Standoff on the Hill: An Oakridge, Oregon Encounter

0:00 Greetings from the north Woods of Wisconsin. This is Chad Lewis and you are listening to the Bigfoot Society podcast. Welcome to Big for Society. If you have Bigfoot activity to report from the same areas discussed in this episode, please reach out to me directly after this episode. And if you'd like to be on the podcast to discuss a personal Bigfoot encounter, please reach out to me directly at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. Do you wish there was more Big for Society to listen to you every week? Well there is now. If you become a supporting member over at Patreon, you get a special members only episode every single week on Wednesdays, and sometimes even more episodes. Head on over to patreon dot com. Forward slash the Big for Society and now let's get on with the show, all right, Big for Society. We got the privilege of talking to Jay today. I met Jay at my booth in Sasquatch Summerfest out there in Oakridge or again over this last summer of twenty twenty four and we had quite a conversation there, but it was a little loud, so we decided, hey, let's set up a time for later on after the festival, so we can really dig into things. And Jay's also from Douglas County and Jaye, it's a pleasure to talk to you again.

1:22 Well, it's nice to talk to you too. Well. As you just said, I'm Jay, I'm from Douglas County and my sighting happened in Lane County in the Willamette National Forest March tenth, twenty sixteen. And how it all came to be a little background is a good portion of my life. I've been really interested in Oregon's history of the gold Rush, and I'm kind of an avid prospector. I'm not a miner. I haven't found enough to mine, but I like to go out there and look for it.

2:03 And one day I was reading about the gold Rush like I like to do, and I come across this story goes back to about eighteen sixty three where a couple of what we call it fur traders or fur trappers, they had found some gold and began mining it. And without getting into all the details of that story, it became one of the state's famous lost gold mines, and as far as I'm aware, nobody has found it again, and nobody's making that claim So as I'm reading this story, I'm picking out the details that's included in this story, and I'm getting a feel of it and got a pretty good idea, like I'm sure every prospector does, of where this thing might be at, this lost gold mine.

3:08 So I get a hold of my buddy Allen, he's my prospecting partner, and I talked to him about it, and I say, hey, I think I have a good lead, and we're always looking for new places to prospect and pan for golden things. And I says, how about we take a drive up there, which would be above Oak Ridge, Oregon, and do some panning for the day. I got a site picked out, a spot picked out on the map that I'd like to go, you know, pan and see if we can find some color. Maybe there's something behind this story. Maybe we'll be the ones to you know, find the lost gold mine. So he said, yeah, that sounded good, and that he'd get ahold of this well our friend Robert and see if he can come along.

4:05 And Alan said he also had a neighbor his name was Matt, that liked to do gold prospecting too, and see if Matt was available, so it would be the four of us, and I said, okay, good and minutes later Alan calls me back and tells me, yeah, everything's good to go. Well, head up there. I think it was like on a Sunday if I remember right. And so we took two vehicles, loaded them down with our prospecting equipment, you know, sluice boxes and hand tools so that we could you know, scrape out the gold from any cracks and crevices in the bedrock. And we drove.

4:51 It took about a good hour and a half maybe maybe even an hour and forty minutes from where we lived to get there. Didn't have a problem finding there because like I said, I had it already marked on the map right where to go. And we pull in. It's in the morning, it's probably about nine thirty, almost ten o'clockish. And then, like I said, it's Oregon. So I mean, these the woods in this state is you can't even fathom it. It's just nothing but fur trees and fir trees and miles miles and miles. As much as some may say that we've logged off every tree, that's a complete joke. So we pull in up on this gravel road and we park off the side of the road there, and we get out and we're standing there talking about how we're going to make our way down into the creek that we want to be down in their gold prospect and we're grabbing up our hand tools and everything. And well, let me go back just a minute. As we're driving to the location, I have Alan that's driving his vehicle, and I'm driving my vehicle,

6:25 and as my passengers, I have Robert and I have Matt. Now I've never really met Matt before. He was the first day I've ever met him. But I figured, you know, one prospector to another, let's have a good time. So as we're driving up there, we're all, you know, talking and conversating about gold prospecting, and and one thing leads to another and we all start talking about Bigfoot. And I find out immediately in conversation that Matt, this new guy I don't know, he's obviously an unbeliever, which is fine, everybody has their opinion about it. But he is adamant how it's complete bull crap and Bigfoot doesn't exist, and he's got all the typical reasonings why that he doesn't believe.

7:27 And I'm listening to him, and I'm trying to give him some you know, rebettal on it. Why maybe it is possible, and it is out there, and you know not everybody's lying when they say they've seen this thing. How could it be? But he keeps going on how he doesn't believe, and I just get quiet about it, and I just figured, okay, whatever, and just let it go. So we find the spot, We park off the road, we get out of our vehicles. We're grabbing up our prospecting tools and things and trying to find a way that we're going to enter the brush and the trees and everything and work our way down the bank to get to the creek. And I see a game trail that I think we can use, and so I tell everybody right here looks like a good spot to get down in there. And then, for whatever reason, I happened to ask everybody anybody know any good bigfoot calls? We've all seen finding Bigfoot show and how they do their hoops and their haulers trying to call these things in.

8:54 And everybody kind of chuckled about it a little bit, and they said no, they didn't know any bigfoot calls. And I said, well, I do and they said, oh, well, let's hear it. You know, they're all kind of laughing about it. It was kind of a you know, funny little moment, so I thought, so I took a moment and went ahead and made this big, long, drawn out bigfoot call. And when I did it, I really went for it. I was trying to be you know, not cheap about doing this big foot call. And everybody was impressed, you know, they said, wow, that was really good. You know. Anyway, we didn't put much past it. We start working our way down the bank and it's probably about one hundred yards maybe a little more to get down into this creek.

