Eyewitness to Bigfoot: A Terrifying Encounter in Washington’s Deep Woods

0:01 You're listening to Big for Society and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Tonight we dive into the chilling story of a twelve year old who had a face to face encounter with something not of this world, a sasquatch. This is a story of Stephen, a young boy out exploring the woods near Lake Stephen's, Washington, when something dark and massive stepped into his path. The creature's deep set eyes locked onto his, and Stephen knew in that moment he was not alone in the woods. This isn't a legend or a myth. It's a first hand encounter. So stay with us, all right, Big for Society. We've got the privilege of talking to Stephen today. Steven's an individual I got connected to that is here to share about some interesting encounters that happened to him during his junior high and high school years.

0:45 So welcome to the show, Stephen. How's it going today? Good, min it's really good. Thank you, absolutely you know I believe well, I'm going to let you you set the stage here. I think I know where we're going, but we'll let you you set it. So feel free to take us back to when this first start happening to you and anything else that you need to in order to set the stage. Okay, well, my first encounter I was twelve years old. Okay, there's the neighborhood I lived in was about two plus miles west of Lake Stephens on the west side of Highway nine and maybe about a mile south of twentieth Street at fourteenth Place in ninety first Avenue. On the west side of the neighborhood. There's some power lines. Now, fifty years ago there were still some cedar trees, some large stumps, a lot of bushes, and with garter snakes and alligator lizards that we used to capture, just kind of give you how idea how wild it is. You're a little more you know, back then. I mean right now, the neighborhood is probably well, it sits my sighting sits in the middle of a neighborhood, so it would seem

2:18 kind of strange. I've driven by there actually recently. My sister still lives out in this neighborhood. Anyway, we would go out. There was a pond out in this power lines also on the west side of the neighborhood, and where we built a raft. We'd stroll around catching frogs and newts and stuff. And now to the south side of the neighborhood there are woods and trees that stretched for nearly a mile all the way out to twentieth Street.

3:00 Right now there's neighborhoods. But so in these woods, maybe about two hundred yards, there's this place we called the pothole, and there is an old drinking water well. There was the remains of an old house foundation nearby. And I want to want to say, I believe the pothole got its name from the teenagers that used to party there and smoked their stuff there, and that's how I believe it got its name. And so anyway, one day it was me, my black labrador, and two neighbor friends about my age, maybe a little younger. I was twelve years old, headed out. We headed out to the pothole. And as you enter the woods, you go down this goalie and back up. And this goalie was created by the underground springs that came from the woods that ran out into the west side of the into the power lines that created this pond we used to go into. Just to give you some details of it a little bit, But so about two hundred miles two hundred yards into these woods.

4:25 We were standing around shit chatting away, my two friends and my dog, and suddenly my dog kind of alerted with like a wolf or like a wold. And then he was standing alert, just staring off into the into the trees to the south, into the woods, to the south side of the woods. And I for some reason turned over to my left and stand near this stump. Uh maybe it was a tall stump, tall seater stump from when the tree fell over, and and you know, it was probably about six foot tall stump, I want to say, five or six feet tall, give or take.

5:19 And I seen what looked like an apeer, a gorilla hunch behind this stump. I was looking right into its eyes. Okay, I probably stared into its eyes maybe five or ten seconds maybe or at most, and started running out of the neighborhood as fast, out of the woods, as fast as I could into the neighborhood. Now, I didn't even look to see if my friends were following me or not. But as I got out of the woods, there they were just right behind me. They're right there too. And I asked them when I caught my breath, you know, out of breath, because I nearly ran head over here hills, over this goalie, down into this up and down into this out of the neighborhood because that goalie there, and I caught my breath and I said, did you see it?

