Archive 81 Bigfoot in Alaska

call another place home. We moved into a two story house deep in the woods on top of a slight hill on the side of a spur of the East Cascade Mountains near Wanaichi National Forest. It was originally built by a mountaineer who came there with some friends to mine the gold and silver. It was notched into a cleared space that was thirty feet in diameter and was surrounded by a dense wall of trees. In addition to these, there were fruit trees and maples planted by a former tenant.

The property also contained a chicken coop and a pen, again built by the former occupant. Our closest neighbor was a co manager of a logging company from Estonia. He was a reserved, polite man who was approaching middle age. He spent half the year living alone and blew It, and the other half in Switzerland. Several times he came over to cut down dead or dying trees that my parents were concerned might fall on their children or stove in their house, and in return, my parents invited him

to supper and gave him homemade jams. My brothers and sisters and I were excited to move into our new home. In its surrounding there was even a hot tub and a swing on the porch that ran along the northeast side of the house. And aside from visits over the holidays to family and friends in the Deep South, I had never visited, much less lived anywhere outside of Sitka. Most people hear about the state of Alaska and they

think wilderness. Despite Sitka being situated between the mountains and the sea, we weren't the kind of family who got out into nature. We did take the occasional hike, and we had our share of camping and fishing trips, but it wasn't until we moved to blew It that we started spending more time outdoors. Besides the fruit trees and maples that needed to be tended, my made a garden, and we all helped with it. We decided to make use of a coop, so we started with twenty chickens.

We used the existing pen to raise hogs. Because the house was old and built like a cabin, it was in need of constant repair. But Dad was an organized and competent worker who patched the holes where vermin sometimes got in, and set the water and beams straight, and put new screens in the windows. One evening in two thousand and three, my brothers and I were outside on the apron of the long drive that led down to the public road, helping Dad bring in some supplies from

town when we heard a loud, eerie scream. It rose in pitch and it lasted for several seconds. It sounded horrible, like someone being murdered. My muscles froze and my blood ran cold at the sound. Well we thought it might have come from close by on the hillside above us, and we stared at each other in the surrounding forest,

but we didn't see or hear anything. The forest had gone quiet, or maybe it just appeared that way after the sudden, terrifying howl, and a minute or two later, the scream came again, and this time from closer in the woods above us. The scream sounded like nothing we'd ever heard before. Dad said it was probably a cougar or someone messing around. There was a cabin a mile or so up the mountain behind the house, and that was sometimes used by hikers and boy Scouts and a

Bible School youth group. He thought it might be something like that, but nevertheless, he sent us inside and told us not to go out again. That evening, Mom and my sister heard the screams as well, and that evening my Dad and my oldest brother Sjay, saw to the

feeding and bedding down of the livestock. Later that same night, after the three youngest of us had gone to bed, Dad was in the dining room listening to the radio while working on one of his paintings, when he heard the dogs barking somewhere at the back of the house, near the porch. This was unusual, as our dogs were trained and had already been let out for their last

call of nature of the night. He went to check on them because he didn't want them making a big fuss in wake those of us who had already gone to bed. Well, the dogs were facing the back door and barking ferociously at something beyond it, with their teeth

bared and their hackles raised. It had been a warm day, so the windows were partially open to allow in the cool evening breeze, and as he was dealing with the dogs, a horrible stench like nothing we had ever smelled before, walked it in through the windows next to the porch door. It was so offensive that Dad momentarily clobbered s J. Mam and I awake from our sleep. Arrived at the back door then to see what was going on, and right away we noticed that smell too. Something's rilled the dogs.

