Report Received From: The GCBRO Online Report Submission Form.
 

DATE:    August 1992
 

TIME:     Various
 

LOCATION:   Ferry County, Washington
 

TERRAIN:    Wooded
 

OBSERVED:   Since this report is extensive and on-going for 2 1/2 weeks, it would not be fair to the reader for me to hastily attempt to include the entire content of the report here and now. I will close this portion and submit the remainder in chapters that are easily digestible.

I have not offered this information to any organization nor for public scrutiny of any kind in the past. I revealed it to Mr. John Green, Dr. Grover Krantz and Mr. Ken Coon, all respected researchers, for their benefit. At the time I was informed that two things about my report were out of the ordinary; first that I
displayed what was described as "unusual courage"; in having remained on site under the circumstances and secondly, no other report, to date (1992) had gone on for so long a time frame in one continuously on-going encounter. In response to that I can only say that I do not consider myself as any more courageous than the next man might be. As for the time frame of the encounter, the Sasquatch are responsible for that circumstance. I can only conclude that it was their curiosity that held them for so long a time while pondering the suggestions offered by one or more of the gentlemen listed above, that they may have temporarily settled in that area while the obviously injured one heeled, or that they may have had a youngster to contend with and would move on until it was more appropriate for them to do so.

The encounter will get much more interesting very soon.

In august of 1992, my wife and I decided to take a couple of weeks off and do some remote area camping combined with scouting for new bear hunting locations. We choose an area within the Colville Nat'l Forest along one of the many creeks that wind their way through a particular drainage that I knew of. We arrived to our camp site late in the day on the 5th of August 1992 and set up our tent camp. There was time left before dark to look around the area and in doing so, I discovered that bear sign was everywhere indicating that a good number of bear were currently using the area. We were not prepared for the events to come...

August 6th

I awoke early after a good nights sleep and was anxious to scout the surrounding area. After a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage, I armed myself with both a .44 magnum handgun and a .22 LR pistol and set out. Some 100 yards or so north of camp, we came upon what appeared to be a fairly used trail that led up the side of the mountain adjacent to the road. Numerous bear tracks and scat littered the trail. I advised my wife that she should stay quiet and close behind, keeping an eye and an ear, on our back trail, as we ascend this trail up the mountain. I also cautioned her that if we ran into trouble with a bear, not to run or make any sounds, we would stand our ground and deal with any problems in proper fashion.

Starting up the trail making some 150 yards from the road, my wife began to whisper that she had been hearing what she described as "foot-steps"; coming from off to our left out in the thick brush and timber, further advising that when we stopped, "it"; also stopped. She has better hearing than I but I did hear what sounding like large sticks breaking on several occasions as we stealthily made our way up the mountain. Suddenly the trail opened up onto a large rock precipice that over-looked a bowl shaped meadow that offered good visibility in a few locations surrounding its edge, but was otherwise overgrown with brush and several large old cottonwood trees. One area upon the rock offered a good position for taking a stand and watching the bowl for bear activity. Not long after having done so, we began to hear sounds within the bowl that indicated that one or more bear were foraging for food. We could hear sounds of a stump being torn into when a bear appeared 20 yards below our position along the edge of the bowl. As we watched this bear, 200-250 pounds, walk up-wind along the side of the
mountain/bowl, it stopped suddenly, stood up on it's hind feet and began sniffing the wind. I was confident that it was not catching our scent as I was cognizant of the wind currents and purposely choose
the stand location for best position of advantage. The bear then suddenly dropped to all fours and abruptly turned around and began running at what appeared to be full speed, down wind, looking back over it's shoulder as it ran.
I got the impression that it may have been concerned that something may attempt to chase it and that it was concerned for it's safety. I thought perhaps that we had stumbled across the feeding area of a grizzly and that the black bear caught scent of it, thus explaining it's hurried exit and concern. Moments after that as we sat whispering about the event just witnessed, a second, but much larger black bear came running down-wind from the direction that the first bear had been spooked by. This bear too, ran while looking over it's shoulder as though concerned that something may be attempting to catch it. Perplexed by this bear behavior that I had not witnessed in my past experiences with bear, I was at a loss to offer any reasonable account for such actions. After maintaining our position for another 20 minutes, I decided that we would sneak up to a position along the upper side of the bowl that might offer a wider view of the entire bowl. I carried my .44 in hand while making our way to the new position. We could hear that some kind of animal was following parallel to our right as we made our way and when we would stop, it too would stop. I was beginning to wish that I had better armed myself with my .300 magnum rifle instead of the handgun, but it was too late to make any changes and I remained confident that in the event of trouble, I could get us out without undue risk to our safety. The .44 was an old friend that I had been using for a number of years as my main hunting tool for big game. This day it was fully loaded with 265 grain SP bullets at top end magnum velocity and was a proven entity. My own training and background in Law Enforcement as a weapons and tactics Instructor reinforced my belief that trouble could be handled if necessary.