9:54 And we're following this game trail. Could have been an elk trail or deer trail, it's just a game trail. We're falling it down through there. And we get all the way down to the creek and we start setting up our slice boxes and getting out our hand tools and looking for different spots that we each want to prospect for gold for and we start in and we start digging and prospecting and doing our thing and bs and then having a good time. And once in a while I get kind of the feeling like we were being watched, because every once in a while I would look up from what I was doing and kind of glance up the hillside from where we came to get down in there, whereas I couldn't see anything, but you just get that feeling like maybe you're being watched, but you pass it off because you know, well, you're the only people up there in that area. It's pretty remote.

11:03 There's no other vehicle traffic on the rock dirty roads, no other cars parked up in there. It's just us. So I go back to work and everybody else is doing their work, and time's going by, and we're having a good time, and it gets to be about, oh, I don't know, maybe about three o'clock, and I kind of tell everybody or mention to everybody that, you know, maybe it's a good time to do it clean up and see if we got anything today, because we're going to need to start packing up our gold equipment and we need to get it up out of here because at that time it's spring, and you know, it still gets dark a little earlier, and especially it gets dark in a heavily timbered forest and lots of old gross So you have a three story canopies. It really gets dark quick. Everybody agrees. And when we start breaking down our gold equipment and doing our cleanup out of our sluice boxes and panning out the concentrates, and didn't find any gold unfortunately, which is, you know, nothing new in my little world. It seems like maybe I just am not good at it. But anyway, we start collecting up all of our tools, and I'm loading up two five

12:34 gallon buckets and I have tools, and I'm grabbing up my backpack and everything. And then I grab one of the sluice boxes that we were using, and I tell everybody, well, I'm going to make a trip up, and everybody says okay, And so I begin the journey, you know, up the side of the hill to get back up to the vehicles at the first load of equipment, and I make it all the way back up to the truck, and I put the tools and things in the back of the truck and turn around and start heading down through the brush and the woods and back down to the creek to get another, you know, another load of equipment and tools because it's going to take us, you know, a couple of trips anyway, and I start down the hill and I probably get I don't know, like I said, fifty yards, sixty yards something like that. Halfway down and I see, you know, my friends Allen and Robert, you know, they're coming up the hill with a load of tools.

13:48 And I happen to tell them, I go, well, you guys are about halfway there. Just keep on going where you're going, and you know, the the truck and the car will be up there at the top. And they said okay, And I told them I'm going to go back down to the creek and grab up some more stuff and help Matt grab up some more stuff. And so we passed each other and away they went up the hill and the way I went down the hill and I got back down to the creek and there's Matt and I start grabbing up those five gallon buckets. They're loaded down with tools to make a second trip.

14:29 Big for a SOCIETYHO will be right back after these messages. And Matt's got his stuff in his hand, and we start coming across the flat portion. There's a flat portion from the creek before you hit the bank and the hillside. And so Matt is right next to me or right behind me, and we're hauling our equipment and tools, and then we get to the hillside and at that point, that's when it starts getting steep as it climbs up to the vehicles. And so I start up the embankment and I probably make it up between fifty to sixty feet somewhere in that range. And like I said, it's hard going up through there, especially when you're carrying thirty forty pounds of stuff on you, and anyway, I had to stop to take a breather, let the heart rate come down. And when I'm doing so, I'm trying to set down the five gallon buckets and get them balanced

16:03 to where they're not going to fall and roll back downhill behind me so I don't have to pick up all those tools and put them back in buckets. And I know sooner we got these buckets balanced where they weren't going to fall and roll, and I glanced up ahead of me, like you do when you're trying to keep your you're bearing on where you're going up through there, and you just kind of glance up ahead, and that's exactly when it happened. I locked eyes with one of these things, and it was no more than about thirty feet in front of me, and it was squatted down, squatted down, just like a baseball catcher, and I had its its knees were flailed out to the side, and its hands were tween its knees, touching the ground, and it was looking right at me with a real wide eyed, shocked expression on its face. And that was the only time I've seen this thing have any kind of whites to its eyes. And I'm sure I had the same expression, because I was pretty shocked too. And then I started feeling my heart rate pump and the adrenaline dump, and

17:35 this thing starts swaying side to side in that squatted position, and I'm starting to panic because I've seen chimpanzees and what not do that swaying motion, and sometimes this one they're excited, sometimes when they're angry. You know, who knows, and how do you determine what that means? But it made me real nervous, swaying side by side like that, And that's when I turned my head and my shoulders downhill towards the right to look down back at Matt because he's about fifty sixty feet below me on the flat still, and I yell at him. I says, Matt, I said, get up here next to me. I says, I am looking at a bigfoot right now. And he says what And I says, yeah, I says, I'm looking at a bigfoot right now. Get up here next to me.

18:57 And Matt, you know, he's the unbeliever, and so he's trying to pass me off or whatever he's trying to do. He says, oh, oh, that's cool, man. Yeah, I've got to go back to the creek and get more equipment and bring it to the base of this hill. He says, just be cool with it, man, Just be cool with it, man. And he starts, he turns around and starts walking back towards the creek. And so now I'm I'm yelling at him. No, wait, did you not hear what I said? And I can notice out of the corner of my eye because I'm trying to keep an eye on this thing while I'm trying to look back downhill at Matt, and I can see out of the corner of my eye, but this thing, from a squatted position is slowly standing up to a full upright position. And when I see that movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned my shoulders and head and body back towards this thing, and it squats down, almost squats down so fast it was like it was in free fall. And it's back in this squad of position. And then I try to turn my shoulders and my head back downhill to yell at Matt.

