It Was Right Across the Road: A Bigfoot Story from Wallowa | Archives

0:00 You're listening to Big Fort Society, and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Tonight's story isn't from a researcher or a cryptid chaser. It's from a father in the night. He tried to pass on his love of the outdoors to his son, But deep in the forest of northeast Oregon, something else was waiting. Screams that shook their bones in a shadow behind the trees, and hands, massive gnarled hands, pulling branches apart to stare directly at them. What's started as a quiet hunting trip became a knight neither would ever forget. This is the story of d in the Bigfoot that watched from the dark. So stay with us, all right, Big Fast Society. We've got the privilege of talking to D tonight. D's a listener from the great State of Oregon, and he has a few encounters to share. But how's it going, tonight.

0:43 D Going real good? Jeremiah awesome. I'm excited to hear. I've heard a little bit about what you've experienced, but you know, I'm going to go ahead and give it right over to you. I feel free to share what you'd like about what you experienced. Sure. Well, I'd like to start out and give a little background. I grew up in eastern Oregon and I was out in the woods a lot, and my grandpa was a logger and he I hunted and fished with him, and he took me everywhere out in the woods. And with the experiences I had there, you know, at that time, very little known about Bigfoot, but never experienced anything. I've been around bears, cougars, you name it. I've had cougars within five feet of me. I've heard him scream. Bears have been even closer. So going into the story, I wanted to bring the same thing to my kids. And I had my son, and he took him everywhere with me, and we were out in the woods a lot, getting wood, we were hunting, fishing, and this one time him and I we're going to head out hunting. My brother, oldest brother, was going to bring his fifth wheel up in the woods and we were going to use it. Well, my

2:14 son and I decided to go early, so we went a day early and we were just going to wait for my brother. Now I've been out in the woods before, I've camped, I've dry camped, I've had tins I've slept in pickups and everything else, so it was nothing unusual if brother didn't show up or just stay out in the woods. Well, we got up there, started getting dark. We were up above a lawa and I told me, oh, let's stop. Let's build us a fire and get something to eat. And at the time, my son was pretty close to ten years old. He hadn't quite he was nine nine and a month ago, or nine years and a month to go. And so we sat down. We found a spot. It was a winde a road and we pulled up in this clearing and we just kind of parked and lit us a fire and got up some stuff to eat, and we were eating in the forest. Now, what was weird when we were there.

3:26 We had our fire going, but it was just completely quiet. The minute the sun. Went down, not a sound. And to me that was strange because I hadn't encountered much of anything like that. Usually you hear something, crickets or something, you just hear something. It's just not that quiet. So we ate and we were talking, and you know, the son kept asking me, is uncle David get to show up? And I said, well, he'll show up when he gets here. It's no big deal. And we talked for a couple hours just by the fire, chatting well about nine thirty at a distance. Now, if I had to gas, i'd hate the gas because there's lots of draws around there in canyons, and something can sound far away and it's not far away, or you hear it and it sounds like it's close, but it's far away. It's just the way that the sound echoes through those draws. And we heard something, a scream, and I'll tell you once I heard a big foot screen and I said, that was it. That was it? Just, oh my goodness, loud but far away. My son looks up at me with these big eyes. He says, Dad, what is that? Ah? I said, don't worry about it, just I don't know animal holler and no big deal. Now, if you kind of looked inside of me, you would

4:58 have seen me going, oh man, what is that? This is? This is awesome and scary at the same time because you don't know what it is. I mean, it's pure darkness around us. So he kind of he guys, says, well, I said, this is far away anyway, don't worry about it. It's no big deal. So we were we were talking some more, and it was pretty close. And the reason I know the times is I was waiting for my brother, so I kept looking at my watch. But about a half hour or two an hour later, somewhere in there, another scream came and it was just absolutely positive, the same screen as the bigfoot ones I've heard. And I was just and he looked at me this time and he says, Dad, this is scaring me.

5:52 I said, don't worry about it. We're fine. I mean, there's nothing out here going. To get us. And of course inside and I was saying, let's getting closer, and my first thought was let's get out of there. You know, just something inside me just didn't want to stay. And I thought, now. We got it, gotta we just gotta stay here because I want to meet my brother up there. And it was eleven thirty. Because I looked at my watch. It was eleven thirty and that thing was right across the road and it screamed. And right now, even talking about it, I get chills up my back. It was horrendous.

