He Killed it With a Hatchet
What if it's True Podcast
Cameron Buckner
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1932 in Short Gap, West Virginia, a grandmother placed her nearly one-year-old daughter (the narrator’s mother) on a baby blanket in the yard to get some sunshine while she washed dishes at the kitchen window. The girl’s grandfather was chopping wood at the nearby smokehouse when he saw an enormous black bird—described as a “Thunderbird”—casting a huge shadow as it swooped straight down toward the helpless baby. Realizing he couldn’t reach her in time, he hurled his hatchet and struck the bird dead. When the family measured the carcass stretched across the smokehouse wall, its wingspan was an astonishing 16 feet 4 inches. Neighbors came from around to view the mysterious giant bird, and a photograph was taken (though it has since been lost). The narrator saw the photo as a child and heard the story many times from his mother, who is now 91. It remains one of the family’s most legendary tales.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I found a job working the afternoon shift, and I started listening to Bigfoot podcast when I went to bed. |
| 0:15.4 | The house I shared with my family had farmland five minutes down the road. |
| 0:20.7 | There was also a large parcel of wilderness |
| 0:23.1 | land that had not been developed because of the swampy areas. That area has many ponds with |
| 0:29.4 | Canada geese, and it is connected to the surrounding subdivisions by nature trails. |
| 0:35.9 | One night after work, I was listening to the Bigfoot Outlaws. |
| 0:40.4 | This podcast features Bigfoot calls, and interestingly, they come with a warning not to play |
| 0:46.7 | them out loud and accidentally summon a Bigfoot. |
| 0:50.8 | My dog and I went to bed and I listened to the podcast with my YouTube on AutoPlay. |
| 0:56.8 | I woke up at 1 a.m. with the Bigfoot call podcast still playing, and I cursed it myself. |
| 1:03.5 | I turned off my phone and I went back to sleep. |
| 1:07.4 | At 3 a.m. I woke again to the loud sound of rock clacking. |
| 1:12.8 | I cursed it myself again and I reached to turn my phone off thinking, what a moron I was. |
| 1:19.1 | I tried to turn the phone off and I realized it wasn't even on at all. |
| 1:24.6 | A loud rock clacking was coming from the backyard through my window. |
| 1:29.0 | I didn't look. |
| 1:30.4 | My dog and I stared wide out at each other terrified, and we didn't move for an hour. |
| 1:36.7 | It all finally stopped and we went to sleep, but I was left wondering who could |
| 1:41.8 | clack rocks together at 3 a.m. out in my backyard. |
| 1:46.4 | I think Bigfoot may go around the neighborhood at night searching through the garbage for food. |
| 1:55.4 | I grew up on a small farm in southern Johnson County, 30 miles south of Indianapolis. Until the 1970s, the area |
| 2:04.6 | was nothing but farms and sparsely populated spots of homes. Nowadays, it seems there's a house |
... |
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