The Ranger's Confession | California

0:05 Welcome to Big for Society and I'm Jeremiah Byron. In tonight's episode, you'll hear about a very strange sasquatch occurrence, one I haven't heard a lot about, and this takes place in the Blue Lakes region of California. So get ready and see if you can figure out what it was that set this witness on edge. You're not going to want to miss this one, so stay with us, all right, Big for Society. You've got the privilege of talking to John today. John's an individual I got connected to through email and he's wanting to share a few experiences he's had throughout his life and just make sure that he's able to get it all out there. So welcome to the show. John. How's it going today?

0:50 Great? Thank you very much. Awesome. Well, you know it sounds like from what I know about what you're going to share, we've got some really interesting things to talk about regarding northern California. But you know, feel free to take us back to when these events first started happening to you and we'll fall along with you. Okay. So, in the summer of eighty two, eighty three, and eighty four, I worked for a company called Multiple Use Management, and we were basically campground rangers for PG and E campgrounds. So they would start me off in northern California at Lake Spaulding at the five thousand foot elevation, and I would stay there and open up that campground, and then when the snow melted, they would move me up to Blue Lakes at eight thousand feet elevation. And so this is dealing with the Blue Lakes area, which is a four lake complex in four wheel drive roads that go each direction of it. And I guess I'll start with I believe it would would be the the summer of eighty three. And again at this time, I didn't believe that bigfoot were here. But I'm a curious guy and I've always had an interest in the topic, and I interviewed everybody about it because I was fishing for information, trying to fill in the dots. So I got a lot of information over the three years, talking

2:21 to so many people on a daily basis. But I was fishing. One morning, I got out before daybreak because I wanted to float a nightcrawler on top and catch me a big brown up in upper Blue And the road goes right alongside the lake, and it's a fairly decent sized lake. It was a really calm morning, not a ripple on the water. You could hear, you could hear a noise would travel a mile. You could hear small noises really well. But as the light started getting a little bit lighter and lighter, I had noticed a figure on the opposite side of the lake. And there's quite a bit of distance involved, but the figure was all black from head to toe, and I figured it was just a guy in a hoodie that it was fishing on the opposite side of the lake. Again, I didn't really believe that bigfoot were part of the of this area. I figured they were all up north, further up, you know, above Mount Shasta in the coastal area. Anyway, So I sit there and watched the thing a little bit.

3:25 I wasn't really focusing on it too much because I thought it was just another fisherman. But I watched it for the whole event was probably forty forty five minutes. And what it was it almost looked like it was mimicking a fisherman. And again, you know, it looked like it had a stick in his hand and you could see enough detail you couldn't see facial details, but you could see the body outline fine, and it looked like it was waving a stick and playing in the water with it, and I thought maybe it was just a fisherman that had gotten his line stock, you know, I was trying to get the lure out of the roots or trees, but it almost looked like for a while there.

4:06 But then what was weird is about twenty nine degrees that morning, and I had a north faced gore tex parka on and a down jacket underneath that, and I was sitting on an ice chest and my butt was freezing, and the ground was slightly damp all around the lake from the morning dew, and this thing had laid on its belly and was running the stick around in the water or fishing pole if it was a fisherman. And this went on for maybe five ten minutes, and I couldn't see how I go, Man, that guy's freaking. I don't know how he's doing it, because I was freezing my butt off, just sitting on a small little igloo ice chest. And I really didn't think much about it, didn't even you know, it didn't even question my mind that this even could be a bigfoot. And then the weirdest thing happened while I was watching it. It got a crab position where it was on its back, and then it had its you know, it's knees and its hands down below, like in a crab walk. And it moved across this boulder in one fluid move in the crab position and moved across the top of the rock.

5:17 And this was a huge rock, and I mean it was just so smooth and hozzle, Holy crap, that's not even human. And I go, well, if I ever find out there's bigfoot in this area of California, that's a bigfoot, because it sure wasn't human. And never thought more about it again. And so I'd beaten every other fisherman out in the lake this morning, and on the far side of the lake about a mile away. Maybe if that I don't know, it sounds about right. But you could hear the two old men coming down to get in their little trolling a luninin boat and start troll, and you could hear them. It was so calm out. You could hear the fishing poles laying in the bottom of the luna and boat and they you could hear us.

6:01 They set their ice chest in it, you know, because the sound was just being carried across the lake with no breeze or anything, and you can hear them as they tried to start the motor, and the second that motor fired up, this thing was gone in the bushes and had disappeared. And so that pretty much covers That was the strangeness of it was how the this was, you know, only about a half an hour into daylight, so it was just kind of weird. The way the crab walking position was definitely not something I was very physically fit. I was running five to ten miles a day at eight thousand feet and training for boxing, and the movement it did, and I'm kind of a tall, lanky, wiry guy, and the movement it did was not something I could ever achieve or even come close to. So I again, I never thought it was a sasquatch up until later years, and then I saw a I believe it was Russ Jones talking about an incident where the girls that had dropped the earring and the thing bent over backwards in that crab position, and that's when I decided to give you a call and share what I viewed that morning that money. Now, there's a lot of different things. Over the three years, I probably talked to nine different people that didn't know each other and all

7:32 had different stories. So there was As you come into lower Blue on the left, there's a little pond. It's called frog pond. I did have one of the campers had told me that, yeah, yeah, they knew somebody that had saw one cross the road right there. Again, I never took it seriously or but it was just information I put in my cap. There was also we had my dad worked for PGN and he was the lake tender there and he got me the job camp there, so we knew. We talked all the PG and E guys, and one of the helicopter pilots that would fly in we were talking to him and he said one winter and he didn't tell me what the date was or what year or anything like that, but he said he flew in there when the snow is thirty feet deep, which is probably about five feet over the chimney stack of the highest cabin that was there, so the cabins were completely submerged in snow. And he said that he had flown in there one time and he had landed and that there were tracks, and the tracks went down almost five feet into the snow and you could see and he said you could see bare footprints in the bottom with a fairly large stride. And he said he had no idea what it was or anything, but that was an interesting note that he had come up with.

