I walked the trail to the latrine, did my business, and I was walking back when I saw something on the rocks at the eastern shore of the island, maybe forty feet from the trail. It was crouched at the water's edge. My headlamp caught it, and the eyes reflected back. They were flat amber, set wide apart, and much higher up the ground than the eyes of any animal I ever expected to see on that island. The Pysca National Forest, North Carolina, May 2016. I'm a long distance hiker.
In May of 2016, I was on day eleven of a solo section hike on the mountains to sea trail through the Pysca National Forest. I had camped the night before at a primitive site near Black Balsam Nob, and I broke camp early, moving by 5.30am, and on the trail by six. The morning was foggy, but visibility along the trail was decent, maybe sixty feet, but the surrounding forest was deep and mist, and the light was a flat gray.
I had been hiking for about an hour when I came to a small clearing where the trail crosses an old logging skid. I stopped to take a drink and to check my map. I was sitting on a down-log with my pack still on, not making any noise, but sitting with my back mostly to the trail. I then heard footsteps approaching from the trail behind me. The cadence was clearly too footed. They were heavy and steady in the rhythm. I assumed another early hiker, and I turned around to greet them.
But what was coming up the trail was not a hiker. It was about thirty feet behind me, walking the trail in my direction. Then it stopped the moment I turned. We were now facing each other directly. It was tall, significantly taller than the surrounding bushes, which were wild rodendrons, and they were taller than me. I put the height of those bushes at around six feet tall, and this thing was much taller. I had to put its height at over seven feet.
It was hair-covered, and the hair I saw was dark, almost black in the gray morning light. And it looked a little wet, probably, from the misty fog. The face was big, and it was kind of flat with no difference in depth from cheekbone to jawbone. The eyes were dark, set far apart, and they were very large. The nose had clear nostrils, but I can't recall anything other than that. It was carrying nothing. It was wearing nothing. It was not wearing shoes. This was not a person.
We held that position, me sitting on the log, it standing on the trail. For what I asked to make was probably close to a full thirty seconds. I didn't feel afraid exactly, but I was feeling some weariness as the staring continued. I didn't know what to do or what not to do. All of a sudden it stepped off the trail to its right, that is, my left, and it walked into the rodendrons without breaking stride. The vegetation around closed behind it. I could not hear it moving away after a few seconds.
I continued to sit on the log for a few more minutes, and then I stood up. I did not see it again. I finished my section that day, and I got off the trail at the next road crossing. I had planned to go another four days, but I went home instead. I had a lot to think about. Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota, September 2019. I am a retired law enforcement officer.
I worked twenty-six years for a metropolitan police department before I retired in 2015 and moved out to Western South Dakota with my wife. We have a small property at the edge of the Black Hills National Forest. I am providing this account because I am certain of what I have seen, and I believe some documentation of it is important. In September of 2019, I was on a two-day solo elk scouting trip approximately fourteen miles into a remote section of the Black Hills, west of Custer.
I was not hunting. I was scouting for the upcoming season, locating sign, water sources, and bedding areas. I was on foot with a day pack, no fire arm, beyond a side arm. On the afternoon of September 17, around four o'clock, I was working the edge of a meadow at the bottom of a long timber draw. The wind was steady out of the west, and I was approaching from the east, which kept my scent off the meadow.
I had glassed the edge from a small rise about two hundred yards back, and I saw what I believed was a bedded cow elk in the timber on the far side. I was working into a closer position to confirm. I was approximately one hundred yards from the timber edge when something stood up from where I had seen the cow when I glassed the area. What stood up was not a cow elk. It stood up, and it was bipedal.
It came up from the bedded or seated position to fully upright in one fluid motion, and the height was immediately obvious. I had a vortex diamond-backed Tim by forty-two binocular up, and on it within three seconds. I had a clean look at it for approximately fifteen seconds before it turned and walked into the timber behind it. I want to describe what I saw with the binoculars in detail, because the optics gave me a quality of view I would not have had with the naked eye.
The figure was standing in the open at the timber edge, fully exposed in the full afternoon light. The height. I estimated seven and a half to eight feet based on the comparison to the surrounding ponderosa pine, which in that area runs in mature stands of forty to sixty feet. The build was massive through the upper body. The shoulders disproportionately wide for the height, with long arms hanging loose at its sides.
The hair was a uniform dark brown across the body, with longer hair on the head and along the upper back and shoulders. The hair looked clean. It wasn't matted, and it laid down in a way that suggested conscientious grooming rather than any form of neglect. The face was the part the binoculars showed me most clearly. It was facing in my direction, but it had not seen me. It was looking out across the meadow, scanning. The face was incredibly large with very big features.
It was wide across the cheekbones, with a heavy brow bridge over the forward-set eyes. The skin of the face was dark, nearly black, and it was very visible because the hair on the face was sparse compared to the rest of the body. The nose was broad and short, almost flush with the face. The mouth was closed, I saw no teeth, and I saw that the jaw line was thick and heavy. I watched it scan the meadow for approximately 15 seconds.
