Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I was reminded of something that happened to me in late summer 2010. I had dismissed it quickly because of how it affected me at the time. I was taking a friend home from town. We passed a barn that was on fire. The flames were very high and the smoke higher than the flames.

I watched the fire from his house which was on the hillside above. I took a different route home to avoid getting in the way of emergency vehicles. I made a left turn onto Lake Earl Drive and saw something step away from a tall hedge. It stepped down into a ditch maybe three feet deep and five feet across. It stepped down into the ditch with one foot and stepped up on the road with the other foot. Just before I saw this thing I had slowed down because I was amazed that the light from the fire was visible where I was three miles away. I stopped to watch the light reflecting off the clouds that had come in from the ocean when I noticed movement at the edge of my car headlights. When it was on the road on my left it turned and started walking in the opposite direction from me. I was driving slowly at that point, maybe 5 mph. The thing covered so much ground with only a few steps. In one step it was in the middle of another street that met up with Lake Earl Drive.

At that point it turned. I’m not sure if it turned toward me or away from me but that is when I saw it outlined in the light from a nearby house and something snapped in my head. I think I said something like “Holy Shit” then I pressed on the gas pedal. I had this thought that it was coming after me, that it was going to climb into the back of my truck and reach through the back window. I thought it might be chasing me even though I was going 50 mph by then. I kept saying out loud to myself “What the hell was that?” I was kind of screaming it and looking in my center mirror. I lived five miles from the place where I saw the thing. I lived in the same woods that this thing had stepped out of. I didn’t want to get out of my car when I got home but I didn’t want to sit in the driveway alone in the dark either. I worked up my courage and got into the house. I told my husband and he seemed convinced because of how I looked when he saw me step through the front door.

I didn’t see much detail except that it was big, had shaggy dark hair all over, its arms were unusually long, and it seemed to not have a neck. I couldn’t see its face, hands or feet. I can tell you it was not wearing shoes or anything that resembled clothing. Later I made up a story that what I saw was a kid in a ghillie suit. As luck would have it maybe a month later, I saw a kid in the Safeway parking lot wearing ghillie pants. I knew right away that what I saw was not someone in a ghillie suit. I felt conflicted knowing this fact because I was left with the problem of trying to explain what it was to myself.

I grew up in the forest. My siblings and I would spend hours bushwhacking all over the hills. I have been up close to black bear, elk, and mountain lion. I’ve been within spitting distance of a shark and sea lions. I’ve been held hostage by men with automatic weapons. I have never felt the kind of threat to my life as I did that night from a thing on the side of the road. I can’t help but feel kind of stupid for what I felt that night. I think I felt stupid after I got home and decided to explain it away. There was much of the experience that I had forgotten until I started listening to other people tell their stories and their sense of crushing fear. Hearing their reports I realized that I knew what they were talking about.

I have been a certified lifeguard with open water training, I’ve had wilderness first responder training, and I work with people who are suicidal. I consider myself to be cool-headed especially in a crisis. I’m fearful but for the most part I can channel my fear into a coherent response. I’ve never experienced that kind of fear before. It is unexplainable all around. Thank you for giving me a forum to share this. I think I needed to confront this experience.”