My brief encounter with the Bigfoot controversy True story

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

The year that this took place can only be a educated guess for me...but I am saying it was early 1970's my best guess.
My cousin and his wife were staying with mum and dad until he got a job and settled down. (He had recently returned from Viet Nam)
It was in Flagstaff, AZ USA, and on a street that at the time was pretty much backed by woods, at the foot of MT Elden.

My uncle was a policeman and on nightshift at the time.

My cousins wife Marcia, was up at 2 am feeding their new baby daughter Shannon.

My uncles poodle, Candy, starts barking and growling, and sniffing the bottom of the front door.

Marcia goes to the front door and looks through these little windows on it, and sees this really tall, really big person pulling on the limbs of a willow tree in the front garden.

She thinks this person has some real gaul to come into the garden, inside a 5 foot chain link fence too. And just "what" was he doing pulling on the limbs of this weeping willow tree for at bloody 2 am!?!

So she turns on the porch light, and she sees it is a "man" in a very hairy "gorilla suit" or something.. and it steps out of the light and heads for the fence. When she turned on the porch light, the dog saw it too, and no longer growling or anything, hides under the couch, Ha!

Now Marcia is ready to call the cops, but my uncle was due to be rolling in from his night shift as a policeman...any time now...

So she sees this thing just step over the 5 foot fence like it was a 2 foot fence for one of us normal sized people.. it heads down the dark street.
As it passes a VW beetle parked on the road she notes that it's hip is even with the roof of the VW bug!

And off it goes down the street covering distance quickly with it's large stride.

So my uncle gets home about 20 minutes later, and Marcia starts "going off" about what she saw in front yard, and that he needed to do something or call some of his work buddies and find whatever it was.

My uncle being tired, starts asking her crap like so what were you smoking before I got here? (Hey, it was the 1970's after all)

So I come sliding by my uncles house later that morning to catch up with my cousin Tony.. and hear about this wild tale from Marcia. My uncle is in bed asleep. We all went out to the front yard, and you could see where the ground was kinda mashed down where it stepped over the fence, but no defining foot print per se" just a depression in the ground like a big shoe maybe..

We kind of chuckled and got weird nervous humour going, and Marcia, well she is pissed off, because no one is believing her story very much.

Here is the clincher folks...

that evening newspaper The Daily Sun, had an article about a "bigfoot" being seen in 2 different spots later that SAME night...!!

Well, now Marcia is REALLY going off when she read the paper... really having a "go" at my uncle for not believing her, and what about the footprint by the fence... she rattle off several other facts in the story that back up her sighting that same night but only earlier.

My uncle was up.. and having dinner, and getting ready for another night shift...He was not so dismissive of Marcia now...

The other 2 sightings that night were in a direct line in the direction it walked away from my uncles house. One was in a neighbourhood called Bow and Arrow Acres, out by Lake Mary Road... and further out Lake Mary Road, in a roadside campground.

Both of those people were quite upset about what they saw too, per the papers article.

Personally, I never saw it. Marcia did... I did see the depression in the grass on the other side of the fence though.."Something" heavy had hit the ground there.

I have no doubt Marcia was telling the truth.. so that incident kind of got me started on these kind of weird things to be interested in.

Hey it was the 70's, if it wasn't bigfoot, it was UFO's mutilating cows or something.. (Yeah that happened too in the Flagstaff area back then.)

Interesting enough though was if you extended the sightings line on a forest service map, it was a "beeline" to the Blue River Wilderness area; that to this day very few go there. Only backpacking and horses are allowed there, or at least in 2010 when I was last there.

It is a region that is VERY wild and lots of thick forest, and steep numerous canyons in it. Perfect habitat for a reclusive critter like bigfoot.

When we told my uncle about that, he said "Whatever, you'll never find it in that country.."

Although that was a great area to go hunting for deer and elk... the region around the Blue wilderness Area was avoided by my uncle after that! HA!

I put this up to just get it captured, and maybe someone from back in the day from Flagstaff might know of the newspaper article I am referring to.

