.

I think if you go out into the forest just to have a good time and connect with the outdoors and you're not looking for the bigfoot, I think you're more likely to actually see one.

I do believe in the adage that you don't find sasquatch, sasquatch find you.

I definitely think there's something.

To that with that said too, when I saw the the Skunk Cape, I believe it was in Florida.

You know they you said that they find you.

It was interesting because that thing let me look at it, and we had a moment together where I was standing directly in front of it and it only let me see it.

My friend Mike didn't wasn't able to see that, and it wouldn't let him see him.

And by the time he was invisibility or on an area where he'd be able to see it, it could basically just like with completely out of sight.

So I don't know.

I guess I don't know.

There's something very spiritual about the whole Bigfoot phenomenon, I think, but that's beyond me.

I don't know, but I'm open to any possibilities.

Oh, I agree, I think to do half of the things that they are reported doing that are so amazing, I think they have to be spiritual beings.

What you witness that night with Mike.

I mean, there's no way it could have timed those steps so perfectly backwards to time, so that as soon as he stepped into view of where it was, it was back in the shadows.

They do things like that all the time.

That just that's convinced me they must be spiritual beings.

They've gotten too me too.

And I also grew up reading, like at a very young age, like I was sixteen years old, and I read all the Carlos Costinata series.

I don't know if you've ever heard of Carlos Costanada and the Teachings of Don Juan.

No, I sure haven't.

Oh, it's a really incredible book about an anthropologist that goes and study.

He is a medicine man from the Yachi Indian Native American tribe, and the medicine man had all these interesting attributes, like they can shape shift, and that they believe in shape shifting and being able to harness energy.

And he would talk to all the spirits of the river, the plants, the trees, and just kind of going through life thinking that there everything is had some sort of awareness and a spirit and a consciousness.

Really just I don't know, it's a humbling thought, but that's that's an attribute that I believe medicine men were able to do.

You know, there's all types of interesting magic and stuff like that that they talk about.

And it's a lot of people criticized the book and said, there's no way any of this is true, but that's what the anthropologists experience was with this shaman, and just reading that at such a young age has made me believe that there there are things like that, and I've had experiences with you know, I don't know realms in those different types of realms and dimensions.

And one day I was thinking about it.

I think I watched a Bigfoot on the paranormal Bigfoot through Flash of Beauty, and it reminded me of the shaman who can shape shift and stuff, and like, I don't know if those attributes exist in our reality in our world.

Maybe Bigfoot is more human like than we know, and they have, you know, their own spiritual practices that they do, you know, and they could just be really spiritual, enlightened beings.

But you know, of course you hear of the rogue sasquatch and stuff like that.

So I don't know, I don't know, but it's fun to think about.

Oh, it definitely is.

Yeah.

I mean, you could spend who knows how much time thinking about all the possibilities when it comes to these guys.

But who knows for sure where they come from, what their the limits of their abilities are, so on and so forth.

There's such a mystery they really are.

But having said all that, Wily, I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing the details of all those experiences with us.

I really appreciate it.

Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity.

It was absolutely my pleasure.

It was really fun and it was just really great to be able to share my experiences and have a conversation with you.

So thank you so much.

I'm really happy to be able to share.

And like I said, if anyone wants to reach out to me on Facebook, they can find me on in Facebook under Wiley Bureau.

Feel free to message.

Me if you don't mind, I'll post a link to you on Facebook and the description for tonight's show awesome.

Thank you, yeah, absolutely, well.

No, you're welcome.

If that'll make it really easy for them to find you.

Well, it's been a lot of fun Wiley.

Like I said, thanks again so much and have a great night.

That's it for another episode of Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio with Vic Kndiff.

If you've had a sasquatch encounter and would like to be a guest on the show, please go to Bigfoot eyewitness dot com and submit a report.

We'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for listening, have a great night.