20:26 Did you not hear me? I says, I'm looking at a bigfoot right now, get up here, get over here, and he's yelling back at me it's cool, I'll be right back. Just be chill with it. And I'm thinking, man point an idiot, and I'm losing sight of Matt, because you know, he's getting through the brush and he's going back towards the creek. And then all of a sudden, Matt's gone, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye this thing is starting to stand up again, and so I turned back towards it and face it, and it squats back down. Then it slowly stands up and squats back down. And then finally I think it realized that now I see you, I mean, for crying out loud, You're just thirty feet right there in front of me.

21:24 And there was no real underbrush in that spot for it to hide in. It was pretty open right there, and the sun was coming down good through the trees right there, and so I had full sunlight on it. And so it slowly stood all the way back up, and it took about a step and a half to my right where it would be side hitling, and it stopped and it stood there and it squared up to me, shoulder to shoulder, and we started having a starring contest at that moment, and my heart rate is going, the adrelline's going, and it's standing there looking at me, and I'm looking at it, and the only thing moving on this thing is its eyes. We blink every once in a while, but I have this real stoic expression on its face, almost like a good poker face. You couldn't quite get a read on it. And then it gave me the impression like, yep, here we are. What are we going to do about it? Because it's between where I've got to go to get back to the truck, and I don't dare feel like I should be moving as close as it is to me. And so I'm

22:55 looking it over, and I'm looking it over and taking in the details of this thing, and I start locking eyes with it again, and I must have made too long of eye contact because it flipped its lips back and it showed me its teeth, almost like a dog does when it starls at you. And I didn't know how to interpret it other than it wasn't happy with me making eye contact. So I broke eye contact, and I turned my shoulders a little bit away from it, so I wasn't squared up with it, and I kind of leaned forward and hunched my back so that I would look a little bit more submissive and my posture.

23:43 But I'm still looking at it out of the corner of my eyes, and I'm looking at it from its feet up its shins and thighs and torso. And then eventually I find myself looking at it back in the eyes, and it didn't like that. It showed me its teeth again, so I look away, turn my body away, hunch over a little bit, and i'd begin to process over. And as this is going on, you know, it's like a high stressful car accident. You know, time slows down, your brain works quickly, and all I could think about is, you know, Matt's down at the creek. I can't see him.

24:30 Allan and Robert are up there at the vehicles. It's me and this thing. Is this how it ends for me? Am I going to become just another missing person? You know? Is this how this is going to happen? Because my friends are going to wonder where the heck did Jay go? You know, he was just right here. I'm thinking about my friends and my family what they would think, and well, all the time I got done thinking about all of those things, I'm guessing it's about three minutes that went by. It was quite a while that I'm standing here looking at this thing. But it's not moving and it's not growling.

25:21 But if I make too long an eye contact, it shows me its teeth. So it eventually it turns around and starts walking up ahead of me, and I'm a little relieved at least it's moving off and away from me, And now I can see its complete backside, very very well, a lot of detail in it, and it's walking up ahead of me, and it's using the same game trail as we were using to get in and out of there, so it's basically kind of eating me out, like it's heading back towards the truck in the car, and as it's walking up ahead of me, you know, the distance is increasing now from like thirty feet to fifty feet to sixty feet seventy feet. It's getting closer to be about one hundred feet up there ahead of me, maybe even one hundred and fifty. And I'm now thinking to myself that, you know, any moment, I'm going to lose sight of this thing, because the underbrush was getting a lot taller in that area, it was getting a lot shadier in that area, and darker in that area. The tree canopy was a little thicker, it wasn't letting in all the sunlight through, and I thought, holy crap. If

26:52 I lose sight of this thing, and that's where I basically got to go to get back to the vehicles, I could be setting myself up for an ambush situation. And I was not thrilled about that. So I yelled at it. What else am I supposed to do? I yelled at it, hey, and it was still walking. It's like it didn't even hear me. And now I'm really panicking because the window of time of losing sight of this thing is getting closer, and so I yelled at it in a more commanding voice. I mean, almost like you get from a drill instructor in the Marine Corps.

27:41 I yelled very powerfully, hey, and the thing stopped, stopped dead in its tracks, and it turned all the way around, and it starts downhill towards me, and I am panicking because now I'm thinking, oh, crap, what did I do, you idiot? You know, in one regard, I had it made, but in another regard, I didn't want to be ambushed because that's where I had to go, and I didn't want to take any alternate routes to get back up to the vehicles. So it takes anywhere from four or five maybe six steps back down hill towards me, and thankfully it stopped. So now I'm guessing we're about seventy five maybe eighty feet away from each other, and we're having another stare down. It's looking at me, and I'm looking at it, and I don't notice it showed me its teeth, but we're definitely looking at each other, and I'm panicking because I'm thinking, crap, where is Alan and Robert?

28:56 Where is Matt? Start yelling at this thing? I start yelling, you gotta go get out of here. At the same time i'm yelling this, I'm using my right arm and my pointer finger to swing out and point off to my right. Get out of here. Go like you try to be aggressive with a bear or a cougar, you know, trying to intimidate or scare the animal. But it wasn't moving. I didn't care what I was saying or what I was doing. It was just standing there with that stoic expressionless face. And I'm panicking and I'm thinking, oh crap.

29:44 And I look back behind me and Matt's not anywhere. He's not coming, and I'm thinking what's taking him so long? And I'm thinking, where's Robert and Allen because they should be coming downhill to help Matt and I get some more equipment out of here. So I started yelling for Robert and Allen. I'd yell Robert and the things just standing there looking at me, and then I'd yell Alan and they weren't coming. And I'm watching this thing and then I yell again Robert and then Alan. Robert and Allen ain't coming, and I'm thinking.

