Gene writes "I was around 13 or 14. It was about the third weekend of November. I know this because I was deer hunting. We were on land belonging to Peabody coal company in Muhlenberg county. At that time was 62,000 acres of reclaimed coal land. It was around 4 pm. I was standing in a field looking north, my father had went down a holler to the west of me. I heard my father shoot three times. This was strange because he always shot once and a deer was down. I then moved to the mouth of the holler to see if any deer would be running my direction. I then started to hear people talking, I could not understand what was being said, but I could hear it. I thought well dad is talking to someone and has killed a deer. I proceeded to head down the holler to help him.The holler was open hard woods and you could see a long ways, except for right at the bottom where a intermediate stream was. I got about 50 yards from the brush when two animals busted out of it running straight at me. They were covered with long reddish brown hair about three inches long and were knuckle walking like a great ape. They were about four feet at the shoulder and their hips were lower than their shoulders and knees. Their faces were flat and I saw no ears.They were chattering to each other or something else and that was the voices I heard "talking". While at this time in my life I did believe in Bigfoot, since my father was a long haul truck driver and another truck driver had claimed a Bigfoot had run behind my dads truck near the Kentucky-Tennessee line, but for me Bigfoot was single creature that walked up right. Anyway, these two animals are running straight at the 13/14 year old me and I do not know what they are.I yank my 30:06 rifle up and fire. I do not think I even aimed, just shot towards them. When I did this there was a big noise behind me and I remember thinking " they have me surrounded" I spun around to defend myself and saw a squirrel running up a hickory tree right beside me. I spun back around to the threat I knew and they had already crossed the brush bottom and was halfway up the ridge on the other side and I shot at them once more as they run off. They very fast. Once I meet up with my father, he confirmed that he had also shot at these creatures, but was shook up enough to have missed three times. We tried to convince ourselves that these were some sort of wolf and lived under that delusion for many years, until I began studying primates on an academic level, did I let myself believe what I know to be true all along.One thing that scares me to this day is the thought of were they chattering to each other or to mom or dad that was near by that I never saw. I have hunted that area since I was 12 and I just turned 50 this year and I have never set foot in that holler again."