Then it turned to its left, walked four strides into the timber, and was gone. I lowered the binoculars and sat down where I was. I did not advance to confirm. I sat in that meadow edge for some time before I started back toward my truck. I went back the following morning with a colleague, a former wildlife trooper that I trusted. We worked the area where it had been standing. Twenty-six years of law enforcement gave me the discipline to investigate before I drew conclusions.
We found a bedded oval of compressed grass at the timber edge, approximately seven feet long and three feet wide, consistent with a large animal lying down. The grass underneath was matted in a pattern that did not match any bedding I've ever seen from elk, deer, or bear. We found two clear footprint impressions in the soft soil at the timber entry point. They were bipedal, five-toed, and the larger of the two measured 15 and three-quarters inches.
I have hunted and scouted that country regularly since 2010. I have observed every species that lives in those mountains. What I observed through ten power optics at one hundred yards distance on a clear afternoon with good light on September 17th, 2019? It was something I have never observed before. I am providing my full statement to you on the condition that my name not be published. White Mountain National Forest New Hampshire, November 2021 This is a short account.
It was a late-season deer hunt, White Mountain National Forest New Hampshire, November 22nd, 2021. Heavy snow on the ground, maybe eight inches, more was falling. I was tracking a buck through hardwoods on a north-facing slope. The buck's tracks were fresh, clean edges, note to breathe in them yet, despite the falling snow. I had been on the track for about an hour when the tracks went into a stand to mature himlocks at the bottom of the slope. I worked into the himlocks slowly.
The cover was dense and sight lines dropped to maybe forty feet. I was watching the ground for the buck's tracks and watching the spaces between the trees for the buck itself. I came around a large himlock and stopped. A second set of tracks had joined the buck's track. They were not there before I entered the himlock stand. I checked behind me. The himlock stand was small, maybe a hundred yards across.
Whatever made those new tracks had entered from the side opposite me at some point in just the last few minutes, because the snow falling on them was very minimal. The tracks were bipedal, five-toed. The stride length was significantly longer than mine. I'm six foot one with a very long stride, and I had to take a stretching step to begin to match the spacing between those prints. I followed the new track for approximately twenty yards, then I stopped.
It had cut directly across the buck's track and continued in the same direction the buck was moving. Whatever had made the new track was tracking the same buck I was. I do not know what made me decide to leave, but I left immediately. I backed out of the himlock stand following my own tracks, hiked back to my truck, and drove home. I have not hunted that area since. I do not know exactly what was tracking that buck, but I know it wasn't me, and I know it was not a human.
The Allegheny National Forest, Pennsylvania, July 2022. My family has owned a cabin on private property bordering the Allegheny National Forest in Warren County, Pennsylvania, for over forty years. I have been going to that cabin since I was a child. I'm now forty seven years old. I'm submitting this account because what happened on the night of July 8, 2022 was witnessed by myself, my wife, and our adult son. The three of us are in complete agreement on these details.
The cabin sits at the end of a long private drive on roughly twelve acres of cleared land surrounded on three sides by National Forest. There's a back deck that faces a tree line about sixty feet out from the cabin. We have a motion-activated flood light mounted on the back of the cabin that covers the cleared yard and reaches roughly to the tree line at full intensity. On the night of July 8, I was sitting on the back deck with my wife and our son.
It was approximately ten thirty in the evening. We had been sitting outside after dinner, talking and watching the fireflies. The deck lights were off. We were sitting in mostly darkness with only a low ambient glow from the windows behind us. In the motion-flood light clicked on. The light covers the full yard all the way out to the tree line. When it triggered, all three of us were looking toward the yard expecting to see a deer or a raccoon. They both were common visitors to the yard.
But what the light illuminated was not a deer or a raccoon. A very big and tall figure that was human-shaped was standing at the edge of the tree line, fully upright facing the cabin. The flood light hit it directly. We had a clear, fully lit view of it for the duration that the light remained on, which it was approximately one minute before the timer cut off. The height was the first thing that all three of us noticed.
It was greatly taller than the surrounding undergrowth, which we know runs to about five feet at the edge of the tree line. We know because we maintain that line ourselves. The figure's head was well above any of that. We have since estimated its height between seven and a half and eight feet. The build was enormous and heavy, wide and bulky through the shoulders. It had very long arms with long fingers on the hands. The hair was a dark reddish brown and covered all that we could see.
The face was turned toward us, and it was visible in the flood light. It was a very wide face with eyes that reflected the light back to us. The light reflected was a dull, dark orange. We couldn't get a sense of the eye-shape or size other than those kinds of reflections, and the rest of the face was too shadowed to be clear. It did not move during the time the flood light was on it. It stood at the tree line and looked at us and the cabin.