30:28 Crap, big for society, who will be right back after these messages? Because if they were coming down to help matten me. We'd have this thing sandwiched in between us on the hillside, and they'd see this thing from the top down as I'm looking at this thing from the top up, and they're not coming, and I'm panicking. Finally, and I'm guessing another two three minutes go by. This thing starts moving off to my right, almost as it was taking my direction, you know, just a few minutes before, as I was swinging my arm and pointing off to my right, it starts sidehiling off to my right, which would be its left.

31:29 And I'm watching it starting a side hill away from me, off to the right, and it makes it about one hundred feet off to my right, maybe one hundred and twenty feet off to my right. And just like before, the underbrush in that area over there was getting a lot taller and thicker. The canopy was denser, so there was less sunlight in there. There was more shadows and shades in there, and I eventually lost sight of this thing, and I thought, well, that's fine by me, because I've got to make the bee line and go straight to get back up to the trucks. And it's off over there to my right somewhere. That's fine. So I grabbed each of those two five gallon buckets, and I tell you what, I had all the energy that I needed and all the adrenaline I needed to get all the way up through the brush in that hill and get up there to the trucks. And as soon as I broke through the brush and hit the rock road, there was Alan and Robert standing right there by the vehicles, lost in conversation, just bs and a way about whatever it was they were talking about. And I am coming unglued.

32:57 I am starting to yell at them and talk a million miles an hour to which is confusing to them because they're trying to understand what I'm saying. And I'm throwing the five gallon buckets of tools in the back of the vehicle, and then I'm throwing off my backpack that I had on, and I'm trying to unzip the backpack, which was difficult to do because I had some chest waiters I was wearing down in the creek when I was prospecting, and chest waiters are what fishermen took typically wear to stay dry from the water. They like to stand in the water and do they're fishing. They use these chest waiters and I had a pair of those, and I had them rolled up like a sleeping bag, really really tightly, and it took all that I could do to get those squeezed inside that backpack and get the zipper closed to where the zipper wasn't busting and breaking.

34:06 So I'm yelling and screaming at Allan and Robert. While I'm fighting with the zipper to open up my backpack. I'm grabbing a hold of my neoprene chest waiters and I'm trying to pull them out of that backpack because they're tightly squeezed in there. And at the bottom of my backpack I have a forty caliber pistol and I retrieved that pistol and immediately put around into the chamber. Now that got Robert and Allen's attention. They're like, whoa, what is going on? And all I can say is there's a freaking bigfoot. I was just looking at a bigfoot.

34:51 We have got to get out of here. And I'm using the keys to open up the truck because in the console of the truck I left my flip phone. There was a flip phone back then that I had and I'm putting this phone on camera mode and I have my pistol on my other hand, and I says, you guys don't understand. While you're up here Jack and your jaws, I was down there, halfway on the bank, having a stare off with this bigfoot. I ain't kidding you. I'm serious as a heart attack. And they said, really what And you can see that they have wide eyed expressions because now they're listening to me, and I'm telling Allen and Robert. Yeah, and Matt's.

35:54 Jay there. I'm sorry. The person you were trying to reach has a voicemail box that has not been set up yet. Please try.

36:42 Hello, Hey, Jay. I think we that was weird, man. We got to disconnect there somehow. Sometimes during these interviews, weird tech stuff happens. But okay, sorry about that. Whatever happened, there's a right I think the last I don't know either. Yeah, you would probably not be surprised though. The last thing I heard was I ain't kidya. I'm as serious as a heart attack. Okay, Okay, Yeah, I was talking to Alan Robert and I told him I said, I'm as serious as a heart attack, I says Matt is still down there at the creek. We got to get down there and get the equipment, and we got to get Matt out of here.

37:42 We got to go. And Robert and Allen they both agreed. So we start back down through the brush and down the hillside, and we're kind of taking our time, and we're really looking, all three of us, because we don't want to get ambushed by this thing. We don't know if it has bad intentions or good intentions or neutral intentions, we don't know. We don't see it. As we get back down to the creek and we find Matt. There's Matt struggling to get more equipment, and so we all three pitch in and grab the equipment and we tell Matt we got to get out of here. And I'm telling Matt, yeah, we have a big foot here, and I just got down looking at this thing. We got to go. I don't think we should be around. And Matt's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know you said that.

38:35 Yeah whatever, you know, you and your bigfoot stuff. And I says, Matt, I ain't got time to argue with you here. You know, there are a lot of animals that are out here. You know that you never see when you go out there, but you know they are, I says, and this is one of them. I said, I don't care if you believe or not. We've got to go. The day is over. And so all four of us, with equipment in hand, start working our way back up the hillside towards the vehicles, and my head is on a swivel. I am hyper aware and vigilant of everything around me, I because now I'm looking around every tree. I'm looking behind every stump, every log that's laying on the ground, every shadow you know that could be one. And we all four make it back up to the vehicles, no problem, no other sightings, no nothing, and we put the h the rest of the equipment in the vehicles, get in our vehicles, turn around and drive back down off the rock road down to the main road to get out of the area. And the whole drive back. I just cannot stop talking about the experience,

40:05 you know, telling everybody about it in the situation, and how I was panicking because well, Matt wasn't coming up from the creek to greet me, and Robert and Allen weren't coming down the hill to greet me, and why did it take everybody so long, and how I could have just became missing, and you guys would have been no wiser to what had happened to me. And I could just picture, you know, the sheriffs and search and rest. You're getting involved, and I kind of scolding them. But it wasn't their fault, you know, it was just the way the situation played out. And this thing was one of the most terrifying things I think I've ever seen in my life. I mean, when monsters become real, it changes the paradigm in your life. I mean, it is one thing to believe that these things are out there.

41:10 It's a completely other thing. Do you have it thrown in your face looking at one? And the one that I seen was, man, this is just so typical. I don't know how to describe it in any other way that other people have done in the past. But when this thing was squatted down and we locked eyes and then it eventually stood up, and I'm looking at this thing, it was salt and pepper colored. I mean, it wasn't brown, it wasn't red, it wasn't black. It was salt and pepper.