6:27 And they didn't answer me. They're just looking at me. And so that there, you know, that there told me they didn't see anything. They didn't see it. They were looking off to where my dog was alerted to. So I'm take I'm guessing that that time there was more than one thing in the woods because my dog was alerted to the south and I looked off to the west and it was seemed to crouched, crouched behind this cedar stump. And yeah, I looked into its eyes and I mean it had like deep brows. I would say it was black brown and maybe dark brown black Harry And yeah, so let me get back here, Stephen. Do you mind if we talk about that sighting for a few minutes. Yeah, So this is uh little is it Lake Stephen's Washington? Yes, it is, okay, gotcha. Wow, So you said what you saw was hunched over behind the five to six foot tall cedar stump. Is that right? Yeah? Yes, I believe I could see its right shoulder hanging out.

7:56 So I've been to this woods one hundred eye was before. And so the stump when I turned the left, looked massive for a second, looked bigger than it normally was. So I know something was standing crouched down behind the stump, and I looked right into his eyes and yep, I'm sure this is not right. And I began running as fasts i could, as fast as I could, and yeah, it scared me, It really scared me. So yeah, do you know do you remember what color the eyes were?

8:38 Uh? Uh it was it was kind of shadowy and it was there were just deep dark eyes just uh you know, some people say they saw red eyes. I didn't see red eyes, but it was uh they were large with big brow eyebrow, not eyebrow, but uh eyebridges maybe you want to call deep deep set eyes in good sockets. Do you remember if there were any whites around the eyes, like on that corner of the eyes as you were looking into them.

9:23 Yeah, I don't know, but uh, I'm sure that I'm definitely sure they were eyes and they were staring deep, you know, right at me and with the angle with the where they were standing. I can see why they didn't see what I was seeing, because they were off to the right, more a little bit south of me from the pothole. And yeah, I still believe there was more than one of them out there, or at least something going on to the south of the woods, because that's where my dog was focused at. And then I just for some reason turned to the left and looked towards the stump, and yeah, there was standing hunch down behind this stump. I was definitely looking directly at me, and I just knew that wasn't right. So I started running.

10:27 I mean, I booked it, and yeah, go ahead. Is this so this takes place in the late seventies, Is that right? Yeah, in nineteen seventy five. Okay, was gotcha? You had mentioned that sometimes people would go back to this area too, you know, do certain things. I'm guessing at the age of twelve, you guys weren't involved with any activities like that out there that would make you not really aware of what was going on. No, we didn't know. We're too young for that, right, We didn't get involved in It was just a spot worse.

11:13 But the teenagers hang the older teenagers hung out but definitely none of them out there at this time. Nobody. We were definitely alone, gotcha. And I was actually going to ask, is there any chance at all that this could have been an older teenager knowing you guys are going out there and then trying to play a trick on you. No. I thought that over too many times, and I went over the Yeah, I thought about that too many times. I didn't think. I don't have any reason why they would do that or play a trick on us. I mean, at that time, we didn't even there was no sask watch talk that I remember, you know, And and I got I think, and they joked around with me and other neighbor kids and stuff about it. And uh, there was this old house across ninety first Avenue and somebody h when of the neighbor kids said that these people that lived across ninety first Avenue in this old house had some monkeys, had monkeys, he said, And so I was curious, and I was brought over there one day and to see maybe he had some large monkeys. Probably

12:45 you know, I was little naive and global maybe they got to grow out there or something that, you know, But I went in. I went over there and I was invited in, and uh, all they had was some spider monkeys, so little, they had these two little spider monkeys, so no big grill is hangary. They had an aviary like for birds, oh sanctuary out beside their house with cockatoos, pigeons and stuff. So but yeah, I just had to go over there to make sure they didn't have any gorillas.

13:31 Oh absolutely. But yeah, and that is very interesting though, because so there was some sort of monkey in the proximity. But what you saw, I mean it sounds like, well I'll ask you. You know you were able to look into its eyes, but did you notice any other details of it before you ran out of the woods. Well, just the deep set eyes and and it's harry shoulder, hairy upper arm, Harry shoulder, I guess, but I could definitely tell it was just there's a big and in stature is something definitely pretty big, uh, crouched behind there, and that's about it. It was. Yeah, I definitely seen and looked into his eyes and seen it that it was had kind of a look of I don't know, like kind of a look of curiosity. Did give me a I didn't get the feeling it was an angry look or anything. But yeah, that's about it. Uh, it wasn't it shouldn't have been there, That's all I gotta say.