Arriving to a good stand location on the up-hill side of the bowl, we took position to observe any sign of movement while listening intently. Suddenly my wife alerted me to a strange sound coming from our right, a sound that can only be described as that of a very large animal attempting to sneak up close to us.
We could hear the soft sounds of its hair brushing against the foliage as it steadily made its way towards us. Seconds later a similar noise was observed from both off to our left and as from coming down the mountain towards us in the same stealthy approach as the first. It was clear that three very large animals
were attempting to converge on our position simultaneously and being extremely cautious about doing it. My senses sprang to high alert as I attempted to make sense out of what was happening, this was not animal behavior that I have ever experienced. I cannot say with any amount of certainty just how close I allowed the animals to approach before taking action to warn them off, but I am certain that the three of them were very likely within 20 yards of when I pulled my .22 pistol and fired several shots over the position of each animal in quick succession, being certain not to shoot at them. The idea was to warn them off so that we could leave the bowl and return to camp. With having fired the shoots, the sounds stopped, it looked as though the animals had gotten the message and halted their approach. With .44 in hand, we slowly made our way out of area of the bowl. I walked behind my wife as we made our descent so as to defend our retreat if need be. We stopped several times along our descent to listen and observe for signs of being followed, but no evidence of that came to our attention.

Arriving at the road, we stood for several minutes to discuss what had just occurred and gather ourselves a bit. I cannot say that we were scared, only that we were now in a heightened state of alertness and readiness. We began to walk down the road to camp but almost immediately made a startling discovery after setting out. There upon the road we observed a stick approximately 5 foot in length that was not there prior to our passing 1 1/2 hours earlier. In approaching the stick we also observed a series of foot prints upon the road that went for approx. 25 yards before re-entering the timber. The tracks originated from the "up-mountian" side of the road and left the road on the down-hill side. I examined the stick carefully and observed that a very large hand had been grasping the stick about mid-way, the individual fingers and the palm could be observed but no indication of the thumb was present. The hand print was roughly twice the width of my own hand. The small end of the stick looked as though it had been used to dig or probe into a sandy soil as the end was well worn and did not have the fresh break appearance of the large end.

The largest set of footprints were 18x7 inches with a stride of 5 1/2 to 6 feet. The second set of prints were 17 1/2x7 inches and displayed a stride 4 1/2 to 5 feet. The third set of tracks appeared odd in comparison to the first two larger sets of tracks. They measured 17x6 1/2 inches but the stride was unusual. The left foot dragged upon the ground for each step while the right foot showed no like characteristic. The stride for this set of tracks was 3 1/2 to 4 feet in length. Apparently this animal was injured somewhere upon its left leg or foot.
 

Now we had a good idea of what had occurred on the mountain! Back at camp my wife tried to urge me to leave the area and return home, but I would have none of that. While I had not come prepared to deal with an encounter with Sasquatch, I was not about to pass up an opportunity to investigate this incident. I promised her that from then on I would carry my rifle as an extra precaution and that if she would feel more comfortable about staying, she could sleep in the truck.
Finally, she began to settle down and after some discussion concerning the events of the day, she agreed that we needed to stay and see this thing through.
 