6:44 And my son jumped out up and he almost started crying. He wanted to get in the truck. I says, well, let's get in the truck and we'll drive down to town. And you could hear it rustling in the brush a little bit, not real loud, but rustling. But that screen, Like I said, I've been around cougar screens and never ever have I had chills up my spine like that. And it was so loud. So we got in the truck and I started up the truck. And we made a.

7:25 Loop around to get turned around to go out the road. Well, the trees weren't that far away from the road, if I had to say, it was about fifty yards. But we turned. Around and when our headlights came across that there was hands and the top of a head looking through a couple of the trees. It was just I stopped for a second look just because I'm not seeing this am I and my son just looked at me. He says, Dad, let's get out of here. That thing's huge. You saw the hands, and they had two trees split apart, two smaller trees. They were pretty close to when I stood under them, because we went up the next day, but I stood on a river's about I was not even halfway, so they were probably ten ten to eleven feet tall.

8:22 He had them spread apart was looking through them. And then when we sat there for a few minutes, the hands went back and the trees were swaying, and we got out of there. And at first I wanted to stay. I wanted to see more, but then I thought for the safety my son. That's you know, I got to protect the kids more than anything. And when it comes to wild animals, you don't really know what they're going to do. I don't trust them. Don't trust wild animals whatsoever, because they could be really good, but then they can turn on you. So anyway, he saw that my son had tears in his eyes because he he was just I think he was going into shock myself. And we got down to town and down into the town and pulled off somewhere, and you know, neither one of us slept that night to wake up the next morning to go hunting. And my brother finally made it up and we went back up in the woods where we were camped. And like I said, I walked across the road and stood by those trees that were right next to the road, and I was a midget to those trees, and when I looked, I looked up to see how high they were. That the thing had to be nine to ten feet tall, if not a little taller, and started scouring for tracks, and there's.

10:02 There was. The ground was real hard, but the tall grass. The only thing you could see was the pathway to where it came in. And I took my son with me and we tracked it. We tracked the walking as far as we could. And I'm no amateur tracking. I'm not an expert, but I've tracked a lot of game. And we actually followed it to where it went up over the hill and then went down into this draw. And we never found there was never a good track.

10:44 Like I said, the ground was pretty hard, but you can see the grass being laid over. And the only reason I say I know it was it was a bakefoot was because the grass that was laid over was huge compared to my foot. I tried to show my son. I said, see you put your foot down, and he says, well, yeah, but yours is only half of what that one is. I said, that's what I'm saying. I know what we saw and I know what we were following, and we tracked it down as far as I wanted to go because it got real thick.

11:25 And steep, and you could you could. See through the brush where the grass was, where it was laid down, and you could see it where it went down into the draw. Well. The biggest thing about this was number one, I wasn't looking for bigfoot, and number two is it was the least expected thing I would ever see. There was we weren't. We weren't. I wasn't prepared to see it as far as like we're out hutting bigfoot. We were out deer hunting, are going to be deer hunting the next day or two. And I think that's what surprised me the most. And in the area that we saw it in, what was it doing there?

12:13 There's there's so many people out in the woods at that time, and it was just just a strange occurrence. And I know that I'll never forget it. That's that's exactly, never forget it. That was the hands. I saw the fingers. I didn't see thumbs. I just saw the fingers holding the trees back was looking through them, and the hands were just huge, were dark colored that had wrinkles on the knuckles, just like a human, and the top of the head was covered with hair. It was just hairy in it. Oh, and the thing was just I can't imagine how tall it was because it had to be ten to eleven feet tall. And I was just I was shook up, I think just as much as my son.

13:11 But I wasn't showing him. I didn't want it. I didn't want him scared of the woods is the main thing. And that's the last thing I wanted him to be scared to go out in the woods. But we followed it. I looked for tracks, couldn't find anything. Nothing track to where you could do it, any casts or anything. But it had a big stride. Now, this is like I said with the grass lad over. It was just almost three strides of buying, which my stride is exactly three feet, and so his stride was about six foot five foot six foot strides. And that was that was always saw the all time we were up there, because I was hoping to see it again but never did.