The three of us on the deck did not move, and none of us said a word. The flood light timer ended, and the light shut off. The yard went back to darkness. From the deck we could see only the silhouette of the top of the tree line against the slightly lighter sky back behind it. A few seconds later we heard the sound of footsteps on the ground, the sound of little twigs snapping, branches moving.
We assumed it was going backward into the trees, but all three of us immediately got up and went inside just in case. We did not go back out that night. The next morning I went out to the tree line where it had been standing. The ground there is soft from the runoff of the cleared yard. I found three clear footprint impressions in the soil at the tree edge, the largest measuring just over 14 inches. I photographed them with my phone, but they just didn't turn out on the photos.
You can't really see them, not like in person. The photos just look like dirt. My family has been going to that cabin for over 40 years. We have seen black bear, coyote, fox, fisher, and every variety of common Appalachian wildlife on that property. Now, what stood at the tree line on the night of July 8, 2022 was something we had never seen before except in books and on television. Until that night we didn't believe they were real. I have to tell you that has changed.
Boundary Waters canoe area, Minnesota, August 2018. My buddy and I were six days into a 10-day canoe trip into the boundary waters in early August 2018. We were deep. At least three portages and probably 25 miles of paddling from the nearest entry point. We had not seen another party in three days. We had set camp on a small island out in the middle of a long narrow lake. The island was maybe three acres total.
Open at the south end and that's where we'd put our tents and it was timbered up on the north end. It was the second night on that island. Around 1139 I got up to use the latrine, which was on the north end of the island in the timber. I had a headlamp. The night was clear. No moon, a lot of stars. I walked the trail to the latrine, did in my business, and was walking back when I saw something on the rocks at the eastern shore of the island, maybe forty feet from the trail.
It was crouched at the waters edge. My headlamp caught it and the eyes reflected back. A flat amber set wide apart and much higher off the ground than the eyes of any animal I ever expected to see on that island. I froze. The figures stood up. When it stood up, it stood up on two legs, two feet. The headlamp lit it up brightly from the chest down clearly and I only got a partial of the head and shoulders.
I am estimating its height at over seven feet based on the trees behind it, which I had walked past on the way in. The body was covered in a very dark hair. It had long dangling arms. The build was heavy and very muscle-looking. All the classic big-foot shapes and sizes, I guess. The face, what I could see of it in the headlamp beam, was turned toward me. Big and wide. Its eyes were locked on my light. We stayed just like that for maybe ten seconds.
When it stepped backward off the rocks, down into the water of the lake, I heard it waiting in. Heavy, wet, deliberate steps in the water, moving away from the island. I kept my headlamp on the water, but it had moved beyond my beams reach within just a few seconds. I heard the sounds of water lapping and being broken for roughly the next minute, and then the sounds faded away.
From the sounds in the water and the direction, my best guess is it was swimming over to the shore away from the island. I got back into camp and I woke my buddy up. I told him what I had seen, not sure if he would believe me. He didn't argue with me at all. He then told me he had heard something earlier in the evening as I was on the other end getting water. He said he didn't say anything about it because he didn't want to spook me.
He said it sounded like wood was being broken, not a single snap, but a long, torturous, slow break of wood, and it was very near the camp, somewhere in the timbers. He said it happened a couple times. He kept checking and he thought he saw something off in the distance, but he couldn't be sure. He knew it was something an animal would not do. We stayed up until the sun came up. We kept the fire lit high. We stayed watchful. Neither of us could shake the feeling.
We weren't alone on that island, despite me being sure I had heard it swim away from there. We broke camp at first light and paddled out a day early. I've been to the boundary waters many times since, but I have not been back to that lake or that island since. I never will either. You've been listening to the Buckeye Bigfoot podcast. Find more stories, hundreds more, over on our YouTube channel. Just look for Buckeye Bigfoot. Bring these little tidbits up for you pretty regularly from now on.
Listen, I've been getting a lot of questions about the whole demonetization things. Why are they picking on Bigfoot? Why are they doing this? What's happening? Why are they picking certain channels and not others? Well, I can't answer all those questions, but I am planning a small, probably five minute little video this week to answer those questions. It'll just be me and my phone, and I'll try to tell you what I know. But the thing is, nobody has any real answers. So please keep that in mind.
I do want to say I am not demonetized as of this video date, May 5th, 2026. I don't imagine I'm home free. It can still happen. I'm expecting it too. But until it does, I'll be here giving you the best Bigfoot encounters I possibly can. All right, then my Sasquat.
Listen, until we meet up again in a few days for the next journey down into Sasquat's valley, keep your snackage fresh and hot, and always remember, absence of proof is not proof of absence, unless the snackage is missing off your plate. Now that is proof of absence, and you need to go track it down. You need to hunt down that snackage thief, do what you got to do with them. All right, folks. Thanks for listening. I'll catch you soon. [MUSIC]