We remained close to camp the remainder of the day and kept vigilant towards our surroundings. After a good supper of steak and potatoes we retired for the night.

August 7th

Neither of us awoke as fresh this morning as we had the day before, having lain awake for a good portion of the night wondering if we would get a visit from our "neighbors" during the night. I got up and made coffee, then scouted around camp in search of any indications that a Sasquatch may have looked things
over during the night. I found no evidence that such a thing occurred, but hastily add that much of the area would not betray one's presence due to shed needles and such that littered the majority of the forest floor both in and around camp. The exception was the road adjacent to camp, but nothing remarkable turned up there. We spent this day around camp fixing the place up to make it more livable and gathered in a good supply of fire wood. The day was uneventful.
 

That night, after supper while sitting around the fire, I found a suitable piece of fire wood for a little "camp-fire wood carving" and took up my hatchet and began to see what animal shape might be hidden within this particular piece of wood. After about an hour of chopping and such that goes into that kind of work, we began to hear a patterned strange sound coming from the mountain side above camp but across the creek, some 75 to 100 yards above us. To describe this sound, I can only say that while holding one's lips closed, sharply gnash your teeth together! The sound that we listened to that night was very likely 10 times more "massive" than that which you, or I, could reproduce, but is otherwise an almost perfect match to what we heard. I would chop a while and then we would listen a while and sure enough, the animal on the mountain side would do it's level best to mimic the chopping pattern that I had
performed in both sequence and what I can only describe as "beat".
After about an hour of this, the animal suddenly got up and quickly traveled up the mountain, making a fair amount of noise as it went, then nothing. The remainder of the night was without incident.

Chapter 2.

The day after having found the large footprints, I decided to make a trek into the drainage northeast of camp. Along the way and shortly after starting out, I began to hear sounds of something moving in parallel to my travel up the old logging road that I hiked. The sounds would stop as I stopped and left me with the impression the animal was large and two legged. I could not see the animal at any time during this particular incident and it appeared to have followed me for approximately 1 1/2 miles up the road as for the remainder of my travel, I observed nothing similar. After reaching a point up the drainage that satisfied my curiosity, I began my return to camp along the same road. I watched carefully for any tracks along the road as I slowly walked along. The only tracks that I observed were my own, deer, coyote, bear and a few older cougar tracks. After walking for perhaps a mile, I came across a section of the road where my boot tracks were particularly obvious and there made a rather startling discovery.
 
 

There upon two of my boot tracks were smudge marks unlike anything that I had previously seen. the marks were evenly spaced, 2 1/2 inches apart and were themselves 1 3/8 th of an inch wide. Each mark measured 13 inches in length having started out with obvious great pressure and finishing with diminishing pressure. I could only conclude that an animal with fingers had attempted to wipe scent from my tracks. No other explanation would account for this odd marking. I tried to re-create similar marks on the road surface nearby but did not have the strength to simulate the smudge marks that I had found. The animal
that left them must have been very powerful. It has been suggested that these marks may have been left by skidding hooves of deer or even elk, but I have seen those and cannot accept that theory. The animal that performed that action was attempting to "learn"; something about me. The circumstances convinced me then that Sasquatch are thinking animals and able to reason.
 
 

Arriving back at camp, I found my wife a bit shaken and happy that I was back. She advised me that about 30 minutes after I left camp she began to hear rocks being pounded together from up along the road that I had taken, some 100 yards or so from camp. That went on for the better part of an hour when way off in the distance she could hear powerful screams but could not identify what made them.
I discussed my findings with her and revealed my thoughts regarding the possibility that these animals are more intelligent than we previously thought. That they were communicating was obvious by now.

That night as we lay awake in our tent, I listened as a large animal approached camp stopping probably 15 feet from our tent. I was certain that it walked upon two feet and was very heavy as the foot steps indicated such. It paused there, quietly for a moment when I heard a slight rustling noise along with the sounds of what appeared to be handling a tin can, then heard a hard contact sound on the can followed by the can hitting the ground and settling. Then the large animal walked through the middle of camp passing within 6 feet or so, of our tent. When it reached the opposite side of the camp I could here sounds of
rustling brush and some type of light weight metal being moved about, afterwards the animal crossed the creek and went up the side of the mountain adjacent to camp. I eventually fell asleep while listening.