15:01 If my dog and I think about how my dog reacted in the woods there is normally my dog would chase the deer or rabbits or anything else. But it it didn't. It just it it stood, just stood its ground, and it was just like it's like my dog was freaked out over it too, possibly, you know, But again he was looking the other way as far as I know. But my dog and my friends were looking the other way at something in the woods that evidently they didn't.

15:42 I don't think they saw anything, and they didn't say they say it, say anything, but they I think they believed that I saw something. So and later on my dog days later, I'm weeks later, my dog was running off a lot, straying off and she never did that's females, female dog. She never did that before. And the neighbors about three houses down from me. Uh so let me know. They that they had some rabbits missing and that I may have my dog may have broken into their cage, they thought. And I was like I was, and I remember I was I was, I was mad. I was not happy about that. I didn't I didn't think my dog would break into a rabbit cage and eat them.

16:42 I knew my dog well enough to not do that. And then sometime later they were they my dog wound up getting killed on n New First Avenue, Uh, wandering at she was wandering around, Uh like she you know, she never did this before. But she need to get hit by a truck. But uh, the neighbors invited me before that happened. The neighbors invited me down to their house to have some rabbit dinner. They butchered rabbits and and and ate them. Uh, that was there one of their food sources. So they invited me down there for rabbit dinner one time and just to kind of let me know that they didn't believe. They were sorry about my dog, and they didn't believe that my dog was the one that did it because they had reinforced their cages and put paddleocks on their cages, and their rabbits still wound up get disappearing nearly all of them. He stopped after this incident. He stopped butchering and keeping rabbits. Somehow, something or someone had broken into the cages after you

18:13 put paddle locks and reinforced reinforced lining on the cages, heavier wire and all that, and took all his rabbits. So they were letting me know that they didn't think my dog was the one that broke into the cage because they were now disappearing. How many approximate rabbits do you think they were keeping at any time? Was were talking a lot of them? Or yeah, quite a few of them. I mean a dozens. I mean they they had rabbit dinner a lot. The mother fried them up and ate them. They had quite a few cages back there, and yeah, they they started disappearing.

19:04 They couldn't figure out how their locks got broken off, snapped off, broken off, of course there's a steel uh steel locks on wooden frame. But they were broken off, and all the rabbits disappeared, nearly all of them. And they just assumed somebody did it to steal their rabbits. But I had reasonably that maybe it was the creature that I saw that did this. Uh. I can't say a d but ruined their rabbit, uh ruined their rabbit dinner, sir.

19:54 So they quick they stopped raising rabbits sometime after that. You know, I don't think, you know, anybody believed about sasquatch. Like I said, there was, It wasn't much uh talk about it back back then. Maybe the Patterson Gimblin film. That was probably about the only thing I knew about at that time, you know, And we don't have stories like that like we do now about uh sightings of Bigfoot and Sasquatch. There there was maybe a story or two back then, oh of sasquatch Bigfoot because it's still pretty wild back then. But yeah, so what else do I want to say?

20:55 Sorry, just real quick, Holf Holf close to the pothole area. Uh is this land, this property with all the rabbits in it? Mm hmmm, Well, it's in my neighborhood, three houses down for me, probably uh a quarter mile maybe at most, uh so from this from the from the south side of the neighborhoods about two or three hundred yards into the woods. So probably from their house, uh maybe another one hundred yards not that far. Yeah, it's just up this just a little ways from uh from the poole So and it's in the Yeah, the woods, they're pretty thick.

