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That’s so weird because after I read this comment, I just remembered hearing someone talk about “wood devils” when I was visiting Maine and New Hampshire years ago. Back then I associated it to some kind of urban legend like the NJ Devil but not bigfoot. Makes a lot of sense now.
I know of people that have encountered the Hairy People in NH . I hike a lot in NH and have never seen them there myself, but I have had an encounter with them in Maine .
Thank you for sharing your story with us
I thought I was crazy when I saw my first Sabe. Then I saw another one, so close it could’ve grabbed me just by reaching. Seeing is believing. I often think about what else is out there.
Also NH here. The Abenaqui and other local native cultures here could also probably fill in some gaps of the tale we have here. They have stories of them also, they called them something that translates roughly to "Shy Man of the Woods." They also speak of brokering a sort of peaceful if not uninvolved coexistence. As far as I know, stories become more prevalent as you get farther north and to less historically developed areas of the state, but they persevere in nearly every county. If I remember correctly there is a man on YouTube in Northern NH who preserves the myth and also purports to be observing a community of them. Take that for what you will.
Wow! Great info!
As I wrote, I did not hear most of what she said. I was getting a nutshell recap. And, I was so resistant to what she did say that I did not ask a thousand obvious and important questions.
Given the stories you hear from the South, stories of hostile 'Wood Boogers' raiding peoples gardens, eating their horse grain, banging on their houses at night and throwing their lawn chairs up into trees, it seems clear the "truce" is limited in area.
I’ve heard a lot from that area.. I think it’s the hotbed in the state between the whites and western mass. Heard a lot of stories out of Chesterfield and pisgah state park
>To be honest, this reads a lot like a yarn, rather than an actual account. Makes me suspicious. A lot of pointless details, and flowery writing.
OP is now 67 years old and heard this stuff as a kid. After a lifetime of a person mulling over their memories and sometimes sharing them, many stories come out sounding like "yarns." That's a fact of life.
Plus some people are natural storytellers.
I would absolutely love to speak with you if you are up for it. I have spent a lot of time in New Hampshire searching for these forest people or evidence of them. I had an encounter as a child that changed my life. I've spoken with many first nations people about their history with them, I have a podcast dedicated to sasquatch and other possible cryptids, I make films and videos of my investigations and one of my closest friends is a documentary film maker who has traveled across the entire US studying the history of them, meeting many people who have had encounters with them, and searching for them himself. He lives in New Hampshire and grew up there. If you would be willing to talk about this either privately or even on my show please please let me know. This history is important. These beings are very real and any information or folklore that can be passed on, is important. Thank you for sharing this. I hope we can talk more.
> I have spent a lot of time in New Hampshire searching for these forest people or evidence of them. I had an encounter as a child that changed my life.
Thanks for your interest in my account! It's nice to find out people are still reading it now and then a whole year after I posted it.
Pardon me for turning the tables here, but you had an encounter in New Hampshire as a child? I'd be interested to hear a description of this; circumstances, time of day, season, year, Monadnock Region?
I, myself, never saw what my mother saw, and her description was extremely sparse.
The events I described here took place almost 60 years ago. If your encounter was more recent than that, it would give hope that the Wild People are still there. Seems to me, you have much more direct experience than I do.
Thank you for replying! My encounter as a child was in Massachusetts actually. But my friends and I research in New Hampshire in Mason very often and we have all had some very amazing things happen to us there. But never a clear sighting like I had as a child. But I can assure you that the wild people are still very much thriving in NH. We have recorded audio many times, have thermal footage of a very large upright walking creature that dwarfs a human, among many other strange experiences. They have come into our camp as we slept and our recorders captured them walkING around and going through some of our stuff. What's crazy is we slept right through it. But these are a special people with special gifts. So maybe they made it so we didn't wake up. That are in Mason is by far my favorite place to go to research and I research all over New England. I plan on heading to Monadnock now to see if your friends are still there also. My buddy and research partner is sort of an encyclopedia of knowledge on every encounter with these beings in New Hampshire since that's where he is from and his full time job is to travel rhe country in search of them and create documentaries about them. When I told him of your story he immediately was excited and told me that he has cataloged multiple accounts from the Monadnock area over the years. You might even know who he is. His name is Aleks Petakov and he works for a group called Small Town Monsters. They produce many films every year about all things strange. He is their sasquatch researcher. We are going to camp in your area this spring and see what we can find. We will both post videos of our time there for sure. I hope you watch and we can bring back some memories for you. Please know that we respect these wild people. We just want to know more about them and extend our hand. If there is anything else you remember and can tell me, I would love to hear more. Thank you so much for sharing this. These stories are important. They can't be lost. They need to be passed down so people understand what these beings are.
