Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I’ll start my email off with a little background about myself & how I discovered your podcast. My name is Juan, I’m 30 years old, I’m from New Mexico.

I’m Native American from a northern tribe. Growing up on the rez, there are stories about giants living in the mountains, coming down to steal women & eat kids. And other stories how our Native peoples fought the giants to protect the people. And of course there’s the stories to scare the kids like *don’t go outside after dark or so & so will get you & take you. As I’m sure you know, there are a lot of other stories & superstitions that go along with Native American beliefs & culture. Getting to how I discovered your podcast, myself & my girlfriend were on our way back to Albuquerque from a weekend getaway drive/trip to Colorado when we discovered your podcast on Spotify. It was late, it had to be after 11pm or so when we were on highway 550 passing the Jemez mountains.

Driving passed the mountains, I told my girlfriend my sasquatch experience I had in the Jemez mountains & then we proceeded to search “Sasquatch/Bigfoot” on Spotify & found your show, which is great by the way, definitely the best one out there. So, getting to my experience & sighting. It was back in either 2015 or 2016, hard to remember. I was with my mom, sister, cousin & two of my aunts. Here in NM, we the locals go Pinon picking to gather the Pinon nuts to eat & sell, as you’ll often see people on the side of the road with signs that say “Pinons for sale” you can either buy them raw or roasted & salted, they even have Pinon coffee now. That’s what we had planned for the day, to go Pinon picking. My aunt had heard of a “good Pinon picking spot” up in the Jemez mountains that her friend had told her about that was only accessible by 4×4 because of how bad the roads were. So, my aunt asked if we could take my truck, The six of us loaded into my crew cab truck with a cooler with lunch & drinks & off we went. To give an idea of where we were, we took 550 to Jemez & turned off towards Ponderosa on 290, from there we got onto forest state roads. My aunt was giving the directions of when & where to turn, I’ve always wanted to go back to the location, but I don’t recall the roads & turns we took to get there. If you were to look at a map, my best guess is we were somewhere on Southeast side of Jemez Springs. We had reached our destination after driving for some time, by destination I mean it was “this looks like a good spot, pull over here” haha. I had pulled off the “road” into a clearing & we started Pinon picking, which is not for the faint of heart or for someone who doesn’t have the patience for it, as you literally have to pick each Pinon off the ground by hand & place it into a bucket, container, or sacrificial pillowcase. I’m sure others have a more efficient way of doing it, but for us that was the process. Being in my early 20’s, getting tired & bored of it came only about an hour or so into it. So, I decided to wonder off & do some exploring of the area. While we were there, other trucks had passed us in both directions, so it was obvious other people were up there.

There was no cell phone reception in the area we were at, I decided to leave my phone in the truck plugged into the charger. I figured if I couldn’t use my phone, might as well have a full battery for when we get back to town. I had wondered off to the East of the road we had driven in on. After walking for some time, about 30mins or so in one direction, I came to an overlook area and climbed onto a rock to sit on to have better viewing of the area below. My best guess would be that from the bottom to the top where I was, it was about 100ft up or so. Below there were trees up high and grass below, the area I was looking at in front of me had a curve to it and there was a road that went from left to right. There was a herd of cows below grazing. I sat and watched them for a bit. After awhile a truck had popped up on the road from the right side of the area, it was making its way to the left side of the area. The cows were in the road in the path of the truck, so the driver started to honk it’s horn and rolled the window down throwing get out of the way hand motions to get the cows out of the way. The cows weren’t budging haha. Finally, the passenger in the truck got out and started to yell & motion the cow to get out of the way, the cows finally moved enough so that the truck could continue on its way. After the truck had driven off, the cows continued grazing and were slowing moving to the left of the area, that’s when I saw something moving in the trees above were the cows were.

