My bigfoot sighting this afternoon...maybe.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Thank you for reading it! It's been an interesting experience, to say the least.

I've heard the name some where, and it was some years ago, so I don't recall the context of it.

Something to look up this evening. Thx.

Sasquatch/UFO's was the second thing that brought me to ATS, the first was the Kennedy Assassination Plot(s).

As I've heard stories about a possible connection between UFO's and Sasquatch. I'm always on the look out for interesting stories and research. I've no personal basis for thinking it true, but I find the concept fascinating.

a reply to: seagull

I think that some of Vallee's work might point toward if not answers, related ideas.

I had to put away the "world of the fantastic" for many years. It seems as though I may be dipping my toe into the edges again though.

To have this personal record from you strengthens me in that effort; thanks.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: CynConcepts

When I was very young toddler, I had gathered clay from the bank of the channel and sun baked the statue. I gave it to my grandparents saying that it was my big furry friend from the swamp.

That is interesting, and somewhat spooky.

Where did this happen, if you don't mind my asking?

Wow! I totally missed your question. Thank goodness someone revived this thread. I was in southwestern Michigan. My grandparents were located more in the peat bogs and fresh water spring areas. They owned a lot of acreage that included small lakes, one would have to get through the swampier bogs to reach.

Laughingly, the family warned us not to go swimming in the one lake. They said it was so deep that the dragons from China would arise and take you under. As I got older, I realized the dragons were over 6 foot pikes! Lol. I was only 3 years old when I made the clay statue though, and honestly, now only remember saying that since. my Mom still has the sculpture and everyone loves sharing my story with family and friends.

Edit add: Also, learned that the family stories about dragon bones were actually just mammoth bones being uncovered in the bogs.


Edit add 2: Honestly, I have no memory of a big furry friend. It is strange I made such a sculpture. I am still up in the air about things. Including my parents tale of seeing and trying to crash into an UFO just after leaving my grandparents. My mom was 6 months pregnant with me. My Mom swears I died in the ambulance and when revived screamed about hell before I relasped into a coma, when I was only 12 years old. My own grandson is afraid of thunderstorms and talks about how the monsters take him up into the clouds and me and my youngest daughter ( his aunt) just stand and watch. We don't help. All 3 of us have seizure disorder that all tests show us completely normal. Whether all of these things are connected, I have no clue. Guess that is why I am here at ATS, to find some kind of answers. Sigh. Basically, my family seems to have active imaginations from all directions, so I am trying to look skeptically at my past experiences and most especially family stories. Amazingly, others have seem to have similar stories. It allows me to believe maybe my family is not completely crazy.

a reply to: CynConcepts

HOLY CRAP!!

...and I thought my family had weird experiences...and we do, but damn.

Even that mundane pike is scary!!

My family, at least three generations of it, have had Sasquatch experiences. Mine, you know about, obviously.

My granddad had at least two that I'm aware of, possibly more, given his attitudes towards Sasquatch stories. He was a country sheriff of Klickitat County in Washington state back in the Roaring 20's and the Depression. He did a lot of solo patrolling out back of beyond. This is the story he told me...it was about a year after he'd got the job and was still learning his way around, he had just cleared the top of a ridge just before sunset and he caught a clear glimpse of a large man walking along the ridge line north of him. He thought it odd so he put his binoculars on him and lo and behold...Sasquatch. To say he was startled...actually Grandpa said he nearly # himself...at what he saw, would be correct.

