Kansas Driver Watches Strange Creature Dart Across Road

A recent episode from the Creek Devil YouTube channel features host William Jevning sitting down with a Kansas man named Steve, who has a fascinating story to tell about an encounter that stopped him dead in his tracks on a rural gravel road. If you haven't caught this one yet, it's definitely worth a watch. Steve, who spent 30 years working in the logging industry in Washington State before moving to Kansas in 1980, has had a lifetime of strange experiences that eventually led him to reach out to Jevning. His earliest brush with the unknown dates back to 1970, when he was hunting elk near Rimrock Lake in Washington. One night around 10 p.m., while his companions slept and he tended to the coffee pot, he heard something howl from the ridge near Pine Grass. The sound put the hair up on the back of his neck. At the time, he thought it might be a wolf, but as Jevning points out, wolves had been pretty much absent from that region back then, only being reintroduced in more recent decades. That uncertainty has stuck with Steve for over 50 years. The following year, Steve and his brother were hunting on Bear Mountain when they got dropped into a box canyon following elk. They cut fresh tracks and both got that unmistakable feeling that something was watching them. They looked at each other and both said the same thing: "Let's get the hell out of here." When they got back to camp, they learned that bear hunters had been in that same canyon the weekend before and had a Bigfoot show up at their campsite. Those hunters had their rounds and they booked too. Fast forward to March 22 or 23 of this past year, and Steve had the encounter that finally made him pick up the phone and call Creek Devil. He was driving east on a gravel road to visit his daughter, about 40 miles away, when he noticed a pickup truck ahead of him, same make and model as his own but maroon. About three-quarters of a mile from his house, near a wheat field with three geese, that truck suddenly slammed on its brakes. Steve looked up and saw what had caused the driver to stop. What crossed in front of that truck was something Steve will never forget. His first thought was coyote, but it was way too big. Then his mind went to werewolf, but there was no snout, no tail. His best description was an orangutan with a human's head, charcoal gray in color. He only saw it for a brief moment, maybe 40 to 50 feet away, and it was on all fours. The head and back were about 22 to 24 inches off the ground. The speed is what really got him. It moved so fast and kept such a low profile that he never actually saw any leg movement. It just sprang off the road and disappeared. The reaction of the guys in the pickup told Steve everything he needed to know about what they had seen. They tried to stop and back up on a hill covered in loose crushed rock, their emotions and actions clearly showing they were shaken. They eventually pulled into a driveway a ways down the road and just parked. Steve didn't stop either, though he was processing what he had witnessed. He knew what he saw but didn't want to believe it. After about a week and a half to two weeks of going back and forth in his mind, Steve called Jevning and concluded it was basically a juvenile Bigfoot. The thing had crossed the road, gone through a four-strand barbed wire fence with loose bottom wires, and vanished into a plum thicket about 30 feet away. The whole thing happened in a flash. Steve also mentioned finding scat behind his house about six or seven years ago, about 2 inches in diameter and a foot long, containing poke berries, which are toxic to humans. He didn't have a phone at the time to photograph it, and Bigfoot wasn't really on his radar back then. But now, after this latest encounter, he's a believer. He mentioned that he doesn't carry any heat with him when he goes behind his house anymore, noting that after seeing how fast these beings can move and how low they keep their profile, you wouldn't have time to respond to anything. They'd be on top of you before you knew what hit you. The conversation also touched on the advice from Jevning's friend, a judge in Northwest Montana, who says you basically want to leave them alone and not go out hunting them. Steve agreed, saying that in his situation, he probably would have been "sack lunch" if he'd been on foot. This is one of those interviews that really sticks with you. The detail Steve provides about the speed and movement of the creature is striking, and the fact that the pickup truck drivers had such a strong reaction confirms that whatever Steve saw was real and significant. Jevning's knowledge of the area and wolf populations in Washington adds credibility to Steve's earlier encounter from the 1970s. If you're interested in witness testimony from someone with decades of outdoor experience in both the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest, this episode is a must-see.