Speaker 1: My family is originally from Sitka, Alaska. I'm the third
oldest of five children, with three brothers and one sister.
When I was fifteen, my dad decided to take a
better job in the lower forty eight, so we moved
to Blewett, Washington. We brought our two pet dogs with us,
a Border Collie named Awnie and Chance, our golden retriever.
This was the first time in my life I would
call another place home. We moved into a two story
house deep in the woods on top of a slight
hill on the side of a spur of the East
Cascade Mountains near Wanaichi National Forest. It was originally built
by a mountaineer who came there with some friends to
mine the gold and silver. It was notched into a
cleared space that was thirty feet in diameter and was
surrounded by a dense wall of trees. In addition to these,
there were fruit trees and maples planted by a former tenant.
The property also contained a chicken coop and a pen,
again built by the former occupant. Our closest neighbor was
a co manager of a logging company from Estonia. He
was a reserved, polite man who was approaching middle age.
He spent half the year living alone and blew It,
and the other half in Switzerland. Several times he came
over to cut down dead or dying trees that my
parents were concerned might fall on their children or stove
in their house, and in return, my parents invited him
to supper and gave him homemade jams. My brothers and
sisters and I were excited to move into our new home.
In its surrounding there was even a hot tub and
a swing on the porch that ran along the northeast
side of the house. And aside from visits over the
holidays to family and friends in the Deep South, I
had never visited, much less lived anywhere outside of Sitka.
Most people hear about the state of Alaska and they
think wilderness. Despite Sitka being situated between the mountains and
the sea, we weren't the kind of family who got
out into nature. We did take the occasional hike, and
we had our share of camping and fishing trips, but
it wasn't until we moved to blew It that we
started spending more time outdoors. Besides the fruit trees and
maples that needed to be tended, my made a garden,
and we all helped with it. We decided to make
use of a coop, so we started with twenty chickens.
We used the existing pen to raise hogs. Because the
house was old and built like a cabin, it was
in need of constant repair. But Dad was an organized
and competent worker who patched the holes where vermin sometimes
got in, and set the water and beams straight, and
put new screens in the windows. One evening in two
thousand and three, my brothers and I were outside on
the apron of the long drive that led down to
the public road, helping Dad bring in some supplies from
town when we heard a loud, eerie scream. It rose
in pitch and it lasted for several seconds. It sounded horrible,
like someone being murdered. My muscles froze and my blood
ran cold at the sound. Well we thought it might
have come from close by on the hillside above us,
and we stared at each other in the surrounding forest,
but we didn't see or hear anything. The forest had
gone quiet, or maybe it just appeared that way after
the sudden, terrifying howl, and a minute or two later,
the scream came again, and this time from closer in
the woods above us. The scream sounded like nothing we'd
ever heard before. Dad said it was probably a cougar
or someone messing around. There was a cabin a mile
or so up the mountain behind the house, and that
was sometimes used by hikers and boy Scouts and a
Bible School youth group. He thought it might be something
like that, but nevertheless, he sent us inside and told
us not to go out again. That evening, Mom and
my sister heard the screams as well, and that evening
my Dad and my oldest brother Sjay, saw to the
feeding and bedding down of the livestock. Later that same night,
after the three youngest of us had gone to bed,
Dad was in the dining room listening to the radio
while working on one of his paintings, when he heard
the dogs barking somewhere at the back of the house,
near the porch. This was unusual, as our dogs were
trained and had already been let out for their last
call of nature of the night. He went to check
on them because he didn't want them making a big
fuss in wake those of us who had already gone
to bed. Well, the dogs were facing the back door
and barking ferociously at something beyond it, with their teeth
bared and their hackles raised. It had been a warm day,
so the windows were partially open to allow in the
cool evening breeze, and as he was dealing with the dogs,
a horrible stench like nothing we had ever smelled before,
walked it in through the windows next to the porch door.
It was so offensive that Dad momentarily clobbered s J.
Mam and I awake from our sleep. Arrived at the
back door then to see what was going on, and
right away we noticed that smell too. Something's rilled the dogs.
Dad told us, judging by this stink, I guess it's
probably a bear or a skunk trying to get at
the live stop. He sent Sjay to get a rifle
while we got some flashlights. We didn't have a backyard
light and it was pitch black outside. Mom and I
held back the dogs and Dad and Esjay stepped out
onto the porch and swept the area with the light.
