Army Veteran Shares Chilling 1998 Bigfoot Encounter in Alabama Forest

So I was scrolling through YouTube the other night, looking for fresh witness accounts to dig into, and I stumbled across something that genuinely gave me chills. A channel called The Facts By Howtohunt.com had posted a video featuring a story from a US Army veteran and lifelong hunter from Alabama, and let me tell you, this one has all the hallmarks of a classic encounter. The witness, who asked to remain anonymous, grew up with a gun or bow in his hands from age six. This isn't someone unfamiliar with the woods. He's hunted alligator, wild boar, whitetail, turkey, and ducks across Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee. He's fly fished from North Carolina to Tennessee. When he says he knows the difference between a bobcat and something else, he means it. Back in January 1998, he and his dad were bow hunting in the Talladega National Forest, close to Piedmont. They were hiking along the Pinhoti Trail, which runs through the Appalachian Mountain Range. The spot was familiar to them, a place where he'd killed many whitetails over the years. They parked the truck two miles out and hiked in on mountain terrain, setting up in separate trees about 350 yards apart, thick woods between them so neither could see the other. Everything was normal until about two hours before dark. A few does came by, and then he heard something that stopped him cold. A whoop. Not a howl, not a call he'd ever heard before. It came from the north, from the top of a ridge. At the time, he had no frame of reference for what it could be. He lived in such a rural area that they only had three DTV stations and no cable. Bigfoot wasn't even on his radar. About 15 minutes later, he heard something coming from the south, moving north, between him and his dad. He thought it was a man and started looking for orange hunting vest. The sound got closer and closer, and he figured it would step out into the open any second. Then it stopped. And then it roared. His words: "It was so deep and loud it made my chest rattle." His arm hair stood straight up. His dad, who was carrying a two-way radio with an earpiece, immediately came over the radio asking if he was okay. Dad said whatever it was, it was between them. They waited for dark and then started making their way back to the truck. That's when things got really intense. Halfway to his dad's tree, the witness started hearing footsteps. He'd step, it stepped. He'd stop, it stopped. He made it to his dad, told him something big was trailing him, and they started the two-mile hike out together. The thing followed them the entire way. At points, it was within 20 yards behind them and to the left. They had bows and knives, and that was it. When they got to a creek and the wind shifted, they caught a skunky smell, but not quite skunk. Something else. Something familiar to anyone who's spent time reading encounter reports. They made it to the truck, threw their stands in the back, jumped in the cab, and left. Neither he nor his dad have ever hunted that spot again. His dad won't even talk about it. What gets me about this account is how textbook it is. The vocalizations. The territorial behavior. The following. The skunky smell. The fact that it was January, so bears were denned up. The fact that the witness has spent 37 years in the woods and has never had another experience he can't explain logically. He knows what a 300-pound man sounds like walking through timber, and this wasn't it. The Talladega National Forest is part of the Appalachian range, and that whole corridor has a long history of reports. The Pinhoti Trail specifically has had activity logged along it over the years. Alabama isn't typically the first state people think of when they think of Sasquatch country, but the evidence suggests these beings don't care much for our state lines. The host of the channel also spends some time in the video discussing other topics, including an upcoming interview with a USS Liberty survivor, and he gets into some interesting philosophical territory about past civilizations and what's mentioned in ancient texts. It's worth watching the whole thing for context. If you're into witness accounts from people with serious woods credentials, this one is a must-watch. The detail, the emotional weight, the way the witness describes the roar, it's the kind of story that stays with you. Check it out and let me know what you think.