42:02 Like an aging man and gets that salt and pepper that gray and white hair's kind of fifty to fifty mix, where you know your base coat is kind of a gray color. People have used the term navy ship gray. Yeah, it was like a navy ship gray, but it had white highlights coming through it in a fifty to fifty mix. And even though it was a gray and a white color, it did not look like it was aging. I mean, this thing looked like it was at the prime of its life. It was very, very muscular, every bit of eight feet tall. It could have been eight and a half feet tall, but it was three to three and a half feet, maybe even four feet white at the shoulders, and the shoulders were like bowling balls. The muscularity on this animal, this creature, whatever you want to call it, it reminded you of a professional bodybuilder. This thing was muscular yet lean, and I just couldn't stop staring at it.

43:31 I mean, the shoulders, the biceps, the triceps, the forearms on this thing, you know, the chest, you know, the the six pack abs that have had the quads, calves, everything was just perfect. I mean, Ronnie Coleman would have been envious of this thing, especially when it turned around and walked up ahead of me, and I could see the backside. It had that perfect upside down triangular, triangular or a V shaped to it from the shoulders to the waist. Its buttocks was even muscular, and the hair on it was probably three to four inches. It was very, very well groomed. I mean it looked like you took it to the dog groomers it was. It looked like somebody spent hours on it, brushing it and brushing it and brushing it. I didn't see any mats in its hair.

44:37 I didn't see any twigs. I didn't see any leaves. It didn't look like it was dirty from any dirt or dust. The thing looked well groomed, beautiful animal. You could see through the hair to the skin in different places too. It was almost as when a man ages and he starts getting thin hair and you can see through the hair to the scalp, you know. You could you get portions of its body where you could see through the hair to the to the skin. And it had a dark gray skin, especially when it was in the squatted position. You could see on the inside of its legs and a little bit on its calf muscles.

45:26 It was almost bare skin. No hair, but on top of its thighs and over the shins there was more hair, longer hair now you could still see through it to the skin, and you could see the striations of the muscles. Same thing on its chest and on its stomach it was almost like a peach fuzz for hair, but almost like a bare chest area. And on its shoulders and on the tops of its arms was longer hair. But on the four arms, inside of the arms, just like on the inside of the legs, you could see more skin than hair. In the face, it looked like it had a beard like the Amish, with no mustache, longer hair coming off of the jawline.

46:30 Big for society will be right back after these messages. But above that again was kind of like peach fuzz. It was still hair, but it was a lot shorter, shorder hair, and it had a human style hooded nose, and the face was more oval in shape and looked longer and almost flat, with these beady black almond shaped eyes, and it would the only thing that would move is his eyes would blink a couple of times, which is you know, it's normal. And his lips were thin, thin, and a little thinner than hours, but a lot like hours.

47:45 And it seemed like from the from the top of its top lip to the underside bridge of its nose, it was a little wide. It looked a little funny to me when I when I seen it that way, and it had a forehead, but all you could see above that deep brow ridge on its forehead was only about one inch section of skin before the hair started on the forehead, and the hair grew backwards towards the top of the head. And when I was looking at it face on shoulder, shoulders squared up with it, its head looked round. It looked completely normal, you know, like our heads are are roundish. However, when it turned around to start walking up ahead of me, I noticed then from the back of it that its head came up into that cone type of shape like you'll see on a gorilla, and all the hair on the head grew up to the top of that cone. And at the top of the cone, it looked like a big old cat like sticking up there off the top of the cone of his head. And they do have neck muscles,

49:22 but you can't really see it because those trapezius muscles connecting from the back of the head to The shoulders are so thick and so large. It makes them look like other people have said, like a football player wearing a helmet. Like the head is set down there in between them shoulders. You can't hardly see that neck. They do have necks, but those trapezius muscles are so big. I can only imagine the strength that these things have. It was just a beautiful, incredible animal. Feet looked just like our feet. I was shocked to be able to see the heel in the foot and toe definition. It had hair over the top of its feet, and the hair would cut off about where the toes would begin.

50:24 And it had totenails really similar to ours. Even its fingernails were a lot like ours. Its hands were like ours. There was hair on top of the hand, but not on the palm, and the hair would stop on the hand right at the knuckles, right there where the fingers begin. I just I was scared. I guess you could say, you know, there's a lot of fear in a drenaline going on. But at the same time, when all this is happening, there's the other part of me where I am completely awestruck. I'm captivated. I cannot stop looking at this thing because in a lot of respects, it was a magnificently beautiful creature species whatever it is, bigfoot, I mean, call it by a thousand names. The thing was beautiful. Now, I'm happy that all that ever did was show me its teeth and it didn't make any real sudden or really aggressive movements towards me. And I'm sure and heck glad that it didn't scoop me up and just start walking off with me, because, like I said, the horror that my friends would go through trying to figure out

51:54 where the heck did Jay go? So that kind of wraps it up. But I'll tell you whether there has not been a day since that day that it has not gone through my mind. It has haunted my mind. You cannot get it out. It just I don't know if that's what they call PTSD or anything like that, but it changes you. There's just not a moment or not a day where there's not a moment that you don't stop thinking about this thing.

52:35 That is extremely incredible, probably the most detailed description I have yet to hear. Thank you for sharing that. Do you mind if I ask you some questions about what you experienced? Yeah, yeah, sure. How long were the arms? Well, they're longer than ours because when it was standing there, the top of its middle finger on both arms were practically touching its knees. So they have longer arms than ours.