As he got to know the locals better, he learned more stories from old settlers and the various Native tribes in the area. Many, if not most, were familiar with Bigfoot, either through traditions, or actual encounters. It was just after my Dads second youngest brother was born that Grandpa had his second sighting/encounter. There were some rustlers working the northern end of the county, and my grandpa and a couple of deputies and a tracker were out trying to find sign of 'em--yes, cattle rustling in the era of the Great Depression--and were out back of beyond, again. Third night out, they were awakened by the tracker who told them they were being watched from just outside the campfires light. Their first thought was the rustlers had twigged to 'em and were about to get frisky... All four of the LEO's were WWI veterans and were armed to the teeth. But the tracker said no, it was "Skookum"--Chinook tribal name--watching. Grandpa said that you could see the eyes peering in from beyond the firelight and a vague, almost shadowy form. After watching them for a bit, it apparently walked off into the darkness. Next morning they found some vague tracks leading off to the west.

These are the only stories my grandpa ever told me about skookum/sasquatch. I suspect there were others that he never told to me.

A couple of years later, my Dad had his first encounter with what could have been Sasquatch, just on the southern slopes of Mt. Adams. He'd just graduated HS, and was out camping. This would have been about 1938'ish... He was on his way home, and was about a day out when he found a set of tracks, accompanied by a horrific smell...as he was looking at the track, a bit of grass that had been pressed down sprung up...that my friends, is an oh crap moment--along with the smell, and my Dad had been brought up on tales of Skookum from friends and family of friends...so he knew who was around, and fairly close by... As a hunter and fisherman his whole life, my Dad carried his old lever-action Winchester, he said that rifle never felt so small in all the time he had it. He had originally intended to camp there that night, and press on home the next day. He walked several more hours before stopping for the night. But he never heard or saw a thing the rest of his trip.

He had another sighting, much less oh crap worthy, just after he returned from WW2. He was fishing along the Klickatat River for trout for supper. After he'd caught his supper, he headed back to his camp. When he had eaten and was relaxing after a hard day of doing essentially nothing, he heard some crashing and splashing from the direction of the river. Somehow, or other, he thought nothing of it, thinking a bear or deer had hit the river. The next morning, while filling his canteen, from a little spring nearby, he found another set of tracks coming up from the river and off into the hills, seemingly careful to avoid his camp.

So family history tells me that something is knockin' about the woods, deserts, and swamps, and nearly every other bit of Wilderness that's left--which is still quite a lot.

I know more than a few folks are skeptical...and not all the stories can possibly be true, or there wouldn't be much mystery surrounding Skookum--I think I may start calling him that...--we'd know he exists, 'cause we'd be tripping over him. Skeptics are welcome.

Seagull, I know this thread is about your experiences, and if what I'm about to say is too far off-topic, please have someone remove it.

I've been reading and thinking about this "stuff" for about 40 years (I'm 50.) Not just Sasquatch but associated phenomena.

The one experience I've had with a "walker in the woods" was almost trivial in comparison to what some of you relate.

The home I spent my teenage years in was a farm on the edge of a 20 miles or so deep forest. While out in the yard with my German Shepherd, I heard heavy dragging footsteps moving across the ridge behind our house (it was fall and the leaves had fallen). I walked to the edge of the woods and couldn't see anything down a long hill to a creek or up the other side... but still heard the walking. My dog barked once and ran into the house.

I suddenly felt a very strange "tingling" sensation that I have subsequently experienced in other "high strangeness" episodes, and suddenly found myself REALLY wanting to turn around and go into the house.

I did so and really didn't think that much about it for many years. I never had another experience like that in the woods again. I've hunted and fished all over north Georgia, alone and with others.

There was something different about that day.

a reply to: Gryphon66

I'm all about other peoples experiences with outdoor phenomena like Skookum, or that might be even remotely associated. The more "outthere" the better, though I may or may not agree.

The home I spent my teenage years in was a farm on the edge of a 20 miles or so deep forest. While out in the yard with my German Shepherd, I heard heavy dragging footsteps moving across the ridge behind our house (it was fall and the leaves had fallen). I walked to the edge of the woods and couldn't see anything down a long hill to a creek or up the other side... but still heard the walking. My dog barked once and ran into the house.

