Part VII… Bigfoot Sightings
Posted by: Rick Noll on October 6th, 2005
I hadn’t decided yet whether or not that if I was ever confronted with a Sasquatch out in the bush would I or wouldn’t I shoot it. In 1977 this was one of the hottest topics and of much interest to the media when doing stories on the subject… but here was, I presume, a couple, wanting to investigate the animal by killing it. It really was in my face. I was curious, so asked them who they were. How they got the directions here.
They told me that they worked with/for Eric Beckjord… What? The guy we had just talked to? I missed their actual names. Why would he send more then one team of investigators out to the same site? They told us that they were retired and were investing some of their savings in Eric’s pursuit. Hmmm. That he was a great man and they were there to get information that he needed, and wanted. He was very close to solving this mystery. Really!
This new information kind of ticked Dave and me off. We fell back from the group to discuss it. I wanted nothing more to do with Eric and who ever he sent out on these things. I don’t like being second guessed and prefer to have a heads up on things like this. Dave wanted to hang around a bit longer and watch them in action. He ‘s that way… the strange really gets his attention and holds on.
The older couple began right off the bat asking if Dean had seen any lights in the sky around his place. Dean said no but when he was overseas, in Vietnam he had. We drifted further back to get more uninterrupted pictures of the scene while they were busy asking nonsense. Chicken pen, pig pen, bears traps and dead chickens. I thought there wasn’t supposed to be any blood at the scene? There was some here, frozen hard.
We caught up with them a short while later and asked if we could look at this cave now. Dean said sure and walked us over to it. Dave and I went in first with flashlight and camera; behind us came the odd couple.
The cave had a narrow slit opening with embedded rocks in the dirt floor. It quickly got dark and and even colder inside; we had to duck down to get inside. I thought – this was too small for something the size Dean was describing. We were headed for a dead end here quickly.
I heard a strange mechanical clicking sound behind me and then an "Oh Crap!" exclamation from the old man, then a clank-thump against the rocks and ground. I was stooped down pretty low but was able to quickly turn around to see the man’s pistol lying on the ground with him trying to reach it. I saw the hollowed out ends of the shells in the cylinder because the barrel was pointed directly at my eyes – two feet away. I dropped even lower yelling – "What the hell!"
The man finally got to the gun and picked it up. He said sorry in a wavering voice, trying to brush it off and get it back in his holster. I called to Dave and said I am out of here. I nearly had my head blown off just now and stormed past the man and Dean. Dave quickly exited also with Dean slowly following.
We went back over to Dean’s place and the couple came out and started arguing with one another, arms flapping about. We couldn’t really hear what they were saying, but caught the drift of it.
We thanked Dean and said that we were going to check around the valley a bit, see if we couldn’t find some game trails. He told us of some places we might want to check out. I just wanted to get away from that couple Eric had sent out as quickly as possible.
We went down to the only local café and ordered coffee and hot butterhorns. If you have never had coffee and butterhorns you should really try it sometime. It is great and changes your mood quickly. Just what I needed.
Listening to locals talk in these off the beaten path cafes can be enlightening to the activities happening in the area. Tidbits of knowledge about so and so, who’s doin’ what or who, the general mood of the locals. We listened up when some people around a table were talking about a cougar in the area that was coming dangerously close to their grade school and that they were about to go and hunt it down that very morning… before it got one of the kids.
File that as interesting.
We dug out our map and looked at where we thought the most likely place a Bigfoot would come into and out of this valley. We picked a spot, opposite the valley wall from Dean’s place and paid our bill. Time to look for tracks.
I had ridden in Dave’s seafoam green Rambler station wagon many times before. It was a cold beast and we always prayed to the great motor heads in the sky that it would start when needed. It started after some vigorous pumping of the gas pedal. I asked how much gas we had. He said a quarter of a tank, enough to get back to Cle Elm. I asked why he hadn’t filled it up when we left Cle Elm and he said that there was bullet hole half way up in the tank… he couldn’t fill but half way. I didn’t ask.
We found the dirt road turnout to get to where we wanted and quickly came to a stop. It was completely iced over. Luckily it was in the direction towards Cle Elm.
Abandoning the car we packed up our meager gear and began a steady climb to the top. About a mile in we noticed large marks along the steep sides of the road. They had a pretty good stride but slippage apparently erased all detail so we couldn’t really tell what we were looking at. Our pictures showed nothing later as well. We quietly talked of Bigfoot finding itself sliding down the iced over road on it’s rear end. Funny.
We reached a level spot soon after and noticed a small frozen pond with cat tails poking through the ice. It was about 100 feet in diameter. There was no wind so we just stood there, catching our breath, relaxing a bit and was about to start climbing again when I noticed that one of the black tip cat tails was weaving a bit amongst all the rest of them on the pond. I wet my finger and held it up.
No wind.
About Rick Noll
Rick Noll has been actively searching for the Sasquatch since 1969 and continues his pursuit with extended field trips into the Pacific Northwest's most remote regions. Rick has worked with Peter Byrne, René Dahinden, Grover Krantz, John Green, Jeff Meldrum and the BFRO during all this. He helped with many documentaries on the subject including Animal X: The Skookum Expedition and Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.
