Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “My encounter happened in 2006 in the black hills of South Dakota. I was 13 and on a family road trip with my parents and my sister.

My dad had a pickup with a slide in camper. I don’t recall the exact location, but one night we stopped to camp on a small hill top. It was not a camp site or a camp ground, but you could tell other people had stopped there in the past. It was a clear night, no clouds whatsoever and warm. I decided I wanted to sleep out in the tent by myself for the night while my parents and sister slept in the camper. To expand on the camp site, it was on a small hill top, kind of open plains but there were some smaller trees spread sparsely around us, reaching a max night of maybe 6′. It was a clear night, no clouds and a FULL moon.

I was laying in the tent on my stomach watching a movie on my portable DVD player, and I remember seeing the moonlight in front of me through the tent. I remember vividly what happened next. I was watching the movie Along Came Polly, and I even remember the part of the movie I was at. It was the scene that Philip Seymour Hoffman is playing basketball with Ben stiller and is yelling “Make it rain!” I saw a shadow move directly in front of the moon… an outline of a large head, and shoulders. But not a defined head and shoulders like if it was a person. It was kind of a long and drawn out shadow as if it was covered with hair or something and there were no definitive aspects to it or sharp distinct attributes like a persons head going into a small neck and then back out to shoulders. If that makes sense. At this point I take my headphones off and am waiting to hear something…. I hear nothing. I am waiting to see if it happens to be a cloud moving in front of the moon…. it is perfectly still. I yell out “very funny Chelsea (my sister)… go back to bed”. I had the thought she was trying to scare me. But then thought it couldn’t be because she is deeply afraid of being out in the dark by herself.

I keep watching this shadow standing outside my tent… waiting for any movement thinking as a 13 year old, “if it’s a dear, it should have run and I yelled… if it is a bear, it would be moving and grunting and sniffing and maybe checking me out, especially since I made noise.” I at this point in my life did not know a lot about Bigfoot. I watched for what was probably around 3-5 minutes still seeing the outline of a large head and shoulders. I was so scared that I closed the DVD player, put on the headphones, and closed my eyes and fell asleep so as to not have to deal with whatever was outside. Then I awoke in the morning telling no one of what happened. I don’t know what was there to this day. But to me, I have no other explanation. Any other animal would have either made noise or ran off when I yelled. The sky was completely clear so no clouds in front of the moon, and even if there was they would have been moving. And no trees in the line of sight of the moon either. I have always thought that Sasquatch could exist but due to no physical body I have somewhat on a small scale doubted it. But that night has left me with no other explanation. Either way, I hope you receive this well and would love to hear back from you.”