Louisiana Hunter Recalls Terrifying 8-Foot Creature Encounter in Hollow Tree

There's something about a good old-fashioned hunting story that hits different, especially when it takes a turn into the unknown. A recent video surfaced featuring a firsthand account from a Louisiana man named Gary, and let me tell you, this one has all the hallmarks of a classic encounter that researchers talk about for years. Back in December 2015, Gary and three others—his cousin Joey and friends Mike and Jesse—were out hunting with five hounds in some bottomland timber in northern Louisiana. The property belonged to a friend's family, full of hardwoods, sloughs, and big cypress trees near the water. For Louisiana in December, it was cold—upper 30s—and they turned the dogs loose around 9 PM. Everyone had lights, because walking that kind of terrain in the dark without them is asking for a broken neck. For the first hour, nothing unusual. Then the dogs struck a trail. They followed the tracking units for about ten minutes before realizing the dogs had stopped. In the distance, they could hear the unmistakable sound of hounds that have treed something. Anyone who's hunted with dogs knows that sound—it's different from regular barking. It's urgent. It's telling you something important. When they reached the dogs, something was off. The hounds were barking hard, but not a single one was looking up like they should be. Instead, they were gathered around the base of a massive cypress tree that was hollow, with an opening about four feet high and three feet across. The dogs were barking into that hollow. When Mike and Gary shined their lights into the opening, they couldn't see anything—just blackness. Then came a growl unlike anything Gary had ever heard in his life. Every single dog backed away. Now, these weren't soft dogs. Gary specifically mentions that none of them had ever backed off from anything before. But that growl changed everything. All except Booger. Booger was Gary's hound, a dog that had tangled with coyotes and never shied away from a fight. But even Booger had backed off a few feet, barking with his tail held down. That's when things escalated. An arm reached out of the hollow. Long fingers unfurled, with dark hair running down the wrist and forearm. The arm swept in wide arcs, like it was trying to grab anything within reach. Then the creature started coming out. It crawled forward on its hands, bent over, emerging from the hollow. When it finally stood upright, Gary estimates it was between seven and a half and eight feet tall. The hair was dark brown in the light but appeared black when the light wasn't directly on it. Gary describes the hair as strange—almost like it absorbed light. No gloss, no shine, just a flat color that seemed to eat up the beams from their spotlights. The shoulders were massive—Gary guesses around four feet wide. The face was dark-skinned with hair along the jaws, sides, and above the eyes. The eyes were smaller than you'd expect, but dark and intense, flashing a red-orange eye shine when it moved its head. The nose was flat, the lips thin and barely noticeable, and what might pass for cheekbones ran flat from the sides of the head right under the eyes up to the nose. That red-orange eye shine is something that comes up repeatedly in credible sightings across the country. Researchers have noted that witnesses often describe this same phenomenon, particularly in wooded environments where light behaves unpredictably at night. The light-absorbing quality of the hair Gary described is also fascinating—several researchers have suggested that the texture and behavior of Sasquatch hair under artificial light could be a key identifier in future encounters. Then Booger did what Booger did. He surged forward, pulled free from Gary's grip, and charged straight at the creature. The Bigfoot looked down at him and took a step forward. Booger backed up, but the creature was locked onto him, making straight for the dog. Gary ran in without thinking, grabbed Booger by the collar, and found himself just feet away from the thing. That's when he got his best look—and when the creature let out a sharp, terrible bark that Gary says scared him more than the original growl. Booger went wild, standing on his back legs and snapping at the air, held back only by Gary's grip on his collar. What followed was pure chaos. Gary dragged Booger backward while the others grabbed the remaining dogs. The creature followed them for several steps. Dogs barking, men yelling, the Bigfoot making strange barking and growling noises. The whole scene was something out of a nightmare. Gary makes an interesting point in his account—he refers to the creature by several names: swamp monster, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Momo, swamp ape. He believes they're all one and the same. That regional variation in naming is something researchers take seriously. What people call these beings often depends on where they live and the local folklore they've grown up with, but the underlying description tends to remain remarkably consistent across regions. The good news? Booger lived through it. Gary was upfront about that from the start, knowing some folks won't engage with a story if the dog doesn't make it. But the encounter clearly left a mark on everyone involved. This is the kind of account that deserves attention. The physical details, the behavior of the dogs, the way the creature moved and responded—it's all consistent with patterns documented by researchers for decades. If you want to hear Gary tell it in his own words, the video is worth your time.