Derek Randles on Monsters and Mysteries in America

I do like to keep things straight and honest. I just wanted to clear up a couple inaccuracies with the Monsters and Mysteries in America that’s been showing this week on Discovery networks. I thought they did a good job with production, and the show as a whole was good, but when It comes to my initial encounter there’s a couple things that were a bit over the top.

There were three of us not two. We were just starting to set up camp..just taking off our backpacks when the rocks started coming. I was actually cutting limbs to put under my bed roll. They got the rock part right. They were not thrown at us but around us..never at us. The way they stated that I barely escaped with my life was a bit over the top.

When we decided to get the hell out of there we started charging down a very steep ridge. I stopped just for a second to get my gun and that’s when I saw it. It was not a great sighting, just a silhouette that was swaying back and forth. I know what it was but I internalized it for years. I didn’t want to tell anyone, but I did go head first into research the very next week. A short time later I returned to the area,(The trail below where it happened), and found my first set of 16″ tracks.

I do believe it followed us down the ridge and toward the camp where we spent that night. There were other rocks and sticks that were thrown later in the eve.

Since then I have had another sighting and been around them in close proximity on several other occasions. I’ve found many track lines and hundreds of tracks. In 28 years of research I’ve never gone back to that ridge where it happened. I’m not even sure why…respect maybe. We were’t wanted there. I think if we’d have pushed the envelope, someone would have gotten hurt.