My cousin finally got a job with the Post Office, he and Marcia got divorced some years later.. He raised his daughter Shannon..in the Las Vegas,NV area.

My uncle has long passed away...no clue on how to get ahold of Marcia...it is just one of those weird things from the 70's that I felt like another
"Forrest Gump" moment had happened in my life now in hindsight these decades later.

Pravdaseeker

An interesting encounter and there are many reports from AZ. It has been noted by BF researchers that whatever the species is it's moving closer and is seen more often inside our urban areas. In one case about 20 years ago one of them walked down the main street sidewalk of a little burg over in NM and was observed by a couple of guys working late at the local donut store. My best and flag.

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

a reply to: airforce47

Thanks for the input airforce47, now that you mention that I seem to remember something about one seen in NM..

there are lots of little towns in NM where this could easily happen.

I remember one called Mogollon.. or something quite similar, it was an old mining town, and bordered a wilderness area.

And a place called "Catwalk" in NM would be another good area for them to hide in.

Pravdaseeker

I enjoy this story of the Bigfoot encounter. I believe they often wander out of curiosity into urban areas abut to wilderness or even pockets of woods they can leap frog through to traverse towns.

there are even reports of Bigfoot rummaging through restaurant trash dumpsters in the outskirts of towns.

a reply to: pravdaseeker
Hey what's 1970 have to do with smoking anything, we still ask that question the dog is the key, in my opinoin they can sense waaay more.. my dog woulda tried to fight it no matter how big and he weighs 20 pounds lol.. weird experience wish ya had some photos

a reply to: pravdaseeker

Really interesting story there. There is def something out there, whatever they are, would rather be left alone for the most part.

Then there's this, saw it a few months ago.



What interests me about it is what this guy said after analyzing it.

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

I personally like that video and sighting. there's some folks who say that it could be a person throwing a smaller tree trunk or even a elk tossing it. but to me it clearly looks hominid and I agree more or less with the guys reasoning for it being the size he estimates.

I figure a male sasquatch is pissed those guys are making so much noise in his territory. probably scaring off all the deer and other prey

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Def agree. He did a good job with the estimations, and explaining the mathematics, and yeah i also agree that the reaction of this thing was completely normal considering the circumstances.

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

yeah it acted exactly like a pissed off gorilla, chimp or other ape.

I heard something making intimidating sounding scream like calls up in the southern sierras of California while attempting to fish for trout with a buddy one time a few years ago. we both fled when the animal making the noise was only about 100 yards away. and have come to a conclusion that it must have been a pissed off sasquatch chasing us off from its fishing pond. since it was the only available food in the area. we never saw it. but were certain Iit wasnt a bear or elk. and whatever it was was very large, displaced a lot of air, could be heard almost a half mile away. (it made the sounds while approaching our location over a thirty minute or so time span. could have been maybe even an hour in time as it periodically made calls as it approached that sounded like a 900lb chimp when they get worked up. bassy, and very loud.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

That must of been a trip eh? I believe it. Myself, I haven't had an experience like yours but I can imagine how that would of felt at the time. There's too much we still don't know and god knows what kind of creatures are hiding in the bush from us. Glad you shared that, very cool!

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

I've written a detailed account of it in the past here on ATS. describing the sound, doing a walkthrough of the event including location etc.

my friend is a skeptic until that day. he's a outdoorsy type and neither of us frighten easily when in the woods but that animal got us to bolt. we grabbed our fishing gear when it was essentially across the pond we were at hiding just inside the tree cover from the sound of it. we scurried to our truck a few minutes hike down the trail. while doing so it made one last scream call from what seemed like a few bends behind us on the trail as if it was casually pursuing us to chase us off for good. and it worked.

a reply to: pravdaseeker

Anytime someone follows a claim with "I'm not lying" or "true story," I'm immediately suspicious.

