My Bigfoot encounter..

a reply to: Alter-Ego

I don't believe in Bigfoot but I remain open to the possibility of things out there in the forests that haven't been officially discovered yet - which may include Bigfoot.

That was an excellent recollection of a story that happened to you at a very early age. And although I do not believe in Bigfoot, there is no doubt in my mind that you are retelling exactly what you've seen. I believe you.

S&F !!

I find it amusing that we have more "physical" proof (foot print moldings and such) of bigfoot then we do of extraterrestrial visitations, and many credible people that have come forward about both. Yet Bigfoot can be brushed off as mistaken sightings of large animals or hoaxes when it is highly more likely that a large primate is still living in our forests somewhere then it is that intelligent life has traveled light years to arrive here just to do fly overs. While I am a strong believer in extraterrestrials, I would still have to say i could see bigfoot being real quicker then I could say the same 100% behind extraterrestrial life.

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

It could have indeed been a mountain lion. I don't think I've ever claimed it was Bigfoot. I may have implied that I think it was...

Honestly, I don't know what it was. My experiance in the woods tells me it wasn't a bear, or a mountain lion. My instincts tell me it was "something else".

What? Don't know. Given how it made me feel? Not sure I want to know...

As for the last bit of my commentary? Apologies. Needless to say, when I recount these stories, most of the reactions mirror, to at least an extent, yours.

a reply to: Alter-Ego

Great story, thank you for sharing! I had a similar experience as a kid, but instead of a Big Foot it was a bald eagle whose wingspan at the time was twice as big as I was(age 5-6). It was just an eagle but I remember that day very clearly as well.

I believe that bigfoot exists. There's too many credible people who've seen them. There have been sightings here where I live, too. I think the reason that they are so hard to find or to see is because they live underground. I bet they move a big rock or something covering the entrance then move it back once in. Just my opinion

Thanks for sharing your experience
S&F

The OP offers a compelling eyewitness account.

He was conscious and clear-headed. The sighting occurred in daylight hours, and he saw the full creature for an extended period of time. This makes misidentification unlikely. After his sighting concluded, he immediately told others. These people are still living, and could undoubtedly back up his claim. This makes a recent fabrication unlikely.

A long-standing fabricatino also doesn't pass scrutiny. One can imagine an imaginative, mischievous 12-year-old concocting a bigfoot encounter. But to maintain such a prank for thirty-five years seems highly unlikely.

One fact that's curious, though it works neither for or against the case: The OP's description of the creature's appearance and movements are quite similar to the creature in the Paterson film.

With lies and misindentification unlikely, one of the only other explanations that a skeptic might offer is that it was a hallucination. Perfectly normal healthy children can have hallucinations. In the late seventies, bigfoot was something of a rage. Lots of books and TV specials on the subject. He even appeared in a number of episodes of "The Six Million Dollar Man". And almost everyone had seen the Paterson film.

So it's possible that a child who'd seen the Paterson film, was in unfamiliar surroundings, and had a fright might have such a hallucination. The lack of any clear physical evidence (such as footprints) helps this claim.

But there's much against it. The OP was 12. Inexplicable, spontaneous hallucinations are much more common in children under the age of ten. Also, it's been 35 years since the event. That's a long time to pick apart the event and note characteristics of a hallucination. So, again, this can't be wholly dismissed as an explanation. But it also feels unlikely.

Dismissing lies, misindentification, and hallucination there seems to be only one skeptical explanation left. The OP was the victim of a prank. Someone had created a fairly convincing bigfoot costume, and chose to use it to spook a kid. The OP notes several times that the bigfoot looked very like a man. Perhaps what he saw was a man. However, unless the practical joker had confederates in the cabin, this also seems unlikely due to the cabin's distance from roads and other cabins or houses. And if people in the cabin played a part, it seems odd that they would still maintain the joke 35 years later.

So we're left where we began. The OP presents a compelling eyewitness account that's hard to pick apart or easily dismiss.

originally posted by: Jukiodone
^ This thread demonstrates the point.