Dad told us, judging by this stink, I guess it's probably a bear or a skunk trying to get at the live stop. He sent Sjay to get a rifle while we got some flashlights. We didn't have a backyard light and it was pitch black outside. Mom and I held back the dogs and Dad and Esjay stepped out onto the porch and swept the area with the light. They didn't see anything. No horrible visage lunged at them out of the dark. Even so, they kept their rifles

trained alongside their light beams just in case. The dogs continued to snarl and bark and tug at their collars until we finally decided to leash them to the sturdy support beams Inside near the porch door. There were no signs of a predator other than the sickening stints that grew stronger the farther my dad and my brother ventured

from the house. They checked the chicken coop first. They found the steel reinforced lock from the coop door broken and laying on the ground, and it looked as if something had literally twisted the steel loop out of the pad. There aren't many things that could do that to a reinforced padlock. A bear such as one of our native black bears might have, but there were no bear tracks and no claw marks on the coop and no bike

marks on the lock. If it had been a predator, why hadn't the hens and roosters raised the expected cries and squawks? A human seemed the more likely explanation. If it was a human, why hadn't the thief used a little more traditional method of picking the lock or using a laser torch? And what kind of human had the strength to tear a steel lock apart. The door was closed when my dad and brother reached it, but when they went inside, the chickens were all gone. Not a

single bird was left in the coop. Even more incredibly, there were no telltale feathers that chickens released when they're in distress, nor was there so much as a drop or smear of blood anywhere. A Dad had seen some crazy things in his life, but this surpassed anything he had ever experienced before. They checked the hog pen next, but all six hogs were still there, and then they did a cursory search of the perimeter in the storehouse

before coming back inside. All the doors and windows were locked, and Dad told us what they'd found and said to stay inside the next day. I'll notify the sheriff in the morning, he said, and I'll check with the neighbors to see if any of them have had any problems. After we all went back to bed, Dad stayed up with his rifle. I think he was worried that the thief might still be in the area, and he didn't want to lose the hogs or any property in the storehouse.

He might have remembered those strange screams we'd heard earlier and wondered if they were more than a coincidence. Well, dawn came without incident and with no further signs of thief thaves. Dad reported the theft early the next morning, and then he, as Jay and my sister Kathy scouted

the area around the house with our dogs. No sign was found of either the thieves or the missing chickens, and when the dogs caught a whiff of what we assumed was the lingering scent of the predator from the night before, they grew agitated and pulled at their collars again. The scent trail led from the chicken coop to the

woods behind the house. They followed the dog's lead through the dense forests, scratching and clawing branches for a short distance up the side of the mountain and down into the swamp at the bottom of a ravine before the dogs lost the scent. Try as they might, they weren't able to find the trail again, not even a track in the swampy ground. I suspect the thief chose that

route to throw off the pursuit. While the younger ones were we were confined in the house for the next couple of days my parents and two other siblings ventured outside only when required to complete the necessary chores for the live stock. On the second day after the chickens were stolen, we went into town, where Dad purchased some home surveillance cameras and a couple of extra large caliber rifles.

He figured if it had been, as he suspected, a bear or an unusually strong human who might try to steal more live stock or harm us, it would be better to have a stronger gun and bigger bullets for self defense. If trouble came, at least we would be ready. We kept the dogs inside and watched them for any signs that they were sensing something. None of us heard the trespassers stealing the chickens, so we doubted that we

would hear them if they came again. The cameras were strategically positioned, but the dense woods so close to the house there was still a disadvantage. Nothing unusual happened that afternoon, or that night or the following days. Dad stayed up to keep a vigil with the dogs, while Mom did her best to reassure us that the boogeyman. As I and my younger brothers had begun to think of it would not come back to get us, and over time

we became more relaxed and life returned to normal. Seventeen years later, I and many of my siblings are now convinced that it was a bigfoot. Back then, the question never entered our minds. Although we were from Alaska, we didn't take that sort of thing seriously. Like most families. We'd seen Harry and the Hendersons and heard a few stories on coast to coast, but I doubt my parents

even considered the possibility. A week later, just as we were all beginning to settle down again, we had another experience. As the sun was going down, My brothers and I had gone for a walk down on one of those half paved, half dirt country lanes that connected us to Highway ninety seven. We were sipping on ice sodas and enjoying the freedom of being outside again after the events of the week before, when we realized the sun was

beginning to set behind the mountains across the valley. We were half a mile from the house, so we decided to head home before it got too dark. It wasn't like we were unusually sensitive townspeople who were easily shaking. Since the trespasser from the week before had left behind no visible signs of his crimes, it was easy to believe nothing had happened, and the natural sounds of birds and crickets around us served to lessen any fears that

we might still have been holding on to. But nothing in our previous experience had prepared us for our chicken thief, so we were still admittedly slightly on edge. We were kids. My brothers and I were goofing around, laying joke, sharing unrealized dreams, and generally enjoying each other's company and not paying much attention to our surroundings. The road we were on ran alongside Ingle's Creek for a quarter of a mile before looping back around the mountain toward our house.