14:07 So we're in northeast Oregon. And did you say north of Wallawa. Willawa, Willaway, the city of Willawa. Yeah, is this like a wildlife area or a state park or no. There's a lot of Federal Force service up there, and it used to be a lot of it owned by Boise Cascade, but I think they sold it to a land company, Hancock or something. But it's it's mainly you know, public. Anybody in the public can get up in it. Yeah, gotcha, Scott and the patren He's got a question, and it's a good one. What was your relation to the concept of Bigfoot? Were you a Bigfoot believer before this event happened?

15:04 I think they'd put it this way. I was and wasn't, okay. I got an open mind, always did. And I first remember my grandpa having a some type of wildlife magazine where they had the film from Gosh, I can't think of it now, or they had a picture from the Patterson Giblin film about Bigfoot. Well I read the article, but I looked at my grandpa and says, hey, Grandpa, what do you think about Bigfoot? Very go Bigfoot? That's all he said. But then I started learning more about it as I went along, and even back then they didn't have much on it. There was a few books out there, and of course I went to the library and got a few books and read about it. But the way I looked at it was. You know, I got an open mind, but until I see it, I'm not going to believe it. Fully I saw it, I believe it. So I wasn't a full believer, but I wasn't a total skeptic either.

16:19 If that makes sense, Yeah, no, it definitely does. And this wasn't like you and your son were like, Okay, we're going on a big foot hunt. Like you were just trying to get out and enjoy nature. And this just happened to happen. And that's the whole thing about it. And that's why I think sometimes when would anybody, whether it be me or anybody else, Sometimes I think when we go out looking for bigfoot, I don't think you're. Gonna I've not seen one go out there looking for it. All might have happened when I'm not out there bigfoot, honey, I'm just out in the woods enjoying some time. And that was the that's the thing that got me the most, because I this wooded area I'm talking about.

17:06 I started hunting and get in the wood. With my grandpa when I was eight years old, and I'd been through all those woods with him. He logged them all. So he took me everywhere up in there, all over. There wasn't a bit of that country I didn't see. And I figured, well, it's too close to a town. You know, it's probably thirty miles to the nearest town out of the woods, but you know it's kind of close to town, so you never see a big foot out here, you know. It was kind of my shot growing up, and as he had started hunting at eight years old with my grandpa, and he's put me out on walks and said, walk down this hill and I'll meet you down at the road, you know type thing where nowadays I wouldn't have let my kids do it because I'd be too scared to get But it was not it was not the perfect setting to go find Bigfoot. We weren't thirty miles or forty miles back in the wilderness where nobody goes. This is this is where where people are, which really had me just just had me amazed at the at the chance I had to see it.

18:26 Oh absolutely, Man, Do I think there's a chance your grandpa probably saw something at one time or another. I just have a feeling, but that I've got, you know, I'm just kind of kind of guessing. Well, I'm thinking he started logging out in those wood out the woods in nineteen thirty and got his own log in company in forty one and sold out in sixty nine. I believe he was doing what I was doing to myself, and he was wanting to not make me scared to go out in the woods. He knew, if you know, he knew if.

19:07 I told him, yeah, there's bigfoot out there, they're big, you'd never know what's gonna happen. Blah blah blah. You know, at eight years old or so, I would have been scared to go out in the woods. I'm just scared to death. Yeah, he probably you know, he probably was doing something like that. Yeah, I could definitely see that. But what year again was this that you and your son had the experience. It was nineteen ninety ninety seven. Okay, Thinking back to when you saw the head and the fingers, did you get a chance to see like what kind of the shape of the head was at all, or do you remember anything that you saw about the head for details.

19:55 The head part I saw was just covered with hair. If I remember, I had had a little bit of a code shape, but it wasn't prominent. You know it wasn't like a pyramid sitting on somebody's head, but it was raised a little bit. But I, like I said, with the hands, I was concentrating on the hands because I could see them just clear's day. I mean, they were wrapped around the tree, pulling, pulling these two small trees apart. And I know it was looking over. Him, but I just caught it when I came around with the lights and stopped to where he had enough time to put it up over his face.