21:47 Pretty heavy back then still and there's trees to the to the east side of the neighborhood. The south side, the north side was up. While there's some neighihborhoods in North Souther's a school, you know, my school I went to. But as far as the east side, on the south side, remember very heavily wooded. And to the west side is all power minds and a pond even you know, it was. It's pretty wild, you know, pretty pretty heavily wooded. And I think I remember some stories of possible sightings back then, but I didn't. I don't know. I didn't pay too much attention anyway. That was my sighting. That's all I saw, was a possible and I have two other counter encounters here that I think you might find interesting. That's fascinating to me. So this is in nineteen seventy six, seventy seven h It was summertime at Spring Lake, and Spring Lake lies east of the Jordan Road, approximately three miles northwest of Grandite Falls, and I looked it up as a twenty sixth acre lake. It's one of the shallowest

23:19 lakes in the county and it has no public access. There was only three or four cabins at the time back then, and two of them were my stepfather's, my stepdad and his brother and my stepdad owned an a frame cabin next to his brothers was that was just a square cabin. And so this is like three years later, guber take you know, and uh, yeah, yeah, there's a there's a vacant home across the lake. I never seen anybody there. Uh. And and this is much like a big pond as more of a as a lake as you know. It had a lot of frogs and beams, and it was full of fish though it had You could look over the rowboat he had there and you could see large fish in the water, but you could never catch him because it was I think the fish were too well fed from all the frogs mosquitoes out there, and so it was difficult to catch these fish. Uh.

24:50 And so anyway, so they framed cabin. Man. It had a large glass into facing the lake and no running water and uh had two small bedrooms upstairs. They had a the toilet was an out an outhouse, and of course there's an electricity. It was a beautiful belt h with the awning in the back, with the cabin with a barbecue pit with the chimney and picnic tables. So we were out there one weekend having a barbecue dinner. It was my step dad, my mother, my sister and her friend, and it was uh me, my brother and my friend and his friend, uh, my brother's friend and mine.

25:46 So after dinner it was, uh, it was late. We were eating outside under the awning, big barbecue dinner, and and those boys decided to sleep outside away from the cabin. We wanted to be under the stars. And we didn't feel like sleeping upstairs with my sister and her friend because there's only a two bedroom cabin and it wasn't I mean, we could sleep downstairs, but it was really uncomfortable down there. And but we decided we wanted to camp out a little more and get a little excitement and camp outside the cabin. And you know, it was probably maybe fifty yards away from the cabin. So and and George, my stepdaddy, had a dog. He had a dog, a big German Shepherd dog next German Shepherd mix. And so after dinner we were we were those boys were sleeping just out there in our sleeping bags, I think a tarp into sleeping bag sleeping in the stars. It was really dark. I mean, you can't even see You couldn't see your hands in front of your face. Uh,

27:16 you know these little flashlights you were shining around. But suddenly and the frogs and crickets stopped. It got really it got quiet, and we're we're no longer talking, We're just Uh. I was tucked down in my sleeping bag with only maybe the top of my head sticking out, and there's this terrible smell in the air. Mhmm, yeah, there's a stench in the air. And and I could I heard, I felt footsteps. I felt heavy footsteps getting closer to my to us. And my brother and friend weren't saying anything. I think there were I think they're I think they maybe felt or smelled something too. And and I remember laying there and I kind of pushed my elbow over to see if my my friend, my friend and brother were still there. And I felt my my brother he was trembling, so I know he was scared and something was standing about. I felt something was

28:49 standing by us, but I couldn't. I was too scared to stick my head out of a sleeping bag to look. I mean, I felt paralyzed some fear for sure, and and some time passed away. The frogs and crickets came by. And I want to say, before this happened, also my cab or the dog was sleeping next to us, was laying beside us. When the crickets and frogs stopped, the dog got up and walked away, like i'mike, where's the dog going? Like something was around it walked away from us just suddenly. And that's when the smell came on, and I was sure something was standing there beside me, beside us. But sometime I went by and the crickets and frogs all came back, and we all got up at once and just ran to the cab and we didn't even grab our sleeping bags or anything. We just just hooked it to back to the cabin. Yahm and we ran into the cabin. Uh my stepdad came downstairs and uh my mom was like, where's your I remember

