I have some personal experience with that!!Pepperfool wrote:July 6 of 1977, three witnesses saw the "Hawley Him", and it threw rocks at them.
I consider myself an educated man, both through schooling and a life time of adventures here in the States and up in more remote parts of Canada where my father hails from. Not one to buy into camp-fire stories.
My wife's family is from the Kiamichi mountains of SE Oklahoma. My brother-in-law is a mountain man. Doesn't even have running water at his home. Too rocky to dig a well, so he gets his water from a nearby spring.
He and I were up in the mountains one weekend and it was getting on to dusk when we had the shock of a lifetime.
We started taking incoming rocks, cantaloupe and grapefruit sized rocks! We were down near a creek and the rocks were coming from a hillside that was at least 100 feet above us and 80-100 yards away.
There was plenty of light for us to see anyone who was not in the tree line. We saw no one and after about the 4th or 5th rock impacted next to us with a thud I can still remember, we high-tailed it out of there.
We returned the next day to check it out. Went over the whole spot, we were at trying to see if some locals or poachers were trying to run us off.
Anyway, the 'launch site' was inaccessible from our side of the canyon. Too sheer to climb and nothing but small plants clinging to the rocky sides until it started to slope back a bit. (about 100 feet above the creek) You'd have had to be on the other side of the canyon coming over that hog-back from the opposite side to even see where we had been.
My B-I-L was really affected by it. So much so that he doesn't go running the hills at night like he used to, nor hunt by himself in certain areas.
Based on the rocks we found, several going to a few pounds each, there is no earthly way a human could have sent them flying without some mechanical aide.
We never did climb up the back of that hill to see if we could find the spot they had to have come from.
I was all for looking for footprints and such, but my B-I-L would have none of it. Said it was not a good idea. He felt that we got too close to it's lair or there was young ones about and was not interested in meeting anything that could chuck a rock that heavy, that far. Besides, those slopes were heavily forested and visibilty was limited. it would be on us before we ever seen or smelled it.
Me? I'm smart enough to stick with my wingman!!!!
Oh yeah, I forgot. I voted NO. Both from an ehtical standpoint (I don't shoot things I don't eat) and a practical one. Never saw anything I could have put crosshairs on.