Been there, done that. My sister and I had an almost identical experience when we were much, much younger. Forty-three years ago, we had the ever-lovin' whey scared out of us--and our two dogs--by "something" dragging through leaves back behind my dad's shop... We would have thought it a would be burglar or something of that sort, except for the effect it had on not only us, we were after all only ten (me), and fifteen (my sister), but our dogs. This was early fall, and the leaves from half a dozen Locust and Black Walnut trees had just about finished falling, and were dry and crackly.

I have no idea what it was. I only know it was an "it". Couldn't tell you how I know/knew, but I did.

I've had that hair on the back of your neck stand up on several occasions over the years. The one that has always spooked me the most was when we were, my dad, his oldest younger brother, my little brother, and myself, picking huckleberries/blueberries. I had wandered a bit apart from the others, and I found this little trail that lead off down the hill a ways, so me being the adventurous lad that I was (aka stupid) followed it. It lead to the most gorgeous little pond and meadow you could ever want to see...as it turns out...in your nightmares. I had no sooner ventured into the meadow when it felt like I'd put my finger into a turned on light socket...Holy Crap. I left, rapidly.

This experience happened within 50 or so miles from where my Dad had his encounter. Related? I don't know...maybe, maybe not.

Turns out, if you believe such things, that I may have lucked out. Some weeks later, my Uncle tells me, and Dad, that a hiker came up missing in the area--not sure exactly where--but the same basic where we'd been that summer. I can't prove it, and I'm not about to go messin' with whatever it may have been, but either what I felt had just woke up and wasn't ready for breakfast yet, or it had just fed... Can't prove it, just my superstitious nature coming out.

I've related this tale elsewhere, maybe even in this thread , and another related story from my time in Alaska.

So, if you got 'em, I'll read 'em.

a reply to: seagull

Hearing you talk about your family made me remember a story my mom used to tell me about her childhood. They lived on a working farm in the foothills of the North Georgia mountains and she and her mom were doing early morning chores (still in darkness, probably around 5 AM or so) when the hens in the coop went crazy. (I'm thinking this would have been in the mid 1930s)

They both ran toward the coop expecting to find a "possum" inside ... but looking in found nothing except feathers flying through the air (the chickens were fine as best I remember). However, they both became uneasy all of a sudden and looked out into the woods (I have no idea about the layout of the farm) only to see two glowing eyes floating way above the ground in the trees, after which they heard something run off on two legs.

That was mom's only "ghost story" as a kid and it scared the bejesus out of me ... but now that I think of it ... if the eyes belonged to a 8+ft tall creature, it might seem as though they were "floating" in the air ... ed. I *think* she may have described the eyes as "red lights" ... not sure.

Wow, I'm starting to wonder how many times we encounter whatever is watching us from the woods, now.

Seagull ... you said early on that you discounted supernatural/spiritual/"woo-woo" explanations, but as time went on your thought changed. Is there anything you are willing to share about that change in your thoughts?

a reply to: Gryphon66

Just as time has passed, I can't bring myself to discount the utter, not to put too fine a point on it, terror I felt when I first saw it.

I don't buy into it a great deal...but I can't discount it entirely, either. It's something I've had, am having, real issues coming to terms with, when I think about it.

In my dealings with wild critters, I've wary, cautious, even concerned once or twice...but never struck dumb with terror. That first afternoon, when I got home, it took me several minutes to even begin to tell my sister about it, and I've never had that problem before.

Maybe just the WTF-factor come into play, or something else, I know it was present. I just don't know what it is.

Did that make any sense at all???

a reply to: seagull

Absolutely.

I've had other experiences with other aspects of "non-standard" reality. I know that sounds like BS but ... that's the only way I can think of it. The first reaction of a normal human mind to that "non-standard"-ness is sheer ... terror/ (and for me an equal helping of) displacement/dislodging/unmooring/drifting toward the edge of "sanity."