30:25 my mom saying where's your where's your bedding? And you know it's cold, we're gonna so we had to sleep upstairs with my with my with the girls, I mean my stepdad. So you can just lay your sleep and beg go get your sleeping bags laying down here. And none of us wanted to go out there and get our sleeping bags. We were too scared. Just we were like and and I remember thinking, my stepdad he mentioned from time or two the big man. I mean, we'd be on our way out to the cabin sometimes and I had asked, who's going to be out in the cabin this weekend, and he said, oh, just it's just going to be me, the the dog, and the big man of the forest and us. And I always thought he meant the big man of the forest was his brother or his brother's friends or something. And I mean my step he looked like my stepdad looked. Stepfather looked like a grizzly Adam type guy. He hung out. I mean, he built his cabin out in the woods, and he was an ext iron worker and all that. But he mentioned he went out to get our sleeping bags for us because we're too scared. He had to get the lantern and go out there and get him. And and

31:55 we ended up sleeping upstairs because we were too freaked out to sleep down stairs. And and he and I remember he's going back up the stairs saying, yeah, just the big man of the forest. He wanted to and I remember my mom's like he just scared of him, you know. Yeah, so he mentioned that the big man thefore. I always thought it was his brother, but when I saw his brother come out there, he wasn't big at all, So yeah, it's not him. So I really think that my stepdad knew there was a sasquatch out there, and just by the way he talked about him. He wouldn't say I never thought to ask him in detail about what he saw or what he knew or out there, but yeah, he mentioned the big man of the forest out there. So anyway, we went to sleep with the girls were too scared, and you know, something is out there, something.

33:08 This lake is very secluded and even today I think there's not even I don't know it's it's no public assets access. You can't get out to this lake. But I saw a picture online and it still looks They show the house, the empty house across the lake, and in a doc that's about all these show, it's like, wow, maybe there's it's not really it's not all built up like that anymore. Yeah, So anyway, it looks like because it's hard to find I'm not seeing it on a map, but I am finding a website that talks about it, and it seems like you can't really do anything there unless you're a lake residence. So it's not a thing where, you know, you want to try to track it down and then go there, because it's kind of it's not a public access type deal. But it does look beautiful. I see the photo with the house across the water. I think you're talking about maybe, but yeah, did you ever have any conversations with him when you were an adult about like, Hey, what what did you mean about, you know, the big Man?

34:29 No? I wish I would have, but I did. But I know he mentioned at least a couple other times about it. I don't think he wanted to talk too much about it because he knew it was scarce and he wanted he wanted us to go out to the lake. He was a lonely man, you know, and my mom pretty much he wasn't really our dad. He was just someone my mom dated, and we'd go out to the lake sometimes and we'd uh, some of us complain, Oh there's no toilet, you know, and the toilet skinks. It's an our house and it didn't have any running water, and it's you're really kind of rough and impacting. So but I don't I think the last thing he wanted to do was scare us, you know. And but you know again, I I remember the dog, the way it acted when it walked away, when it got up and walked away from it, as if it was not comfortable with the big man. Uh. Yeah, something was there and and it just uh it uh I was the fear that came over. Is was just a really scary and I felt petrified in my sleeping bag. I couldn't look out.

35:59 I kind of wish I could have just looked out, but I probably would have went into shock if I actually saw what I think was standing out there, standing beside us, because I could hear the footfall of this thing, and yeah, there's something there. I wish I would have. And like I said, it was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, and neither my friend or my brother would even would you. I don't think they didn't look either. I mean, you couldn't see anything unless you shine your flashlight. But something was there and it stumped and I remember talking to my brother about it. And my friend he was, Yeah, something stinks out there really bad. Yeah. I wish I would have talked to my stepdad about it a little more too, or talked to ask them about it, but I didn't and he's gone now. So anyway, I have another story too.

37:15 These are these are stories. I truly believe something is in my first encounter, I definitely Uh, like I said, my first encounter, I've seen the thing. They exist and to this day I believe that there was something out there. And I have a third story, Okay, and this I went. I went hiking with my friends in about seventy eight or seventy nine, only a couple of years later. Uh. This is Goat Lake, about thirty miles from Granted follows up in the North Cascades Mountainoup Highway. My friend, he's a little older than me, and he had his brother with him, so it was me, my friend and his brother going, uh, I'm going to go hiking, and went hiking up into the Cascades. So we brought uh he brought a machete because he was told there was a it was gonna probably be overgrown trail and it was.

