There is no doubt we "peppered" it with #4- I'm certain Robin put a few 00 in it. ( given its reaction)

I'm not sure who was luckier, it or us- when the initial encounter occured, straight ahead was dense brush, trees etc ( we were in a pothole)- thats why we never got a clear visual other than a large 'mass"

However, when it crossed the creek, we COULD have gotten a clear and detailed view- the problem was, at that particular time- the only thing we were interested in was egressing the area at faster than light speed.

Remember, this entire episode didnt take more than 3-5 minutes ( best guess)

There was no trace of anything ( we did look for any blood) but we ( at that age) were not exactly "experts"- the only thing we found was a distinct trail where "something" went thru the brush.

There was broken ice, "holes" in the mud ( when you broke thru the surface ice in places, you sank in the swamp muck) but nothing of any discernable shape. We went all the way to the beaver dam and stopped looking.

The browning was right there where Robin slipped down on the bank. Perfect condition. The only thing there was a distinct trail of spent shotgun shells

Thats why this is a "not sure" encounter. I can effectively rule out a man in a suit ( unless he had a death wish and was interested in 'suicide by duck hunter")

The only reason my personal scale tips toward BF is because of the height ( bears can stand and walk but they generally dont move that fast and negotiate that kind of terrain- we do get a rogue bear every few years so it realistically could have been one) and the unrelated news story about a month later.

Fascinating report.
Do Iunderstand correctly from your posts that you've had another 2nd "not sure"? If so, how do they compare?

They really dont- incident "2" for the most part is bland but here goes

I was the NCOIC of sniper training for a class at Ft Lewis. ( we were training teams from the 1SFGA and the 2/75th Rangers)

We were in night orientation on the range ( familiarization with night observation techniques, NVG's, TTS[ tactical thermal sights], conducting SITREPS and SPOT reports etc)

Somewhere between 10ish and 11 ish ( 2200-2300 hrs) all spotters ID'd a "target" ( when we are familiarizing, anything is good, a deer, bear, people making out or whatever- we just need something to "observe")

It looked like a big dude ( we knew the range as everyone had filled out range cards in the day- the range was between 150-175 meters as well as i remember)

It registered on all spotters and our NVGs and had a distinct thermal signature but at that range,a good discernable view was impossible.

we observed it for some 30-45 odd minutes just 'ambling' around the area, going into and out of the trees and walking to spots, bending/squatting then walking some more. it obviously was either not aware of us or didnt care and we all thought it might have been guys from another ODA giving my trainees something to "report" to gauge their skills. ( thats a part of the training is to gauge the students reporting skills but we were in the familiarization phase, not on the actual training yet- but it still happens frequently, even if they are just checking to see if we are asleep or went into town to chase women and drink beer)

Anyway, it walked around an old target deuce &1/2 and thats when it got interesting- the size in relation to the hood- then it moved ( about 50 meters) and walked behind an old target M113 APC.

Thats what got everyones attention- it stood chest,shoulders and head above the M113[ tracks were off, it was sitting on roadwheels] ( now its about 100 meters from us- still not a clear view from Gen I equipment)- it then just 'ambled' on its slow way to the other side of the range periodically stopping.stooping and going until it went into the woods.

We were not overly concerned as we had live ammo ( still in the can) for range fire later in the course so if we had to lock and load, we could. We went into the 2 man rotation and that was it.

Next morning after chow and before training, curiosity got the best of us and we went "looking". We didnt have a long amount of time to actually "search" but we clearly saw the matted grass, looked like some stuff was pulled up in spots. We wanted to go into the woods and look but we didnt have the time.

The trainees just logged it as a "target" in their observer report and that was it.

If it wasnt for the profile behind the APC, I would have written this off as another NCO or officer evaluating us to see how we recorded his movements ( possibly a drunk guy lost on range row)

We talked about it later in the team room and several people had seen 'things" in the past but that was about it.

So, how tall would you estimate it stood?

The height of a 113 is about 6.5 feet ( tracked) so a rough guesstimate would make it around 7-8 feet tall

I've had two "not sure" encounters. One, I was at a location in south Mississippi standing beside my car at an area where people meet and listen to them in the woods. I was standing there with my digital camera in hand. I looked across my car and in the woods several yards away was a shape. It looked to me to be just a dark area in the woods but I made the mental note that it kinda looked like a head and shoulders. I just kept looking around. In a minute or so I looked back at the same area and the shape was gone! Thats when I got excited. I moved about to see if it was a shadow and if by moving I could reposition myself where I'd see it again. I walked into the woods where it had been and found no obvious prints or anything.
To this day i kick myself for not taking a picture of it, but at the time I thought it was nothing.

Second, was driving along the interstate and I looked over a bridge I was driving across and down by the creek below there was a shape. I maybe got a second to see it. Dunno what it was.

I don't consider either a Bigfoot encounter because I couldn't confirm either one.

J.

Had an interesting morning today.

I started off by hiking into the Sessions Woods Wildlife Management area in burlinton, CT (here: http://www.munic.state.ct.us/Burlington/se...s/gallery.html) and it was a cold (26 degress) morning so there were no cars in the lot and no one on the trail. Anyway, as I got closer to the Beaver Flow (nope not a crude term for the menstrual cycle), I started hearing what my overly active imagination thought were very lous wood knocks.

Excited, I picke dup a fallen limb from a Pine and began to knock back. I'll be shitfaced if I did not get some knocks back in return. So I kept on down the path until i came to the flow and the smalle wooden bridge that allows you to cross over to an atool, for lack of a betetr term, out in the middle of the pond. I was slamming the pine tree on the tailing and tehre was knocking all around me. That is when I realized it was just the ice from the Winter's first freeze on the water crackling and popping like crazy.