At first, I didn’t think anything of it, I just thought it was a cow or cows making its way to the rest of the herd below. After watching and focusing in on it, I realized that what I was looking at was one object moving from tree to tree, always staying hidden behind the next tree trunk for coverage. I thought it was a cow at first because of how wide this thing looked. It looked to be the width of a cow broadside. My mind was trying to figure out what I was looking at and finally realized and saw that what I was looking at were shoulders, and legs moving and arms swaying and reaching out to the next tree in front of the next. As I’m writing this email, my heart rate is increasing just writing what I saw that day. After seeing the shoulders, legs, and arms, I finally saw the head & realized how huge and how tall this thing looked at the distance I was looking at it from, which was about 250-300 yards away “as the crow flys”. It looked like a shadow moving, but I could see the legs taking steps as it was walking between the trees, and when the sunlight hit it, I could see that it was brownish in color. This thing was stalking the cows below and had absolutely no idea I was there watching from up above. Before this thing could get any closer to the cows and make any kind of effort to catch one, I heard a yell/scream coming from the direction I had first spotted it from. And man, as soon as those cows heard that yell, they booked it like no tomorrow clear across to the other side towards the direction the truck went. After that, my attention went back to the figure I saw moving in the trees. Just as fast as those cows took off, this thing beelined it in the direction the yell/scream came from. There was no moving from tree to tree trying to be sneaky, it just took off in a straight line in one direction towards the sound.

I was already freaking out from what I was seeing and after I heard that yell, I was frozen, my heart was racing, I had goosebumps, I didn’t know what I just saw and heard. After this thing disappeared out of sight, I made my way back to the truck. I was running for my phone incase this thing came back, or another yell happened, to try to capture anything on my phone. I got my phone and made my way back to the spot I was at, I sat there and waited but nothing happened. To landmark where I was at when this all happened, I took a picture of a unique looking tree that was where I was at, to this day I still have the photo of the tree in case I ever find myself back up in that area. When we all got back to the truck to go home, I didn’t tell anyone what I experienced, because they would’ve all thought I was joking or messing with them. Some time had gone by before I told them what had happened that day we were up there. I don’t remember the occasion of all of us being together, might’ve been a holiday, birthday or cultural gathering when someone brought up a story of “did you hear so and so saw/heard a bigfoot” that’s when I told them about my experience that day in Jemez. Now that my family and close friends know I’m a “believer” they always send me media articles of sighting in NM or buy me sasquatch items & clothing haha. For New Mexico being a big state compared to others, the communities are small and seem like someone always knows someone you know through a mutual friend/family member. And the Native communities are even smaller were everyone knows everyone. I have a sasquatch sticker on my truck and see other vehicles around town stickers almost daily. It’s definitely a conversation starter. I’ll be out and about & someone will ask “what’s with the bigfoot sticker?” or I’ll be wearing a sasquatch shirt and people will ask “are you a believer”, and they’ll proceed to tell me about someone they know who has had some kind of experience or encounter. That’s my story.

I’ve only told a handful of people the whole story and where it took place. Other Natives in the area will say “yup, he’s up there, so and so saw/heard one”. If I was a sasquatch, I’d definitely call the Jemez mountains and wilderness my home. There’s plenty of small & big game up there (rabbits, foxes, coyotes, turkey, deer, elk, bears) and water resources from the lake, rivers and streams that have plenty of fish in them, there’s also the pinon nuts an berries, all of it could sustain a sasquatch diet. Another little side note, my girlfriend’s dad and brothers are hunters, she casually told them I’ve seen one and come to find out, they’ve had experiences and heard stories about sasquatch on their hunting land and a story about a sasquatch seen stealing a sheep on the Navajo reservation, running across a field into the mountains and another story about a sasquatch being shot and buried on the reservation and blacked out SUV’s going and retrieving the body. Last story I’ll finish with is of a close family friend of mine that works for a state department (not going to mention the exact name). He’s been in the mountains most of his career, knows every animal & animal sound, but he heard a yell/scream that he couldn’t identify and attributes it to it being a sasquatch and seeing/finding footprints. Hearing other people’s encounters and experience on your podcast has given me the courage to write you this email.”