To Missing 411

Hello Raven,

The essence of this email I sent to David Paulides, of the well known YouTube channel Missing411. I'm submitting it to you in hopes your readership will have answers or ideas about the weirdest of these two encounters.

You may hear Dave read this email by going to his site, CanAm Missing on YouTube, and looking for his April 6, 2022 episode. He reads many other fantastic letters, and combines these with his Missing 411 case studies. 

I'll relate two potentially related encounters I hoped originally to be sharing with Steve Isdahl. These happened after a number of encounters, the result of which I was dragged from being a non-believer, to a knower. As a result, many experiences from my early life have found resolution, puzzle pieces solved by the sudden onset of Sabe awareness.

A quick background, for your listeners: I’m in my late sixties, an artist retired from filmmaking, where I worked primarily in New York and Europe as a producer and editor. I’m a strong visual thinker, and have a good sense of what I see in nature. I fish whenever I get the chance. I do at times hunt, but only for the freezer, and New York State makes that activity so expensive for Connecticut natives, that I’ve all but given it up. I’m also an inventor, grounded in natural sciences and mathematics. My partner and I were recently awarded a US patent for a medical device to treat glaucoma.

I've struggled to accept these events. Facing these experiences took years, recording them, many months. Not a soul I’ve told any of this to, has believed a single word. These testimonials are my bulwark against memory loss, and disbelief. One day mankind will establish the truth of these beings, and my tiny experiences will take a place amongst the many thousands of similar encounters.

**********

"On the afternoon of July 3rd, 2018 I hiked overnight to a small cabin on a lake some three miles distant from our home in the Adirondacks. I was walking the same trail that my father had been pursued along, some twenty years before, while hiking home. The terrain is gradual and sloping, and parallels a stream that feeds the lake I was walking towards. The forest along this route has been heavily lumbered leaving a mix of third growth hardwood mostly.

I made the hike in the late afternoon, and about three-quarters of the way to my destination, I saw a bizarre multi-legged creature crossing the trail in front of me at a distance of about twenty yards. It was crawling in a crablike fashion, and seemed intent on the scent of something else. It went off rapidly to my right and disappeared in the woods.  I only saw it when it crossed the trail, and lost sight of it probably three seconds later.

It appeared four-legged, but it is possible there were other appendages, closer to the head, either legs, or jaws. I say this because some protuberances at the head-end seemed to be moving, yet were held up off the ground.

It had a see-through quality to it, as if it were composed of layers of some unearthly anatomy. It had a whitish coloration, and seemed shrouded in diaphanous fabric, as if its body parts were protected by a semi-transparent gauze.  It climbed over a few fallen logs, moving with a centipede or crab-like locomotion. Even though the musculature of the rear legs seemed in some ways to be dog-like, in fairness to dogs, the bends in this creatures joints were in the wrong direction.

I know that’s a lot of conflicting description, but when faced with three seconds of total weirdness, one’s brain goes into hyperdrive trying to find explanations.

Backwards facing rear legs, knees bent in the wrong direction, a long body, maybe four feet length total, no tail, short legs. 

Was any part of it solid? I wonder to this day. The electronic body seemed almost robotic. A RoboDog is a lot taller. It was a full four feet long from back of its rear legs to its nose, but only twelve or fourteen inches tall at the most. Overall, it had the proportions of a dachshund, but with a longer neck.

It made a clicking or sniffing noise, and did not move like a mammal, rather it scuttled or crawled. To this day I have no idea what it was, but I surely was glad it continued on. I don’t think it noticed me at all.

The sniffing or crackling noise could have been due to internal hydraulics, or even electric sparks. One could also say the repetitive portion of the sound was a sort of hissing, breathing, or electric arcing.

Was it electro-mechanical, or was it insectoid? Very hard to tell because it was moving so fast. These are impressions that will stay with me to this day.

Months later, I considered if this could have been what some people call a ‘crawler’. Reports of such beings have occurred in North America. The thing seemed robotic, and under intelligent control, yet at the same time gave an aura of something like a enormous cicada. The area around it’s body seemed clouded by some change to the air itself. Since listening to your video of April 6, 2022, I’ve appreciated the reference to a mantid, or grasshopper.

For some reason this experience didn’t ruin my trip at all. In fact I blissfully forgot about it until days later. Take note of that please.

I arrived at the cabin a half hour later, made a fire outside in the pit, cooked some dinner, then waited for the sun to set. 

I was relaxed as I meditated, and drank tea at the edge of the lake until wee hours of the night. It was July 4th weekend - I could hear very distant fireworks. All of a sudden I got the feeling I wasn’t safe. It felt like a cold chill enveloped me, with mist gathering at my small corner of the lake, and in the sky above. I went in to the cabin, and locked the door.

