Strange Footprints in the ForestMany years ago my hubby and I were out hiking with a friend through a part of the Daniel Boone National Forest in the north eastern part of Kentucky. It was a really beautiful late Spring day when we were all wandering through looking at the various species of plant life, and occasionally getting a glimpse of some animal life in the area.
Let me give you an idea of this history of Kentucky before I go any further with my story. First of all, the name Kentucky comes from at least a couple of native American Indian dialects. Can-tuck, or Can-tuck-ke, which means "the Dark and Bloody Ground". NO native tribes ever lived in the Dark and Bloody ground. This is/was the land where spirits and super-natural creatures dwelt.
Of course, when the Europeans came, all they saw was a very fertile and abundant land rich in natural resources and dismissed the various legends as superstitious nonsense. The various tribes that lived in the surrounding areas, that would later become the states of Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and Missouri, would hunt and gather in the area, but they would not live there.
Now, back to my tale. We were meandering through this particular area spending the day leisurely taking rest breaks, chatting about various happenings going on in the world and our everyday lives, and stopping to have our packed picnic lunch. We would occasionally come across raccoon tracks, deer tracks, and various bird tracks in the muddy areas as we hiked. As we spent the day meandering down the Sheltowee trail, and occasionally stepping off for a break, or to check out a plant or item of interest we would notice, we encountered nothing unseemly or out of the ordinary, until we headed back that is.
As the day progressed to well past the noon hour and began to make it's way towards setting we decided to head back towards our vehicles while we still had about 4 hours of sun and day light left. We made our way back along the path we had walked and about a mile or so from the parking area we came across some tracks that were quite out of the ordinary. So, we began to look closely at them and follow them.
Our friend, who I'll refer to from this point on as C., had some experience with tracking and knew about every track that could be made by the wildlife in the area as he had spent a few years working for the Forestry service. He'd never seen anything like these before. And, since we had spent quite a lot of time camping and hiking ourselves making sure to have field guides for identification purposes most of the time we knew a lot of the types of animal tracks too. we were as stumped as he was.
The tracks were huge hoof prints, much bigger than a deer could make. They were bigger than either C.'s hand, my hand, or my husband's hand with C. having the largest hands of the three of us. The tracks were very deeply embedded into the ground, over an inch deep. And, the pattern of the hoof prints was very odd because while they were made by an animal that had quite obviously been running through the muddy area, and the soft ground, they weren't leaving the usual pattern made by a four legged creature. The further we followed the tracks the more obvious the evidence in front of our eyes became, however unlikely or incredible it seemed. The tracks were being made by something running on TWO legs. The tracks weren't there when we passed through earlier on our hike either, so they were very fresh.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I realized what this meant, and apparently the same thought had occurred to my hubby and our friend - this thing could still be very close. We had spent around an hour or so following these tracks trying to figure our what had left such big, deeply embedded, tracks in the ground and now we were thinking that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. The evidence showed that whatever had made these tracks was very big, and probably weighed well over 200 lbs. Now, our precious daylight was waning and we had wandered away from the main trail for about a distance of a mile. We all decided to show a quick set of heels and made for the parking area and our cars.
For next several days we discussed our little adventure. My husband I are well educated in the "myths" and legends of classical history, and the rural history of Kentucky, and we pondered, read, and discussed about just what could have made such tracks. We found no descriptions of normal animals that could have made such tracks.
So, what made these tracks? We knew from legend and tales of such a creature that could have left such tracks, but saytrs aren't suppose to exist - are they?