I was disappointed as I have had all of my three "not sure" encounters in this area and I slammed the pine hard onto the railings in frustration and then tossed it out onto the ice.
that is when I hear a lard, well shriek. There were too bellows that trailed off into a huffing kind of noise at the end that came from a ridge over to my right maybe 100 yards away.

It happened twice followed by knocks that were louder than the ice.
there was a series of four but I had thrown away my knocking tool and assumed whatever it was could most likely see me through the brush.

Not too macho to admit I got kind of spooked probably from reading this damn thread and the other one with the Cowman story so I just listened for a spell and when the screams stopped an dthe knocking went away i backtracked back to my car and left.

What's the likelihood that a critter who lives in the woods can be fooled into thinking crackling ice is the sound of it's bretheren knocking like I was?

My wife and i were asleep in our cabin bordering the cherokee ntl. forest when a rock hit the tin roof. Asyou can guess mywife sound asleep was verry shaken as i was. To calm her down i told her it was a walnut from a tree in front but the tree is to far away and the rock hit from the back. About a week later i thought a bear was trying to get into a stoage shead as the drought here in the south has increased our bear sightings.I got my light and walked out front inthe dark to listen as the bears have always run. What i heard a few moments later was a banging 50yds behind on high ground to the right,when i turned on the flash light. I heard fast movement through the woods never saw it but it stoped, and started the banging noise like a ball bat on a tree.There is a dirt road in but no real yard just forest and a lake across the ridge. Upper e, tn. Iwill write later about watehing him when i was young .

I would love to hear more about your experiences (it would appear we are in close proximity).

Welcome to the board LongHunter

I second that all of that.

During a trip up in northern Michigan we were camping in the area that we had more then one visual encounter .It was around the end of April 03.We have been camping there for about a week I believe and we had made contact with something that was treeknocking.I started the tree knocking first .It was around dusk when I started the knocking .I was using a bat to do the knocking .well anyhow as I knocked and stop we started having return knocks .At first it was a random pattern but then i started to knock in a pattern.I would knock two times and whatever it was that was knocking back would start to repeat the same amounts of knocks that I did.This went on for awhile.The knocks sounded like they were real close to our camp but as it turned out we estamated that it was around a 100 yds from our camp sight.We figure this out when we decided to find out how close it was to us.At first we thought that it was a human so we got into the car and drove down the two track to see if we could find the culprit ,but instead what we found was a heavy tree branch that was thrown on the two track in a way that we would find it.No tracks were found on the road but we did find the spot where the knocking took place and on that spot there was tracks, Big tracks.So that is when we started our knocking expieriment.Two would sit at camp and two of us satyed at the spot where we found the tree that was used to knock back to us.We knew that this was the tree used bucuase it had markings on it where the knocking was taking place.This is how we found out the yardage of the knocks that were close to our camp sight.The reason I say that this was a not so sure encounter was that we did not have conformation that a creature made the knocks .All we found was tracks that could have been made by a human a large human at that.Visual conformation would have been great but no one venture off to see who was knocking back at us .I can say that right before the knocking I did hear a loud howl.And it was one of those long howl way of in the distance .I would estamte that the howl was at least a mile away or so.Another incident that took place was later that evening we started to here what we thought was monkey talk.It was not a owl but the sound were more of what a ape would make.It went on for awhile as well.Yet again there was no confirmation of what was making the sounds.Later that night one of the researchers that was with me thought he seen a hunch down man raiding our cooler.It was dark in color and hunched as it walked duck like.He at first thought it was me but I was a sleep he also thought that it might have been some one else but in the morning as we all woke up he asked if we had wakend up and had walked around the camp fire that night. we all said no.We did find that bacon was missing from the cooler thoe.Again i state that this was not our so sure encounter since there was no confirmation.
Mark A

Thanks for the welcome folks :I hope that I can get to the BF on a regular basis.A rather long long sighting accross a vally with a rifle scope i will write about later. thanks!

(Plus, I dont meetup with people over that I only know over the net. Bad experiences and stuff.)

(and I am way younger lol.)

Good call on Robs part, Your Mother would be proud. I wouldn't meet someone I didn't know in the woods to look for Bigfoot either..
I am sure that Quatch is a respectable person and would mean no harm to anyone, but on the other hand, that is exactly how Ted Bundy came across..

you hear about wierdos killing, raping and kidnapping young people they met on the internet, so I think some of you may have been a little judgemental of poor Rob. Just because he is cautious, does not mean he is lying..
my $.02

(edited for my stupidity)

Sorry, robs post was old, like 2004 and I just realized there are 27 more pages after his post, but oh well

Better late than never I always say.
Probably because I'm always late.

Sea Bass-I submitted BFRO report #13613 ( . I need to talk to you or wife (Eyeshine). I am going back to Leavitt Meadows/Roosevelt Lake area the last week of May.
Please reply.

I know you say it doesn't compare (sightings) however I think this a very good sighting coming from a very credible source. I'm not saying it was a B/F & I realize you're not either, but it's still VERY interesting. What the hell would a man be doing out there in that particular area, plodding around??

Here is my "not sure but probably not" encounter.

In 1998, I was recently divorced and trying to "find" myself. I decided to do a three day vision quest in the Shenandoah mountains in Virginia. I have been camping/hiking for most of my life and felt very comfortable in the woods. Three days strolling through the woods along the Appalachian (sp?) trail seemed to me to be just the ticket to get my world in order.

I had done a vision quest before for five days that was "moderated" by a guide who would check on me daily to make sure I was still alive. (I had to place a marker on a pole for him to see from a distance at a certain time each day).

Anyway, off the the mountains I went. When I arrived at the Ranger station to pay for my backcountry camping permit, the Ranger said to avoid an area marked on his map as it had been the source of numerous complaints of bears messing with picnicers and hikers and such. He said it was the worst year he had seen with all the complaints. No one was injured or anything, just an unusual amount of sightings an encounters in one area. Having no desire whatsoever to encouter a bear or even a number of bears in the wild, I decided to steer far away from that area.