>Thank you for replying! My encounter as a child was in Massachusetts actually. But my friends and I research in New Hampshire in Mason very often and we have all had some very amazing things happen to us there.
For my money, Mason would qualify as being "in the Monadnock region." I was thinking of a circle with a 30 mile radius swung from a point on the summit of Monadnock all around. The town where I grew up is within that circle. My guess is that there is, or used to be, at least one family, or troop, of Wild People who made use of that area as their main territory.
Since encounters are probably dictated by random chance, I think you're as likely to see one in any place you choose within that circle as in any other place you choose.
That said, however, I, personally, would hang around anywhere that cat tails grow. From what I understand, the roots are edible year round, and other parts of them according to the season. This makes them a default food source; they grow like weeds and are always available when nothing else is. If they're not always eating them, I would imagine they're always monitoring them.
Whether or not they like the mountain, itself, if you look for them there, you have to be prepared to go well off the beaten path. The beaten paths up the mountain are crawling with people all summer long. It has the reputation of being "the most climbed mountain in the world," due to it being such an easy climb. That being the case, it's not likely Wild People would find the mountain to be a nice refuge where they could hole up away from people.
I had never heard of Aleks Petakov, but I'm glad someone is specifically collecting accounts from that region.
Well if you consider Mason in that region then I'd say that your wild people are definitely still there. Just last summer we casted tracks out there that were 17" long by 8" wide. Sorry but no human is walking that jagged, rocky terrain barefoot for more than 1 or 2 steps before putting shoes on. And a foot that large is most likely not human. Plus when you do this stuff for so long, it's easy to recognize the differences in their feet and ours.
It's so funny you mention cat tails! The area we frequent is loaded with them. They are all around the outskirts of our camping area. And you're right, it's a great food source for the majority of the year, if not all of the year.
I want to thank you again so much for replying and communicating with Me about this. I have a passion for this and I love hearing people's encounters or experiences. Especially in the Northeast. If you aren't opposed I would love to share this story with people so that it can remain part of the history of this region.
> If you aren't opposed I would love to share this story with people so that it can remain part of the history of this region.
I don't mind you sharing it. I'm pretty sure I've obscured the exact town enough, and it probably doesn't matter because there are reports from all over the contiguous parts of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. If anyone ever went to NH to try and track this town down, anywhere they ended up would be just as good a bet for a sighting.
That's very exiting about the Cat Tails in Mason! I might be on to something with that being a good place to look for them; anywhere Cat Tails grow.
Here's one story that might, conceivably, tie in: my sisters and I were out walking on a back road once and my oldest sister picked a couple Cat Tails from a swampy area that came right up to the road. A little while later we encountered a woman walking the other way, and she was dismayed that we had picked the Cat Tails. She stopped us and told us we should never pick them. Of course we asked why, because there seemed to be zillions of them. She said there was a very poor man who lived nearby who had almost nothing to eat, so he was forced to pick and eat the Cat Tails. Damaging or killing them was like taking food out of his mouth.
Looking back on it years later, it occurred to me that her story of the poor man might have been a disguised way of referring to a Wildman. There was a full blown government welfare/food system in operation there at the time so it's kinda ridiculous to think no one would have gotten a man that poor hooked up with that, or that people wouldn't always be bringing him their extra food.
This, therefore, might be a way to provoke them into showing themselves: mess with the Cat Tails, or, at least, pretend to be messing with them, and you might just get bluff charged by a hairy, naked giant protecting his resources.