During the night I awoke, intensely disoriented. Even though I’ve spent nights in this cabin a half-dozen or so times before, I had trouble first locating my flashlight which I had brought with me, and even the latch on the front door of the cabin. How was that possible? This was a place I knew intimately. Yet even an intense survey of the cabin interior with my hands located neither the latch, nor my light, nor the matches which I had used to start my fire outside. It was as if I had plunged deep into a fog of war. I peed in a cooking pot, gave up wanting to go outside, then went back to bed.

In the late morning I awoke. Brilliant sunshine, blue sky. My flashlight was lying on the floor, unbroken, as if I had hit it during the night. These events still troubled me because I never remembered losing it. After some camp coffee, I doused the fire (outside not in), then had a swim. As soon as I dressed, a huge rock,  landed loudly in the water near the camp.  

‘Kersplash!’. 

I stopped, frozen. Then hordes of other projectiles, light in weight and and non-destructive, hit the side of the building just feet from where I had enjoyed my breakfast. The pebbles hurled would have hurt had they hit me, so my first reaction was anger. Big Guy wanted me gone. The stones seemed to be saying, “Ok you’ve had your fun, now you need to get out of here!”

By this time I had encountered Sabe in so many different ways that I knew perfectly well who was behind these well aimed  projectiles. Yet never before had I been driven out of an area of the forest.  I considered the “go-home" request important, so I spoke out-loud:

“Okay, okay. I’m leaving, I’m leaving. Just let me pack.” The missiles stopped.

I packed my kit quickly, locked the camp, hid the key and headed out. On the first turn of the trail I passed a huge trunk of a fallen red spruce that was sprouting a number of really big reishi mushrooms. I grabbed them, and held them by their stipes in my left, hand, the same hand that was cradling one strap of my pack. It was hot, and this way of carrying everything allowed my right arm to swing free, and kept the hot nylon fabric off my back.

For my entire walk home, I mean the whole walk, all three miles, I was pursued by this invisible being. Although I had been followed on multiple previous occasions, in vehicles, along trails, this time the encounter was particularly close. I mean the footsteps were right behind me. I was nervous, but not afraid. The Sabe, and I assumed it to be Sabe, made audible footsteps, matching mine in cadence, just a few feet behind me, Yet whenever I turned to look I saw nothing. Then I felt pine cones begin hitting my back. I began to realize this was a game to my adversary. He didn’t mean any harm. It seemed he wanted to play, or talk.

A half mile or so into the walk, a pine cone landed on the trail in front of me I reached down and used my right arm like a lacrosse stick to propel it back into the woods, I kept my eyes on where it landed.

Almost instantly, the same pine cone came rocketing back! I was playing pine cone tennis with an adversary I couldn’t see!  I said things, like “Bet you can’t get that!” And, “Good shot!"

This went on for the entire rest of the three mile hike back! The pine cone would be returned every time. I’d bend over, use my spare right hand to scoop up the pine cone and hurl it somewhere else. Then a split second later it came hurtling back and always landed just in front of me.

This was exhausting. I was running out of breath. I did not want under any circumstances to lose the two Reishi mushrooms I was carrying in my left hand. For some reason they felt like my protection. So I only had my right hand to play pine-cone tennis. The act of walking and bending to make these shots really tired me out. Yet I felt that this game somehow kept the encounter real, and ultimately, safe.

Then, as I approached the place where the trail opens up into the cleared area of our family settlement, I naturally relaxed my gait and caught a whiff of that smell described by so many - a mixture of wet dog and skunk. Catching the scent made the experience real, confirmed it, like a moment of verification. The game of pine-cone tennis was over."

***************

Dave, when I consider these two experiences back to back, I wonder if they were in some way related. A number of questions have arisen:

Do our Northern forests house potentially more than one paranormal threat to hikers such as myself? A potential threat to Sabe? Could the dog-like cicada-like thing have been following the scent of a Sabe, who in turn was following me ? 

Could the bizarre entity have an electromagnetic function to either self-shield, or cause an EMF disturbance such that an one pole of an artificial portal could be created as a weapon?

Could my Sabe friend have run me out precisely because such an entity was out and about?

Could my forgetting about the afternoon insect-like being, have been a guardian Sabe calming my mind? And could the same force have essentially used thought implantation to keep me safely locked inside, away from matches, away from my flashlight, and unable to find the latch.

