Oct 28

I saw something

A listener writes “I have put off sending you this account for two years. I finally am at a place where I’d like to share it with you, regardless if you’d like me to tell my story or just send you an email. I do need to keep my name anonymous (or first name only is okay) due to my location and job. Also, I’d be happy to go over more details, but below are the basic events that took place.

September 18, 2020 – September 19, 2020
Bumping Lake, National Forest Development Road 1800
East of Mt. Rainier, WA State

I had recently begun researching for a young adult science fiction/adventure book project that was focused on the Cowlitz and Yakama tribes, wilderness survival, and a young boy who is rescued by Sasquatch. My neighbor (I live on the west side of the Cascades) connected me with a very well-known figure in the “Bigfoot” world, an elder from the Yakama tribe. We talked for hours many times over the phone, and then he invited me to Bumping Lake for a camping trip with a few other people.

After driving out to the middle of what seemed to be nowhere, and twenty miles out of cell phone service, I arrived and an isolated campground on the south side of Bumping Lake. When I arrived, my friend asked if I’d met a certain person who was sitting by the fire. I won’t name that person here. But you know him. EVERYONE knows him. Let’s just say this: he was in northern california, on horseback, with a camera, in 1967.

I sat down with him and introduced myself. We had a long chat, just he and I, and I learned that my friend was actually best friends with this person. A few others were there, and I was quite nervous. The area is extremely dark, especially in the fall, and everyone there had had multiple encounters… some even up to 20… with Sasquatch.

When it was dark, we walked up a pathway just near my tent and stood in the pitch black. No lights. No cameras… yet. One person started playing a drum quietly.

Next to my right I heard a thump, as if someone was dropping a huge boulder. Then it happened to my other side immediately. “We aren’t alone tonight” was the phrase I remember one of the group saying out loud.

My friend had a night vision scope, and so I asked to see it. I looked to my left and up a hill.

What I saw will stay with me forever. There was a dark outline of a man with a small head that looked like it was pointed. The arm was reaching out and looked as if to be holding, or leaning on, a tree. Maybe as if it was peaking out.

I lowered the scope and blinking hard. I looked again and saw the shadow again, this time the arm shorter, as if it had adjusted its stance.

I mentioned in a whisper that I think I saw something. I looked again and the scope was malfunctioning. It looked like the screen from the matrix, with green digital pixels swirling about. I handed the scope to my friend, who looked through it and said it all seemed to be working just fine. I looked again, in the direction of the figure, and the pixilation was even stronger.

We made our way back to camp in the pitch black. The rain was dripping quietly, which lasted all night, causing an eerie sensation on the tents.

I lay there wide awake, and decided to watch a downloaded video on my phone as I couldn’t sleep. My back was to the side of my tent, with my pack in between me and the edge.

I dozed off around 1AM. Suddenly I was awoken when something poked my foot. Like a stick or something sharp, through the foot of the tent. I looked down and there was nothing that I could have accidentally kicked. After about 30 minutes, I felt myself getting tired again when I heard a “whoop” from far away. I then fell asleep about an hour after that.

At 4:32AM (I remember looking at my phone after this event) I was awoken and was pulled backwards toward the edge of my tent. I thought at first maybe I jerked awake, but it couldn’t have been as I was still from the waist down, and my torso was pulled back as if I was in a leaning back position but lying on my left side, facing the middle of the tent.

Needless to say, I did not go back to sleep.

The next morning, I got out of my tent. My friend and I went for a hike and he showed me all about tree foliage, breaks that we found, and areas where the ground was flattened due to the weight of a lookout, or a sentinel, that would watch from a distance behind a tree.

I spoke with someone else that was there and he mentioned at 4:30AM he had noticed to shining lights that were floating in our camp. Red orb-like lights. He mentioned he had heard someone giggling, like a young girl, the night before. He had put out a wild flower bouquet as well as coins for any “visitors” to play with, and mentioned they had been stacked differently, the night after he heard the giggling (he had spent the night before).

Our friend who I mentioned from the 1967 expedition was there to be interviewed for a conference coming up. He hadn’t heard or seen anything.

The next day, we were sitting around the fire, watching the interview process, when a solo crow started cawing, and a baseball-sized rock came crashing near our camp site, rolling into the clearing.

We also drove deeper into the wilderness that day and found a tee-pee structure that was made of 100-150 foot trees. They had been placed upside down and it was an enormous structure. It looked ritualistic. None of the trees had fallen over… there were no signs of anything being ripped from the ground of exposed roots.

We then went to the lake where there were miles of mud exposed from the low water level. Hundreds of footprints were found, all with distinct toe markings as if someone or something had walked barefoot the night before. Bumping Lake is a hotspot for sightings over the years, and local legend tells of families of Sasquatch that tower up to 10 feet tall and “friendly/curious” with respectful visitors to the area. “Squatchers” have reported little to know incidents, but the folks I was with, members of local tribes and such, keep quiet and to themselves about their experiences. I am happy to share mine although I want to keep it very anonymous.”

7 Responses to “I saw something”

  1. Linda B

    There’s something about your story that makes he catch my breath, almost afraid to read what happens next. You were in the company of the true experts we all admire, experiencing things that we in this membership believe happen, and yet if you hadn’t shared it with us we wouldn’t know much about any of it, if anything at all, and it’s all amazing. Thank you so much for telling us, I sure hope you are going to come on the show.

  2. Linda G

    That sounds terrify, although not physically hurt. I know you were with experts but that tent touching would have been the end of it for me. I’m still chicken in the dark, even in my own home.

  3. Charles R

    What a fabulous experience, and to be with people that have a huge acumen with there fellow forest giants. What I would give to be in such an experience and also with the legend, Bob Gimlin. Have you written that book as yet?

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