38:29 I mean, we took turns shopping our way in the Goat Lake and there was stinging nettles, devil club, uh everything to get back there. We worked to get to this lake. And if you look nowadays at this lake, it's it shows that it's well groomed and there's even a bathroom. Even a bathroom at the trailhead. I thought was kind of funny. Hm, yeah, because back then there was only like the trail head and a box. I think you put your name. We put our name in ah for the time we started our hike, and uh yeah, we put our names there and we're head. As far as we can tell, nobody else had been there, and the trail was thick. We thought we were off trail when we're chopping our way to the lake. Took us most of the day to get get to Goat Lake.

39:42 And this is like a glacier lake. It's it's very mh and deep into mountain canyon. Uh. So we chopped and we were having a hard time getting to the lake. Somewhere where they're somewhere to stand clear find a clearing around the lake, and and we came across across the clearing. It's like we came out of the thick woods and then there was a clearing and it was like a bedding. There was there was grass, some like some branches, and it looked like soft sooty soil, looked like something pulled off, uh, soft sand pulled from the beach. But we're wondering how they how someone got the sand there. So it was a nice bedding. It wasn't too big, but we could all fit there. And outside of this bedding there was we couldn't it was late, we couldn't really go anywhere else.

40:49 It was like we'd have to chop our way into the lake chopper trail to the lake, and it looked like it was just kind of downhill. It was all downhill around this lake. And this is so that clearing was the best spot we had. I mean, we're pretty much isolated. Is getting late. We needed to settle down and get something neat and get settled in. So we decided to yeah, this is perfect, nice cleared off spot, and so we laid out. We laid out our bedding.

41:30 I think we laid a tarp down to keep as dry as moist, and laid our sleeping bags out, and we pulled out a little stove and we're cooking our food and it's getting late and and suddenly rock and our Suddenly, rocks started splashing nearby us, nearby the lake. They kept coming from up above us or around the bend, and it was kind of uphill from where this cleared off spot was pretty steep, and rocks kept flying and landing, several rocks, and I think we were yelling. My friend was yelling, hey, we'll be out here by you know, we'll be out here by morning. Just there's nowhere else to go. You know, we're kind of yelling. We figured we took somebody's spot, and so we we were you know, we were talking a lot, you know, just yelling from time to time to stop throwing the rocks. Suddenly, I here,

43:00 it's it's getting quiet, now start. I hear this sound of the dirt of dirt coming out of the ground, ripping. It sounded like it was ripping from the ground. And these rocks and dirt rained down on the trees by us, and a big, huge splash in the lake. It was a big splash, and there's a big root ball, and and we were all quiet. We all got really quiet. Said wow, this something that ripped us out of the ground was strong and it threw it and it was our It was our root ball with huge roots on it and a big splash, and uh yeah, we got quiet were we were freaked out, and now it was getting really it was really dark, and we just climbed in our sleeping bag and and we didn't We didn't want to cook, we didn't want to mess around doing nothing.

44:19 We just climbed in our sleeping bag and huddled in and we're We heard strange noises all night and yeah, the next morning, I think, so sometime during the middle of the night. This is a really bad thing that happened. My friend. He was my brother's, my friend's brother. He got up. He stood up, and I could see the silhouette of him standing up, and he's and he starts taking a pee, and I heard his brother goes go farther, You go farther, and he's he wouldn't. He just stood there and peede and his pee. He was peeing on the tart and I'm like, oh, no, I could hear it hitting the tart and suddenly I felt warm, the warmth of the pead river down underneath my sleeping bag.