They didn't see anything. No horrible visage lunged at them
out of the dark. Even so, they kept their rifles
trained alongside their light beams just in case. The dogs
continued to snarl and bark and tug at their collars
until we finally decided to leash them to the sturdy
support beams Inside near the porch door. There were no
signs of a predator other than the sickening stints that
grew stronger the farther my dad and my brother ventured
from the house. They checked the chicken coop first. They
found the steel reinforced lock from the coop door broken
and laying on the ground, and it looked as if
something had literally twisted the steel loop out of the pad.
There aren't many things that could do that to a
reinforced padlock. A bear such as one of our native
black bears might have, but there were no bear tracks
and no claw marks on the coop and no bike
marks on the lock. If it had been a predator,
why hadn't the hens and roosters raised the expected cries
and squawks? A human seemed the more likely explanation. If
it was a human, why hadn't the thief used a
little more traditional method of picking the lock or using
a laser torch? And what kind of human had the
strength to tear a steel lock apart. The door was
closed when my dad and brother reached it, but when
they went inside, the chickens were all gone. Not a
single bird was left in the coop. Even more incredibly,
there were no telltale feathers that chickens released when they're
in distress, nor was there so much as a drop
or smear of blood anywhere. A Dad had seen some
crazy things in his life, but this surpassed anything he
had ever experienced before. They checked the hog pen next,
but all six hogs were still there, and then they
did a cursory search of the perimeter in the storehouse
before coming back inside. All the doors and windows were locked,
and Dad told us what they'd found and said to
stay inside the next day. I'll notify the sheriff in
the morning, he said, and I'll check with the neighbors
to see if any of them have had any problems.
After we all went back to bed, Dad stayed up
with his rifle. I think he was worried that the
thief might still be in the area, and he didn't
want to lose the hogs or any property in the storehouse.
He might have remembered those strange screams we'd heard earlier
and wondered if they were more than a coincidence. Well,
dawn came without incident and with no further signs of
thief thaves. Dad reported the theft early the next morning,
and then he, as Jay and my sister Kathy scouted
the area around the house with our dogs. No sign
was found of either the thieves or the missing chickens,
and when the dogs caught a whiff of what we
assumed was the lingering scent of the predator from the
night before, they grew agitated and pulled at their collars again.
The scent trail led from the chicken coop to the
woods behind the house. They followed the dog's lead through
the dense forests, scratching and clawing branches for a short
distance up the side of the mountain and down into
the swamp at the bottom of a ravine before the
dogs lost the scent. Try as they might, they weren't
able to find the trail again, not even a track
in the swampy ground. I suspect the thief chose that
route to throw off the pursuit. While the younger ones
were we were confined in the house for the next
couple of days my parents and two other siblings ventured
outside only when required to complete the necessary chores for
the live stock. On the second day after the chickens
were stolen, we went into town, where Dad purchased some
home surveillance cameras and a couple of extra large caliber rifles.
He figured if it had been, as he suspected, a
bear or an unusually strong human who might try to
steal more live stock or harm us, it would be
better to have a stronger gun and bigger bullets for
self defense. If trouble came, at least we would be ready.
We kept the dogs inside and watched them for any
signs that they were sensing something. None of us heard
the trespassers stealing the chickens, so we doubted that we
would hear them if they came again. The cameras were
strategically positioned, but the dense woods so close to the
house there was still a disadvantage. Nothing unusual happened that afternoon,
or that night or the following days. Dad stayed up
to keep a vigil with the dogs, while Mom did
her best to reassure us that the boogeyman. As I
and my younger brothers had begun to think of it
would not come back to get us, and over time
we became more relaxed and life returned to normal. Seventeen
years later, I and many of my siblings are now
convinced that it was a bigfoot. Back then, the question
never entered our minds. Although we were from Alaska, we
didn't take that sort of thing seriously. Like most families.
We'd seen Harry and the Hendersons and heard a few
stories on coast to coast, but I doubt my parents
even considered the possibility. A week later, just as we
were all beginning to settle down again, we had another experience.
As the sun was going down, My brothers and I
had gone for a walk down on one of those
half paved, half dirt country lanes that connected us to
Highway ninety seven. We were sipping on ice sodas and
enjoying the freedom of being outside again after the events
of the week before, when we realized the sun was
beginning to set behind the mountains across the valley. We
were half a mile from the house, so we decided
to head home before it got too dark. It wasn't
like we were unusually sensitive townspeople who were easily shaking.
