A listener writes “In short, I had a very intense encounter in approx. 1984, when I was about 7 years old, whereby I accidentally happened to come upon it while playing in the woods, startled it, and we ended up in a locked stare, face to face, about 10 feet apart, for probably about a minute or so, before it roared at me, breaking my completely frozen-in-fear stance, and I ran away as fast as I could, not looking back or stopping until I was back safe in the house, trying to explain what had just happened. I had a somewhat unique vantage point, too, as we were on a very steep incline, with me above and him below, so our heights were somewhat “adjusted”, bringing me closer to eye level, and as I was higher up the incline, even looking somewhat down at him. Still, that did not make him appear any less massive or intimidating.
It plays like a tape in my mind, never changing, and has for about 30 years now. And I still feel shaky inside every time it does. At the time, I had never heard of Bigfoot or any creature like it. What I saw was simply a monster. A Real Monster. I lived in what was at that time a very small town and rural area in Southeastern Wisconsin, and, of course, this was the ‘80’s, before the internet, and before we even had cable TV. Years later, when we did have cable, I saw a TV show of some kind about Bigfoot, and when I saw the depictions, I knew 100% that it was exactly what I had seen. Even though it did not make sense to me, as logic was telling me it wasn’t possible that these creatures – if they even actually existed – were living in Wisconsin. They were portrayed as believed to be only living in vast areas of wilderness, like the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, etc. I thought they could never go undetected in an area that doesn’t have mountains, providing more difficult to access areas. I tried to convince myself that I saw a bear, even though its face was (and still is) etched in my mind, and there was literally a 0% chance it was a bear.
One of the closest depictions to what I saw is a sketch you once posted of two variations, side by side, of gigantopithecus – one labeled “temperate”, and one labeled “tropical”. The temperate one is significantly close to what I saw, although I must say that many of the other depictions of gigantopithecus I’ve seen are not, and resemble something much more like a conventional ape than a biped. Examples of the characteristics that are remind me of what I saw are: the hooded nose, the small eyes close together, prominent brow ridge, completely erect posture, hair coverage and length, broad shoulders with forward set head giving “no neck” appearance, and long primate-type arms, to name a few. There is also something about the facial expression. I would have to say, though, that what I saw was simply “uglier”.