In this haunting episode, we present a forty-year-old confession from an anonymous Marine who encountered something in the Northern California wilderness that changed his life forever. During a routine training exercise in the Marble Mountain Wilderness in 1983, six Marines came face to face with creatures that shouldn't exist, leading to a violent confrontation that would haunt the sole narrator for the rest of his days.

 His account, shared here for the first time since his death, details not just the encounter itself but the decades of guilt, nightmares, and questions that followed. From mysterious howls in the night to massive footprints around their camp, from the intelligence in the creature's eyes to the anguish of a mother holding her child while looking at her dead mate, this story challenges everything we think we know about what lives in our forests.

The Marine's testimony doesn't end with that terrible day in California. Years later, during a hunting trip in Alaska, he would have another encounter, this one peaceful but no less profound, that would cement his belief that these beings deserve to be left alone. His plea from beyond the grave is simple but powerful: let them be. But the story doesn't end there. In an epilogue, a researcher who has spent almost forty years investigating these creatures and conducting nearly a thousand interviews reflects on receiving the Marine's account and what it means for those who seek the truth. Should the existence of these beings be proven to science, potentially dooming them to exploitation and extinction?

Or should their secret be kept while their habitat disappears around them? The researcher's struggle with this impossible choice reveals that sometimes the most profound mysteries are not about finding answers, but about learning to live with the weight of questions that may have no right answer.This episode contains mature themes including violence, death, and explores the moral complexity of humanity's relationship with the unknown.