A listener writes “Wes, I had an incident that occurred when I was 14 years old on Mt St Helens two weekends before it erupted.
I’ve thought about it ever since then and after hearing stalking stories on your podcast, I realized that my incident could have involved a Sasquatch. It just clicked one night during the middle of a podcast.
I had also recently seen a YouTube video of a retired Sheriff who says he he saw the military fly three dead Sasquatches out of the area in a net by helicopter after the eruption.
I talked about the video with my sister, who was also involved in the incident, and asked her what she thought was following us that night. She was very interested in the information and acknowledged that she was absolutely scared shitless when it became obvious that something was following us in the forest. In fact, she described it as unnaturally scared.
After all of that and it being the anniversary of the eruption, I thought I’d share the incident with you.
A quick summary of the incident:
My brother-in-law (22), my sister (19) and myself (14) decided to take a drive up to Mt St Helens to check out what was going on in early May of 1980. It was a Friday or a Saturday and two weeks before the May 18th eruption.
After passing through Toutle, WA at around 5:30 pm, we continued toward the mountain before running into a Police barricade. There were no police present and we wanted to go further so we simply moved the barricade and proceeded further up the road. Thinking that we should stay off the main road, we turned onto a logging road and eventually ran into snow on the road. We slid off the road and into a ditch.
We attempted to get the green on green on green Plymouth Scamp out of the ditch for a couple of hours. We eventually gave up when we started running out of daylight.
The only way back to Toutle was to walk. We had no flashlights so we hurried and arrived at the main paved road just as it became pitch black. There were no street lights on the main road.
Shortly into the walk we started to hear noises coming from the forest to our right hand side. We couldn’t see anything due to the fact the heavy cloud cover cut out all of the moonlight which should have been plentiful as it was only a few days after a full moon.
The noise became footsteps and was following us as we were walking. I was getting pretty scared, but my brother-in-law did his best to keep the mood light with his humor about the situation.
Keep in mind that the mountain was very active at this point and we could hear and feel rumbling from it as we walked, making the situation even more scary to a 14 year old.
The footsteps got louder and closer to the edge of the forest but we still could not see what it was. Whatever it was was not on a trail, it was just walking through the brush on the forest floor. It was definitely footsteps and it was unsettling.
We tried to guess what it was when it started vocalizing. It was something between the chortling a pack of coyotes make when hunting and a chimpanzee sound. It wasn’t loud, but it was definitely communicating with something else. This went on for well over 90 minutes and at one point we could hear additional footsteps near the other as well as the same movement on the other side of the road. I really started to freak out.
I don’t know if it was just walking in near complete darkness that was throwing me off, but I felt as if I was starting to get a bit dizzy and a little nauseous the further we walked and footsteps increased.
My brother-in-law assured us that it was coyotes, but after hearing a pack come through my neighborhood and attack a cat about 10 years later, I do not think it was coyotes.
The sounds and footsteps stopped about 2-3 miles from Toutle. We arrived at a gas station about midnight and used a pay phone to call my Dad. He and my brother drove the two hour drive from the Portland area to pick us up and go home. Five hours later we drove back up and hired a tow truck to pull us out of the ditch. Needless to say we had a very awkward conversation with the Deputy who was manning the barricade the next morning. He informed us of the heavy penalty for going beyond a police barricade, but did not fine us.
There are a lot more details in the story that I left out. Please feel free to contact me.”
NW Mike
Mt St Helens is one of the places where the Native Americans say squatches are cannibals. You are lucky you were only escorted out.
I went on a BFRO expedition near there a few years ago. We had some interactions between us and some “things” in the forest, but nothing threatening.
william g
People better pray that volcano in Hawaii doesn’t blow like Mt.St.Helens.
Janeda E
How horribly frightening that must have been.
Renee S
That seems like a rather lengthy amount of time for a squatch to escort/herd humans away…wonder if it was because there were 3 humans or if, maybe, the squatches felt s/t was amiss w/the eruption about to occur?
m99
Once (when we first moved to Washington, in the early 2000’s) we were staying in Battle Ground with my brother, and decided to go up Mt. St. Helens and take a look. We drove through Toutle and up the mountain. We got there in time to view the damaged volcano from the western ridge, but the sun was beginning to go down. It was beautiful! I was engrossed in seeing the sun reflect on Mount St. Helens.
Suddenly a cloud started descending on us. I noticed it and was delighted. I told him look how neat this is! My husband said ‘GET IN THE TRUCK!’ I said, ‘Why? It’s COOL!’ He said again, ‘Get in the truck!’ Once we were in and driving down the little road I asked him, “What is the matter with you? It’s only fog.” He explained that the fog bank was so thick we’d have a hard time seeing the road to get down and didn’t want to stay on that ridge at night. Had we stayed any longer, we would have been enveloped in a thick cloud.
I’m not kidding when I say the cloud literally followed us down the mountain. It was both awesome and scary, since the night rolled in quickly. When we got down to the edge of the mountain, some 100 feet to the highway, standing there in the grassy median were ‘crowds’ of deer. They were just standing there, looking toward the base of the mountain. It was so odd. They weren’t feeding. They weren’t moving. They looked transfixed. We couldn’t believe how strange it looked. Then, I recall the cloud of mist starting to envelop them as we drove past to get back on the Toutle highway. I looked back to see the deer, still standing there, but the fog was up to their necks and it really looked weirder at that point.
We were astounded at the beauty of the place, the way the fog rolled in, how quickly it got dark, AND, the crowds of transfixed deer. Plus, we had never seen so many deer in one place. This was fall and we weren’t prepared for the weather, nor the time elapsing so quickly.
No doubt you kids were paced out as the fog cloud descended rapidly. Glad you made it out. I’m wondering why the road was barricaded? Was it because the mountain was about to explode? Were people told to evacuate two weeks before the eruption? I lived in East Texas back then and didn’t watch a lot of news. I do remember something about it was going to blow, then it did.
Well, I hope we hear you on the podcast sometimes. Thanks for sharing.
Mike B
M99- I lived across the river from mt. Saint helens when it blew. We could see the eruption from my home in Sandy or. The geologists knew she was going to blow for some time, just not when. So yes, the powers that be blocked off access to the mountain several months before she actually blew. Oddly though, they put into effect a NON mandatory evacuation. Old Harry Truman died with the mountain he loved.