45:25 And he pee Pete a lot. I was. I was soaking wet with this pee in my and I'm and I'm wet with his pee now, and I'm just I'm mad, I'm angry, I'm scared, and I'm mad. And uh, he didn't want to go any farther. He was too scared to go any farther and pee because he just stood up and started peeing. It was ridiculous and and I was soaked with p and now I'm scared out of my mind. And yeah, the next morning soon this day, I mean, this is a long night. This is a really long night. It got dark there quick, and the daylight didn't come for a long time because we're in the canyon mountain canyons all around us. And when we got up, we didn't it was just barely daylight. And we got I think one of us he cooked some or he heated some water, and we had like coffee.

46:40 That's it. We didn't want to sit around and cook anything. We wanted to just get out of there, and and we did. We hiked out of there early. We didn't want to. It was just a just a terrible trip. And we hiked our way in there, and uh, we have to cut our way into there and we've and we didn't do anything else next that that that incident that night, that night just scared us, Uh, scared us pretty bad. H. Yeah. It was a rootball, Jeremiah, was huge rootball that a man shouldn't have been able to rip from the ground and throw. And this is when I started believing there such thing as sasquatch bigfoot because of what I went through earlier. I don't know what my friends, uh, whether they really thought they they existed, but I'm already convinced. I know at this time that they exist because I've already heard more stories.

48:00 And yeah, that is just and that's an incredible account. I have a few questions about that. So you you heard the root ball get ripped out of the ground and then you saw it after it fell in the water or it was thrown into the water. Yeah, how how big would you estimate that that root all was? M I would say probably a six or eight foot six or eight foot six or radiance tree perhaps that was ripped out of the ground. And I can say it rained down rocks and dirt from a long quite a distance and a huge splash, and I saw the dirt in the water and the lake, and I was just like, since I have I was frozen in fear.

49:07 This is not a person here, this is something else. This is you know, I think I already decided in mind. I knew what it was, and I don't know. It's funny we didn't talk about it that night or nothing. We were just too scared to even We're like a few whispers, We're just like we kept saying, they kept going, you know, they're trying to hear if something's coming to us, or all night long, it's like that, and then we're basically just quiet and listening. I think we're We knew we were in a bad spot because we cut our way into this place and it was really difficult to get in there, and so it ain't like we can just get up and run to safety. We were locked into that place, and I was scared. I was really That was probably the worst out of all these kind of out all three of these cameras, that that was the scariest I ever been because I knew there was no safety nearby. We were screwed right there. And and the way, when I think about the way the clearing was, how did the clearing get there. How did who made that?

50:32 You know, there wasn't a person. After I figured out after years later looking at people saying, well a few people singing the way a nest might look or something, It's like, wow, you know, this is just adds more to my story. And yeah, it was a clearing with and there was no trails into this clearing and it was just there. It's like we lucked out and had a place to sleep. But everything I think they took. I think we took something spot, not someone spot. That's all I can say.

51:13 No, absolutely, I mean, dude, just the fact that you had to bushwhack your way in. There's no way there were other people there at that remote lake with you guys. Yeah, there's no way. No. Wow, there wasn't wild. That is that is wild in late seventies. Yeah, probably seventy seventy nine. Yeah, Now I looked at it. Did you look it up on the mountain? I did so. I usually will look stuff up on Google Maps, and then it's cool because you can see other people's photos from the location. It's a beautiful area.

51:55 It is gogoes. Yeah, the waters so blue, deep blue. Yeah, it was. But at that time we couldn't get anywhere there. It was like this is we were at that time were when we were hiking, we thought this is really bogus man and we can see a beautiful lake, but we couldn't really see anywhere to go from other than that spot where we were at that clearing were cut into And yeah, I can and now it looks funny even see I think on that on Google them. Now I've seen some kids there. I thought, wow, there's even kids there that hiked into this place that was so difficult for us to get to. And they really made it into like a like a campground now or some really a campground. I mean, I'm sure it's quite a hike there to get to it. But yeah, and you can see all the clearing. How there's places to go around the lake, a few anyway, a few places clearings there.

