Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I am a 24-year-old guy who is from southern Michigan. I have been a listener for a long time, and I decided I would like to share two different stories with you.

I would like to preface: These stories are not incredibly exciting, nor do I believe they are worthy of your podcast. However, they are both strange experiences I’ve had while out in the woods, and I have no explanation for them. Really, I’m just looking to reach out to somebody who has a bit more experience researching these sorts of things, and any opinion or response would be greatly appreciated.

Story 1:
A good friend of mine, who happens to be from Europe that I met a long time ago, wanted to do a road trip across the United States. We left from Michigan and did a tour of a great expanse of the Western U.S. This strange experience happened about halfway through our trip. It was the very end of August in 2022, and at this point we were touring the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. We were a couple of young and broke guys looking for adventure, so during this whole road trip we tried to do dispersed camping as often as possible in order to cut back on costs. One evening, we were looking for a dispersed camping area, and I read online about a spot on the south side of Lake Crescent on an old national forest road. I lack memory of the exact forest road, but we were camped inland and Highway 101 ran between our spot and the lake. We were just south of Meldrim Point on the lake, if that helps.

So, like I said, we were just driving around looking for a spot, and this one seemed to be promising online. It was already dark and getting late at this point, so we decided to go ahead and check this spot out. I remember driving down the road and not seeing a lot of potential for camping initially. Finally, we got to a point with some flat and clear ground where we could set up our tent. Now our first problem has arrived. The spot we are looking to lay our tent is right next to a large group of people camping out of travel trailers. These are the only people we have seen on the road. We did not want to cause them any issue, so we decided to go up to the group, greet them, and politely ask if the area we wanted to set our tent was legal to do dispersed camping. They told us we could, in fact, camp there; however, they came off a bit strange and unwelcoming. This detail will be important for later.

Now we have started setting up our tent. There is a consistent noise in the background of conversation from the group of people. My friend and I continue to set up camp, make and eat dinner, and we head in for the night. For this trip, we shared one massive tent. It could probably sleep up to 8 people, but it was just us two, and we had our own separate sleeping bags and air mattresses. We were winding down and just talking about our day when we started to hear footsteps near our tent.

The footsteps, I would have to guess, were no more than 50 feet from our tent, and that is extremely liberal. They were close. To me, they sounded more like a biped, but to be honest with you, I couldn’t be 100% sure. I am by no means an experienced outdoorsman, hunter, or tracker, but I have spent my fair share of time hiking and camping, and I have had a plethora of wildlife encounters. While these footsteps are falling around the tent, my friend and I begin to feel uneasy and start to discuss the situation. “What is that? Is it some kid from that group of people? Is it an animal?”
After about 10 minutes of this, I feel uneasy to the point where I am going to confront this thing. I don’t know what it is, but it needs to bug off. I was unarmed at the time, so I grabbed a flashlight, bear spray, and a bushcraft knife. All while I am rustling through the tent grabbing these things, I am still hearing the footfalls outside.

My friend and I both stand up, and I ask him if he is ready to exit the tent and confront this thing with me. As soon as I rip the tent zipper down, the noise ceases immediately. I didn’t hear something run, climb a tree, or hit the floor – the noise just stopped. I look around the area with my flashlight and find no trace of life. My friend and I get back in the tent and lay down.

No more than 3 minutes after lying down again, we hear the same footfall. I decided to wait it out for another 5-10 minutes. It is still tramping around our tent. Once again, uneasy and fed up, we go for the same plan. I unzip the tent; the moment we exit, the noise stops again. Once again, we didn’t hear it run away. We didn’t hear it climb a tree or hit the floor. We do an even more extensive search this time, covering a wider area. Still, no sign of life.

Whatever, right? If this thing is gonna stay here, let’s just go to bed. Sure as can be, just a couple minutes after we lay back down and get settled, we hear the footsteps again. This time for just a couple minutes. We hear footsteps, and out of nowhere-WHAM! A loud crash that sounded like someone taking a baseball bat to a tree that was near deafening. I would not say that this sound was quite gunshot-loud, but close enough. As soon as my friend and I hear this, we instantly sit up, and a wave of panic sets over us both. We were terrified.

We immediately start discussing our options. I made the executive decision to leave and tell my friend, word for word, “I don’t know what is out there, but whatever it is doesn’t want us here.” We packed our camp at lightning-fast speed, and we drove a few miles down the road and slept in the car that night.

So I guess this is where I am having a hard time with this story. I didn’t hear anything other than footsteps and what could be portrayed as a wood knock. Could this have been the group of people I was talking about before, running us out of camp? I thought I even heard them down there with walkie-talkies at one point. Could they have been Bigfoot researchers trying to draw a Sasquatch in? Could it have just been a bear, deer, or mountain lion?