20:36 But yeah, I did. I didn't really. I saw the hair and it looked like maybe a code shape, but I was looking at the hands because they were just right out there in the open more or less. The screams you said, you've heard this. You heard the screams a few times. Are those can you describe? You know, there's a few different you know, we hear the bigfoot sound on the different types of media, there's different types. Is there any way you can kind of describe maybe what type of scream or is like ohio howl or anything like that. Well, I'm trying to think it kind of mimicked some of this. There's a couple sounds on I think finding Bigfoot that they had tapes of that were were really close, not exact, but it was the low tone or it was high.

21:38 Then low, and then kind of low high again. It was just kind of a But it was the duration. That killed me, because usually Kyle, you know, they'll they'll how well, it's a few seconds. This seemed like it was for about eight to ten seconds, and it was. It was a loud scream, loud, and. It didn't and it wasn't like a cougar scream either, and I've heard them plenty of times and it was nothing even close. Too short of a call of cougar is too short of a call to match this. All I know is when it got across the road and it screamed, every hair on my body stood up.

22:24 It didn't shake you, but you are physically shaky of. Just hearing that scream that close. It was awesome, and now I think it's awesome. Back then I was scared to death. But your son is around thirty five right now. I think, if I do the master, how did this affect him later in life as an adult? If it did, you know what it hasn't. He does bushcraft survival things. You'll go out in the woods and with his knife and a hatchet sometimes and just stay for three or four days out in the woods, just living off the land and what's there. It didn't affecting in a way. In fact, I think it made it the other way. Now he's not afraid and he wants to find it type thing.

23:27 So it actually did good instead of bad. That is extremely interesting. So I'd guess he's probably out in Oregon doing his thing, bushcrafting out there. Yeah, he lives in the southern part of Oregon, southwest. Yeah, he's actually I had actually you know now that I never thought of it that way, but it's kind of with the opposite way, and he's he's not afraid of anything. He just he just wants to see it again. He just off I see you to see it, Dad, I says, yeah, we all will hopefully some day again. But that's really really interesting. If he ever does have any encounters, you know, keep me in mind for sure. Sure, now I will. I'll let you continue with what happens next, which the listeners are probably like, Okay, what happens next?

24:33 Yeah? And this was this was this was awesome. I mean you know that it's the few occasions I've had that. This was this was incredible, and I was thrilled. But now jump forward to two thousand and seven. We were we decided a wife wanted to take up some hunting, so I took her up. There to go hunt. Then. So we get up there, pitch her tent and get all camps set up, and we have a we have a cabin tent that's ten by twelve and it's seven and a half feet tall.

25:16 So we could stood up. We could stand up in our tents and everything. So it's just. Her and I and the dogs. So we had I think five dogs at that time, four dogs at that time, and they were four chuahwas believe it or not, and we were We got up there the first night and like I said, it was again quiet. It was just the forest was too quiet. No coyotes do nothing. Kind of strange, but oh well, we just went out our way. The first night was just nothing, doesn't happened. Second night, nothing happened. And then the third night it was quiet again, and we got done with the fire, got done with dinner, and.

26:11 We decided it, well it's time to go to bed. And it was supposed to rain that night, so we took a tarp and laid it over half the tent on the backside and halfway over the front, so that we could still get out the. Front of the tent without vesting with the tarp. Well, the wind blewed it blew the tarp off the tent, of course, And this was later. I was getting ready for bed, so I said, oh, well, if it rains, I guess we'll hope the tips waterproof whatever. I'm tired.

26:55 But we were sitting there and I was getting ready for bed and on the tarp, you've heard a footstep and the tarp crinkled and then crinkled again, and I'm going I looked at my wife, said, should be real quiet, something out there. She goes, oh, it's probably someone just messing hers. It's the cows, because there were some cows around camp. And I says, if a cow was stepping on that tarp, you'd hear all four legs, you'd hear all four feet. I've been worked on a cow rance for a while and you can hear cows covin. I know their steps. This is not a cow. So just sat real quiet, and it kept coming around. They kept coming around the side of the tent real slow, but you could hear it. She my wife says, this is a bear, and I says, no, it's not a bear, this is this is something else.