53:27 And it seemed like from the from the elbow through the forearm, their forearms seemed to be longer than from the elbow to the shoulders. That's what I noticed about the arms, and the same thing with the the calves. From the knee down to the foot, they seemed to be at an awkward length. Like it said, they look like a man. I mean, they're shaped like a man as far as two arms and two legs and a head corsol and all that, but their limbs are at slightly different ratios than ours. That's the best way I can describe it.

54:16 Yeah, that definitely makes sense from what I've heard in other places as well. Did you notice anything weird about the gait of the creature or the way that it was moving? Oh? Yeah, I missed that when this thing started walking up ahead of me. First of all, it was completely silent. I didn't even hear a snip a snap of a twig. I didn't hear the crunching of a leaf and when he did it. And I've heard this being described by other people in the past, and it's a great description.

54:57 It was just like this thing was on a Nordic track, like on a set of snow skis. It just glided through all that timber and brush and maneuvered through it effortlessly and smoothly. I mean, its head wasn't bobbing. It was like it had a stack of books up there on its head, and those books were perfectly level and not moving. It just glided. So I'm imagining that they probably walk better than we do, because it looked completely like it wasn't exhausted, it wasn't tired. It had no problem going up that bank and that hillside ahead of me, no problem at all. I mean, didn't even break a sweat like this thing does it all the time, like walking on a flat sidewalk.

55:57 The Nordic tract things. That's a really good way to put it. That's a new one for me, but I mean that that definitely makes sense. I haven't been able to see one yet, but that really makes sense. Were you able to see specifically how the feet would move as it was moving up the hill. Was there anything out of the ordinary about the feet itself? I wasn't paying that close of attention to how it was its feet was yep, I was more or less. I've seen the back of the legs moving, I've seen the you know, the muscles of the buttocks moving, but I didn't I didn't really see the feet. I didn't.

56:44 I don't really remember anything like that. When I talked to witnesses, sometimes they will describe it in different ways, And I'm curious if you of these or any of these apply to what you saw. Some people will say, well, it looked like some kind of monkey or neanderthal, or just a guy you would see walking down the road or an orangutan to is there any way to summarize what you would see, like is it something you would see in a zoo or just down the middle of the road and oakridge? You know, wow, this is nice to see. Yeah. I want to say something super controversial because the Bigfoot world is always split on so many things. The Bigfoot world likes to argue about so many things. I don't know when there's ever gonna be unity, But I'm gonna tell you just how it is. Go ahead and you can like it or not. Hte it, love it, keep it, leave it. But we all know, I think think what we're talking about when I say it had the Muppet face, we have somebody, somebody in our community, our big Foot community.

58:12 Some people like and believe and some people don't. And people have termed it or nicknamed it the Muppet face. Well, I'm telling you that's what the face look like. Look like the Muppet face. You can get over it. That's what it looked like. They had that oval face, peach fuzz on the face except for the jawline, had that longer beard, the beady black eyes, the human knows the almost human style lips on it, and slipped to the mouth.

58:54 That's what the face looked like. As far as the body, and you've heard this many times, it looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronnie Coleman at the peak of their careers up there posing up there on the stage. You could see every striation of the muscle, every definition. I often tell people a good thing to do on a Google search. It's just type in hairless chimpanzee and you take a look at that and you see how ripped those things are that's what this thing look like. You could see that type of definition through the hair. You could see through the hair to the skin, and you could see those muscles rippling. I'll tell you something else that's interesting about the whole thing is when I got home and I looked on the maps at that general area where we were at. I didn't know this prior to this happening, but as I relooked at the map system, I had our location pinting on the map.

1:00:13 Big for society will be right back. After these messages, we. Knew where we were at. We specifically drove to that location to do some goal prospecting. However, when you widen your search away from where we were at no more than three to five miles away, there's a drainage creek.

1:00:54 This drainage creek on the map is literally named bab Boon Creek, you know, And that's a big curiosity for me. You know, a lot of it is how did these creek names or these mountains receive their names. You know, I can understand the lightning Ridge, Well, you're going to have lightning strikes on that ridge, right, That's why you would name it that or deer Creek, right, there's a lot of deer in the creek, right, or in that general area of that creek, there's a lot of deer or Elk valley, right. But here you have something in the Wilamte National Forest, which is almost a million acres that says Baboon Creek. And this drainage creek is a non significant creek. I mean most of the time in the summertime, I imagine it's one of those drainage creeks that goes bone dry. That Yet the Forest Service on their map has it named as Baboon Creek. So my question is how did it receive its name? I mean, you look in the area and there's no rock formations in that area that would resemble a baboon, So how did he get its name? Oregon has exotic pet laws,

1:02:27 as far as I understand, you're not allowed to own an exotic pet like a baboon. So a family out on a Sunday drive and their pet baboon gets loose in the area. It's probably not why they named that drainage creek Baboon Creek, I assume, and I'd like to believe, just my opinion that at some point you had someone that either did or didn't work for the Forest Service have some kind of sighting or encounter right there in that general area. So when they got back to the office, they told their fellow employees about it, and when they decided to issue out a new map for the year, or however often they like to print out maps, maybe they decided then that they would name that area or that drainage creek Baboon Creek. I don't know. That's something you'd have to ask the Forest Service about. So what are the odds that only three to five miles away there's a drainage creek that is happened to be named Baboon Creek.

1:03:56 It's one of those places that you know, well, say, I've talked to it more than a few people about the Willlamte National Forest and the bigfoot activity there and the people that are really into it, which in this interview anyways, names won't be named. That that place always gets brought up as it's hard to get to, but there's stuff that happens there that is absolutely crazy. So it is one of the more intense areas. Only being what you said, three miles away from where you were at. That's that really makes you makes you wonder. I mean, that's not a long long trip at all.