But that doesn’t explain why the sound of the footsteps seemed to “shut off” as soon as we exited the tent. It was audible, loud footsteps to silence at the drop of a pin. I cannot emphasize how instant it was. You would think I would hear something run away if it was trying to hide, especially with how large it sounded just pacing. Why also, if there is a natural explanation, could I not find the thing with 2 solid attempts?

I don’t want to say I had a Bigfoot encounter because I really don’t know. I am completely open to a natural explanation to this experience, but I haven’t been able to come up with one yet on my own.

Story 2:
This story takes place on the other side of the country in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, near Tahquamenon Falls State Park. My family owns a cabin that I have been going on trips to since before my first birthday. It is a very special place to me, and we have big family gatherings at this cabin almost every year.

This property has a small cabin with 4 single beds and a couch to sleep, a pole barn, and is located right on a smaller inland lake. From the front door of the cabin to the shore of the lake spans no more than 100 yards. That area is clear-cut and is flat ground.

We were having one of these big family rendezvous in the summer of 2024, and there were probably about 10 people there. Well, the cabin only slept 5, and that was already claimed. My cousins were sleeping on cots in the pole barn. So, I opted to set up a tent between the cabin and the lake for my sleeping accommodation.

I went one night with no weird experiences. Great. The following night, we actually got the blessing of viewing the northern lights. It was absolutely stunning and the best light show I have seen up there to date. We probably called it at about 1 a.m. and headed to bed.

In the middle of the night, my eyes shot wide open, and I sat up in my air mattress. This was an immediate, primordial response, so I immediately tried to figure out why I had done this. Then I hear something that sounds like scratching about 100 feet from me. I am trying to figure out what kind of sound this is. I quickly check my phone, and it is about 3:30 a.m.

The noise keeps going. It reminds me of bark being stripped off a tree. Up there it is almost all red pines, and the bark is quite flaky and can be removed easily. I know a thing or two about wildlife, so this makes me think maybe it is a black bear scratching its back on a tree. Whatever was making this noise was loud, and at the time, that seemed like a perfectly good explanation to me.

Well, whatever it is, I am terrified. I am armed in this situation, but for some reason I was scared to the point where I did not want to confront whatever this was. As my thoughts are racing and I am trying to be as still and quiet as I can, I suddenly notice that the tent gets darker. How is this possible? Let me be clear—there was no shadow or silhouette that came over the tent. The light was just dampened. Then, very slowly, the light came back.

It gave me the impression that someone was up behind the cabin near the driveway and slowly passing a flashlight from right to left, scoping out the area.

Okay, it is probably getting to about 4 a.m., and the noise is staying persistent with no sign of stopping. What I know at this point is that there is someone in the driveway shining a flashlight around camp and a bear scratching its back on a tree simultaneously. Well… that’s not an impossible story, but it’s not making a whole lot of sense.

I then remember that we had a can crusher near our campfire, and we were putting our crushed beer and soda cans into a garbage bag. Could this be the source of the noise? Well, what explanation is there for that? An animal is checking out the garbage bag when the smell of sugar and malt is quite intense, I would assume. What gives with the light?

Both the light and the sounds stayed consistent for about an hour. I checked my phone for the time just after 4:30 a.m., and the lights and sound were still persistent. I am terrified this whole time, yet still exhausted. I fall asleep to these mysterious sounds eventually after checking my phone for the last time.

I wake up in the morning, and I am bound to find an explanation for this weird night. I immediately go to the area where I think a bear could have been scratching on a pine tree. I look at all the trees in that area closely and find no evidence of any bark removed whatsoever. I then go to the garbage bag with the crushed cans. Still no sign of activity. You would think if an animal was in there messing around, I would find a mess, but everything was in the garbage bag clean and tidy.

Well, what the hell is going on? I proceed to ask everyone at camp whether they a) heard some strange sounds last night, or b) were out and about shining flashlights. No one had any idea what I was getting at.

So once again, I am left with no answer to this strange encounter. The only natural explanation I can come up with is that there was some drunk or drug addict trespassing and looking through our garbage bag of cans. That makes no sense. The area is very isolated, not to mention you would have to want a death sentence to trespass in that area. There is not a single person I know near my cabin who is not armed.

Wes, if you somehow made it to the end of these exhaustive, yet not too intriguing stories, I have to give you my gratitude. Thank you for reading this far, and any response whatsoever would be greatly appreciated. I also want to reemphasize: I do not believe these stories are podcast-worthy, nor am I all that inclined to talk on a podcast. I am simply looking for some insight into my strange encounters in the woods and would love to know if you’ve heard anything similar.”