Off the top of my head, I can't remember what exact time of year it was. I would have to say it was the end of Spring/early Summer. I parked the car and marked the spot on my map where it was so I could find it again in a couple of days.

I hiked up one side of a mountain and was working my way down the other into a valley when I noted it was starting to get late. I didn't want to camp in a valley and preferred the top of a mountain to pitch my tent. I spent the better part of the evening hiking up a slope looking for a relatively flat area to lay out my tent. As dusk started to settle in, I found a perfect spot that had a natural bedding to it of pine needles and leaves.

Since I was vision questing, I opted not to bring food and only carried water. Basically the whole point was to cleanse myself, so to speak. As I lay in the tent exhausted from all the hiking, I felt really good. I felt very safe since I didn't bring anything that would attract a bear. I lay on the soft ground and listened to the crickets chirping and dozed off into a cozy slumber.

I don't know how long I was asleep but I was suddenly jarred awake by silence. Not a peep coming from anywhere. I thought this was strange and lay there listening, trying to quell a growing unease within me. Eventually the crickets and other night noises returned and I drifted off again. A while later, the same thing happened. This time as I lay there listening to absolutely nothing, I heard three knocks. "Whack, whack, whack." I would say there was about a second or two between each. The sound seemed to me to be a ways off but close enough to be in my general vicinity. That was it, three knocks and no more. A few moments later, I heard the crunching of leaves like footsteps coming toward my direction. I looked out the mesh window of the tent but couldn't see a thing. It was pitch black. The crunching steps came within 25 yards of so of my position and moved on. The thing that struck me was that whatever was walking around out there went from one side of my makeshift camp to the other in about five or six steps. The sound was an easy gait of something nonchalantly moving in the night (without the aid of a flashlight). Every hair on my body was standing at full attention and I could hear my heart pounding. A little while later the night noises resumed and I had a very unrestful night. At first light, I packed up my tent and moved on to another spot. It never occurred to me to look for tracks or anything. I would do so now after reading this forum.

Initially I thought the whacking was a deer hitting it's antlers against a tree. I've never hunted before so I don't know if this is common or not. My wife and I camp quite frequently and it never fails she has to relieve herself in the middle of the night. So she'll get up and do her business and then come back. The sounds of her footfalls are clearly human and are very close to what I heard that night in the mountains. The only difference would be the length of time between each step.

By the time I left the mountain, I had convinced myself that a deer had wandered through the camp and was simply "hopping" through. I have never been that unnerved in the woods before and haven't been that unnerved since. I still love to camp and go as often as I can. There's just something really freeing about being in the woods away from civilization.

Hi

Thanks for posting that Without any sighting ya never know what is could have been, I bet the more you read and get into the forum the more you will think about that night,

Peace
Tim

Ha! Got that right! I had no idea there were even any sightings outside of the Pacific Northwest before a few days ago. I always thought of Bigfoot as being in Washington state and Oregon. Now I'm itching to get out to the Dismal Swamp and poke around (after the fires have been long extinquished). Of course the wildlife has been scattered due to the fires. We've had numerous sightings of black bears in neighborhoods close to the fires. If there was a Bigfoot in the area, I'm sure he/she/it has moved on. Still, I'd love to snoop around and at least familiarize myself with the area. Sad to say, I've lived here since 1990 and I've never been to the Dismal Swamp.

Welcome to the forum, and that sounded like some experience in Shenandoah area. I had some freaky owl calls in White Oak Canyon area of Shenandoah one
campout, but I chalked it up to just an odd owl. You can rest easy knowing you have BF company in Virginia, partic. in that southeast quadrant. They have been sighted all
over though, Danville area, Southwest VA., Charles City, Culpeper and East, etc. Check out some of the Virginia sasquatch groups they can tell you more

Giving this thread a bump. It's one of my favorites!

Not Sure Encounter.

Sometime in the mid-70's, I don't remeber exactly which year, I was on a ski trip with my family in Colorado. We were at the ski area that has a run called "the Big Burn". (either Snowmass or Crested Butte). The Big Burn is a long, wide run that was created by a forest fire. The top of the lift ends well below the peak, but you can see all the way to the peak. Forest runs up each side, maybe 100 to 200 yards apart. The forest also ends (the tree line) well above the top of the lift, but below the peak. I was riding the lift by myself and as I got to the top, I was looking at the peak. At this point, I saw a figure, way above the top of the lift, walking from the forest on the right towards the forest on the left. It was too far away to see for sure but: it was all one color - very dark. (Most ski clothes back then were fairly colorful and the ski patrol wore red (I think)). It was alone. I watched it until it walked into the woods on the left. It did not glide like a cross country skier or seem to have ski poles. It was not carrying downhill skis on its back. It never stopped.
The fact that it was alone and well above the top of the lift is what makes me wonder. It certainly could have been a hiker in dark clothes, but to climb that far above the lift and walk through deep snow would have been more like work than fun and most people don't hike alone. I was a shy kid and didn't point it out to anyone or tell anyone for years.

Again, nothing convincing, but maybe.