28:02 So I just sat. There and as I was listening, it made its way around to the front of the tent, which was kind of strange, and I thought, well, my first thought was maybe someone's. Out there bested with us. And I just stayed there and watched. Uh. I did have. A shotgut in the tent with me, and I thought, well, I'll just wait and see what's going on. And it kind of was like those creep show was like, maybe what's going to happen next? What's going on? Because you heard it walk all the way around in the front.

28:44 Of the tent, and all of a sudden, up on clear of the top of the tent, not far from the center, probably maybe six to eight inches from the center, you see a finger scratching the tent, like the feeling it. And you could see the figure through you know, not through the tent, but the way the tent folds, you know with tents that nylon, and it was scratched the tent like feeling something or something. And I looked at my wife. I says, well, enough's enough, and I think I racked the shotgun and I heard it run off.

29:31 So why, I says, well, somebody's messing. I says, you saw that, and she goes, yeah, I did. And I said that was a finger because it pushed down on the tent and rubbing it, like scratching it with its fingernail. And she says that, yeah, I did. I saw it. No big deal. I says, no, that was bigfoot and she says, no, it wasn't. I says, yeah, it was, because we'd seen him up here before. And I says that was him, and she goes, how, I don't think so. So the next morning, oh, we went. We went out hunting that morning, but came back early, and of course I went looking for tracks, and I could find some. It was dusty where we were at. I could see some dust spurred up, but I couldn't really make out nothing but maybe a heel track being a heel part of the heel. So then I thought, okay, I've got to try this.

30:32 I went over to the tent. And if that was somebody's finger, they had to be pretty tall because I'm only five nine five to ten and I couldn't even hardly reach up over the well. I could just reach over the edge of the tent. Okay, that's far from the head. Now this sks ten foot ten foot at length that tent is and it was reaching halfway over six seven foot high, six foot over. And I started. I grabbed a stick and I said, now you get in the tent, you look up. So I took a stick, put it down on there and moved it. She goes, that's not even close to what it was. And so I tried different things to see, if you know, if I was being best with and I couldn't. I couldn't do the same thing that we saw. And I told her, I says, you know, this is the same thing that happened before the force was quiet for those three or four days. The force was just dead quiet at night.

31:47 Bill kyotes know nothing, and it's the same area. And I just come to the conclusion that it just happens when you least expect it, because that bigfoot was. The last thing on my mind. Blow we were up there, but when I heard it walk around that tent, I mean it's almost you. You could feel it, but you couldn't see it. And you could hear it and just the steps, the steps, it was I like it was sneaking up because you could just hear it hit that thing, and to reach over across the top of that tent, There's no way. There's no way anybody could have done that without falling in on the tent, even if they were standing on something.

32:44 But that was the That was the second experience in the same area, just ten years later. D that is that is wild? So after that? Was that enough? So You're like, I'm not going back there anymore? Or is it a thing where I might go back there again someday. Now it came to the point to where it was I'm going back there again. I got excited that time. I got excited. I just I had the dogs and the wife with me, but I was I was like, I've got crazy. Okay, you know that was kind of my thing. It was like in my own brain it was I'm not crazy. There is actually something up here and it's bigfoot, and I want to see it again.

33:40 Would you go back there again for a third time? Oh yeah, oh yeah, to have one more experience. Yeah, I think it would be worth it. Now, do I want to keep my distance. Yeah, I really, I really don't want to come face to face with her, you know, I mean I do it. I don't like I said, it's an animal. You don't know what might happen. I like the distance, but I am not afraid. I'm more curious that afraid to see it again. I want to see more of it. People that have actually seen their faces that type of thing. I'd love to experience that part.

34:28 But it hasn't made me scared to go in the woods all. It's made me more curious. Absolutely, would you be able to mark on a map the general area where this happened. I feel like there's got to be other people that have experienced stuff in the same area. Oh yeah, yeah, I can't. I can mark it on a map and send it to you. I just I have a feeling that would be that would be great. Scott's a good guy. He's got a very similar way of thinking as I do. So we both have the same question. Do you know if there's been stories of other sightings or activity in that area either prior to you camping there afterwards?