7 People all in one thread that have seen Bigfoot, yet thousands of people who hunt animals with Guns every year have never managed to at least wound one?

Statistically very unlikely.

So what's left assuming these good folks arent all making it up?

Hows about Bears?

Skip to 50 secs on this vid. and this would confuse 90% of the population if they saw it in the woods...even knowing the video is a bear...that sure looks like bigfoot to me and if I had seen it; I would very probably be number 8 on this thread.

Is this not at least the more statistically likely explanation?

That is much closer to what I saw. Black bears are not known to be in this area, but I'm sure it's possible. I'm not sure if black bears are known to jump into bayous, but I'm sure it's possible. Especially if one is crippled, it could take unconventional means of evasion.
After watching that several times, I would say that looks exactly like what I saw.

Even though that bear was walking upright, it still looked like...a bear.

I think most people who are familiar with wildlife know the difference between natural wildlife and something completely different. If they were unsure of what they saw, they wouldn't claim it was a bigfoot. Just my opinion. I tend to believe the OP saw a big foot or certainly something out of the norm.

originally posted by: Night Star
"Even though that bear was walking upright, it still looked like...a bear.

I think most people who are familiar with wildlife know the difference between natural wildlife and something completely different. If they were unsure of what they saw, they wouldn't claim it was a bigfoot. Just my opinion. I tend to believe the OP saw a big foot or certainly something out of the norm.[/quote"
It would be easy to know it is a bear if you see its head. If you only catch a glimpse of some big hairy critter running upright through the brush, in an area where bears are not common, it can be confusing. I do, by the way, believe there is a good possibility, of the existence of sasquatch. There are volumes of anecdotal evidence.

edit on 20-6-2014 by skunkape23 because: (no reason given)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

originally posted by: Night Star
Even though that bear was walking upright, it still looked like...a bear.

I think most people who are familiar with wildlife know the difference between natural wildlife and something completely different. If they were unsure of what they saw, they wouldn't claim it was a bigfoot. Just my opinion. I tend to believe the OP saw a big foot or certainly something out of the norm.

David Attenborough is VERY familiar with wildlife. Here he is talking about Yetis and Sasquatch:

originally posted by: JiggyPotamus
There must obviously be some biological reason for such avoidance, and I hypothesize that they have what I term and avoidance instinct. It is mostly instinctual, but carried out in tandem with intelligence. They have some ability to rationalize and make logical decisions. This much is obvious to me after studying encounter reports for years.

I worked as a wilderness ranger for several summers in college. I would encounter perhaps 50-300 people in any given 4-day patrol. by the second season of hiking the wilderness 4 days a week, I got to the point where NO ONE...and I mean NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON saw me before I saw them. I wasn't hiking off-trail like a bigfoot would be, either. simply hiking down the trail, after becoming tuned to the wilderness, my senses were heightened to a degree where I would see every single hiker coming my way before they saw me, and in most cases WAYYYYY before they saw me. I had no reason to hide or see people first, so imagine what a bigfoot could do being born and raised in a specific wilderness.

a reply to: Alter-Ego

I'd like to add my bigfoot encounter here, as I don't think it deserves its own thread. I had considered this event a bizarre attack by unknown anomalies for 10 years. But I now know it was bigfoot attacking to drive me out of an area, because I have heard similar screams recorded as bigfoot calls.

I am a very experienced wilderness hiker. I have lived off the land for a month in the Bob Marshall in Montana, and it was a cakewalk. I have tracked and stalked bears close enough to slap them in the butt and they didn't even know I was there - and I never get scared of anything in the wilderness, spiritual or physical...except for this one time.

it was spring break in Humboldt County, N. California. I had made a choice to hike out the back of a small town I was staying in at the time, based upon topo-maps I had seen of the area. The maps showed that the terrain behind the town park went directly to old logging lands, then national forest and private timberlands without a single maintained road or trail anywhere in the area. I decided to hike to a small stream I estimated to be about two days hike from town, and enjoy complete privacy for a week reading books and philosophizing in a place I knew had no access, and no recreationists.