In the summer of 1973 or 74, my father and I went up to our cabin near Pagosa Springs, CO. to replace our water pump that had been washed away during a flood earlier that year. I was about 8 or 9 at the time. When you go west out of Chama, NM on US 84 you will turn north and cross the state line and go through a tiny town called Chromo. North of there you go up and over Confer Hill and cross a little level area called Coyote Flat, pass a forest service road called Valle Seco Rd. on your left then enter a series of “S” curves. You are pretty high at this point and are driving through a little valley with a creek on the right and spruce and aspen trees nearly choke the sun out. Eventually you will pass a canyon opening out to your right called Spiler Canyon then a little way past that 84 straightens out and right before you cross a green truss bridge over the Rio Blanco a forest service road takes off to your left. Down this road is where our cabin was. Back in about the middle of those “S” curves is where my possible encounter occurred. We were in the middle of a left curve with a 20-30 foot embankment/hill/slope of shale and loose dirt down to the highway on the inside of the curve and a drop down to the creek on the right. Dense brush started right at the edge of the highway with a drop of about 15 feet down to the water. As we were about half way through this turn a dark brown of black animal or something came down the embankment and crossed the highway immediately in front of our truck. I first caught sight out of the corner of my eye as it reached the bottom of the slope and began to cross the road. It had to have been on 2 legs because it was so tall. Remember I was sitting in the passenger seat and I had to look up through the top of the windshield to see this things head. I am 6’4” now and when I stand next to my dodge truck the top of the cab is about eye level or a little bit higher. Our Ford pickup was probably a little bit shorter and I guess the way I had to look up the figure had to be 8 ft of so. I did not get any detail that I can remember, it happened very quickly. This thing was right there in front of the truck and when it disappeared through the brush on the right side of the truck it was about even with my door. This happened about a mile from where the road turned off to go to our cabin. I remember I was scared to death to walk up from the river to the power pole at the rear of our cabin to flip the breaker for the pump. Our cabin is right at the base of a mountain. I mean that the slope starts about 6 ft from our back door and is covered with spruce and aspen, and the pole was right there to the side. I can remember it being pretty wild back then. There used to be a friend of my dad named Bob who had helped my dad and brothers build our cabin that used to come by and show us the mountain lions and bears he would kill. The next year after we replaced the pump… actually it was that winter, we sold the cabin and we did not go back up there until 1980, just after I turned 15. My dad took me and my nephew up there and we lived out of a cabover camper for a week. My dad died in October of that year. I never had the chance to ask him about the incident and about a lot of other tings that a 15 year old just doesn’t think is important at the time. He should have seen the figure come down the embankment and cross. He was driving and would have been looking at it the whole time. I have been able to go into great detail about the location because I have spent a lot of time up there since. I have been hunting up in that area a few times and we go up there for vacation as much as we can afford. I have never seen or heard anything since. However I have been spooked by the feeling of being watched while fishing a couple of times along Williams Creek below the reservoir, just south of the Weminuche Wilderness.

Terry

It's not even a not sure. It's just a "that was friggin creepy". I was camping on the east side of mount hood right on the hood river. Sweet spot, we saw bear prints on the sand by the river when we made camp. Sherwood Forest campground in mt hood national forest. We were camping there for the week and nothing was unusual until the fourth night. I swear I felt something watching me starting about at 4pm. Prickly icky. I shook it off. Drank some beer. Made a fire. It didn't go away. It didn't go away. It felt like it was coming from across the river. I would have broke camp that night but I am not a drinker/driver. I kept telling myself it was a bear, or a raccoon, or something else looking at me. My partner didn't seem to feel anything or say anything, so I didn't say anything. I just felt like I was being looked at for hours. Not the "Get out of here right now!"that I have heard some people talk about. Just BEING LOOKED AT. I don't know if I am expressing correctly how uncomfortable and creepy that sensation was. We broke camp at dawn (I insisted) and cut our trip short by three days. I know it was probably a bear or something, but I wonder....do they JUST LOOK AT YOU for hours on end?

....do they JUST LOOK AT YOU for hours on end?

I think you are beginning to understand the enigmatic phenomenon called Bigfoot.

Okay, I gotta be honest here. I knew it wasn't a bear after the first hour. They just don't have that kind of focus. I started thinking "cougar" after that, cause they do. That made me a little afraid. I felt it coming from across the river so I wasn't worried about immediate attack, but that was when we packed all the food in the car. Then it got dark and it was still happening. I shined the flash light across the river (high mountain river, fast fast fast and narrow) to try to spook the cat. Whatever it was didn't spook. It never let up. I never saw anything. From the time I first felt the sensation until I went to bed it didn't change. The hours on end never let up sensation of being looked at was just CREEPY. I was thinking..."just make it till dawn."

A couple of not sure encounters for all of you...

Firstly, I'm from TN...live in the northeast tip of middle TN near the state park of Standing Stone, and more specifically I life on 130-50 acres of mostly heavily wooded area. My house is about 1/2 a mile from the road on an edge of a mountain, and my backyard is literally forest. Anyways...geography out of the way, onward to the meat of my experiences.

The first occurred sometime in the mid to late 90's. My parents were/are big fans of going out on Friday/Saturday with their friends, and my sis and I would have to go when we were younger. On one such evening we were getting back to the house fairly late for us...something like 11 or 12. The car had just stopped on our concrete landing when my dad screamed something to the effect of, "Micki, get the kids and get the f**k in the house." This immediately drew everyone's attention as my dad only used such a word either when he was pretending to be a carpenter or when he was mad/scared. I remember running full speed into our house, followed by my dad who immediately went to the gun safe and took out a fairly big rifle that appeared to my untrained eyes to be in the make of an M-16. He told us to lock the door behind him and wait for him to come back and he left. We saw him head into the woods with a flashlight and our pack of dogs, and several minutes later he returned.

When he got back inside the house I asked the obvious question...what did he see? He said that he simply saw something watching us from the tree line that appeared to be a man. I don't know what it was as I never had a chance to see it. I will say if it was a man he was playing with fire, as most around here still feel that it's their moral obligation to blow away anyone sneaking around on their property in the middle of the night (with the drug trade being what it is here).

The second not sure event occurred much more recently--this summer in fact. I had invited a few friends over to my house to view the stars...watch for UFOs...whatever. The three of us headed down my lengthy driveway to get away from the floodlights on the side of my house to better see the sky/stars. We stopped halfway down...around a quarter of a mile from the house. The moon was full and I had a good view of the surrounding landscape. My great Pyrenees had followed us down the road as well, along with our two other dogs. I mention the Pyrenees because they are usually fairly protective of their owners and he was the first to react to what happened.

Anywho, we had been sitting there for about 30 minutes when my Pyrenees's head suddenly swiveled fast back up towards my house (the same woods that my dad had seen whatever he saw in the 90's) and he, along with the rest of the dogs, took off towards the house barking frantically. I didn't think a lot about this at first. I've been raised in the country and I've seen most of what the forests around here have to offer...thought it might have been a coyote or something of small importance. The barking continued for about ten minutes until it was interrupted by a whooping yell. The yell would top the dogs barking every 15-20 seconds...it was rhythmic and seemed to have a pattern. My friends were immediately spooked by it as it sounded like something you would hear in a jungle...a monkey type of whoop.

The first thing that came to my mind was that my dad was trying to scare us, ie my friends. I'm used to his tricks and this seemed to be one that would fit his style. I get the idea to scare the old man and give him a taste of his own medicine. I hand off my house keys and take off my shoes and head back up the road very silently. The noises continued until I entered the field of light provided by my floodlights, at which the point the whooping abruptly stopped. The dogs continued to bark and seemed to be pacing and looking off into the woods. The last few whoops I should also let you all know came from inside the forest...I'd have to say 30-40 yards from the closeness of the sound, but obviously deep enough that no sound man would make the trip without a flashlight.

I immediately became uneasy and knocked on the door, which my dad answered. I asked him had he been outside making noises and he said that he had not, but rather he had been surfing the internet. He came outside for a bit, but by then the dogs had quieted down and the noise was absent. I eventually went back down to my friends and updated them on what had happened.

I've since then investigated the noise a bit...searching up various animals such as coyotes and listening to see if that was what I heard...I've yet to come across anything that has made a similar noise. Once summer dies down a bit and the snakes thin out I plan on heading up there for a day to check out the pine grove up there, as well as double check some possible structures I saw up there in the spring. I need to have those looked at by a different set of eyes other than my own, just to make sure I'm not seeing what I want to see.

So...long story long...sorry for the the huge wall of text. I can't wait to read up on some more of these posts tomorrow. Awesome thread.

Wasn't gonna add this, but, you never know, right??? Feel this may be well timed, considering the whole temagami fiasco a few threads over. I live in Toronto, but grew up camping ALL the time with family and friends, so I've been around the great outdoors for a while...
Nothing weird or strange ever happened to me... But 3 weeks ago I went camping in a remote back lake area not far from Temagami. Absolutely the middle of nowhere. Had the lake to ourselves...
Second night, and I'm sleeping by the fire when my 2 friends woke me up, sounding a little nervous (they're city boys!lol!). They said that something kept on hitting the water. I mumbled something about a bullfrog when I heard a splash, then another. Best guess is that it sounded like +/- 100 ft. away. It was PITCH black, our flashlights only showed about 25 ft. Then came more 'splashes'. 3 or 4 of them. But it sounded like a rock. Thats what my friends thought too. I am not saying this was a possible rock throwing incident, but I KNOW it was no frog, or moose, or bear, or bobcat, etc...
Couldn't get to where we heard the sounds in the morning. Took the boat by, just to check. The area was DENSE growth, bordering on a marshy stream. I'll post pics of the area of the sounds, as soon as I find out how to post a pic...

Also, In May, was at the same area walleye fishing, when on our first night, a HUGE undeniable rock was thrown at our camp on an island... Scared the bejebuz out of us...

Who knows but Temagami has a history of reports. It's not far from Cobalt, home of Ol' Yellow Top...

Are you certain that the sounds weren't made by a beaver slapping the water with its tail? That sound can be pretty loud.

Well, I dont know if this qualifies or not but its one of the strangest things that has happend to me and I am 57 years old and spend a lot of time in the woods.

Back in the mid 70's (sorry I dont remember the exact date) I was hunting wild hogs in the Los Padres National Forest in central California with 3 of my friends. We had driven from SF ona friday night and arrived at our projected camp are late that evening. Being tired from work that day and not wantiong to pitch camp untill morning we all decided to sleep in the back of the pickup (which had a topper on it). we had a sheet of playwood layed on top of the wheelwells so 2 of us stretched out under the wood and 2 slept on top. We put the gear into the cab untill morning.

About 3am or so (best I can remember) the whole truck was rocked, I mean almost lifed up on side and then dropped down, we freaked, thought it was an earthquake or something and were scrambling like hell to get out of the truck. (not easy to do the way we were sleeping in there). Anyway, after a couple of minutes we managed to get out and there had been no further rocking of the truck or ground shaking. We went to the cab and turned on the radio expecting to hear about an earthquake but nope, nothing, nada. We couldnt figure out what had happened, chalked it up to a freak gust of wind (even though it was clam that night.

We looked for tracks next morning in case it had been a bear but we had paraded around so much after the incident that we didnt see anythin but messed up leaves, pine needles and dirt. There was no damage to the truck that we could find, it was just like something tried to turn it ove, almost succeded and then let it drop.

We camped and hunted for several more days and never had anything else wierd happen (did get 2 hogs) although we all slept with loaded handguns next to us in the tent after that.

Now at that time I had never even heard of bigfoot and for sure didnt think about the possibility but since I have learned more I have often wondered, ya know.

Whoa.

Sounds like it qualifies to me! You guys must have have been so scared trying to get to of that truck!!

Hey savage. I will go so far as to say it was no beaver. I've been around beavers a LONG time. One has a hut by my dads house... But, it is as good an explanation as any...


AAAAHHHHH, the beauty of imagination!!!!!

Whew! I just discovered this thread. There's some great stories here.
I'm not sure how to tell mine. I guess I'll go in chronological order.

In between my town and Coos Bay there's a 15,000 acre area called the Coos County Forest. The land around it is mostly owned by timber companies so the wild area is much larger. There are many creeks, lots of deer, elk, coyotes and small critters. Also bears, as I found out, but that's another story.