To me, in retrospect I've analyzed my own experiences that the first flash of terror is of "WRONGNESS - THAT SHOULDN'T BE!" and then as the conscious mind tries to reconcile it one realizes that truly ... one has "seen into another level of reality" and the real lasting terror is "what if I can't get back" as well as "what if I can't stop seeing It."

For the record I'm not much of a drug user and I've never been diagnosed with mental illness.

ETA: I don't know if this applies in your case, but for some time after one of these experiences I'm really really reluctant to talk about it with anyone. It's a constellations of fears and anxieties ... fear that I may be involving someone in something that they aren't ready for/is dangerous, anxiety that I *SHOULDN'T* be talking about it (innate primate fear of rejection? perhaps? Of seeming "different"?) and in some cases (and now we're literally out on the fringe of what I can talk about cogently) a feeling that if I keep talking about it I'm going to be "visited" by someone that doesn't want me to talk about it (or think about it, or write about it.)

Shoo. That last was even hard to type out.

Eek. Sorry, didn't mean to shut down the discussion again.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Eh, this is the way this thread's gone since I first posted it.

It'll sit for months, then fire up when someone discovers it...then stop, again.

Many of my threads tend to do that...except the ones where I piss everyone off with contrary positions.

a reply to: Gryphon66

This is a very good description of what happens when you are visually or even otherwise tossed into something so far removed from your "norm".

The absolutely visceral reaction to seeing one I pondered was the old archetypal residual fear our prehistoric ancestors must have felt? It may be the 2000's but BOOM! It's like you cross back that distance mentally in an instant. Frankly that kind of ricochet is just another whammy after the visual of a quasi-human three times your size with very human like eyes but damned little else you can relate too.

I'm fond of the descriptors "discordant" and "jarring".

In my mind it's a little too easy to only pass off the feeling of fear as being induced by possible infrasound. We're dealing with our own "internals" as well and combined with just the raw shock? It's at least a three-fer whammy.

The whole "I can't talk about it" can be just us needing time to process, or needing to disassociate, or denial. Altho I'm not entirely sure our emotions aren't played with a bit in this regard by the BF?

Glad you came back SeaGull!

a reply to: Caver78

Discordant and jarring?

That's just about a perfect way to describe it.

Alas, I have never had such experiences, but your account is certainly a very interesting one, Seagull. Everything accounted for in my family has been 'woo-woo' paranormal, rather than something with a grounded basis in physical reality. Of course, I am only 19 and with luck have many years left, but I have the strange inkling that unless 'something' happens in your childhood, it never will once you are grown.

a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn

but I have the strange inkling that unless 'something' happens in your childhood, it never will once you are grown.

That's not necessarily the case. Most all of my weird, or woo, encounters took place after my 20th birthday.

a reply to: seagull

Hm, I suppose that might be possible. Regardless, though, I feel like if you see something as a child you're much more likely to do so as an adult to. For a wide variety of reasons. One potentially being that you're just looking for it more and are thus more likely to see it, even if it isn't there.

It's why I am somewhat reluctant to actively search out such things, as interesting as I may find them.

a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn

I haven't yet found, or been found by, anything weird while actively looking for it.

Even this sighting was totally by surprise, I mean I knew he (?) was out there, but I wasn't out looking when I saw him. Same with all my other experiences...

No idea why, that's just the way it seems to work for me...

My grandmother, who was half Choctaw, used to tell me to eat my vegetables if i wanted to be strong like Bigfoot.
I told her I wanted to be strong like Popeye.
She told me Bigfoot would give Popeye a whooping.

a reply to: skunkape23



I believe he would.

Popeye? You're dating yourself, man...

a reply to: seagull

It may have been answered, but considering how far away it was have you considered the option it was a bear?

The reason for me asking is because you said it was a corn field, and bears are known for loving the sweet corn in WA and are a common nuisance for farmers. They will stand to get their bearings and even walk upright in the direction they want to go.

Edit: Here is a bear walking upright in WA

They love corn: