My Bigfoot encounter happened in the summer of my eighth year.

We lived on the outskirts of Batesville, Arkansas on a farm.

At this age, I spent every minute that I could outside.

On a hot day in July, I was making my rounds around our place.

I spent a lot of time looking for critters around a big pond on the northwest corner of our

land.

Catching frogs and turtles and snakes was one of my favorite things to do.

It was an ordinary day, really.

Birds were chirping and insects were singing.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until all the noise from the nearby wildlife stopped.

I noticed it right away.

At that moment, I was ankle-deep in the water and mud.

I stopped looking for animals, and I tried to take it all in.

It was like the mood of that place went dark and time slowed down, but I couldn't figure out why.

My dog moved around in front of me looking at a huge oak tree across the fence.

We both stared at it for a minute.

Maybe he knew what was there, but I couldn't see anything. When you look at something long enough,

shapes began to form, and I saw what looked like a man hiding behind the tree. Maybe the outline of his shoulder and a leg.

My dog began to growl.

Something was there.

I caught a whiff of a strange odor that I mistook for the mud I was standing in,

walk around in a muddy pond and all sorts of smells boil up, but this odor was different. I walked towards the tree

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