After I retired I started exploring the area. It's a managed sustained-yield logging operation so logging roads are all over the place. After they get done with an area, they dig huge ditches so cars can't get on the roads. Once they close an area, it seems that very few people go into it, since they have to walk.

I discovered one such road and started hiking around back in there. I had been in this one area a few times and one day I noticed a game trail (clear enough to walk upright) heading off the "main" logging road. I could see sky way back there so I thought I might find a viewpoint. I headed into the trees and about 100 yards in I heard a growl. I froze and looked around but couldn't see anything due to the thick brush. It sounded like a big dog and I thought it might be a mama coyote or something so I backed out and left the area.

A few days later, I went back and decided to try it again. I got a few yards in and suddenly a branch broke off a tree ahead of me and came crashing down on the path. I'm not sure how high up in the tree it was, but definitely way over my head. Wow, I thought, I'm not gonna walk around if the trees are falling. So again I left the area.

A few days later I was riding my motorcycle down the paved road near this area and smelled something terrible. It was like a mixture of bleach, dirty gym socks and a dead dog. I rode down a ways and decided to go back and see what kind of dead animal was on the side of the road. I turned around and rode back up and the smell was gone. I looked around a bit but didn't find anything. Puzzled, I continued my ride.

This area had a creek running through it and I discovered another road that took me around to the other side of the creek, so I went in there looking around. It turned out to be the old county dump, which had been closed years ago, and the area next to the creek had been logged and just recently burned.

I went stumbling around in there trying find a way to get across the creek and right next to a stump, in the soft dirt, I found a perfect bare foot print. It was about the size of my foot. I looked at it for a while trying to figure out who would be walking around barefooted in the slash and stickers when I suddenly thought...bigfoot!
I had no info on the creature other than having seen the famous film footage in a theater many moons before, but the mental picture of a huge ape-man was enough to get me out of there in a hurry!
I went home, thought about it and looked on the web. I couldn't believe a bigfoot would be so close to a town. It's only a few miles away from my house...fer heavans sake! I was surprised to find so much information and sightings even closer to towns than this.
After a couple of days I went back with a camera and tried to find that print but couldn't. I did, however, find another one and more. It looked like there was a daddy, a mommy and a baby roaming around that clearcut and heading back to the creek. I had no idea how to photograph the prints so my photos came out looking like dirt. ;->

I made a report on the BFRO site as it had the most user-friendly format, was contacted and took a couple of investigators to the areas. We found more prints on both sides of the creek, but nothing definite. We also found 3 small crystal perfume bottles next to the creek, which my wife said was creepier than finding footprints.

I didn't really connect my earlier experiences until much later when I read about people being warned away from areas by growls, screams and thrown objects.
I go back once in a while and check things out but haven't seen anything.

One day I got camoed up and sat under a tree for an hour or so and heard a yell from the woods. Remember getting out of school on the last day for summer vacation? How you would run outside and go HOOOO-RAAYYYY? That's what that yell sounded like, a kid finally getting outside the schoolhouse and celebrating his freedom. Of course, it could have been a kid in the woods doing just that, but I like to think some bigfoot kid was running down a path yelling about how great life can be when you're free.

sorry mine isnt very exciting.
when i was about 8 or so, somewhere in the late seventys living on the very edge of the burbs of melbourne, australia. one night in i think summer, i had been in bed for a few minutes when i heard one hell of a loud scream that spooked everyone in our house including my dad who went to the front door to see what it was, i heard him outside speaking to our neighbours who were also standing on their front porches mystified at what could make the sound that shook our house, well i can tell you now that i know its alright to be scared, that i crapped myself and wouldnt sleep much that night.
we lived 200 meters from a creek/ bush corridor and our neighbour had big chicken sheds and at the time it was all bush and paddocks right up to the streets surounding our home.
well that sound stayed with me for thirty years not knowing what it was, unlike north america we dont have many, if any animals capable of making those sounds in oz.
it wasnt till i heard the sound clips on the bfro site that i can say that what i heard was a cross between the recorded howls and screams, and when i heard those sounds again, yes i crapped myself again

While this isn't my own encounter, what follows is something strange which happened to a friend of mine some years back...

He and his girlfriend (along with he children) went camping for a few days in a nice little secluded place not too far from Marshfield. The way he told it, it was around one in the morning when the kids came ot their tent and woke them up because they'd be hearing a strange whooping noise. He stepped outside and heard the same odd noise. The sound went on for a while while he scanned the edge of the clearing they were camped at whith his flashlight. He spotted something (he couldn't make out what it was, but says it was definately some sort of mass). Almost as soon as he shined the light on said mass, the sound stopped. He figured it was just an odd coincidence and he was just looking at a stump or shadows or something. So, he turned around and headed back into the tent with his girlfriend and the kids. A short time later, the same noise started up again, this time though, it seemed a bit closer than before. He flicked the flashlight back on and started back outside. As soon as he got out of the tent the sounds stopped and was replaced by some rustling coming from the edge of the clearing. By that time the kids were pretty freaked out and begging to leave the woods. His girlfriend got a bit frightened as well and wanted to leave, so they hopped on the ATVs, headed down the small trail they'd come up, and back into the car. He was going to go back and pack up the camping gear and all that while they waited in the car, but they didn't want him going back in the woods alone. So, he just left everything set up and decided to come back in the morning. They spent the night at a friends cabin which was about twenty minutes from their campsite. In the morning, they went back to get their stuff and discovered that both tents had been rummaged through (one of which was ripped from it's stakes). The weirdest thing was that they found there to be about three rather good sized holes dug in the ground between where the two tents had been. Each hole was about two and a half feet deep and a little under two feet wide. They didn't know what to make of the holes at all and really didn't stick around to investigate because (as he says) it felt like something was watching them as they gathered their things.

He's always been a firm non-believer when it comes to our large hairy friend and hasn't ever shared the story with anyone beside myself (mainly because he knew I was into BF and thought I might get a kick out of such an odd story). He insist that it was just a bear or someone playing a prank... I'm not so sure.