The next morning, I was anxious to check for sign of the animal that visited camp that night. There on the edge of camp where I had heard the animal stop and the tin can noises, I located a rusty old tin can that I had known was there and had not been damaged other than by weather. Now the can had been what appeared to be "bitten"!  And by an animal that had a very large bite radius. The other noise that I heard on the other side of the camp, I discovered was an old discarded camp stove that I had not previously known about. It had lain among brush hidden from view. The animal had apparently spotted it and checked it out before crossing the creek. I could not find tracks in or around camp. Later that day, I hiked the main road and found a clear and distinct 18 inch foot print along the road some 1/2 mile from camp. During that hike, I was again being paralleled by an unknown animal that always remained hidden from view. I once attempted to approach what I considered to be its location, but it appeared to move away when I attempted that. I also tried to arrange an ambush scenario where I would move along and then hide in an attempt to out-fox the animal and cause it to walk by in plain view. All such attempts failed.

Chapter 3.

The following day we pretty much remained around camp after making a xx mile drive to XXXX for supplies. That day, we did a bit of shooting near camp and lounged around until supper time. After supper, we sat around the fire talking and listening to the night sounds that could be heard over the fire.
Something large was out there beyond the fire light and walking back and forth between the creek and an area that we later discovered was 60 yards south of camp, among sparse trees and brush. At that location the grass and small brush had been flattened down in an area approximately 8 ft. x 8 ft. in size. That
night between midnight and 3 am we lay awake listening to sounds that made us feel very uneasy. These sounds began when we could hear what must have been good sized rocks being forcibly thrown into the creek not far from camp. They would hit other rocks in the water with a loud "crack"; and splash. This went on for a bit over an hour. Not long after that stopped, we began to hear what can best be described as a "wrestling match"! The sounds of heavy bodies tumbling around on the ground accompanied by crashing brush, deep grunting sounds and occasional heavy breath sounds, which all sounded to be coming from the area some 60 yards south of camp, an area that we later dubbed the "staging area" because that night and for the majority of the nights thereafter, that is where they appeared to stage themselves in what we considered them keeping watch on us.

I tried several times to catch a glimpse of one at night by flashlight while they were in that spot, but due to the terrain and such, I could not accomplish that. I was not interested in any attempt to approach their location due to the possibility that any such action on my part may well be responded to as a threat
against them and I was not prepared to invoke any such response. By the time the light of pre-dawn would come, they would move from their staging area apparently moving back into the relative safety of the heavy timber.

I took a magnifying glass to the area that they used where the grass was matted down, thinking that I might be able to find some hair or other evidence. I did locate a number of hair strands that were reddish brown in color some 11 to 12 inches in length. The ends of each strand came to a very gradual tapered fine sharp point. Each of the hair strands also had roots attached. I saved those that I could locate.

We began to become accustomed to being followed on any hike that we went on, or walks along the roads, by these animals. They had not made any attempts to hurt us or so much as threaten our safety. The mere fact that they were around may well be considered reason to be scared or at least worried that something may happen, but circumstances being what they were, we eventually got over any fears that they may try to harm us.

I was awakened one night at around 2 am by my wife who had been startled by some very violent crashing noises where large sticks were being broken and rocks and brush were being thrashed about. I listened to these sounds with rifle in hand from there inside the tent and eventually fell back to sleep. The sounds came across as "menacing"; in nature and I could not account for such an abrupt change in their nightly behavior so close to our camp.