53:13 At that time, we didn't see none of that. It's like, I don't know how who made the trail back in the late seventies or or what, but there wasn't much there back then. It was like we're off a logging road, it felt like, and I mean, it's a mountain neup highway. But at the time, you know, Now if you go up the Mountain Highway, it looks like campgrounds and it's like, wow, it didn't looking that, it didn't look too much like this back in the seventies exactly. And the thing I want younger listeners to realize, because sometimes this doesn't come across, but I think late seventies, there's no cell phones, there's no election, there's no survival beacons to use, there is nothing to save you when you're in these remote locations like this, having to hack your way in. Something goes down. These guys are in huge trouble and cannot be saved by anyone.

54:22 Exactly. It's wild. It is absolutely wild. How did this affect the rest of your life? You know, living through these different encounters in your junior high in high school years. Yeah, it made me think, Wow, there's this is It just made me think that the Sasquatch, big footlet legend is not just a legend, it's real. I mean they're out there just like me or you. I mean they're they're they're they're out there. I mean it made me, it made me really really wonder and uh, it's just yeah, I've and I've hiked since I've went on a few hikes since then, always wondering and always looking for it.

55:21 For the sasquatch, always on my mind when I'm out hiking, you know, and some of the hikes it took. Now there's just too many people around. Uh, it's not as secluded like it was. You have to really go farther out to get to feel like you're a remote you know, out in the woods. If you go up Mountain New Highway. Now it's just like I said, just a lot of campgrounds and uh, and I'm curious to see what go like. It looks like I want to take another hike this year and somewhere. I'm just going to stay in the Pacific Northwest and probably take another hike somewhere and always have that in the back of my mind. And there's probably shot squatches around, big foots whatever you want to call them, absolutely, and I think the Pacific Northwest here is just there's so many sightings. The Olympic Mountains is like a really big hot spot.

56:38 Form Stephen, this has been such an enjoyable conversation. We've talked a little bit on the show about the Granite Falls area, so it's always nice to hear of different areas that are close by and just for contact for listeners. If you go over to the BFRO website. Uh, this this takes place in Snawhomish County, and I believe it's number four on the list of highest reported Bigfoot encounters in Washington. It's the number four reported counties. So you know, if you want to hear more from these areas that Stephen has been sharing, if you go to BFRO o dot now or the Bigfoot Mapping Project, it's there too.

57:26 Either way, you can see more encounters from this county in Washington, just a ton ton of things that have happened there over the years. But you know, Steven, I want to make sure just to double check that you've been able to share everything that you want to share on the show today. Yeah, I think I've covered it. Yeah, Yeah, I think I pretty much covered my story. And yeah, thanks for having me. Jeremiah absolutely want. I've been wanting. I've been wanting to share the stories for a long time, and I think I tried to post them one time. I'm not sure if I posted them. It's the post one now or whatever. I'm going It's a little bit about him, but this is the first time, actually, well this first time I actually getting my story out there, and I appreciate the time you took to let me share it.

58:31 Absolutely. If you ever, you know, have anything else happened that you would need a place to share, you know, feel free to reach out, you know how to contact me. But just thank you for coming on the show today, Stephen. Okay, great, thank you. Jeremie. Just wanted to take a minute to say thank you truly for listening to this episode of the big Foot Society podcast. Stephen's story is one of those rare encounters that makes you question what's really out there. So huge thanks to Stephen for sharing his unforgettable experiences from the woods of Washington. If you've enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, hit the bell icon so you don't miss any new episodes, and share this one with a friend who loves Bigfoot.

59:13 And if you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, make sure to follow the show and leave a review. It helps more people find us. Now, if you or someone you know has had a Bigfoot encounter, especially in the Lake Stevens or Granite Falls area of Washington, I'd love to hear from you, so shoot me an email at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com and let's talk and don't forget. Sasquatch Summerfest is coming up July eleventh through the twelfth in Oakridge, Oregon. Bigfoot Society listeners can grab a two day pass for the price of one day admission with the code BFS at checkout, and tickets are available now at www dot Sasquatch Summerfests dot com. And thanks again for being part of the Bigfoot Society. Until next time, keep your eyes open, trust your gut, and never stop asking what else might be out there?

59:57 And see you in the woods.