We'd come to an area of the road where the creek was calmer and ideal for fishing. A bear liked to frequent the spot to fish as well, not to mention the abundance of berries that grow along the banks of the creek there, and deer and other wildlife often came down to that spot for a cool drink of water. Where the creek didn't run as fast we were walking along and bantering back and forth in the growing twilight. When my brother Rick stopped, What are you doing? I

asked him. We didn't answer. He was focused on something up ahead along the creek. Surprise and fear played across his face as he continued to stare in that direction. And by now my two older brothers had also noticed what Rick was staring at, and they had stopped too. I turned my head to look over at what they were seeing, and my heart caught in my chest when

I saw it. Fifteen yards from us, on the bank of the creek, and hutchdown almost on all fours was what looked like a huge eight Now this was our first close up encounter with a sasquatch. I will forever regret not having even an old fashioned video or flash camera with me to capture what we saw. Even so, it left such an impression on me that I can still recall with absolute clarity what it looked like and how it smelled some twenty years later. Even in a

crouch's position. The sasquatch was tall, at least six feet. It had a shoulder span of three feet across, and its face was hairy, but not as thick and as mad at as the rest of the body. It had a sloping and almost muzzled front forehead with a pronounced brow ridge. The eyes staring into us were slightly retreated into its skull and wore a grayish black tint. Its nose was flatter than the human's, to the point of

being almost ape like, but not quite. The thick, stringy black hair on its head hung and flowed to blend seamlessly with the dark hue of its chest. It gave the creature the appearance of having a conical shaped head, and later, when I read about people's encounters with sasquatch, I wondered if they erroneously thought that it actually had a conical head because of the illusion caused by the mess of hair. I thought it might have been fishing

or drinking, or both. Because its beard and chest were wet with water, and it seemed caught off guard by our presence, I supposed the noise of the rushing creek water could have masked our approach. We stood there, rooted to the spot with a shot. I'm not sure of how long the sasquatch eventually stood up without taking its eyes off us. Upright, it was even more intimidating, and we later went back with our parents and measured a branch that was closest to where it stood, and that

thing stood eight feet four inches tall. As the bigfoot stood there staring at us, I got a whiff of that horrible odor, and it reminded me of garbage left in the sun for several days to rite, mixed with wet dog. I don't know if that smell is representative of the entire species or particular to a less hygienic minded individual, but several times in my life I've been reminded of that stench by similar odors, and I found

myself looking around expecting to see one nearby. Considering that some of those instances have been in the woods, it probably wasn't too far off, that's my guess. The sisquatch slowly turned and started up onto the road ahead of us, keeping a watchful eye on us the whole time. That road was twenty feet across, but it crossed it in

two strides, and it disappeared silently into the woods. My brothers and I waited for several minutes to make sure the creature was gone before we were willing to pass by That spot, and our hearts were pounding in our chests, and our limbs were trembling. My feet felt as if they had been turned into boiled pasta and might buckle it any minute before I reached the safety of our house.

It was the longest walk home I ever took. Our long driveway passed through several patches of dense forest, and with each step I imagined that that monster would lunge out of the brush and rush us at home. Our minds raised with our mouths as adrenaline pumped the words faster than our brains could sort them. Dad tried to calm us down, and we eventually managed to get the whole story out. He told us that we'd seen a bear. There is no such thing as a real bigfoot, He

told us. Bigfoots are a legend created by ignorant or sensational minded people who most likely made them up or misidentified other wild animals as these mythical creatures. In his mind, we did see a bear. It may seem unfair, but Dad had a point. He didn't need us scaring other family members out there in the middle of nowhere. The last thing we needed was a reason to panic. Still, unconvinced.