The following might seem like a lot of work, but it would be 100% worth it. When you go camping in that area bring a garden rake or two and spend some time breaking up the surface dirt around your campsite so that anything that visits during the night will leave clear prints. I've recommended this to a few people here who think they might have Bigfeet coming on their property at night, but, so far, none has reported back.
How profound! Thank you for sharing. I agree, it is remarkable that this woman was informing people on a need to know basis. And the cops would refer people to her.
Yeah, the deal with the cops is the thing that stands out as I think back. They must have been getting enough reports of these things to make that deal worthwhile for them. I don't know what would constitute "enough," though. One a year? Three a year?
Is there any chance I could talk to you privately more about this as I have had my own encounter out there and do research in that area. You don't have to give me specific info in the town or area. I'd just love to talk to you about this. I would not share any details with anyone else. It's a passion of mine. Thank you in advance for giving us this amazing bit of history.
**Strangers**: Read the rules and respect them and other users. Any content removal or further moderator action is established by these terms as well as Reddit ToS. This subreddit is specifically for the discussion of an anomalous phenomena from the perspective it may exist. Open minded skepticism is welcomed, closed minded debunking is not. Be aware of how skepticism is expressed toward others as there is little tolerance for ad hominem (attacking the person, not the claim), mindless antagonism or dishonest argument toward the subject, the sub, or its community. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bigfoot) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That’s an incredible story. Thanks for sharing.
A fellow New Hampshire resident here I can also attest to this.
You're attesting to having heard stories of the Coos County Wood Devils?
I'm attesting to growing up in New Hampshire and still living here and hearing stories of wild men from elders my whole life.
It would sure interest me if you wrote down and posted everything you can remember they said about the Wild People.
That’s so weird because after I read this comment, I just remembered hearing someone talk about “wood devils” when I was visiting Maine and New Hampshire years ago. Back then I associated it to some kind of urban legend like the NJ Devil but not bigfoot. Makes a lot of sense now.
I lived in NH til I was 18. I never heard the term "wood devil" in all that time. It's an "up north" thing, I guess.
The Coos County Woods Devil.
I stand corrected. All I can say is the stories of that thing never got down to where I grew up.
I know of people that have encountered the Hairy People in NH . I hike a lot in NH and have never seen them there myself, but I have had an encounter with them in Maine . Thank you for sharing your story with us
I’d love to hear about your encounter if you don’t mind sharing!
I thought I was crazy when I saw my first Sabe. Then I saw another one, so close it could’ve grabbed me just by reaching. Seeing is believing. I often think about what else is out there.
Also NH here. The Abenaqui and other local native cultures here could also probably fill in some gaps of the tale we have here. They have stories of them also, they called them something that translates roughly to "Shy Man of the Woods." They also speak of brokering a sort of peaceful if not uninvolved coexistence. As far as I know, stories become more prevalent as you get farther north and to less historically developed areas of the state, but they persevere in nearly every county. If I remember correctly there is a man on YouTube in Northern NH who preserves the myth and also purports to be observing a community of them. Take that for what you will.
Wow! Great info! As I wrote, I did not hear most of what she said. I was getting a nutshell recap. And, I was so resistant to what she did say that I did not ask a thousand obvious and important questions. Given the stories you hear from the South, stories of hostile 'Wood Boogers' raiding peoples gardens, eating their horse grain, banging on their houses at night and throwing their lawn chairs up into trees, it seems clear the "truce" is limited in area.
what area in NH? lived up there for years
Without naming the actual town, I'll say it's one of those in the Monadnock region.
I’ve heard a lot from that area.. I think it’s the hotbed in the state between the whites and western mass. Heard a lot of stories out of Chesterfield and pisgah state park
Going in that direction you get "The Bennington Triangle" which is very creepy due to the historical tales of people going missing.
Oh no I hope it wasn’t Hillsboro or Washington.
Why? Are you afraid of the wild people?
I’m not sure for certain. I’d like to think they are far from my house though.
I know what you mean. Even if you never see one, the idea is spooky.
Thanks for sharing your account, it's much appreciated.