Edit: I know that I've already posted this story in another thread, but thought it would relate well here as well, so please, forgive the double post.

Well, here it goes:

This occurred two weekends ago in Manitoba, Canada, on a backcountry hiking trail called the "Mantario Trail". I was just doing a one night hike in and hike back out to test some gear and to try solo hiking. I was alone from the start of the trail and hiked in about 27 km (17 miles) and did not come across anyone else. I set up camp on "Mantario Lake" on a large rock outcrop that sloped gently into the water. Just off shore the water was about waist deep and the bottom was made up of jumbled rocks which quickly dropped off deeper.

The campsite is at the head of a little bay with steep granite cliffs on either side of the more gentle entry to the lake where I camped. This made it a great campsite but also an obvious entry point for animals in the area wanting a drink. I set up tent up about 2 m (6 feet) from the edge of the water (facing east with my fly up so I could see the sunrise over the lake in the morning) and was in my tent reading by 8:30 (it gets dark around 9:00 at that time of year). After dark a bunch of small animals came and made a bunch of noise, this was normal and I didn't think much of it. I turned my headlamp off around 9:30 and tried to sleep. That is when the splashing started.

It sounded just like someone was doing cannon b*lls from the nearby cliffs into the water. There would be a splash and then a 5-10 second pause and then another. Maybe 5 or so in a row like that. At first I thought it was a large animal jumping into the water (deer?), but it didn't make sense that it would keep doing it over and over. After a bit I yelled back at it and shook my tent to try and scare it away. The sounds had stopped at that point and I tried again to go to sleep. About ten minutes later it started up again exactly the same. I tried peeking out my fly but could see nothing besides a bit of moonlight on the mostly calm water. At that point I was listening very carefully and I swear I could hear what ever was causing the splash rolling on the bottom. The exact sound is a rock striking and rolling the bottom. I was a pretty creeped out and I really didn't want it to be rocks (you know what that would suggest) so I tried to convince myself that it was a moose and that was just his hoofs hitting the rocks under the surface.

This happened on and off in intervals until around 11:30 where I eventually fell asleep/they stopped. I slept until morning without any other incident and got the heck out of there early (by 7:00 I was on the trail).

There is a BFRO report very similar that took place very near by (within 10 km?) but involved something talking/mumbling to some guy all night:
http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=9495

I was aware of this report at the time of my incident and the last thing I wanted was for this thing to start talking to me. That is why I just curled up and tried to calm myself to sleep. I really don't know what it was, but my senses told me I was hearing large rocks hitting the water. The splash was really big, not a fish or a duck or something.

One last thing, as each group of rocks came they got closer to my tent. I remember at one point having a bit of water from the splash hit my tent fly. This was just before it stopped.

Interesting story! Perhaps it could be bear cubs playing,frolicing? Or the multiple splashes could be deer jumping in one after the other.OR perhaps,it was th BIG GUY! I always reccomend camping/hiking with a partner in case an emergency occurs,but i do understand the peace and quiet going on your own

Have not been on this thread in a while...

Comments:

Seph - Can you give more detailed info as to where your "encounter" took place? I love to head up into the mountains over there and explore. Sounds like this might be something my son could do this fall. Even though it has been over 10 years, you never know...


Mastastic - There have been a number of reports from SSSP over the years, in fact some of my favorite ones. However, the person collecting them does not have the best of reputations, so I would guess that they are somewhat suspect. Anyway, if they are true, you are in a great location for a possible "sure" encounter.

Creep - Did you check to see if there were rocks in the water that could have caused the noise, or did you just hightail it out of Dodge (can't blame you if you did)?


Finally my own latest: this happened last week, the 18th or 19th of September at my home. The weather has been great so we have the windows open most of the time now. It was about 8 or so in the evening (I think, it was dark though). Our home is in a typical subdivision, but the back of our lot bumps up against a small patch of forest connected to a golf course and other larger forrested areas. There are homes behind us, but they are 1/4 mile or so off. Anyways, I had to go downstairs for something and when I did I noticed a very strong odor of sewage coming in the downstairs windows. Since I was doing some time critical chores, I did not have time to check it out. I noticed this several times as I came downstairs. It was not noticeable upstairs. Finally, it disappeared. We have lived here since 1993 and this is the first time I have ever noticed this type of smell. At first, I thought something had died (happened about 3 weeks before with a dead rabbit in the yard, a first for that as well), but this was very much sewage smelling as opposed to decay that the rabbit had. Not saying this was, but it is interesting since this was the first time anything like this has happened.

VAFooter,

I woke up at sunrise and packed it out pretty quick. The lake bottom is about 3 ft deep directy in front of the rock outcrop I set my tent on (the outcrop sloped direcly into the water). The bottom was made up of granite outcrop and boulders with a few small rocks here are there.

I didn't give it a good look. I probably could have determined what was a "fresh" rock vs. an "old" rock by the amount of alge present of thier surfaces. But I didn't do this.

Mine are not very interesting compared to many of these... just unidentified sounds/smells. My 'not sure' incidents are these: my backpacking companions and I were on day 2 on a somewhat ill-fated trip to the Grand Tetons and had went through Death Canyon, heading towards Alaska Basin on the Teton Crest trail. We may have been outside of the national park and in Jedediah Smith wilderness area at the time... anyway, we came across an area where there was a horrible stench hanging in the air, it was sort of like a strong musk, not rotten, but not a skunk scent either. It was stronger than skunk, but not quite as sharply offensive, and hung in the air over a rather large area. We did not see any animal associated with the scent. The elevation was fairly high at this point and I don't recall there was much vegetation cover, so the area was fairly open. My memory is fuzzy as this was about 10 years ago, and I do not recall what else went on, just that we were on high alert for awhile.