1:04:42 No, I would guess I could get there in about seven minutes from where we were at. Have you ever gone to check that place out? No, but I like to. And sometimes that's the difficulty is Ever since that happened, I can't go out and recreationally do anything without bringing somebody with me. I used to be able to go out alone, no problem. I believed him bigfoot. Yeah, I thought he was out there, but I thought the chances of me ever running into one was pretty well slimmed to none. But then it happened, and now I think there's bigfoot everywhere, or the possibility that there is, And I've got to bring somebody with me if I want to go out there and do anything.

1:05:32 And sometimes it's just difficult to connect with people and their schedules and my schedules and match up days off to be able to go out and do things like that. So No, I haven't been back into the area. I haven't been back to or I had my encounter, and I haven't even done any of that there. I know right where it's at. I still have a GPS to on my map be no problem for me to drive right back there and take a look around. But I'm sure, and heck is I'm not going to do anything like that by myself. Oh yeah, absolutely, I think that's that's wise too, for anyone who's into this not not to do the going by yourself route. So getting a good look at it, do you think that is there any way that you could really protect yourself from a creature this big and so powerful?

1:06:35 No? No, even if I had my handgun, you know, my availability, which in the moment I didn't, it was at the bottom of my backpack, and it would have been a real deal trying to tell this thing, Okay, big guy, just stay there and don't move while I slip off my backpack, fight to open up the zipper, grab a hold of my chest weights and rent them out of this backpack, to retrieve my handgun and then point it at you in defense. I mean, it's a forty caliber handgun, but I don't think even at a short distance of thirty feet, it's going to have any kind of penetrating power to be able to penetrate the sheer mass of this animal. I mean, if it is related to a primate, if it is then primates have I don't remember what the number was, but it was a crazy number, like twenty times denser muscles than humans do.

1:07:44 So it's going to be hard for even a high caliber bullet to penetrate all that tissue to get to a vital organ. And this thing is thick. I mean, if it turned sideways and you were to look at the front of the chest to the back of the chest, I mean that sucker had to be two feet or two and a half feet dick from the chest to the back. Yeah. I just don't think it'd be wise to point a stick, point a weapon, point anything at this this creature. I think the best thing anybody can do is to do a lot like what I did.

1:08:28 Don't move, hold your ground, don't do anything rash, try to stay calm and collected what you can and just let it move off, you know, let it get tired of you and just move off. And I think that's what it did. It got a good look at me. It realized I wasn't trying to be a big, big threat towards it. Maybe maybe it felt no real challenge from me, but I think that, you know, if it wanted me, it had me dead to rights, especially at thirty feet away, it wouldn't surprise me, especially if they're in that squatted position, that they would literally be able to take one leap through the air downhill and be right smack dab on top of you and it'd be over.

1:09:29 It'd be over, you'd be done. But none of that has happened. None of that did happen. I'm obviously alive to talk about it with you today. But I think if you're experiencing things out there that are considered maybe aggressive in nature, just turn around and slowly walk your way out the way that you came in. There's no need to a it on for what to put you in more danger or the people you're with in more danger. Just take the sign they don't watch you in the area, get out of the area. And that's kind of what I did that day, especially when I had to make a stupid bigfoot call that I never thought would have any results. I mean, is that why I saw it that day? Did I happen to call it in? I don't know. I mean, it's possible, but if you see one, or you have one throwing grapefruit size to bowling sized rocks through the woods at you, or they're pushing down trees, or they're doing things like that. I think it's a pretty good sign that you just need to pack it up and get out of there. I mean, don't push the issue. That's just my opinion of what people should do.

1:11:00 I mean, treat it like anything else that's wild, because you've got to understand a lot of the translations from Indian languages will literally translate into one of two things, harry man or wild man. Emphasis on wild is the difference between a wolf and a dog? Are they both k nine? Yes, But you know that thing is wild and you don't know exactly what you're going to get from it, So give it respect, give it space. The Indians used to say that when they would see signs of these things in an area of the woods, they'd give them a wide berth. The Indians would go off and hunt somewhere else, they leave that area, And I think that's how we should continue to do it. The Native Americans, well, they've been around them longer than you know as white people. I think we need to listen to them when they when they say, you know, this is how you should treat them and behave and everything else, and some of the Indians say that they like to eat people. You need to stay away from them, you know.

1:12:27 I think we need to listen to all those things and consider all those things. You do not have to believe all those things, but at least consider them as a possibility. Excuse me, absolutely, I definitely definitely agree with that. I've been doing a lot of research into Oakrage, and it seems like the more I dig into it, it's a very intense area. Or maybe I'm just not used to how Oregon is in general. Do you think that that area is intense more than other areas in Oregon when it comes to Sasquatch, or do you think the whole state in general is just out of control.

1:13:13 There's a lot of rural areas in Oregon. I mean, once you get outside of any small town or larger town or city, I mean, it's just nothing but woods. I mean, you got to understand a lot of these people that live five to ten miles outside of a town in a rural area. Your backyard is nothing but Douglas fir trees in forests, whether that's a national forest or it's timber a company owned, it's forest. And if you fly a drone up or get in a plane, it's nothing but miles and miles of forest. It goes on and on and on. I mean basically we all kind of live in the woods. I hate to say it that way, but just take an aerial view of it.

1:14:10 The Umpquah National Forest is nine hundred thousand acres. The Wilamic National Forest is, well, it's about the same. It's nine hundred thousand, two a million acres. You go to Mount Hood, I mean it's just in the Three Sisters area, same thing. Holy crap. You go down on the Oregon California border and that's the same way. It's rule. It's nothing but woods and mountains and woods. I mean, it's no wonder people get lost in this state, and it's pretty easy to get turned around. It all looks the same if you're out there wandering around and you don't have the skill sets to you know, navigate yourself in and out of areas. I don't think there's necessarily certain hotspots.