35:18 You know, I haven't heard of much activity, but I'll tell you people over there really don't talk about it. If they, if they would, people think they're crazy. It's the old way, I think, and I think it's just like my grandpa was. I mean, you know, they just don't talk about those things. You know, you guys are crazy, blah blah blah. I do know of a couple of reports back to the band that happened in the Minum Canyon, which is where those reports took place, that I could find out or understand.

36:03 Where they were at was probably. I don't know, maybe fifteen to twenty miles away, So I mean, it's not an outreach of them movie that far. And I'm kind of on the I don't know. My theory, if I could say it, is that I think they move around. I think they're almost a small migration, not a I don't think they're going. From Alaska to California. I don't really think they're going that far. But I think they. Have their high ground and then they have their low ground and travel with the food. I really believe, and where we camped at is kind of the mid range between high and low.

37:00 I kind of wondered if it wasn't. It was around in October. Early October, and I almost wondered if they weren't starting to move down from their high ranges and it was just kind of a migration path, you know. My theory were both times in October. Yeah, okay, yep, they were because I hunted in those woods, but also by sudden I went up there and did some hiking. We'd go up there and just do some scouting around, just hiking. Never had never saw anything, never had any interaction, never felt anything, because sometimes if you get out in the woods enough, you kind of feel things, you know, like eh, maybe we should go down there, or you just you got a gut feeling that maybe that's not a good place to go.

38:03 We hiked all over up there. Never I never got that feeling off something's there or some you know, watching us or anything. But that's what kind of amazed me, because I'd been in the woods and been around those woods so much and then have both these things happened in the same place it was. It was kind of shocking because the the the last thought in my mind I'd ever be able to have those experiences that close to where I was living. I was living in the Grand at the time, but now it's in my area. I don't have to read books about it being in Washington, California and place else. It's right up there, and of course as my son got old there we'd go looking for it, but we never never found anything.

39:06 Oh, so that that is very interesting. So the times that you weren't looking, but the times that you were, that's that's very interesting. Hmm. And that's why I've told some people that I've talked to. I says, they say, well, I want to find Bigfoot. Let's go Bigfoot. And I says that you'll never find it. I says, you need to you need to go into the places not expected it and not be prepared for it. And I said. That that's what you see it, that's what it all happens. And that's what's happened every time. And I saw. Now, when I go out in the woods, I hide the cameras and everything, so I'm not expected to see Bigfoot, but I'm sure going to get picture of it this time.

39:57 Yeah, you said you're good to go with. You have a camera with and maybe even audio recorder, who knows, but. Yeah, yeah, audio recorder. And then what was it about. I guess it's been ten years. Finally got night vision and so and that's been real handy. Uh so, yeah, I'm not. I'm not the richest fellow. I can't afford the the all the fancy toys they have for bigfoot hunting, so yeah, subday sub they all have them. Well, it's been really really interesting chat about an area I haven't really talked to a lot of people about, So it'll be interesting to see what comes of this interview.

40:47 Just wanted to take a minute to say thank you truly for listening to this episode of the Big for Society podcast. These story sticks with you, not just because of the towering creature in the woods, but because of the quiet fear, the awe, and the raw motion of a trying to protect his sun from something he couldn't explain. So huge thanks to d for opening up about these unforgettable nights in the Wallowa woods, reminding us that bigfoot encounters don't always happen to those who go looking. If you enjoy this conversation, please subscribe to us on YouTube, hit the bell icon so you don't miss any new episodes, and share this one with a friend who's in a Bigfoot Oregon or real wilderness encounters. If you're listening to Apple podcasts or Spotify. Make sure you're following the show there, and if you'd be willing to leave us a review, it helps more folks find us. If you or someone you know has had a Bigfoot encounter, especially in eastern Oregon near Wallowa, La Grand or the surrounding forest lands, I'd love to hear from you, so shoot me an email at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com and let's talk.

41:47 Thanks again for being part of the Bigfoot Society, and until next time, keep your eyes open, trust your gut, and never stop asking what else might be out there. See you in the woods.