Was my sixth sense of being in danger on the shores of a deserted lake, the result of my Sabe bodyguard going off duty? I really mean that. I mean, they aren’t called ’Watchers’ for nothing.

Whatever that thing, was, I’m now convinced the Big Man had my six, for my entire trip. I still feel that in my bones.

I wonder if many of the ‘angry encounters’ campers in Canada and the US experience with Sabe, are terrifying, but in the end harmless, because these beings are trying to frighten city dwellers out of areas where there is something far more dangerous.

I don’t have answers to these questions, and would love to hear responses from your community.  I thank you for reading your incoming letters. Their correspondence has taught me the value of the collective mind.

I also thank-you for your superior work on the problem of the worldwide Missing. Your community runs with the positive help of Ben’s spirit. I actually feel Ben, whenever I watch your videos, because whenever I think of your work I find myself in psychic dialogue with two people, not one. I have a son exactly his age, and cannot imagine how you put yourself back together the way you have, since that tragedy. I’m convinced Ben is there, helping and watching over you, aiding and abetting all your work, just as I believe the Big Guy did for me.

In the future I’ll be able to supply some puzzle pieces about portals. I’m seeking definitive answers myself, but the Big Guy has already given me some clues.

Best regards,

Postmark Winter Owl

Other Sabe Experiences

Hello Raven,

In my first email I related how my father's stalking by an unseen entity had the hallmarks we all recognize, an invisible following force, the perfect cadence of footsteps, matching his. He saw nothing, but heard every leaf and twig break, for three and a half miles. He was gravely spooked. Just a few years ago the same thing happened to me.

Later my Dad learned he had lung cancer and now I’m sure the Sabe that followed him knew that, and I'm sure now signs were left for him to self diagnose and self-treat. That autumn and winter Dad was deep in chemo, and by the following spring he seemed to make a full recovery.

Now I understand the purpose of Sabe revealing himself to us from across the lake.  The tall lean Sabe on the beach seemed to be signaling that we needed a catch-up on the topic. He safely and communally announced himself, to father and son, and let us know he existed. He strode into a portal, and became invisible, with drama, with optimism. It was a show, a performance, from a distant strand of beach.  It’s as if he was acting out what death actually is. Someone walks between realms into another body. It's a process Sabe has mastered, so he may repeat it again and again. Think of an ability to store one’s soul somewhere safe, then reoccupy one’s body anywhere or anytime one wants. He had a stage, in the crimped circular view of our binoculars, and on that stage he made a theatrical performance, then disappeared.

At that time I hadn't admitted Sabe’s existence. I needed more signs to analyze, footprints to see in fresh mud, gifts to exchange, huge things moved unexplainably, favors done. I’ll list some of them here.  The old guy showed he understood me. He even collected a few pieces of my pottery. As a result I fell, almost reluctantly from the status of a potential believer, to a knower.

In some ways I wish I had been jolted, so I might have put the pieces together earlier on. My experiences were arrayed broadly in time. I've misread situations along the way, no doubt, but I want to allay any notion up front that I’m not sympathetic with those who have been terrified, or those who have suffered loss of property or livestock or whatever, so long as I see you get back in the saddle and let go of your grudges. 

Me I’ve been lucky. No two people will have the same experience, that's just how it is. Know that's where I’m coming from - I see Sabe as a positive force. I believe that no matter what one's situation, you can go back and meet the big guy head on, and negotiate something. They are incredibly forgiving. Be sincere and be fair. Don’t make empty threats. Ask how you can help him and his family.

Holding on to empty puzzle voids to fill in later, meant they would be solved at once by a single evening's confrontation. I sat next to the big guy on our front porch, at my own invitation. I’ll deal with that moment in my next email, but first I'll describe some key experiences leading up.

In the summer of 2014 a number of cousins participated in a mycology seminar offered by a State University of New York professor. For those that don’t know, mycology is the study of mushrooms and fungi. We have hundreds maybe thousands of species of fungus in the Adirondacks alone. We sampled mushrooms that smelled like maple syrup, made stew of lion’s mane and other varieties, and were always hunting for the illusory Chaga mushroom.  Late one afternoon we finished at a small boathouse on a remote stream. I left the group early, since my Mom was hosting a shindig back at the lake so I headed back over the same trail we had all just trod over.

Then I saw it, a naked footprint, at least 15 inches long (three inches longer than my Bean boot). That footprint consolidated all my previous experiences. Direct evidence, at last.

Our family has a difficult time paying taxes on our land holdings; which forces us to lumber our property. From about 2000 on I became a vocal anti-lumber advocate within our family group. I admit this now because I have a lot of evidence that Sabe listens to human conversations, and understands every word we speak, in addition to our thoughts. I think Sabe befriended me because of my anti-lumbering stance.