At some later time that night, I was awakened by an old shoulder injury that flared up and caused me to come awake and roll over onto my good shoulder. As I did so, a large animal that had been standing right next to my side of the tent took off crashing through the brush, in the next instant I heard what sounded
like my fire place grate being dropped onto the rocks ringing the fire pit and heavy foot-falls of a large animal hurriedly leaving the area of the fire pit. I was certain that these were Sasquatch that had been bold enough to come right into camp and start looking around at all of our gear while we slept in our tent
only feet away! I decided then and there to make a statement and let them know that they were getting carried away with taking advantage of us. I quickly got dressed and took up my handgun and rifle, exiting the tent I immediately fired a series of shots into the nearest tree and voiced my opinion regarding their
conduct. I'm not suggesting that they could understand a single word that I said, only that I had had enough and felt that they needed to know when "too close for comfort" had been reached. Perhaps they had gotten comfortable with us to a point that they felt that they could take certain liberties with coming right into camp and looking around, but I was not about to become so inclined as to allow that. Apparently, my actions were taken as they were intended, because from that night on, they did not violate the perimeter of camp. They were not entirely discouraged however, as they continued to stay around the camp and keep watch at night.

Then suddenly one morning we saw a bear down at the creek north of camp. The bear had mysteriously disappeared for a number of days, something that I attribute to the presence of the Sasquatch, but now, the bear were back. Did this mean that the Sasquatch had then left the area? For the next couple of
days, we saw several different bears in the area. One morning while I was walking along the road, having just crossed the bridge over the creek, a large bear stepped out of the brush and onto the roadway only a few feet in front of me. The bear and I stood there for a moment staring at each other as though we
could not believe our eyes, when suddenly Mr. bear and I came to our mutual senses and departed the immediate vicinity! On one occasion that afternoon, we watched a bear forage up the creek some 20 feet from camp. During all time spent in the presence of bear, not one time did they raid our camp or present any problems or danger. Then as suddenly as the bear appeared, they again vanished.
We surmised that the Sasquatch had returned and soon reached that conclusion due to a return of being followed and not finding any fresh bear sign, along with the other signs and evidence previously noted which had also began at least in part.

Eventually we reached the conclusion that what we had stumbled upon was important and should be reported to some authority. We broke camp and returned home where I immediately contacted John Green for advice on what to do next. John put me in touch with Grover Krantz and Greg May at WSU. Greg May came to my house to interview me and learn of the encounter. I provided him with a sample
of the hair. Greg requested that I take him to the location where the encounter took place and a few days later I did so.

We arrived at the camp site late that night, around 10:30 pm. After parking at the site and exiting the vehicle, we moved around to the back of my truck to open the canopy when suddenly an extremely loud scream came booming down off the side of the mountain just above camp. It lasted for nearly 15 to seconds and at a volume unlike any that I could associate with known animals. I calmly looked at Greg May and asked him to tell me what he thought of that! He smiled and advised me that we were "in business" then loaded his rifle and tossed me a night vision monocular.
Our thoughts were that if one of the animals came into camp or offered a clean shot, we would collect a type specimen then and there. However, for the next couple of days, we had no such luck. Greg did point out some evidence that I had not recognized and shared some interesting information with me concerning these animals and his field investigations.

Once back in Spokane, Greg took the hair samples that I had given him and sent them to a lab in California for morphological tests, which they could not be identified as known animal, synthetic, or of human origin. They were then sent to a lab in Maryland for DNA analysis, the results of which were not revealed to me. Krantz, for reasons known only to him, had decided not to divulge the results to me. However, Greg May did indicate after I pressured him, that I already knew what the results were and what kind of animal the hairs had come from. I strongly suggested that I wanted documentation of the DNA tests for my records, but instead, was given what could only be taken as a "warning" to drop it, and forget about it. Strange response in my opinion and I have not forgotten about it. Nor will I.

Be that as it may, my wife and I returned to the camp for another 4 days to re-examine the entire circumstances.
 

Activities of Witness:   N/A
 

Description of Creature:  N/A
 

Other Notes:    The Colville Indians are well aquatinted with the Sasquatch that frequent the region. They appear however, to be reluctant to discuss this animal with a white man.
 

Additional Notes and or Follow up Comments:  Upon contact the witness had no additional information to add to this report.

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                  Gulf Coast BigFoot Research Organization (G.C.B.R.O.) and or the original submitting party.
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                  the Gulf Coast BigFoot Research Organization (G.C.B.R.O.) or the original submitting party.