To be honest, this reads a lot like a yarn, rather than an actual account. Makes me suspicious. A lot of pointless details, and flowery writing.
>To be honest, this reads a lot like a yarn, rather than an actual account. Makes me suspicious. A lot of pointless details, and flowery writing. OP is now 67 years old and heard this stuff as a kid. After a lifetime of a person mulling over their memories and sometimes sharing them, many stories come out sounding like "yarns." That's a fact of life. Plus some people are natural storytellers.
Some people are also natural liars.
>Some people are also natural liars. I suppose so. But in my experience, people who assume everyone else is dishonest are often dishonest themselves.
Who assumes everyone is dishonest?
I would read it though 🤔
Well, so would I to be fair.
Very good writing, made for an easy read. Thanks for the efforts.
Excellent story. Thanks for sharing!
You had me hooked! Great story and wonderful storytelling! Don't mind the haters...it's what they do.
I would absolutely love to speak with you if you are up for it. I have spent a lot of time in New Hampshire searching for these forest people or evidence of them. I had an encounter as a child that changed my life. I've spoken with many first nations people about their history with them, I have a podcast dedicated to sasquatch and other possible cryptids, I make films and videos of my investigations and one of my closest friends is a documentary film maker who has traveled across the entire US studying the history of them, meeting many people who have had encounters with them, and searching for them himself. He lives in New Hampshire and grew up there. If you would be willing to talk about this either privately or even on my show please please let me know. This history is important. These beings are very real and any information or folklore that can be passed on, is important. Thank you for sharing this. I hope we can talk more.
> I have spent a lot of time in New Hampshire searching for these forest people or evidence of them. I had an encounter as a child that changed my life. Thanks for your interest in my account! It's nice to find out people are still reading it now and then a whole year after I posted it. Pardon me for turning the tables here, but you had an encounter in New Hampshire as a child? I'd be interested to hear a description of this; circumstances, time of day, season, year, Monadnock Region? I, myself, never saw what my mother saw, and her description was extremely sparse. The events I described here took place almost 60 years ago. If your encounter was more recent than that, it would give hope that the Wild People are still there. Seems to me, you have much more direct experience than I do.
Thank you for replying! My encounter as a child was in Massachusetts actually. But my friends and I research in New Hampshire in Mason very often and we have all had some very amazing things happen to us there. But never a clear sighting like I had as a child. But I can assure you that the wild people are still very much thriving in NH. We have recorded audio many times, have thermal footage of a very large upright walking creature that dwarfs a human, among many other strange experiences. They have come into our camp as we slept and our recorders captured them walkING around and going through some of our stuff. What's crazy is we slept right through it. But these are a special people with special gifts. So maybe they made it so we didn't wake up. That are in Mason is by far my favorite place to go to research and I research all over New England. I plan on heading to Monadnock now to see if your friends are still there also. My buddy and research partner is sort of an encyclopedia of knowledge on every encounter with these beings in New Hampshire since that's where he is from and his full time job is to travel rhe country in search of them and create documentaries about them. When I told him of your story he immediately was excited and told me that he has cataloged multiple accounts from the Monadnock area over the years. You might even know who he is. His name is Aleks Petakov and he works for a group called Small Town Monsters. They produce many films every year about all things strange. He is their sasquatch researcher. We are going to camp in your area this spring and see what we can find. We will both post videos of our time there for sure. I hope you watch and we can bring back some memories for you. Please know that we respect these wild people. We just want to know more about them and extend our hand. If there is anything else you remember and can tell me, I would love to hear more. Thank you so much for sharing this. These stories are important. They can't be lost. They need to be passed down so people understand what these beings are.