1:15:04 I mean, you could encounter these things almost anywhere in the state, to be completely honest with you, and I think you know there are certain areas where there's more recreation going on more human activity. And I think that to a large degree, these things are you know, a little curious by nature, and they want to check you out and then they'll kind of decide on their own if they want to, you know, let you be or try to intimidate you out of the area. But I think, yeah, there's a lot of boating and kayaking and a lot of hiking trails that people like to use. All of those are still in remote areas of the state, and it gives anybody the opportunity to have an experience or a citing right. Can't really say definitively that one place is going to have more activity than the other. I think that is based off the time of the year and where the food sources are. Because when we were there on March tenth, that's springtime, and in that creek that we were goal prospecting in, the salmon were running.

1:16:22 I mean I could have walked out in the creek and just bent down and grabbed up a spring salmon. Big for society will be right back after these messages. I mean they were flopping and everything in through there. So it's a great food source. You know, as far as I understand these things, love fish. They love salmon. Well, we have a spring, a fall in it, in a winter, fish runs in all of the creeks and streams that feed our rivers, So I would guess that, you know, maybe we interrupted it getting some fish for the day.

1:17:17 I mean, that's a possibility too. We also suspect that they love huckleberries, and you've heard reports of them going as far as eating deer and eating elk. So I'm assuming that these things have a range that they go through throughout the year, and whatever food source is in these areas is where you're going to find them. You know, spring, fall, winter, If the fish are running, you have a good opportunity that they're feeding on fish. If the berries are ripe, well there's an opportunity they're feeding on berries. If there's no berries and no fish in the moment, they're probably going to switch to deer and elk and other things.

1:18:09 And so you kind of use that as a guide. If you're out there trying to look for these things, you need to place yourself in areas where those food sources are plentiful. In light, I did not come back from Oakridge the same person. I will say that I experienced some things that were very weird. I ended up having bacterial infections in my legs that I had to go to the doctor urgent care for that. I got up in the woods, like Jay, it was nuts. It was absolutely that area is crazy. Oh wow, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, you know, that's all right. I mean, I still got my legs, but it's just weird. It's just weird.

1:18:54 They didn't really two doctors in two different states had no idea what happened. So be probably wearing pants in the woods when I go out next. That's what it comes down to. Always a good idea. Yeah, it's a good idea. But what year again was that when you had your encounter and. Oakridge March tenth, twenty sixteen. Wow, that is yeah, wow, that is so recent. Hasn't been a day it has gone by. I have not thought about it. Do you ever? Has what happened there? Has it affected your your dreams? Or is it constantly in this is this is kind of weird to say, but is it constantly on your mind? Almost to the point where like you're looking around at the real world, but you almost see that same area. I'm not even sure how to explain that, but I know what.

1:19:54 I think, I know what you're getting at. Yeah, it's uh. I've never dreamt of about the experience. I've never had nightmares about the experience or woke up in a cold sweat, And I don't even know how to put a number on it. But I find myself daydreaming a lot about that experience that day, just reliving it in my mind. No real emotions attached to reliving it in my mind, just can't stop reliving it in my mind. I think I think the way to describe it would be in comparison.

1:20:43 Possibly now I'm not of it. I never served in the military, but it would be like someone who was in the military and unfortunately had to take the life of other people's And I think the first time that happens for a military vet taking someone else's lives life, I should say, I think there's not going to be a day that goes by in that man's mind where he doesn't replay that in his mind. And that's the same thing with me. I don't dream about it, but during the day I often think about it absolutely and that's the best way I can I can describe it for myself and my own experience that changes you, man.

1:21:44 Yeah, No, it definitely, it definitely does. And I just can't imagine to the effects that actually having a visual sighting does that. Yeah, it's I. Wish Matt would have seen it. I wish Matt would have seen it. Was he was an unbeliever. I already believed I didn't have to see one in life. I already believed it was out there was enough circumstantial evidence out there. But I want him to see it. If I could have just got him to come up there and stand next to me, he would have seen it too. Do you think he's still an unbeliever?

1:22:26 Oh? Absolutely, Yeah. I didn't. I didn't quite get along with his personality anyway. Especially on the drive there, I got a real feel for the guy, and I was like, I don't really don't really click with this guy. But that's all right. We're going to go out here. We're all going to have a good time and make a day of it. You know, Jay, it has been a pleasure chatting with you. I mean, it's just it's it's a fascinating account, and I'm glad that we decided to the extra time outside of you know, we only got I want to say fifteen twenty minutes at the festival and this is much needed to spend the time so that you could really really pick it apart. And thank you so much for coming on today.

1:23:17 Jay. You're welcome. Absolutely, you got my number and you can get a hold of me anytime. Please take a minute to help out the show by subscribing on YouTube, making sure you hit the bell so you don't miss any notifications, and share the episode on YouTube with a friend. Also, if you're listening to us on a podcast, thank you so much, make sure that you're subscribed, share the show with a friend. Really, it's all about sharing the show wherever you can. If you've had a Bigfoot encounter related to the following or know someone who has, please reach out to me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com or pass on my email the list. If you've had any encounters in Oregon, which I'm sure there's probably a few of you out there, please feel free to reach out immediately. You can use email Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. A special thank you to all the big Foot Society, Patreon and YouTube channel members. It's your support that helps keep the show going and I extremely appreciate it. If you want to join in the fun, you can join over at patreon dot com. Forward slash the big Foot Society. I'll see you there and again, thanks for listening.

1:25:22 Her and I can get on here. We can tell our stories. Maybe there's somebody else out there listening it's too afraid to tell their story. Maybe this will give them the courage to come out and now feel so bad about it. Who cares what anybody thinks. I know what I saw, I know what's out there. That's all I care about. Please let people know, Please let them know. If you ever see one of these. Things, you need to tell because if you don't, then shame on you.

1:26:05 You know, shame on you,