We witnesses worked together to help each other try to understand what we saw out there on that road, and it's an experience that still gives me nightmares and panic attacks to this day. I am now a truck driver based in Washington State. I've been doing this for ten years. I liked my job despite the long, lonely, and often odd hours on long stretches of sometimes remote highway, but it's not really bad. In midwinter of twenty fourteen, I was traveling on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains

on Interstate Highway seventy seven. This is in north central Washington State. I came to work that day with instructions to drive a shipment from Auburn, Washington to Bigbie. It was a longer stretch of driving than usual, but I was glad for the work because the pay was good. I started my long track at around six in the morning Pacific time. I would need to make several stops along the way since it was going to be between ten and fifteen hours until I reached my end destination.

That evening, I was cruising down Highway seventy seven through Aubrey National Forest and listening to the radio. I'd passed a few other vehicles on the highway. It was dark by this hour, and I had my high beams on. Fortunately it wasn't particularly bad weather. I was sipping at my hot coffee in my thermos. One of my favorite

radio shows had just begun. My truck had just rounded a sharp corner and entered a stretch of a more level road where the tree line was further back from the highway, as much as twenty feet in some places. It was then that I saw a large, dark brown figure start from the side of the road one hundred and thirty yards ahead and quickly cross it in a few steps. The creature remained on the other side of

the road as I passed it. All this happened in about four or five seconds, but I remember how surprised, even somewhat disturbed, I was at the unusual appearance of this thing. Even from the seed of my eighteen wheeler, I could tell that this thing had to have been eight or nine feet tall. It had a conical shape to its head. I don't remember the exact features of its face, as it only turned its head towards my oncoming truck for a brief heartbeat, but its eyes reflected

reddish gold in the high beams. I noticed these too, were large and larger than any human or even a bear's eyes. The creature's arms were long. They swung back and forth all the way down to its knees as it moved. It crossed the road so fast I was moving at sixty five miles an hour, but this thing still made it over with space despair. I think it could have easily crossed back a second time before I drove by it, that is how quickly and easily despite

its book, the creature moved. I was amazed and freaked out, and I didn't know what I had just seen. Though I'm certain it was not a bear. I'm certain it wasn't a prankster in a gorilla suit either. The way it appeared and moved so congruently for such a hawk, and the idea that a nine foot prankster with an extremely cut body would be out in the middle of nowhere on a late freezing cold evening on one of the most remote stretches of highway instead of a more

important well travel route seems at best equally remote. I'm certain of what I saw. It was dark, yes, but I had enough time to observe the creature well enough in the illumination from my high beams and at the proximity that I did, and I'm convinced that it was a sosquatch. I didn't want to hang around this part of the wilderness with that thing I'd just driven by, so I continued on my way, applying a little more pressure to the pedal until I had left the mountains

and that thing far behind me. At the next town I reached, I made a call to a friend of mine, telling him what I had seen. And although he believed that I had seen something and he knew me well enough to know I didn't tell tall tales, he didn't know what to make of it. I decided to keep this strange encounter to myself because I did not wish to bring ridicule on me or my family, or possibly jeopardize my job. At the time, I didn't really know much about size squatch, and I believe them only to

be a myth and a tourist attraction to the Pacific Northwest. Later, when my curiosity got the better of me, I began researching the subject of bigfoot encryptids. Now I was amazed at how many people had actually had similar encounters with creatures like the one I saw on Highway seventy seven. I'd never realized a large number of sightings that were reported and continue to be reported every year, not just from the Pacific Northwest, but from all over the United

States and Canada. In the years since. All the research and meeting people who were more knowledgeable on this subject than I am, it helped me better understand and absorb the reality of what I had seen that midwinter night. I still drive trucks for a living, and I have made several journeys through that same area where I encountered the sasquatch. I've recently shared my story with several family members and friends. I've also revisited alone and with others

the sight of my encounter. I haven't personally witnessed another sasquatch encounter myself since then, but I know now without a doubt that these mysterious creatures do in fact truly exist. What they are, I'm not sure that they are out there even today, I am sure. I hope this story helps not just others who have had similar encounters, but also anyone who reads this and that this narration helps spread awareness and a desire to learn more about Sasquatch.

Though I am lucky to have not suffered any deep cycle logical trauma as some witnesses have with these things, I nevertheless am glad to get this off my metaphysical chest, so to speak.