Since the trespasser from the week before had left behind
no visible signs of his crimes, it was easy to
believe nothing had happened, and the natural sounds of birds
and crickets around us served to lessen any fears that
we might still have been holding on to. But nothing
in our previous experience had prepared us for our chicken thief,
so we were still admittedly slightly on edge. We were kids.
My brothers and I were goofing around, laying joke, sharing
unrealized dreams, and generally enjoying each other's company and not
paying much attention to our surroundings. The road we were
on ran alongside Ingle's Creek for a quarter of a
mile before looping back around the mountain toward our house.
We'd come to an area of the road where the
creek was calmer and ideal for fishing. A bear liked
to frequent the spot to fish as well, not to
mention the abundance of berries that grow along the banks
of the creek there, and deer and other wildlife often
came down to that spot for a cool drink of water.
Where the creek didn't run as fast we were walking
along and bantering back and forth in the growing twilight.
When my brother Rick stopped, What are you doing? I
asked him. We didn't answer. He was focused on something
up ahead along the creek. Surprise and fear played across
his face as he continued to stare in that direction.
And by now my two older brothers had also noticed
what Rick was staring at, and they had stopped too.
I turned my head to look over at what they
were seeing, and my heart caught in my chest when
I saw it. Fifteen yards from us, on the bank
of the creek, and hutchdown almost on all fours was
what looked like a huge eight Now this was our
first close up encounter with a sasquatch. I will forever
regret not having even an old fashioned video or flash
camera with me to capture what we saw. Even so,
it left such an impression on me that I can
still recall with absolute clarity what it looked like and
how it smelled some twenty years later. Even in a
crouch's position. The sasquatch was tall, at least six feet.
It had a shoulder span of three feet across, and
its face was hairy, but not as thick and as
mad at as the rest of the body. It had
a sloping and almost muzzled front forehead with a pronounced
brow ridge. The eyes staring into us were slightly retreated
into its skull and wore a grayish black tint. Its
nose was flatter than the human's, to the point of
being almost ape like, but not quite. The thick, stringy
black hair on its head hung and flowed to blend
seamlessly with the dark hue of its chest. It gave
the creature the appearance of having a conical shaped head,
and later, when I read about people's encounters with sasquatch,
I wondered if they erroneously thought that it actually had
a conical head because of the illusion caused by the
mess of hair. I thought it might have been fishing
or drinking, or both. Because its beard and chest were
wet with water, and it seemed caught off guard by
our presence, I supposed the noise of the rushing creek
water could have masked our approach. We stood there, rooted
to the spot with a shot. I'm not sure of
how long the sasquatch eventually stood up without taking its
eyes off us. Upright, it was even more intimidating, and
we later went back with our parents and measured a
branch that was closest to where it stood, and that
thing stood eight feet four inches tall. As the bigfoot
stood there staring at us, I got a whiff of
that horrible odor, and it reminded me of garbage left
in the sun for several days to rite, mixed with
wet dog. I don't know if that smell is representative
of the entire species or particular to a less hygienic
minded individual, but several times in my life I've been
reminded of that stench by similar odors, and I found
myself looking around expecting to see one nearby. Considering that
some of those instances have been in the woods, it
probably wasn't too far off, that's my guess. The sisquatch
slowly turned and started up onto the road ahead of us,
keeping a watchful eye on us the whole time. That
road was twenty feet across, but it crossed it in
two strides, and it disappeared silently into the woods. My
brothers and I waited for several minutes to make sure
the creature was gone before we were willing to pass
by That spot, and our hearts were pounding in our chests,
and our limbs were trembling. My feet felt as if
they had been turned into boiled pasta and might buckle
it any minute before I reached the safety of our house.
It was the longest walk home I ever took. Our
long driveway passed through several patches of dense forest, and
with each step I imagined that that monster would lunge
out of the brush and rush us at home. Our
minds raised with our mouths as adrenaline pumped the words
faster than our brains could sort them. Dad tried to
calm us down, and we eventually managed to get the
whole story out. He told us that we'd seen a bear.
There is no such thing as a real bigfoot, He
told us. Bigfoots are a legend created by ignorant or
sensational minded people who most likely made them up or
misidentified other wild animals as these mythical creatures. In his mind,
we did see a bear. It may seem unfair, but
Dad had a point. He didn't need us scaring other
family members out there in the middle of nowhere. The
last thing we needed was a reason to panic. Still, unconvinced.
We witnesses worked together to help each other try to
understand what we saw out there on that road, and
it's an experience that still gives me nightmares and panic
attacks to this day. I am now a truck driver
based in Washington State. I've been doing this for ten years.
