Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

John writes “Hey Wes, I have been a listener of your show for a few years now, and I’m finally feeling like it’s time to share my story. My cousin and I, when we were kids, were chased out of the woods by what turned out to be what we could only describe as a sasquatch.

We were about 10 years old at the time, and normally I would dismiss an experience like this as a kid’s imagination running wild, but I am sure we saw what we saw that day. We thought it was a crazy man that was messing with us. As this thing chased us out of the woods, we got to what we thought was a safe distance away, and then we stopped to look for the “person” chasing us, so we could get a good look at this “guy’s” face and identify him so we could tell our parents and watch out for him. That’s why I am sure that what we saw come out of those woods that day was not at all a person chasing us. Here is the whole story –

When I was about 10 years old (around 1993), my family, along with my aunts and uncles and cousins, would get together for a camping trip every year on Memorial Day weekend. That year, we chose to go camping in Itasca State Park in Northern Minnesota. It was early evening, and my cousin and I decided to ride our bikes from the campground down to the headwaters of the Mississippi river, which begins at Lake Itasca in the state park. We arrived at the walking trail that lead to the river, and we left our bikes there and walked in. There were two other people there, but they were on their way out, so we ended up being there by ourselves. We were just looking for cool rocks and that sort of thing when I heard a whistle that I thought was some type of bird. Even as a kid, I had a keen interest in birds, and this bird’s whistle was one I had never heard before, so it piqued my interest. The tune sounded sort of like “yoo-hoo”, and I whistled that tune back to see if it would respond. Every time I whistled, got a response. I even changed up my intervals between whistles, to make sure it wasn’t just a coincidence in timing, but sure enough, every time I whistled, it would whistle back. It sounded like it was getting a little closer every time it responded to my whistle, so I was excited about possibly getting to see what kind of bird this was. After a little while, when the whistle was getting pretty close, something just seemed off. It didn’t seem like it was a bird to me anymore.

I thought it might be a person whistling, so I stopped whistling to it. Whatever it was, it kept whistling, despite no longer getting a response from me. As it got closer, the intervals between its whistles became less and less, almost as if it were starting to be frantic. I could now hear footsteps in the water, as if someone were walking in the lake along the shoreline coming towards us. I couldn’t see anything in the lake, as the the woods blocked my view down the shoreline. Then, this strange smell filled the air suddenly. I don’t know exactly how to describe this smell, as I had never smelled anything like it before. It wasn’t exactly musky, but a rotten kind of musky smell, like a dog that had rolled all over a dead fish, but not quite exactly like that either.

The smell scared me, and it was very strange that a smell made me feel fear. I looked at my cousin and said “do you smell that? Let’s get out of here!” We ran down the trail, all the while hearing this thing frantically whistling to us. We got to our bikes, and I told my cousin we should ride just a little way up the trail and stop so we could get a good look at this guy who was screwing with us, so we could describe him to our parents and watch out for him around the campground. We rode just far enough where we knew we could get away on our bikes from someone chasing us on foot, maybe 25-30 yards away, and we waited for him to emerge. I could hear him running through the woods, off the trail taking the most direct rout to the bike trail.

He sounded large. I watched the woods where I heard him crashing through, and I saw a spruce tree, maybe a 15 foot tall tree, shake and sway as if a bulldozer had hit it. I remember thinking “what the heck is coming out of these woods?” Then it emerged. It was a Bigfoot. It must have been at least 8 feet tall if I had to guess. It was wide and muscular like a gorilla. It was completely covered in hair that was maybe 3-4” long and a dark reddish brown color. It moved so smoothly through the thick brush in the forest, thick brush and undergrowth that any man would struggle to get through on foot. We were absolutely terrified. We rode our bikes back to the camp ground faster than we had ever ridden, in tears from being so scared. The adults saw something was terribly wrong when we rushed back and asked us what had happened. We didn’t really know how to say it, so we just told them we saw bigfoot. Of course they all laughed at us and thought it was ridiculous. We got really upset that everyone was laughing at us, so they stopped joking about it but still didn’t take us seriously. If it weren’t for the fact that we stopped with the serious intent of getting a good look at this “guy’s” face, I would probably dismiss this as a kid’s imagination getting the best of him. But I was dead set on getting a good look and seeing who this person was, and because of that, I have to believe I actually saw what I saw. I have never had another experience like that one, and I’m not sure I ever want to again.

That’s my story. I really don’t tell this story to many people because I know it makes me sound crazy to say that I saw a sasquatch. But I was dead set on getting a good look at the face of what we thought was going to be a man coming out of the woods after us. And I did get a good look, it just wasn’t a man that I got that good look at. It was terrifying and stuck with me my whole life, and I can’t explain it to be anything else than what I saw.”