In December of 1995, my Dad died. His lung cancer came back rapidly and took him in a matter of weeks. I started a business with my brother in New York, and with added income began began making frequent trips north. At that time I also started experiencing with psychedelic mushrooms, in what I call vision quests. I’d go up to the lake, then after a day’s fasting I’d eat some mushrooms. Psilocybin connects you with the forest. It’s a semi-religious experience, a revery with nature at it’s most beautiful time, sunset. This is a Native American practice dating back thousands of years.

Because of my upbringing in an environment I knew and trusted totally, I’d do these quests in the forest, way past sunset, until late at night. My typical schedule was, walk to a remote pond with a few bottles of refreshment, pop my mushrooms around six pm and wait for night to come on.

I never took a flashlight, or a firearm, only alternative hydration like iced tea or kombucha. We are surrounded by potable water. In those years there was nothing about the dark that was potentially frightening, I’ve always trusted the forest, I grew up there, the trees and creatures were my friends as a young boy. None of us ever suffered any aggressive behavior, from any animal or being, at least not recently. 

My family felt the same trust in nature as myself. but I do have cousins that will never leave their homes without a large bore firearm. This is the reason I’m staying anonymous, because it’s entirely possible that others within my family group have had a different level of experience altogether. 

That summer in question one of my cousins improvised a  line-walk, where our kids followed a fishing line run through the woods, blindfolded, and at night. I’m sure Sabe was out in droves on those occasions!

I carried with me two bottles of homemade iced tea. My wife made me swear to return the bottles, as they were the high pressure sealing type.  My mushrooms were tucked deep in my pack wrapped in plastic. Yet just ten feet into the woods, three whitetail deer started following me. They must have smelled the mushrooms, and wanted some. I didn’t have enough to spare, so I told the deer to beat it.

Two miles or so and I reached a shady grove of old growth hemlock and cedar on the north side of Noah Pond. A short time after eating my bitter dinner, I was amazed how invincibly strong they make one feel. I was in my mid 40’s when I started to do this, and though somewhat trim was in no way in the kind of physical shape I had been as a teenager. It was nice to be able to run and galavant through the woods without following trails. No matter how dark it got, I could see!  If you take mushrooms, and you see a tree, you can instantly spot that tree's parents, children and grandchildren, and see them all knit together in a familial pattern. Plants and animals start talking. You become exposed to knowledge which you're perfectly able to go back a day or two later, when sober, and verify. I believe this has to do with elevated sensory perceptions.

I sat in a hillside of ferns in revery, watching the sun set across the pond, when all of a sudden I felt hands all over my thighs.

I looked down and saw four hairy hands gripping the flesh of my legs. They were small children’s sized hands, and I heard giggling, joyous childish shrieking. But I couldn’t see the rest of their bodies! It was only when the hands touched me that their arms became visible, as if my own body was grounding their invisibility shield. The hands disappeared as soon as they took them away. Initially I thought this experience was a vestige of the psilocybin, so I ignored it. But the gropes persisted, and I knew the physical sensations were real. So I shouted “Stop it!”, and swatted the hands away.

I’ll remark that one never sees something on psilocybin that does not exist at all. There’s always a basis in reality. The images before one's mind with eyes closed is a different subject, but with eyes open, what one sees exists, always. Though forms may seem morphed, they are always there. I saw a familiar trail, a familiar pond, familiar trees and sky, just illuminated with networks of patterns and lines. 

Those little child sized hands had grey-black skin, dark black brown hair that was not thick on their backs It also seemed as if there was a lightish green moss growing at the end some of the hairs, as if the body carried with it a mossy growth, perhaps used as camouflage.

But again, I could not see where the forearms went to arms. Beyond the upper wrists, the rest of their bodies were invisible.

For years, I doubted these memories. I had doubted myself. Now I know they were as real as the pond I knew by heart, and the trail, and all the different species of plant and tree. Now that I’ve had several direct sightings, I speculate the Sabe father knew I was headed out to trip, and sent his kids to give me a feel. “This is your chance to touch a human. Don’t be scared, he won’t bite, hell he’s high as a kite!”

That experience was lent real context by my first experience of gifting, because the same afternoon in 2014 after I saw the footprint, I was left a pile of mildly psychoactive Adirondack mushrooms by our front door. There were also some folded fern stalks in the shape of a bowtie, and a small polished stone which I later learned was Labradorite. I also was missing some of my largest pottery bowls! I was leaving pots made in my Connecticut studio outside, as a kind of honor system pottery sale. Two of my largest bowls, one yellow and one black, had gone missing.