I liked my job despite the long, lonely, and often
odd hours on long stretches of sometimes remote highway, but
it's not really bad. In midwinter of twenty fourteen, I
was traveling on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains
on Interstate Highway seventy seven. This is in north central
Washington State. I came to work that day with instructions
to drive a shipment from Auburn, Washington to Bigbie. It
was a longer stretch of driving than usual, but I
was glad for the work because the pay was good.
I started my long track at around six in the
morning Pacific time. I would need to make several stops
along the way since it was going to be between
ten and fifteen hours until I reached my end destination.
That evening, I was cruising down Highway seventy seven through
Aubrey National Forest and listening to the radio. I'd passed
a few other vehicles on the highway. It was dark
by this hour, and I had my high beams on.
Fortunately it wasn't particularly bad weather. I was sipping at
my hot coffee in my thermos. One of my favorite
radio shows had just begun. My truck had just rounded
a sharp corner and entered a stretch of a more
level road where the tree line was further back from
the highway, as much as twenty feet in some places.
It was then that I saw a large, dark brown
figure start from the side of the road one hundred
and thirty yards ahead and quickly cross it in a
few steps. The creature remained on the other side of
the road as I passed it. All this happened in
about four or five seconds, but I remember how surprised,
even somewhat disturbed, I was at the unusual appearance of
this thing. Even from the seed of my eighteen wheeler,
I could tell that this thing had to have been
eight or nine feet tall. It had a conical shape
to its head. I don't remember the exact features of
its face, as it only turned its head towards my
oncoming truck for a brief heartbeat, but its eyes reflected
reddish gold in the high beams. I noticed these too,
were large and larger than any human or even a
bear's eyes. The creature's arms were long. They swung back
and forth all the way down to its knees as
it moved. It crossed the road so fast I was
moving at sixty five miles an hour, but this thing
still made it over with space despair. I think it
could have easily crossed back a second time before I
drove by it, that is how quickly and easily despite
its book, the creature moved. I was amazed and freaked out,
and I didn't know what I had just seen. Though
I'm certain it was not a bear. I'm certain it
wasn't a prankster in a gorilla suit either. The way
it appeared and moved so congruently for such a hawk,
and the idea that a nine foot prankster with an
extremely cut body would be out in the middle of
nowhere on a late freezing cold evening on one of
the most remote stretches of highway instead of a more
important well travel route seems at best equally remote. I'm
certain of what I saw. It was dark, yes, but
I had enough time to observe the creature well enough
in the illumination from my high beams and at the
proximity that I did, and I'm convinced that it was
a sosquatch. I didn't want to hang around this part
of the wilderness with that thing I'd just driven by,
so I continued on my way, applying a little more
pressure to the pedal until I had left the mountains
and that thing far behind me. At the next town
I reached, I made a call to a friend of mine,
telling him what I had seen. And although he believed
that I had seen something and he knew me well
enough to know I didn't tell tall tales, he didn't
know what to make of it. I decided to keep
this strange encounter to myself because I did not wish
to bring ridicule on me or my family, or possibly
jeopardize my job. At the time, I didn't really know
much about size squatch, and I believe them only to
be a myth and a tourist attraction to the Pacific Northwest. Later,
when my curiosity got the better of me, I began
researching the subject of bigfoot encryptids. Now I was amazed
at how many people had actually had similar encounters with
creatures like the one I saw on Highway seventy seven.
I'd never realized a large number of sightings that were
reported and continue to be reported every year, not just
from the Pacific Northwest, but from all over the United
States and Canada. In the years since. All the research
and meeting people who were more knowledgeable on this subject
than I am, it helped me better understand and absorb
the reality of what I had seen that midwinter night.
I still drive trucks for a living, and I have
made several journeys through that same area where I encountered
the sasquatch. I've recently shared my story with several family
members and friends. I've also revisited alone and with others
the sight of my encounter. I haven't personally witnessed another
sasquatch encounter myself since then, but I know now without
a doubt that these mysterious creatures do in fact truly exist.
What they are, I'm not sure that they are out
there even today, I am sure. I hope this story
helps not just others who have had similar encounters, but
also anyone who reads this and that this narration helps
spread awareness and a desire to learn more about Sasquatch.
Though I am lucky to have not suffered any deep
cycle logical trauma as some witnesses have with these things,
I nevertheless am glad to get this off my metaphysical chest,
so to speak.