Whitney writes “I was raised in Washington and lived all over the state at different times in my life so as you know, Bigfoot and Sasquatch are just something that are naturally spoken about. I wasn’t sure if I ever really believed in it and never gave it too much thought but I do recall as a small child watching a National Geographic special about it with my dad.

I was probably 4 or 5 and remember seeing the Patty film shown over and over on that and the show of course just builds it up and presents the evidence without ever really concluding anything but as a kid, I remember being terrified that night, too scared to sleep or even move in bed.

The main experience I wanted to write in about was when I was about 27 which would have been 2017 or so. I was living in Bellingham, WA at the time but worked out at a gym in Mount Vernon. My trainer there would organize these hikes for anyone to join on Saturdays. This was early July, the weekend before the 4th if I remember correctly. This Saturday was the first hike of the season and only me and one other older guy (probably in his late 40s at the time) were able to go. The 3 of us (me, older dude and my trainer) carpooled to this hike that was supposed to have waterfalls up in Concrete. I’m not sure exactly where as I wasn’t driving but anyway. We get up to where the trailhead is supposed to be and pull off the road in a turnout. This was not a clearly marked hike and so we set out to find what we were looking for across the highway from where we parked. As I know you are familiar with Washington, it’s not uncommon for it to look dense and wooded along the side of the road and then once you cross into an opening, there is a little clearing. So we headed into one of those spots and crossed down through a small dip that would probably be filled with water when it rained. The trees opened up not even 20 ft from the road and we were in a campsite. There was a car parked down there, a tent and various other personal belongings but no one was there. It was pretty clean, not a lot of trash around so it didn’t appear to be a homeless situation but instead looked like someone had just left or left for the day but everything that was there was thrown around. Tent was up but askew, random shoe and some clothing items and everything tossed around. We looked around for about 2 minutes but felt weird about being in someone else’s camp spot so we turned around. For some reason I remember saying to the other two as we walked out, “you ever wonder how often you’re near someone missing and don’t know it”. My trainer responded with, “that’s a chilling thought”.

We crossed the road and back near the truck decided we weren’t going to find the trail but where we parked was graveled and clearly an area that had been logged within the last 5 years so there was brush along the graveled road that winded up the mountain and small trees growing back in that lower area. This seemed like it would be a nice “hike” to walk up the graveled road, was wide enough for us to walk side by side and would be a steady incline up the hill.

We weren’t trying to be quiet since most common to the area is black bears and they are pussies and cougars aren’t that cool with noise either. I’m pretty sure there weren’t any grizzlies in the north cascades at that time. So as we’re walking up, we’re bullshitting about whatever and had been walking for maybe an hour and up ahead (maybe 20-25 yards) we all seemed to notice something dark in the scrub bushes on the right side of the road at the same time and stopped.

To give some context there was a steep cliff side to the left of the road, the road we were standing on, brush on the right side and then a sloping drop off to the smaller trees below. This moment of us staring at the thing and it staring back seemed to last forever but realistically was a split second. The guy in his 40’s said “what IS that” and in my head I was trying to compute what I was seeing too and waiting for it to turn its head. I remember thinking, “if I can see the nose/snout maybe it’ll make more sense” but as it turned its head, there was no snout and as it turned away, from the bush pulling its head back, there was a hand that had been previously blocked by its head. Picture a kid hiding in a bush and then getting caught and turning to run away because that’s what I thought of. For some reason the hand remained in the bush for a split second longer and it was gone. Both guys were like, “we gotta get a better look” and took off running up the road. Now I’m thinking, “you fools are crazy, there is no way I’m running up to stick my head into a bush where an unidentified thing just was” but I didn’t want to be left behind either because I felt creeped so I half jogged behind them because I didn’t want to get left. They didn’t see any sign of anything once they got up there (I was too afraid to look) but while standing there I remembered that campsite and thought that thing ran in what would be a straight line to that site and felt like we should go back and see if they need to be warned.

We continued up the road and I kept looking back behind us as I still had the feeling of being watched or stalked. I did it so often my trainer asked me, “why do you keep doing that you’re freaking me out”. We hadn’t walked very far when I heard (or rather felt) a very deep growl. It sounded like far off thunder and I felt it more than I heard it as the volume felt almost like a whisper, like it was directly in my ear. I checked the faces of each of the guys and neither of them acted like they heard anything but I stopped and said, “I think we should turn around” and they agreed. We made it back to the truck fairly quickly without re-checking the campsite.”