Love your show. I was not too keen on emailing you as I tend to be a very private person, but as I listened to more and more of your show, I thought I would share my experiences with you. I grew up in southwest Alaska, where Bigfoot or Sasquatch is known to most locals as “hairy man.”
I witnessed one of these hairy men in the middle of the night in Naknek, Alaska while out walking around town back in 2003 or 2004. It crossed under some street lights and was somewhere between 1/8 to 1/4 mile up the road from my friend and me. It shocked us and we froze gripping each other’s hoodies and arms tightly. I could feel all the hair on my body standing. It was a golden brown/blonde color. You could see the long hair, maybe 4-6 inches, float off its arms as it moved. It crossed the road in what seemed like a few steps, but was at least in the range of 4-5 steps. It was mind-boggling and I could not process it. I would have estimated it to be around 7 feet tall and it appeared to float as it walked, as many of your witnesses have claimed. It was of lean, athletic build and I would even describe it as lanky, however, it very well could have been larger and may have appeared so if we were closer. My friend and I knew that what we had seen was the same creature of local folklore when it disappeared off the road. Oddly, we continued walking in the same direction that night. The thought of them out there still is very unnerving and and the memory sticks with me today.
Later, I would describe it to my wife as supernatural or phantom-like because of the way it appeared to walk. It definitely changed my life and I have spent many hours off and on over the years looking into sightings, encounters, recorded sounds, and anything else related to these beings. I never thought I would see something like that and thought the odds were next to none.
That being said, there are a couple strange things that happened to people I grew up with, as well as my family. One story dates back to my great-grandfather coming face to face with a white hairy man while on the ice off of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, where I am originally from.
My sister and her husband also witnessed a large gray hairy man walking effortlessly upstream one summer night while camping on their boat on the Naknek River. They also felt as if it were supernatural-like in its appearance, like it was a ghost or spirit walking in the mist.
I believe I also have heard Sasquatch on a deer hunting/camping trip with my wife and in-laws in the Umatilla Forest in eastern Oregon in 2014. The loud yelling/screams baffled everyone around the campfire. I had looked into recordings while in college and I gave a knowing look to my wife, but did not say anything to the group. I kept my thoughts to myself.
I also woke up one night several years ago at the same campsite, but during elk season, to extremely loud wood knocking and crashing. I was scared for my life as the people I was hunting with left most of the guns outside the tent and I was not going to go out to see what was making the noise. The next morning I mentioned it to my father in law and his brother to see if they had heard all the commotion and my father in law said he did, but did not comment as to what he thought it was. His brother slept through it. For my mind’s sake, I passed it off as elk fighting or raking brush.
I have heard of other local stories/folklore around the places I grew up in Alaska, as well. I just thought I would share with you my personal experiences.”