A listener writes “Hi Wes, I saw a video of yours centering in Sequoia National Forest. I have two homes in that area. I am an old guy, 70 years, I have a B.A. in Anthropology, UCLA, 1970 and believed in bigfoot since 1967.
July 10, 2005, camping ten miles as the crow flies from my summer house with my grandson, 13 years. He believes in nothing “I need more proof” is his saying and a family joke. We were camping (location removed) about 8:00 PM, twilight. My grandson sees a figure running along the road, on a bridge crossing the creek, about 100 yards away. He was upset. He described it as very tall, moving “inhumanly fast” and “blacker than black”.
I’m interested in bigfoot but what are the chances? I told him it was a cow. He said it was upright, running like a man. We when through the possibilities and I told him he had seen a large black man, like an NBA type riding a bicycle. I told him the next morning we would find bicycle track in the sand bordering the road. I forgot about it and went to sleep.
Next morning he was up wanting to walk over to the sighting area. I had my coffee and was not in a real hurry. Finally, we went over to the area and found a long string of footprints, like human prints only large. I tried to duplicate the stride and could not without jumping.
I now went into full investigation mode. We got some string and tied knots at the length and width and the length of the stride. We also measured the approx. distance from the sighting. I had my grandson go back to the camping area while I held my hand over my head (like Bobo does). I am 5.9 and my hand was AT LEAST one foot higher when my grandson indicated that was its height.
These prints were 14.5 inches long, and the stride was 81 inches from foot to foot. One print was in shallow sand with the asphalt below. It was crystal clear. I could see the marks of the toes, each toe perfectly.
Now we wanted to exclude other possibilities. We went up and down this 22 mile road looking for campers. No black campers. One old white couple and one Hispanic family.
What did my grandson see? My best non-bigfoot explanation is still the NBA sized black guy running along with no shoes at twilight. Or was this a bigfoot? Which is more probable?
Later, I calculated the height of the individual using 15% of the foot-length which is a human standard. This makes the individual 6.7 to 6.9.”
Gumshoguy
Fascinating … I remember talking about reports like this a long time ago and I think it is interesting on a couple of fronts. A 13-year-old is a very good witness and the grandpa or grandma did a fine job reporting including listing all of the important parts. (Hope you’re reading this grandpa or grandmother) .
Bigfoots/ Sasquatches run at super human speed with the grace and quiet finesse of a ballet dancer running through the woods, but with the weight of one ton steer.
For one, there are many key indicators in this report that I see that stands out waving red flags all over the place. Months June through September or seasonably summer through fall seem to be to be the most active times when people see and report encounters and yours was July.
There are also a couple peak times of day when activity appears to be greatest and those are late evening through midnight, and your reported time was 8:00 p.m.? The second peak as it were appears to be from 1:00 a.m. through 5:00 a.m. and then there is a lull in activity when perhaps they sleep?
Campers and hikers together represent the greatest block of 8,500 reports. Hikers often journey off into remote areas as do many campers however, campers represent food, smells, curiosity and they usually present opportunities to investigate when they sleep.
The area you intimated is within a large national forest, the area is lush with wildlife natural tributaries and did I read correctly, you mentioned a bridge? Bridges are favorite haunts of Bigfoot/ Sasquatches.
It is possible that the witness’ position to the animal created an angle of view which resulted in an over-estimation of its height, or that in his heightened state of emotion he simply thought it was bigger than it really was. However, the witness did have an excellent basis for height comparison and estimation in comparison to other inanimate objects for reference purposes nevertheless it was a good observation.
Most people will miss the small details.
Camping represents a subset descriptor identifying a group who repeated encounters or found physical indicators identical to other known Bigfoot activity or heard frightening roars or screams and or felt powerful sensations of overwhelming fear, dread, as though being watched. The likelihood of campers experiencing encounters with Bigfoot creatures rises proportionately with their penchant to find more and more remote locations far off the beaten track. Very unlikely a big man would be out running barefooted alone that time of evening therefore, in my opinion your grandson saw what you suspected all along, a Bigfoot ….
RubenD S
That’s exactly what I was going to say!
Paul M
YES the old BAREFOOT RUNNING IS NOT COOL ON HUMAN PADS… And can be downright PAINFULL…. Hell I don’t do it in my grassy backyard anymore… Always little sticks and twigs. Just enough to keep me PUTTIN ON MY TENNIS SHOES… AND IN THE AFTER HOURS YOU CANT SEE what’s at you feet… Forest’s DARKEN QUICKLY… Even the roads thru them… YOUNg MAN GOT SASQUATCHED…
Albert R
I believe the height calculation is wrong for a 14,5 inch long foot.
If the foot length is 15% of the height and the foot is 14.5 inches long then I think that would make the height a hair over 8 feet.
14.5 inches / 12 inches/foot = 1.208 feet
1.208 feet / 0.15 = 8.05 feet