It's About Time I Shared This | California

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You know, she'll get goosebumps the story. It was like he took your show when I was about nine and a half years old and my family, on my father's side, a one hundred and so years ago, I had established a mining claim up on the north fork of the Trinity River there in northern California, and all his lovely property big ponderas of pines and Douglas furs I guess for Douglas and the river great for fishing and swimming.

Have you.

And you know, I've never seen any bears up close up there, but I know there was plenty.

But this comes into this story.

My dad was going up to the property to do the assayer work on the property and everything else, and I got to go up with him. My mom and dad had been divorced for several years, and so seeing my dad and hanging out with it was a big deal.

I was excited.

So we went up there from southern California where we lived, and long drives, but yeah, we got up there late at night and spent the night. The next morning, this mid morning or show, a couple of dogs came wandering up to the cabins, highly unusual, and they were bear dogs, bear hunting dogs, and the antennas on.

The call her.

Named an address phone number, and we called the guy owned the dogs, and he said, oh, come down that evening and get them cool. I'm just doing the little nine and a half year old stuff, you know, walking around with us stick and hitting stuff and digging bugs and catching the garter shakes by the river. And I was in front of the cabin hanging out and I dogs started barking this crazy barket and they're looking west.

On the other side of the road.

And crossing the road. By the time he hit the road, I call out, Dad, what is that? He looks at it and said, get in the house right now, getting a cab.

So I get got into.

The porch is covered by screen and one by the protection, and he grabbed his deer rifle and shoot out front. This thing came closer closer the roads, about one hundred and fifty feet away. And this thing came, oh, I don't know, came right towards us. And then I noticed the sunshine and on it was kind of a little reddish in there in that coloring, and I was just an a mouth open, what is that? And it came closer and closer and didn't really pay any attention to us.

Got with him.

Oh, I don't know, thirty forty feet of my dad with that rifle point matter, and just he turned left and he's making me sounds, just growling and drunting, and I couldn't make him mouth because it's been too long. For fifty three years this happened, and I started heading over towards the dread well.

Down up the river where this road kind of turns.

It's kind of a trail deep road across the river and goes on up above the cabin to the actual mine site on the side of the mountain. We call it Montgomery Road. Montgomery's lived down the road just a mile and they they had the last remaining water cannon sluice box gold Vine operating in the United States and west of the Missouri at that time. Anyway, this thing

Land Well, I was.

A young nine and a half naive, and I'm very confused now because this bear walks on four leg. This thing was on two. I'd never got a good look at his face, but I'm pretty sure it was mostly fur covered, probably six and a half seven foot Maybe.

It took long.

It covered the two hundred feet from the other side of the road to the cabin so fast. It probably walked as fast as I could crop row fast.

You know, it's crazy. Just it didn't even look at us.

Had two dogs, a rifle, and some man standing out in front of it, and just it was out in the open and the broad sunlight.

I thought it was hot day year. It was one hundred degrees and there's no trees in the way.

Right, So my up and me open fifty feet on each side, and I saw this thing up close and personal, and you know, pubb it be for many years?

What is anyway?

It was until I heard the turn bigfoot, and I saw the video of one taking up fluff greet and that's it. That's what I saw and didn't day. Like I said, I still get goose bumps telling his story. Yeah, the dogs wanted a piece of it really bad.

I wanted to know what.

The heck it was. But the funny thing is that it was a bear. My dad would have shot it as it was coming towards us. He shot one before when he was younger. He was the forest ranger all over northern California in Washington and he had one come up and when I attacked him, he ended up shooting it with a thirty forty Craig right gone barrel.

This is a It was a thirty calipery lance.

Sorry, a bear? Sorry, did you say the park ranger shot a bear or a bigfoot?

No? A bear? He was young, Yeah, he was young. He had a job.

And I'm sorry, I get going too fast, you're taking out hey.

But that was the experience.

It was about oh fifteen seconds of pure wonder and its lasted me fifty three years. And I'm getting older and my health isn't good anymore, and I wanted to get this story out to somebody who may not or may believe.

I'm glad you did.

I saw. Yeah. Good.

I have definitely a few questions for you. It's know, this area that you were in, how close to Willow Creek would you say you were?

Probably as a crow flies, probably fifteen miles maybe fifteen miles okay?

And is that north or it would have.

Been fifteen miles east? Yeah, east, a little bit to north.

Gotcha?

When you were watching it walk across, did it turn its head at all?

Gouh.

You know, it's hard to remember that long ago, but sure not much because I really don't remember too much of the face. Remember if I did see fingers and the skin was kind of cam very dark cam tanned feet, I couldn't see much black hair brown and dark dark black brown hair.

Do you remember anything?

Yeah? Go ahead, Oh no, no, go ahead.