Back to my vision quest: an hour or so after dark, while running through the marshes where the pond flowed into a beaver meadow, I put my bag down somewhere in the dark and lost it. The energizing effect of the mushrooms had me running all over the place, through the bogs, over logs, around the pond, on and off the trails. It would be impossible to re-trace my steps. I knew my wife would be furious if I lost those bottles.

I wondered where my bag was. I hadn’t touched it in hours. Where in all the territory I had run over, did I put it down?. Thinking about it I sat down in the grass. Then standing up I suddenly felt it, right beside me! Later I told my wife that “The power of the mushroom is incredible. It helped me locate my bag in the pitch black.”Now, I honestly believe Sabe returned it to me. 

Old puzzle pieces are re-arranged by new knowledge. This sleight of hand interaction has became a feature in my ongoing relationship with these beings. They form the basis of our active conversations. All to be explained in time.

I had lost my pack, Sabe had noticed, and returned it to me. That’s my theory now, but what did I honestly think then? I could only scoff off these experiences internally. The invisibility problem is a tough mountain to cross. If what is real can be seen, what is not seen, may or may not be real. There’s always room for doubt.

I’m sure my evening antics in the forest were a great source of entertainment to these creatures.  When the effect of the mushroom wore down, and my energies subsided, I headed home. 

There is a point along our trail that is very peculiar. The footpath goes up and over the crest of some small rocks, then passes through a sort fairy ring made of four boulders spaced unevenly. There have alway been four. The trail goes up and over some small stones, then between the boulders, two big ones on the left, two big ones on the right.

Now while there was a partial moon, the mushroom made it possible to navigate easily. It helps one avoid getting stuck in the eye by a spruce twig, You can place your feet firmly on the ground, running or walking.  Mushroom sight does not illuminate the darkest spots, boulders, or tree trunks, etc. Naturally our trail, here and there, tucks beneath dense upper foliage, and the ground beneath is as close as pitch dark as can be on a full moon night.

That evening returning home, I noticed five big rocks on the perimeter, not four. I thought at that time, 'suppose one of those rocks is a Bigfoot!'  I had suspicions then, but no visual facts to anchor them with. I wasn’t about to start feeling the rocks, yet no amount of human imagination may turn four into five.

A few years later I went to the same spot to trip again. Just setting out, and completely sober on the trail, but only a short distance from our settlement, I noticed three cousins carrying fishing rods, walking towards me. They emerged over one hummock, dipped down, then suddenly appeared around a corner. At a glance, I realized they weren’t relatives. Or were they? They were haphazardly dressed. A bunch of odd belts around their waists, a few wore shorts, one didn’t, but instead wore a sweatshirt. It was the kind of clothing one gets from Goodwill, or recycling. Each was carrying a fishing rod. All three were male. Their skin was light, sort of a golden tan.

Then I noticed, as they bobbed past, that each was bent over, a lot!, They seemed like teenagers but whereas their heads glided by at maybe five-feet five in height, if their legs had been extended, and were walking tall with backs unbent, they’d easily have stood a foot higher than me. I’m six one.  They clearly were walking in a crippled fashion in order to minimize their height, with thighs held nearly parallel to the ground! It couldn’t have been comfortable, but they made it look easy. As they faux-walked awkwardly by me, I saw that each was covered in light reddish hair from head to toe, except around the face and eyes. As they passed they mumbled hello. They were friendly and they smiled. And then I knew, these were forest beings I’d never met before. I didn’t even know the word Sabe then. Could these be brothers of the ones who had felt my legs years earlier?

When I saw the clothes and fishing rods I thought to myself, what a load of theatre! These guys have a sense of humor! If they read minds, - and I felt they read mine perfectly -  I realized the whole thing was a ruse enabling them to reveal themselves to me. If I’d seen them unclothed, and at full height I might have freaked out. Pure genius.

I’m finding it immensely purifying to let go of these experiences, as they have been difficult to carry in detail all these years. For now, I think this is a good place to break.

In a future email I'll describe my sit-down with their patriarch on our porch, and how that went. Hint - it didn’t!

Best regards,

Postmark Winter Owl

From Postmark Winter Owl

Raven,

I'm hoping you'll throw this up on your blog.

I’ve had a number of encounters, and experiences with the Sabe people, mostly at our summer home in the Adirondacks, but also camping along the Buffalo River in Arkansas, as well as at home in Connecticut.

We all understand the meaning of ‘contact’. Yet a moment of contact doesn't condense or simplify what has already happened, or what will happen later as a result. Rather CONTACT changes EVERYTHING. 