But your story does sound credible. But I'm confused...is Marcia's husband your cousin, or your uncle? Unless I read the story wrong, you referred to him as both....

a reply to: KansasGirl

I thought the exact same thing at the end he said his cousin got a job with the post office, then said he raised his daughter who would also be his cousin

Confusion

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

a reply to: MarlbBlack

Hey there MarlbBlack, yeah... It was I am guessing 70 or 71 maybe? Marcia had the baby.. and cameras in those days were pretty lame..

That also is the one thing that made me more sure that Marcia wasn't fibbing..was what she said Candy, the poodle did. She was a typical poodle I guess. Would bark her head off at something as long as you were there in front of her..Ha!

So I knew the hiding under couch was something the dog normally wouldn't do. I been a bunch of camping trips with my uncle and aunt, and of course the dog always went.

She got into it with some skunks over her dog food by the door to the camper...Lord that was a real disaster...the whole dang campground there stunk for 2 days.

My schoolmates and I used to go out looking for things like that... and we did hear some pretty odd noises way out deep in the woods sometimes.

The woods we would sometimes go to was also where Travis Walton had his alien encounter. The Fire in the Sky dude.

My mom worked for the Forest Service in those days.. And they had several ranchers calling in with the mutilated cow thing that was happening a lot back then. I did get see one of these dead cows. It was like they say they always are.. NO blood in its body, certain parts surgically removed..weird stuff mate.

In Australia they have a critter called a Yowie.. kinda like a Mini-me of a bigfoot. They are not supposed to be as big as Bigfoot.. They were reported to be where I used to live... up on Tamborine Mountain, in the rain forest.

But that is another scary close encounter story on the maybe Yowie thing..

When we lived there I had one night some very odd things go on.. to me unexplainable..

Anyhow, yes, the dog was the key for me too for giving Marcia the benefit of the doubt.

Pravdaseeker

You have been a member here for many years and only now say this?

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Hi BASSPLYR,

I enjoy this story of the Bigfoot encounter. I believe they often wander out of curiosity into urban areas abut to wilderness or even pockets of woods they can leap frog through to traverse towns.

Yes, you are correct.. I remembered since the original post that a well forested area was there, like a "green corridor" that it went through. It was an area called Buffalo Park.. that way back in the day was a large open park zoo. It was like the original Lion Country Safari..

Anyhow, this big area was right in his path, which makes sense too. You saying that sparked the memory of Buffalo Park.. being along the route as well.

We also figured it was covering 10 miles per hour approximately...average.

Pravdaseeker

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

WOW, thanks for the video's! That second one was pretty freaky..

These days everyone has a phone with a camera it seems; so one of these days we will get some better pics of these mystery critters I think.

Close encounters would not be a good thing...pull you apart like a cheap roasted chicken...

Pravdaseeker

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

a reply to: KansasGirl

Hi Kansasgirl, Tony, my cousin, was hubby to Marcia..

My uncle was a grumpy old fart but loveable cop..a great uncle to me..

I got to go hunting with my uncle more often than with my own father for several years there.

It was when it walked by the VW beetle on the road that Marcia really figured how big this thing was..

No wonder it stepped over the fence so easily.

Pravdaseeker

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

a reply to: theruthlessone

Sorry, you got confused.. tony and Marcia got divorced a few years after that, and Tony raised his daughter..in Las Vegas NV area..

I don't know what relation my cousins daughter would be to me.. My second cousin??? Ha!

Tony moved away when his daughter was still pretty young like 3 or 4 yrs old.

Pravdaseeker

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

a reply to: Whereismypassword

Ha! Yes... is there like a specified timeframe a member is supposed to divulge any odd things they may have witnessed or experienced by someone they knew? Ha...

I have messed around thinking about maybe writing a book of my life and the numerous odd things I have experienced. It is kinda like a B movie version of Forrest Gump..Ha!

So, I have decided to maybe put a few of those moments up for practice and see what folks got to say. also feel comfortable enough to do it now..might be a few skeptics, or folks who want to not believe me, and thats just fine.. I really don't care.

It is what it is, and it happened..and it was weird.

Pravdaseeker