Do you remember anything out of the ordinary about the fingers on the hand, they.

Were long and thick, and fingernails like people. I saw the fingernails. That's that's stuck with me.

Claw.

That's really interesting. So you're saying it looked like the fingernails of that a human would.

Have exactly fit longer consult if you're regularly right.

And I don't know whether it was a male or female. I don't know.

You know, you mentioned that you had seen that video Patterson Gimmlin film. Thinking back to that video and what you saw that day as well, were there any things you noticed that were similar or different or anything like that?

Just uh, the way it walked.

This hair seemed a little bit longer, but I really yeah, it was pretty shaggy.

The differences, no similarities. Yeah, the walk.

So long strides? How how long would you estimate that its stride was?

That would be hard to say. I grew up to about six foot two, and if I took a leap probably I could probably go five feet if I tried real hard. But yeah, this is taking big strides fourty five.

Sure. Did you do you remember any details about how long its arms were or its arms in general?

Well that's what led these look at the fingers because they were slinging. The hands were slinging pretty good, and yeah, I guess arms are long. I didn't notice at the time that I guess, yeah. And it was kind of slumped over, so the hands were down pretty low.

Did it seem to have a neck all nor were you able to see any muscles underneath the hair as it walked.

It seemed like up around as I pictured in my mind. It's not as rigid as it used to be as long time ago. But uh, trice, that area and the calves I noticed pretty muscular.

I noticed that because.

I just comparing it to the size of my dad and seeing this in the same site picture. It was much bulk here and my dad. My dad was six feet and slim. This thing was massively across the shoulders.

How how wide across those show shoulders would you estimate?

Oh? I couldn't say. I really couldn't say. It's been too long.

Yeah, oh gotcha, definitely.

Well, dad was average average width, so it was much wider than my dad.

So that's all I could not say.

Okay, so you've already mentioned the details about the fingernails on the hands, which is a very unique detail. Were there any other details you remember seeing that. Maybe when you realize that, you're like, wow, that is really it doesn't really make sense. It's kind of a little unique and it's just kind of weird.

Yeah, it's awesome. Like I said, I wasn't I wasn't all that frightened because I was so intrigued by what the heck that well, as a as a very inquisitive boy, I was always digging up things and looking up things in books about nature and so forth.

Yeah, so I was just enthralled by this thing.

Did you have any neighbors around that cabin area at all?

No, The narrow Snogger was who I mentioned before. It was from Montgomery, three quarters of a mile or so down the road, and they stayed up there in the summers during their minding.

That's about the only ones up there in that area. Gotcha.

Did you ever hear of any other encounters or sightings in that general area where you.

Were at No, I was I was only nine and a half.

True, Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, yeah, I was just a little kid.

Yeah I could when you grew up. Did you have any discussions with your father about what happened that day?

No, No, we never talked about it. I got it up once to his sister, my aunt and their two kids.

It's all else. That was just a bear. Your dad told us all about it.

I said, well, you weren't there, and I got into a little bit of a discussion.

Not much. Yeah, he never mentioned it. He never talked about it.

Dad was hardly ever, and so I didn't get to talk to him all that my team, so I was kind of stuck inside.

Growing up. I had shared the story a few.

Times, and I've never got good reactions.

I didn't. You know, no one believers. They didn't believe, you know, or they it'd be hard.

To believe if you've never been Say, if you're not a woodsy person and you've never been out there in the woods in a wild see the creatures and.

How they act. And now listen, if you.

Couldn't believe it, as you mentioned that, you heard it make growling and grunting sounds. Have you heard any sounds since then that come close to what you heard that day?

Certainly not a bear.

It growled and grumbled as if it had sometimes almost as if I was talking like a darned some of the good loud thing. I gotta shut that loud thing down, you know, like the tensor for uh dragon m and nothing else except for maybe a girl is about as close as I could get sure.

So it kind of sounds like, and this is just my interpretation, it almost was trying to say something, But you really couldn't make out maybe what it was saying.

Yeah, kind of like luck I raw or like it was almost talking that.

Right, he's so mad at that noise, no whistles really, but yeah, it's mad.

That's very interesting. It's it's a it's something that comes has come out in other encounters to where you'll find that these you know, these big foot will will get kind of really mad at very loud machinery or generators, and we'll just go over and try to take him out. Sometimes they will take him out, you know, and just get it quiet again, which I don't blame him really.

Oh this is different. Yeah, okay, I gotta.

Say that that Dredge Graham and Ram until the gas an out, that guy was never not coming back down out there, I'm sure.

Oh he just was like I'm out of here.

Yeah, wow, yeah, I'm out here. He didn't come back then to shut that thing off. It just ran and around, ran out of gas. My dad said, oh, we can't stay the weekend. We have to go now, I said, Oh, we've got I got business in town.