It was clear during the hike that I was one of the first people to enter the area since it had been clearcut of redwood perhaps 40 years earlier. I had to climb over a lot of old logging slash and there were no trails, not even deer trails. I spent the first night on a hillside of ferns under a doug-fir canopy uneventfully.

The second day was even rougher bushwacking, but I finally made it to the creek towards evening, and marveled at the giant logs left fallen across the 15-30 ft. wide creek from the logging back in the day. I found a deer trail along the creek through the scrub brush and willows, and found a small clearing, basically a small gravel bar island, to set up my camp. I hung my food from bears, collected wood, set up the tent, and settled in for a weeklong stay of reading and hiking.

I thought to myself, "the salmon must have run this stream back in the day". I heard a loud, angry, "they did!" in my head, which startled me briefly. but I dismissed it as odd, heard no other "voices", and had a meal and laid down to sleep. [I talked to an oldtimer after the trip who said the so many salmon used to run that small creek before the treefall blocked it, that it used to stink from their dead bodies for weeks after the run.]

it was pitch black out now, on a moonless night. as I lay in the tent, a wave of fear and sense of doom came over me, something I had never felt in the wilderness before. it felt like something dark and angry was trying to push itself into my consciousness. the hair was literally standing up on the back of my neck. at that moment, a study drip started to hit the outside top of the tent. drip...drip...drip, one drop at a time. I looked outside. ...moonless night, no clouds, no dripping, no tree overhead to drip from. I looked in the tent. it wasn't dripping anymore. I crawled back in, laid down, and drip..drip...drip... it started again. I crawled out of the tent, looked up, no drips. looked in the tent...no drips. that was it. I was scared. something was scaring me, but I didn't know what. I grabbed my little .22 camping rifle, and fired a couple shots into the air. I told myself I was doing this because I was worried that a deer or coon would walk by camp and I would die of fright if it broke a stick or made any noise at all. I was completely terrified for no reason at all. but convinced that the gunshot would scare any offending deer away, I crawled back into my tent, laid down, and then, from what I estimate to be approximately 10-15 feet away, from behind a small thicket of bushes near the tent, I heard the most horrifyingly loud, terrible scream I have ever heard. I can only describe it as a laughing hyena, screaming at the top of its lungs, over and over again, a laughing, whooping, screaming howl. irrationally afraid of what I knew could only be a hyena [they don't live in north America], and in complete shock that it had screamed right next to my tent seconds after I had fired warning shots into the air, I jumped out of the tent and faced the thicket. I fired two shots into the ground at the base of the thicket, but nothing moved or rustled. no raccoon. nothing.

the irrational fear was so great at this point, that I made a completely irrational decision. despite it being pitch black, and despite being two days hike from the nearest person, I decided to abandon camp. I put the sleeping bag over my shoulder, I held the gun in my free hand [and yes, you cant make this shiz up, the batteries in my flashlight had not been replaced and did not work]. I had to walk out by feeling the deer trail with my feet, [when your foot hits grass or leaves, you know you are off the trail]. I held my hand in front of my face and I couldn't see it, it was that dark, so progress was slow. I fired a couple shots in the air to scare away any deer, to avoid heart attack for real this time.

I was maybe 30-50 feet outside of camp, feeling my way with my feet, when the sounds of breaking sticks started. directly to my left, 10-15 feet off the trail, it sounded as if hundreds of sticks were breaking...and there was a deep slow, breathing that was inconceivably vast. its like an entire cavern was filling with every breath and slow exhale. I didn't shoot - it literally sounded too big to hurt with a .22. I kept feeling for the trail with my feet, and inched along, while the breaking sticks followed me for about 20 feet of trail, right next to me. to cover that 20-30 feet of trail seemed to take an eternity. perhaps 1-3 minutes, but it felt like hours, and was the closest feeling to being helpless inside a horror movie I have ever had before or since.

the trail broke out from under the tree canopy, and I was moving quicker as the stick breaking abruptly stopped. I hiked perhaps 1 hour downstream, dropped my sleeping bag into the middle of the deer trail, and spent a restless night. I returned to camp early the next morning with some fright, passing a dead skunk I had shot the night before [about 30 minutes outside of camp I had heard a sound near my feet, fired, and heard hissing and small movement, but had kept walking because at the time I knew it was just an animal - sorry mr. skunk, I never shoot any animal I don't eat, but I was a freaked out puppy atm]. when I arrived at camp, I took down the 30 pounds of food, broke down the tent, etc. But before I left camp, I noticed there was an extremely large, smelly URINE STAIN RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CAMPSITE.