The other incident was while I was hunting morel mushrooms with my (now ex) boyfriend in Indiana. I'm not sure exactly where we were but somewhere west of Lafayette, in the woods on his family's land. It was turkey season also, which may have some relevance. We were in an area near some low land, almost swampy. We'd hunted there for years, and occasionally would see other mushroom hunters or turkey hunters, but not very often. We heard this horrible noise, it is very difficult to describe. Both of us had never heard anything like it and had spent quite a lot of time in the woods and have heard various wild animal and bird sounds. Since it was turkey season, I thought maybe it was a hunter doing a very bad imitation of a turkey, but since it could best be described as a turkey being strangled or screaming, I doubt if it was a hunter, they were ever going to see a turkey. I have listened to real turkeys calling online and in the woods and this was not a real turkey, at any rate. We both looked at each other and said 'wtf was that?!' We heard it a couple more times and decided the best thing to do was exit the area, so we did. We did not hear any more of the sounds after that, and it seemed almost as if we were being warned away.

A friend of mine recently related a possible sighting to me, so I'll include that here: her and another friend of ours were driving through Idaho, going east. The sun was going down but to their backs, and not completely down so that the road ahead was illuminated with the light from the setting sun. I forget which highway they were on, but it was described as an alternate route to the main highway, so more of a secondary hwy, and the road was winding. She said they had just come around a curve and she (the driver of the vehicle) spotted 'something' on the side of the road, just getting ready to cross. She described it as large, taller than the vehicle, standing on two legs, light in color (taupe) and had huge arms. She only saw it for maybe a second and the car had gone by and around another curve. She did not immediately say anything to the passenger in the car because she was in shock. After she recovered a bit, she said to the passenger 'Did you...' starting to ask if she also had seen this thing. The passenger then started screaming before she could even get out the rest of the question, and said she had been hoping she had hallucinated what she had also seen. Neither of them wanted to turn the vehicle around and further investigate. I questioned my friend more about the description of it, and she said it looked like 'a bear without skin', but that it didn't really look that much like a bear, that it could have been human, but did not have a human face. The story gave me chills... both of them are highly educated (PhD's) and have great eye for detail, and I have never known this friend to make up stories in our over 20 year friendship. The passenger of the car we have both lost touch with so I can't ask her about it, though will if I get back in touch with her again.

Cannot say that I blame you!!

Saaz, that gives me the chills, too!!

Great story LT. As a resident in SC I was interested in where your encounter took place?

Me, too. Was it along Black Creek, by any chance?

The other end. About 8 miles past Snow island not too far from where the Little PeeDee branches off

Hi guys! Im new to the forum and this is my first post. Ive always had a keen interest in bigfoot and believe he IS out there and its only a matter of time before solid acceptable proof is found. Ive been reading through all the sightings and encounters, glued to my puter like a good book that cant be put down. I live in North Texas, my hubby and I have upon occasion driven the easter side of the state just to drive the backroads, discussing and observing. Hes a hunter who usually hunts in west Texas but I have convinced him to seek a deer lease in east Texas next season.... for obvious reasons! We have also just attended, for the first time, the awesome conference in Jefferson TX. VERY interesting!

I have a couple observations that I would like comments and opinions on.....

1) With all the encounters coming from youngsters.... do you think bigfoot has some type of curiosuty or infatuation with children?

2) Ive taken notice to the colors attributed to bigfoot. Deer seem to be red/brown in the summer but in the winter, they are gray. Right? They change color with the changing of the season?? Or am I wrong here? Do you reckon bigfoot may do the same thing..... red/brownish in the summer and gray/blackish in the winter... a type of camoflauging commonly seen in the wild for many animals?? Winter coat/summer coat type of thing??

Looking forward to all your input!

Donna aka SquatchWatcher

I've read this story several times over the last couple yrs, and it always gets better each time I read it. Not only exciting, but credible.

Damn I love your stories.

Great stories in this thread. Being new here, I spend an awful lot of time just reading throughout the site. I could get lost in here for days upon days.

longtabber PE the initial duck hunting incident you related was fantastic. It had to have scared the crap out of you two. Sounds like whatever it was was ticked off and acting in an undeniable aggressive manner towards you guys. It's just a shame you didn't get a better look at it or find some blood evidence or trails when you guys returned with the cavalry.

I have a Belgium made A-5 my dad gave me that his co-workers bought for him when I was born. That had to be some kind of fear to leave one of those behind.

Does your gut point you towards a two legged critter or a four legged one?

It was around 1983, Bonner County Idaho. My brother and I went to fish in a small man-made pond about 2mi from our house. For those who knew about it was just called 'the bass pond'. It always had a kinda spooky feel to it. There was an old homestead there, the only trace of it really was the pond - which actually was quite large, and two flower beds, which must have been on either side of the front door. The flowers still bloomed without the house there. The pond was wide and round shaped where the wall had been built to hold the water back, then it tapered back into the woods and got shallower. The trunks of the old trees still poked up through the water throughout the pond - apparently they didn't bother clearing the draw out before damming it - and the edge on one side was very difficult to get through. We fished for about an hour then heard some cracking and ruckus up the pond on the thick side. We both looked back towards the sound. While we were looking, a small, green tree, broken off to probably 6ft long, shot into the water broken butt first. This wasn't a skinny sapling either, more like 3 1/2 to 4in in diameter. It was around a 45 degree angle and hit the water with enough force to push it under the water about 3 feet, branches and all. At that time in my life I don't recall us ever talking about bigfoot, so when we looked in surprise at each other, bigfoot didn't cross my mind. We were both saying "Did you see that?" We watched for awhile longer, but that was it. We yelled to see if someone would fess up to messing with us, but that was all we heard or saw. We fished for a few more minutes then left for home, feeling uncomfortable about staying.
We still talk about it once in awhile. At that time there was quite a lot of forest for several miles around. It was logged extensively in the 1990's.