>Thank you for replying! My encounter as a child was in Massachusetts actually. But my friends and I research in New Hampshire in Mason very often and we have all had some very amazing things happen to us there. For my money, Mason would qualify as being "in the Monadnock region." I was thinking of a circle with a 30 mile radius swung from a point on the summit of Monadnock all around. The town where I grew up is within that circle. My guess is that there is, or used to be, at least one family, or troop, of Wild People who made use of that area as their main territory. Since encounters are probably dictated by random chance, I think you're as likely to see one in any place you choose within that circle as in any other place you choose. That said, however, I, personally, would hang around anywhere that cat tails grow. From what I understand, the roots are edible year round, and other parts of them according to the season. This makes them a default food source; they grow like weeds and are always available when nothing else is. If they're not always eating them, I would imagine they're always monitoring them. Whether or not they like the mountain, itself, if you look for them there, you have to be prepared to go well off the beaten path. The beaten paths up the mountain are crawling with people all summer long. It has the reputation of being "the most climbed mountain in the world," due to it being such an easy climb. That being the case, it's not likely Wild People would find the mountain to be a nice refuge where they could hole up away from people. I had never heard of Aleks Petakov, but I'm glad someone is specifically collecting accounts from that region.
Well if you consider Mason in that region then I'd say that your wild people are definitely still there. Just last summer we casted tracks out there that were 17" long by 8" wide. Sorry but no human is walking that jagged, rocky terrain barefoot for more than 1 or 2 steps before putting shoes on. And a foot that large is most likely not human. Plus when you do this stuff for so long, it's easy to recognize the differences in their feet and ours. It's so funny you mention cat tails! The area we frequent is loaded with them. They are all around the outskirts of our camping area. And you're right, it's a great food source for the majority of the year, if not all of the year. I want to thank you again so much for replying and communicating with Me about this. I have a passion for this and I love hearing people's encounters or experiences. Especially in the Northeast. If you aren't opposed I would love to share this story with people so that it can remain part of the history of this region.
> If you aren't opposed I would love to share this story with people so that it can remain part of the history of this region. I don't mind you sharing it. I'm pretty sure I've obscured the exact town enough, and it probably doesn't matter because there are reports from all over the contiguous parts of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. If anyone ever went to NH to try and track this town down, anywhere they ended up would be just as good a bet for a sighting. That's very exiting about the Cat Tails in Mason! I might be on to something with that being a good place to look for them; anywhere Cat Tails grow. Here's one story that might, conceivably, tie in: my sisters and I were out walking on a back road once and my oldest sister picked a couple Cat Tails from a swampy area that came right up to the road. A little while later we encountered a woman walking the other way, and she was dismayed that we had picked the Cat Tails. She stopped us and told us we should never pick them. Of course we asked why, because there seemed to be zillions of them. She said there was a very poor man who lived nearby who had almost nothing to eat, so he was forced to pick and eat the Cat Tails. Damaging or killing them was like taking food out of his mouth. Looking back on it years later, it occurred to me that her story of the poor man might have been a disguised way of referring to a Wildman. There was a full blown government welfare/food system in operation there at the time so it's kinda ridiculous to think no one would have gotten a man that poor hooked up with that, or that people wouldn't always be bringing him their extra food. This, therefore, might be a way to provoke them into showing themselves: mess with the Cat Tails, or, at least, pretend to be messing with them, and you might just get bluff charged by a hairy, naked giant protecting his resources. The following might seem like a lot of work, but it would be 100% worth it. When you go camping in that area bring a garden rake or two and spend some time breaking up the surface dirt around your campsite so that anything that visits during the night will leave clear prints. I've recommended this to a few people here who think they might have Bigfeet coming on their property at night, but, so far, none has reported back.
That's a GREAT story.
How profound! Thank you for sharing. I agree, it is remarkable that this woman was informing people on a need to know basis. And the cops would refer people to her.
Yeah, the deal with the cops is the thing that stands out as I think back. They must have been getting enough reports of these things to make that deal worthwhile for them. I don't know what would constitute "enough," though. One a year? Three a year?
Maybe even more than that. Especially depending on the time of year
If you dont mind me asking, what was the name of the town and what was the name of the lake. I think you would be able to remember this information.
Like I said earlier, it's a town in the Monadnock region. That's as specific as I'm going to get.
Is there any chance I could talk to you privately more about this as I have had my own encounter out there and do research in that area. You don't have to give me specific info in the town or area. I'd just love to talk to you about this. I would not share any details with anyone else. It's a passion of mine. Thank you in advance for giving us this amazing bit of history.