We gotta go. And so we left that day. We're going to stay two or three days.

Speaking of weird Speaking of weird sounds, would you ever hear anything in the woods that was just hard to explain?

Uh?

Maybe things like whoops or something knocking on a tree, or maybe even like weird metallic noises. Is that anything you ever remember hearing?

Yeah, I've heard a whoop once, and I think I was in the Sierra Nevadas.

Way up.

We hiked up ten miles up King's Canyon state overnight and I I was trying to picture what kind of animal whoop in the woods?

You know. I never came up with it, and they couldn't figure it out. Wow?

Is that also?

Well?

There? I want to make sure I get this question. And about the cabin area, do you remember going out maybe in the days afterwards, and looking around where it had walked? Did you remember seeing any tracks or anything like that?

You know, I didn't go out and look for track Okay, Yeah, we had to just get busy and get.

Ready to go.

That's true.

Yeah, you're you're getting.

I wanted to stay and see it again, and I've been intrigued ever since. Just everything bigfoot.

Well, that's that's really.

Some of the videos.

It makes you a little easier to pick out the fakes on videos.

You know.

That's that's actually a great point. I mean, if you've seen a bigfoot, you can pick out the fakes pretty good. Is there anything a big foot?

Yeah?

You were right there. Is there anything you've seen over the years that even comes close to what you saw that day?

Seen personally or well.

You know, like there's so many videos out there and different things on shows and movies besides the Patterson Gimlin film. Is there anything else out there you've seen that is supposed to be a bigfoot that you're like, Okay, that's kind of close to what I saw.

Yeah, So I've seen a few and it's just bos that's the real thing.

That's a fake. I can pick it out pretty easy.

There's a few of them out there that are okay, good good videos. I don't I can't remember exactly which ones.

No, that's no problem. So you mentioned that seeing this as a nine and a half year old really affected you, and in what way did you become interested in Bigfoot as you grew up into an adult after this, I think.

It shades Bigfoot. It just opened my mind up to what is really possible, and I've kind of follow all my life. Hey, it's bigfoots around anything that's possible, and that's been my.

Belief for a long time.

It really did open my mind up to what people say, it's impossible, you know, and I could argue the point it is possible, it's not.

So. Yeah. It really did affect my life as a whole through.

This day was going to the China Flat Museum. The first time then that you had gone to a place that would have had, you know, Bigfoot type artifacts or tracks in it to look at them.

It would have been if I went there but a little bit there.

Oh yeah, I got a whole lot of the museum on the phone.

Oh I'm I am so sorry. I totally missed that part of the correspondence. Okay, well that's even more interesting. Do you ever have any desire to go to a place that might have Bigfoot tracks to look at like that museum or there's actually a few others around the Pacific Northwest as well.

Exceedingly interested?

Yeah, I would really recommend. There's there's so Eric's museum he's involved with, and then there's also one up in the boring Oregon area that Cliff Berrickman runs that is an incredible you know, Bigfoot Museum Center, the North American Bigfoot Center. I would recommend checking that out. It's on

The people that listen or pick up thinks what society are generally interested or already believers. I needed to get my story out to someone who polaves me before I die. I've told the story. Some people believe me, but not all that much. So yeah, it's for me to get that release, the relief and tell a story someone might enjoy it so we can maybe picture it in their head because there's been a picture in mind for a long long time.

I want to say thank you for interesting me with your account that is that is just a very very huge deal for me. When when people entrust my show with that, I do like to ask people though, So, based on what you had seen that day, the details you remember, would you categorize what you saw as something maybe more ape like or more human like, or something just completely out somewhere else?

Well, you say ape like or human like? We are So we're just a clever, hairless ape all we are. Yeah, So we're looking for intelligent life. We will find it here. We're not find intelligent yet, but we're clever. And so there between an ape and a human, it walked a lot apish human apish design.

It come between. That's all I can say.

So long between it's a fascinating account, Lance, and thank you for coming on the show to share it and to get it out there into the world. As we start to wrap up, I just want to make sure that there was nothing else that you wanted to.

Oh gosh, that's about the whole story. It was not a whole lot else I can share. Do you want to say thank you so much for letting me share this?

Like I said, it was for me.

I needed to get this off my dress and get it out to someone who might believe me. And it's a it's been a pleasure, absolute pleasure to view this with you.

Absolutely and thank you so much. If there's anything that I can ever do to help, or you have any more questions, feel free to reach out. You've got my contact information and I'll definitely help you in any way that I can. But thank you so much for coming on the show today, sir, thank you. Just wanted to take a few minutes to say thank you to you

So there you go.

I look forward to seeing you there, So make sure you head over to www dot Sasquatch Summerfest dot com and pick up your tickets today