Our worldview changes, we endure physiological and psycho-somatic changes. Some of us are terrified, others scarred for life. For many the experience threatens our sanity.  We hear of people saved by these beings, and despite the negative ‘run-ins’ there’s little to imply that Sabe is a murderer. Quite the contrary.

I've listened to all types of interaction from witness testimonies, and noticed that admitting Sabe into one's life is profoundly metaphysical. It challenges our ethics, legal philosophy, mythology, and self-perception. On another level, these beings present nearly insurmountable challenges to our government and national defense.

This is not forbidden knowledge. Most of us have been living under a rock. The native American tribes have known forever. Why didn’t we take them at face value? They told us, mountain range by mountain range where the Sabe lived, and the sections of wilderness to stay away from. News reports were printed of Sabe run-ins. Why has history suppressed them? Why are the bodies of Sabe whisked away? Why aren’t there any really good photos or videos?

Admittedly one would have to dig deep in a library reading Ambrose Bierce, Teddy Roosevelt and others to understand early American hairy-man encounters. The beings were there, the press wrote reports. Our forefathers coped with Sabe, on their farms, ranches, panning for gold, fishing, hunting, everywhere. Yet for some reason as a society we've dismissed with derisive laughter the testimonies of loved ones. Even our elected governments hide this knowledge. We’ve practiced a form of blind yet educated stupidity. The dumbed down state we find ourselves in is our own damned fault. 

I’m fascinated by the process of lightbulbs on. Some are yanked into a new reality by a rude awakening. For me, it was gradual, and took my whole life. From not believing in Sasquatch as late as 2010 to someone I've had dozens of experiences in recent years, but now recognize my experiences went back much further. Old questions are newly answered.

This was a curriculum completely structured by my Sabe friends themselves  I now accept them as members of my forest community, as wise beings and teachers at the edge of my life. But I have so many questions, about their history, politics, survival skills, medicine, spiritual matters etc. Who are these beings, really? The Bible only hints at answers. Modern science dismisses both. May we resurrect a scientific explanation from corroborating testimonies, such as those heard here? I hope so.

We don’t need Sabe's existence proven. What we need are solid questions answered about them, their history, about who they are, also about who WE ARE, and then finally, what is their relationship with us? Are we just co-competitors on a small planet ecosystem, or are they our partners, watchers, educators, tutors, babysitters, or demons? Are they hear to aid us or plague us?

To get those answers some of us are going to have to culture Sabe as friends.

I honestly believe they are here as our teachers, but do bear in mind I’ve been lucky. For context I’ll start with an experience taken from mid life, and another from early childhood. Both of these experiences became only relevant once I knew Sabe existed. I’ll try to describe both experiences from the perspective of me as a naive experiencer, and the perspective of later gnosis, after confirmed sightings. 

Very late in his life my father took up jogging and began a summer project of lugging backpacks of shingles and nails to a small camp on an Adirondack lake about three miles distant from our house. Let’s call it Trout Lake. The cabin was on a rocky point, shadowed by enormous red spruces that escaped an early lumbering operation due only to the inaccessibility of the site. My uncle built the cabin in the 1940’s, and my Dad felt the need in the early 1990s to make sure it was maintained. He made ten or eleven trips that way, portaging enough materials to completely re-roof and shingle the building. But then after one trip, he arrived home shaking, and perplexed. He had been stalked the entire way back by something he couldn’t see. Yet he heard it. 

We all speculated. Puma? Bear? He was visibly shaken. Nothing ever scared him. What had happened? Even though so close to me, and loved by all of us, it was near impossible to put ourselves into his shoes and imagine what he had gone through. Nor could I dream that I would experience the same pursuing force, years later, on the exact same trail while returning from the same distant lake.

That was in 1994, late that fall he was diagnosed with cancer, but by the summer of 1995 he improved enormously, and we thought he had beaten the disease. All of us, Dad, my Mom, brothers and sister took a long row down the lake to a remote lean-two along the south-eastern shore. We started a fire, cooked hamburgers, made a peach desert.

During that meal we used an ancient set of binoculars to watch the setting sunlight strike the beach on the opposite shore, a distance of about half a mile across the water.

We all knew that beach intimately, because our access road, built in the 1960’s, passes along it for a short distance. The pines and berry bushes are of known height. There’s a sandy berm with pines at the top, that stands about 12 feet over the surface of the road.

Anyway we were watching the sun across the water, when suddenly a large brown figure appeared, on the road below the sandy berm. We could see it with the naked eye, but even our crap glasses made the image much better. 

