Jan 12

Boy Scouts of America encounter

In the late 1970s while working for the BSA at Camp Steiner (the Mirror Lake area) I encountered what I believe was a Bigfoot.

On Monday & Friday nights at the Scout camp, there was always a Camp wide campfire held on the far side of the lake. Two large fires would be built and a program offered for entertainment, recognition, and education. The camp sits in a beautiful bowl and there is a natural Echo there …. We (the camp staff) used this echo to great advantage at the Friday night close of the campfire program, by playing “Taps” on multiple trumpets stationed around the lake.

I played a trumpet back then, and frequently got the mission of hiking to a point, distant from the campfire bowl and awaiting a flashlight signal to start the Taps Echo…. Id see the signal, play the first few bars of the tune, and across the lake another horn would join in, the echo’s would come back to us, producing what sounded like Taps in 4part harmony. It was on one of these occasion’s, that I would experience an event that dramatically changed my perception of, or at least the way I view, the unexplained….

Un known to me at the time others in the area were sighting this creature, and reporting what they saw. One report, from a Greyhound Bus Carrying 42 passengers had made the local paper at home and the clipping describing their event was already in the mail to me, & I would read it a few days later at mail call.

As the campfire program was coming to a close for the night, I gathered up my trumpet and alerted my friends on the staff that I was aware of the time, & on my way to a small rock ledge that jutted out into the lake about 200 yards from the campfire bowl. There were at the time approximately 350 scouts and adult leaders assembled there. of some note, it ought be mentioned, that the program is NOT a quiet one, there is singing, laughter, and all manner of noise at a scout campfire! it was a typical Uinta night, crisp and clear, with acceptable star light to navigate with. (we preferred to set off this echo with out giving away our movement to the scouts,) & another trumpet player had departed the fire about 20 min before me, heading the opposite direction along the shore.

Arriving early at the rock ledge at the waters edge, I could see the light of the two dying fires back at the bowl. surrounded by water in front of me, and tall pines and a steep glacial slope behind me, the width of the footpath separating the two elements, I began to silently blow warm air into my horn to warm it up. I watched and waited for the signal, timed to the camp directors closing challenge to the assembled scouts to, “always do a good turn daily” ( Flash flash and the trumpets would sound~ Da dat Daaaaaaaaaa….)

1535439_200772103453771_863947119_nHave you ever been “stared at” from behind? that uncomfortable, “somebody’s watching me feeling”… the intangible sensation of another’s eyes upon your back, that becomes so powerful, that you turn to meet the persons gaze instantly? That is what happened to me, standing on that little rock ledge in the dark…. I became uncomfortable as I waited… something was out there… there had been reports of a Cougar near camp, but I dismissed that out of hand given all the noise… the possibility of another scout, lurking on the hillside above me came to mind, a would be witness to the camp staffs subterfuge, but no…. it didn’t feel like that … Something, was LOOKING at me, thru me, into me… The hair on my neck began to raise…. I turned towards the trees, a scant 8 feet behind me… And SAW it.

Standing between to widely spaced trees on the opposite side of the path, hands grasping the slender pines, stood a creature My mind could not wrap around… I felt a mixture of sheer terror and wonder… So sudden into my life, was this Omnipresent undeniable creature standing before me , I was paralyzed… I couldnt move….

The creature I saw, Towered over me. (Im 6ft1”) Id say “he” was 8ft tall…. he was dark in color, heavy in body & bulk, hairy, (so much so that I could perceive hair hanging down from his arms as he grasped the trees) and he was swaying back and forth from left to right between the tree trunks in his hands. I instinctively knew that this thing “could” toss me around and break me in half with little effort, but it made no aggressive move towards me.
I looked straight into this things eyes and he back into mine… there was a soul there in my opinion.

Then, from the corner of my view I saw the flashlight signal from the campfire,… distracted from this unfathomable thing before me by an outside light, (I really cant explain what went on in my mind at that moment) I lifted my horn to my lips, and decimated the silence, with the first loud clear resonant note that began the tune called Taps, and the creature disappeared , vanishing behind the darkness and the trees on the hillside above me.

There are those who question why I didn’t get a plaster cast of a foot print…we searched and found none. For the same reason 300 scouts a week are hard pressed to make a single cast of a deer print there… the area is a glacial carve out, and castable deep prints In the immediate area are not as available as one might suspect

I Know what I saw…. I know there are those who wont believe me… the duration of my contact with the creature lasted about as long as it did for you to read its description. The story Ive just told is true, and is my first person account of what I believe to be a genuine Bigfoot sighting in the Uintas .

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