Month: June
Location: Undisclosed
Description:
It was decided by the group that I belonged to that we were going to hold a Bigfoot research investigation at a location in West Virginia. After going through all of the planning, we set out on this expedition. An interesting note is that there was very little information, or background history shared about the location. Being that I was relatively new to the concept of expeditions and researching in other locales I never questioned this. As time progressed I did become curious about the events that might have caused this location to be chosen for the expedition. I asked what the history was and was met with silence, and very little information.
We left and heading to West Virginia. It was a pretty uneventful drive, but the scenery was very beautiful. It became more scenic the closer we got to the Smoky Mountains. We arrived at the hosts home and went through introductions and last minute preparations before heading to the campsite. It was decided that I was going to ride to the camp with the hosts wife. I didn’t find this too outlandish, and opted to go with the flow. During the quiet ride to the camp I got curious and I asked her the question that I had previously gotten little information on. What is the history of this place. She began to tell me a few stories that were a little bit unsettling.
In the first account she related that a couple from out of state had pulled their travel trailer into the campground and had some strange things happen during their short stay. She related that the couple heard strange sounds at night, and on occasion would see and hear movement around the trailer at night. On the last day that they were there she related that the wife had gotten up that morning and began cleaning. She started washing dishes in the sink and during doing that something frightening to her took place. She was standing there washing and movement outside the window caught here attention. She looked up and was face to face with a Bigfoot creature. She became very frightened and began to yell. The yelling scared the creature off and woke her husband up. They packed up their camp and left later that morning.
The second story that she related was a bit more concerning than the first. She told me about a high school aged kid who got into an argument with his parents and decided that he was going to run away. He left, and no one had any idea where he had gone. After he left his parents became very concerned due to the concern they had about him possibly doing harm to himself. They contacted law enforcement to report him missing. A search began and about two days later two park rangers happened upon his campsite and vehicle. Upon closer investigation they found that his tent was down, an at initial glance looked like he had started to break down his tent. Everything was there in the campsite, except for him. It was later learned that the tent was ripped to shreds and that there was blood all over it, and his sleeping bag which was inside the tent. She then told me that a search ensued in the forest around the campground. The boy was never found.
Upon hearing this I was immediately skeptical and thought that the latter story was possibly concocted to invoke fear of this place. At that time I had never heard of any kind of attacks by cryptid creatures and thought the likelihood of it was pretty slim based on how encounters seem to play out.
We arrived at the camp and darkness was soon to be upon us. We set up our tents, set a fire pit, and got everything in order. After we got everything in order it well into darkness and we decided that it was time to get something to eat. We gathered around the fire cooking hot-dogs and such. Everyone got done eating and we gathered back around the fire to discuss the plan for that night. We were sitting there, and I was listening to the discussion. As they were talking I heard a very low snapping sound coming from across the road. I guess I was the only one who heard it because they kept talking and no one paid any attention to the direction the sound was coming from. The sound came again from the same general area and I stopped whoever was talking and let them know that I had heard something coming from the wooded area across the road. Bob grabbed his spotlight and took off across the road. He turned it on once he got into the high foliage and began to pan the light back and forth. He stopped panning the light and was focusing on one area. He whistled, and I was thinking to myself that he must have spotted a deer moving in the tall weeds. Next thing I know he calls out to us and says that if we wanted to see one we had better come look. The host of the expedition took off running out of the campsite towards Bob. I decided to stay put in the campsite with Steve. Before the host of the expedition could reach the spot where Bob was standing, the panning of the spotlight started. I assumed that he couldn’t see the creature any longer and was looking for where it had gone. All of a sudden I saw something in the ambient light behind a tree. As the spotlight panned closer to this thing I could make out a clear, large, humanoid silhouette. As the light got closer to it, I watched this thing jump from behind the tree, to the side of the tree. I stood there looking at it, and three thoughts entered my mind. Those were: It’s huge, It’s close, and don’t do anything to piss it off. Steve was standing at a slightly different angle from me, and when the creature jumped from behind the tree he could see the light hit it’s eyes.
I didn’t know much about Steve, but later found out that when he was a kid, a Bigfoot creature would visit him at night and peer at him through the window of his bedroom. It terrified him.
In an instant he was taken back to that memory. He began to seriously freak out and I could hear him loudly saying something about the creature. I thought that something was maybe attacking him, and I turned to see what was going on. He began walking in circles in the campsite, rambling on about that creature this, and that creature that. There were some expletives as well. Steve was a big guy, and the level that he was shaken up concerned me a little. I walked over to him and asked if he was OK, and after about 30 minutes of hyperventilating he seemed to calm down a little. Bob and the host came back into the campsite, and asked if everything was OK.
Shortly thereafter we found out that when Bob had crossed the road and gone into the weeds that he caught a smaller, young looking Bigfoot in his spotlight that was crouched down on a trail that had been worn through the dense foliage. He related that he had whistled to try to get our attention without yelling and scaring the creature away. When he whistled; the creature looked at him… looked at the circus that was unfolding in the campsite, and wheeled around to head back up the trail… away from Bob.