Dad had a look and said to me “Who is that? He’s incredibly tall. Have a look”. 

He handed me the glasses, and sure enough I saw a very tall figure that seemed to be clad entirely in brown. Somewhat slim, but very muscular. It stood very straight, and made an encompassing gesture in the air over its head, the kind of movement one makes while admiring the beauty of sunlight. It also seemed like the kind of movement one would make if one had an audience. I didn’t know if the audience was another being nearby, or us, on the opposite shore, watching with the glasses!

My Dad and I passed the glasses back and forth and then wondered if it could be a particular tall friend who occasionally visited some cousins. That boy was close to six-foot-seven. Though well known to us, the figure on the beach was much taller, at least eight-and-a-half feet tall, plus it was wearing all brown, and I mean all brown! I lifted the glasses to my eyes when all of a sudden the figure stepped forward and quite literally vanished. He sort of shimmered, then disappeared.

Dad was watching without glasses and asked, “Where’d he go?”. 

There was nothing more to look at. 

That lead to us discussing may father's recent trip back the previous year from Trout Lake. I mentioned that our caretaker swore Bigfoot was real. I was offering ideas, though in my gut at that moment I did not believe what I was saying. In the absence of solid data, in the absence of proof all we could do was speculate.

Why is it we insist on visual material evidence for all forms of reality? Sounds, and testimonies from another human being don’t cut it. Even family members will distrust each other when all that's offered is experience, or testimony.

How easy it is to say now: “I know now what that was.” Putting the pieces together, and arriving at realization, that is a long story. The crucial moment requires understanding larger experiences. And boy I have had them. I didn’t ask for them, and for a few moments there I didn’t want them. I admit now I have gotten to know Sabe, at Sabe’s own insistence.

I’m in my late sixties, and all I can think about is deepening my friendship with these beings. All I have for them is love and gratitude. Getting to this point as a non-believer in things ‘paranormal’ has been a long road. And the number of encounters bolstering these experiences for me, have soared.

I have viewed Sabe tree structures, played tag with Sabe in the dark at night. I’ve sat with Sabe on the porch of our camp. I’ve seen Sabe wearing clothes, and pretending to be some of my cousins. In recent years my Sabe friend listens to conversations I have with my son, and then offers his two cents on the subject the following day. We’ve discussed bird species, and how to seed berry bushes. When in the summer of 2021 I accidentally hit a fawn with my car on the main road some 15 miles from our camp, Sabe was there to console me. I was quite broken up. Like I said, I’m happy to give details of all these encounters.

Meanwhile we converse in mind-speak, or via a dialogue of symbols left for each other on the forest floor. Either, these days I ask a question and the answer always  comes. Yet it is amazing how we prefer to bury these experiences often that happen right before our eyes, with a belief system designed to pluck these encounters from collective memory. Most do not see them, because they have been taught and believe, Sabe doesn't exist.

My story thus starts with my earliest experience, one so big it has taken me over sixty years to understand.

The year was 1958, I was just over four years old. Myself, Mom, Dad, myself and and two brothers were visiting my grandparents at their Adirondack camp. During my afternoon nap, my parents entrusted me to my grandparent’s cook, a middle-aged woman named Dorothy. Her room was above the kitchen, which was in a separate log building from the main camp. By placing me in Dorothy’s care they got a little time off.

My grandparents were well-to-do and lived in the old style. They ate at a set table three times a day. Fire in the fireplace, fine china, the whole nine yards.  The dining room and kitchen were in two buildings separated from the main part of the camp, but connected by a roofed-in porch. All the buildings were within earshot of each other.

On this July day we ate our midday meal in the dining room, and after lunch I was put into the room above the kitchen for my nap. There were two beds, just right and left of the lakeshore window. Dorothy the cook had her bed on the left, and I was put to sleep in the one on the right. While I was napping I could hear Dorothy downstairs banging pots, and cooking.

Anyone downstairs could hear someone walking on the floor above. The kitchen building was built of squared logs, and had heavy log timbers, crossed by tongue and groove floorboards. The upstairs room was tall enough for an adult to walk a line standing under the peak of the roof. Off to either side, the roof eaves slanted abruptly. There were two Mansard type windows cut into the sloping rafters, to the west and east sides of the room, as well as one large window at the end facing the lake.

In those days we cooked entirely on wood. Our kitchen always had a number of stoves, some better for baking, others better for frying and boiling.  Our place was very remote, there was no electricity at all, and only a crank-type telephone to an Adirondack railroad junction eight miles away. We had only one vehicle for that eight mile trip, a Model A Ford. Even that had come in by train. Our lifestyle was primitive at best. All food came by train to the station. We had to plan ahead for weeks.