I hiked all the way out in 1 day. I never returned. I told the story several times over the 10 years since it happened, and never had any idea what it was. I actually believed it was 'bad spirits' from a 'bad place' since I was studying under a native shaman at that time, and that fit the world view he was inculcating me into. it wasn't until last year that my buddy asked me to "tell your bigfoot story" that I realized it was a bigfoot story, not a ghost story. I have since heard the exact scream on internet bigfoot recordings.

I wonder how many people who have had big foot encounters ever returned with others to investigate? I'm sure it must be scary as hell to encounter one by one's self, but with a group and maybe being equipped with tranquilizing guns, It would make for quite the adventure.

a reply to: urmenimu

Never hike by yourself! You never know what you may encounter. That was a very frightening experience you had! Thanks for sharing!

a reply to: urmenimu

When I looked at your post, I thought it would be a tl/dr one.

How wrong I was. Great story. And beautifully written too!

Personally, I waver between bigfoot and evil spirit in this instance. But, either way, it was a thrilling read.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

It could have indeed been a mountain lion. I don't think I've ever claimed it was Bigfoot. I may have implied that I think it was...

Honestly, I don't know what it was. My experiance in the woods tells me it wasn't a bear, or a mountain lion. My instincts tell me it was "something else".

What? Don't know. Given how it made me feel? Not sure I want to know...

As for the last bit of my commentary? Apologies. Needless to say, when I recount these stories, most of the reactions mirror, to at least an extent, yours.

Lol segall come on

My own sighting happened not all that far from a city with a population of 25,000. Why don't we trip over the creature? Because where I saw him

You said "where I saw him" ? Who's him?

You didn't see anything...

You also said "my own sighting"

Am I missing something here?

I really don't want to sound like a jerk..but these are your words ..

originally posted by: urmenimu
a reply to: Alter-Ego

a wave of fear and sense of doom came over me, something I had never felt in the wilderness before. it felt like something dark and angry was trying to push itself into my consciousness. the hair was literally standing up on the back of my neck.

Two others and myself were in the woods in the general area of where I saw "something." We were walking along when suddenly all three of us had a really bad feeling. It made no sense, but we all just looked at each other with fear in our eyes. One of the guys said "Let's get the hell out of here." No one argued. On the way back to our canoe we came upon a dead cow. There were no ants or flies on it, but the head was stripped to bare bone. The locals call that area "Satan's Circle." I have never been back. I have had another possible sasquatch experience that probably deserves its own thread.

a reply to: urmenimu

I must admit that's a compelling story.

I would have been out like trout if anything like that screamed at me.

Your brave!

originally posted by: skunkape23

originally posted by: urmenimu
a reply to: Alter-Ego

a wave of fear and sense of doom came over me, something I had never felt in the wilderness before. it felt like something dark and angry was trying to push itself into my consciousness. the hair was literally standing up on the back of my neck.

Two others and myself were in the woods in the general area of where I saw "something." We were walking along when suddenly all three of us had a really bad feeling. It made no sense, but we all just looked at each other with fear in our eyes. One of the guys said "Let's get the hell out of here." No one argued. On the way back to our canoe we came upon a dead cow. There were no ants or flies on it, but the head was stripped to bare bone. The locals call that area "Satan's Circle." I have never been back. I have had another possible sasquatch experience that probably deserves its own thread.

Why do you guys assume its a Sasquatch?

I have had bad feelings like this from paranormal encounters..

I have also had this same feeling while out fishing/hunting . but never did I assume it was Sasquatch.

Just saying..