According to my father, Dorothy had developed somewhat of a drinking problem, and on this afternoon, she was preparing a huge ham for dinner. In any event, for some reason, a cooking fire developed, from the greasy run-offs of that ham. 

As clearly as if it were yesterday I remember watching the smoke build up near the eaves in the room where I was lying. Then came the sounds of excited voices from below. All of a sudden there was a sudden whoosh-like feeling as I felt someone lift my body up and out the open window. I never caught sight of who picked me up, and remember disappointment when I was left in the cold grass outside.

I remember the shouts and voices of the fire being put out. Then I remember clearly my mother crying my name. She was frantic. I remember frantic yells by both my parents and grandfather all looking for me upstairs above the kitchen, and calling my name. I heard them running up and down the stairs, then suddenly I heard Dad outside yelling near me, “Here he is!”.

"I remember their words “How did he get outside?” I must say I didn’t know how I had made it from my bed near the lake window to the grass outside in just a few seconds. I remember my parents trying to question me about this, but I didn’t know.

Children do have ways of remembering what what adult voices say in other rooms. I remember my Dad and Mom questioning Dorothy the cook about why she hadn’t gone to get me out of the ‘barracks’ once the fire started. I remember Dad questioning her. Somehow she let loose the epithet, “I’d like to kill the little monster.” 

Dad said something to Dorothy to the effect that, “You need psychological help.” It wasn’t a pretty scene. I remember as a kid I was siding with Dorothy, after all she had cared for me a bit that summer, and given me oatmeal cookies!

Needless to say there was no sit-down dinner that evening. My grandparents were perplexed, out of their league, in dealing with problems like this. I remember Mom and Dad saying there would have to be some changes. Over all of it hung the mystery of how I had miraculously wound up in the grass. Who had rescued me? That night I slept with my Mom in the main camp in one of the upstairs bedrooms. 

Suddenly in the middle of the night we heard an enormous crash and a gigantic bellowing scream from the direction of the kitchen. I personally have never been screamed at full volume by a Sabe but it was recent recordings found on the internet that jogged my memory of that night.

Everyone woke up, “What the hell was that?”  We heard crash after crash then more objects crashing about in the kitchen. The racket was incredibly loud. My grandfather went to the living room to get his rifle. My grandmother insisted my grandfather stay put. Nobody dared go to that side of the camp. 

In the morning we awoke to find Dorothy, apoplectic, screaming that she wanted out of this job immediately. A black bear had broken down the kitchen door. At least that is the explanation that was offered. Our rear kitchen door was a very solid maple door, of early 1900’s construction. It had been kicked in so forcefully that the door was split in half. The hinged half hung and the other half lay on the floor. Dad did say that a slow roasted ham attracts every bear within miles. Never mind that no bear had seen in our part of the Adirondacks during the 1950’s. And none of the food from the destroyed icebox had been eaten. None of it. But the dishes, a table, and an old fashioned wooden icebox had been torn to shreds. It was a shock and awe display, but without any theft whatsoever. The ham was entire, lying on the floor of the kitchen! Untouched!

Now what bear breaks in to a place then doesn’t eat what it finds?

For years we accepted that bears sometimes take displeasure at humans, and will sometimes break up a camp to rob food or vent anger. My cousins own hunting camps in the woods. Break-ins happen at these small dwellings regularly. I never questioned that a bear could be the cause of these mishaps. Now I realize that black bears almost never break into a building forcibly, but if they do it’s because a door or window may be bent by pushing it over. A solid door is never challenged.

It has taken me my entire life, and a slow process of putting puzzle pieces together to figure out what actually happened. 

Some being did what it felt it had to do, in order to protect me. It had listened to and understood Dorothy saying “I’d like to kill the little monster.” It had decided to frighten this elderly employee out of her wits so she’d never return.

Dorothy demanded my grandfather drive her over the long road to the train station. He did, she got the train, and was never seen again. My grandparents stopped living the grand life. Years after the camp passed to my father. Years later he  integrated this event into his one of his stories about a Native American boy named Robin Quickfoot. He made it clear almost as a sort of confession, that it had happened to me.”He’d mumble, “You remember, don't you!”  Sometimes when he mentioned the event around my mother, she’d shush him to shut up, he would, but he always made sure I heard him, and set me to puzzling in some way about it. Thank you Pop! Now I know Dad was conscious of these beings his whole life, but insulated me from the knowledge.

I apologize in advance if my alias (Postmark Winter Owl) is confusing to your readers

Best regards,

Postmark Winter Owl