9:00 So I had also worked with another campground attendant there. It was just me and him who took care of these the whole campground complex. And this guy was Chico's state's number two runner in the early eighties. So this was a guy that's as fast as you're going to find a young fella. And this guy, I was running five to ten miles and he could leave me at any time. I was doing it recreational. This guy was good, so he could literally haul butt and he would often do ten fifteen miles a couple times a week. He came back one day and he'd come walking up the driveway and from a distance of twenty yards, I mean literally sixty feet away, I could he was white as a ghost. You could see he was shaken up. And I asked him, Hey, what's going on. You know, what's the matter. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. And I grilled him as he came up the steps again, didn't talk about it, and I couldn't get anything out of him. But you could see that this guy was shaken up. I mean it was visible from a long distance away. So I let him take a shower. He had a couple of beers for dinner, and he sat down to dinner, and you know, I said, come on, man, you know can he was I ain't. I'm not talking about it. The guy was just animate about not and I'm somebody I won't let it go. So I kept after him a little bit, but without being too much of a pain in the butt, but I said, come on, was it

10:30 a mountain lion? Was it a coyote? Was it a bear? What's you know? What's got y'all shaken up? And he goes, it wasn't any of those. And he wouldn't come out and say what it was. But but I got it out of him. And what he did say was that something trailed him. He was on a trail, and he was out in the middle of nowhere, out there, and he was coming back on the trail and for about he said in between a half mile and a mile something was off in the brush bush trailing him and breaking through the thick brush as fast as he could run on that trail. It kept up with him for a long distance on his run. And that was all I could get out of him. He wouldn't admit to it, and he wouldn't talk anymore. And after he had told me those details, that was, you know, he climbed up and basically was done at that point, was sharing any information that he that he could so. And there were other campers. There was a Girl Scout camp there, and there was supposed to be one that had there was a report of one going through the Girl Scout camp that somebody had reported. I think it was the gentleman who was the person responsible for hiring us for multiple for with multiple use management, having the actual contract in that area. I think he's the one that had reported the Girl Scout company had actually somebody something like that running through. And so that is my story there. The

12:05 only other stories that I have that might be of any value to anybody was my dad also worked at the wish On Lake complex. So Granite Construction and the PG and E were putting in a pipeline that went from m Courtney Reservoir to wish On Reservoir, and wish On Reservoir is an elevation of eight thousand feet. It doesn't have like Highway eighty that goes up and over the summer. It's just a two lane highway that goes up to eight thousand feet and dead ends pretty much at wish On Reservoir. And so this is when I was fifteen. I'm sixty two now, so you can do the math. So this would have been the later seventies when this took place. But we were walking across the dam, and you could walk across the dam at this time and you could look down in that crystal clear water and you could see big browns, you know, floating along, and you know you're always wanting to try to but the water was down so far it wasn't a place that you could really fish with any competence. But my dad and my uncle Mike, who was exempt forman for PGNE over in Northern California for general construction, they were having a conversation, you know, talking I forget whatever they were talking about with so they had their they weren't focused.

13:24 Now I'm sitting there, kind of standing around, twiddling my thumbs. Something below that dam in the drainage and it was kind of a wide drainage and there was a lot of brush involved, but you could all of a sudden you heard these dogs started barking and what sounded like an escaped chimpanzee from a zoo that was being eaten on by dogs. And it was probably two or three dogs that were barking and chasing, and all you heard you heard movements, so that's why I'm saying chasing. But they were chasing whatever this was, and it sounded exactly like a pisto off chimpanzee. There was screaming, bloody murder while the dogs were chasing it. And this went on for two three minutes, and you know, and I, you know, hey guys, you know, to my dad and my uncle, I was fifteen, Hey, what's what's going on? What's that?

14:16 And you know, and they just you know, kind of, you know whatever, they were busy talking. Don't interrupt us. But there was that. And at that same lake, there was another time we were fishing in a cove and I heard this loud. It was it's what people I think referred to as samurai chatter. And I heard and I thought it was two Asian gentlemen that were fishing around a curve where I couldn't see him. We were in a little cove and it was like on the opposite side of the cove. But this was really loud yelling. It would be like them yelling having a conversation at the top of their lungs. And this went on for oh well, probably a period over ninety minutes, and it was off and on, so you would it would go on for a little bit, be quiet, go on. And so where I'm sitting there fishing in this cove, and all of a sudden the boat pulls up and it was my dad. He's going to come take us. We're going to go to the opposite side where the water comes into lake. So he picks us up and we take off. When we had out of the little cove I was in, as we went around that bind at the end of the cove, I expected to see a couple of fishermen over there from all this noise and yelling that they were making and fishing for so long.

15:33 And when we went around the corner, there was absolutely nobody there. Nobody fishing, and we were in the only place you had to pass by where we were sitting to get to where they were at or have a boat, and the only boat that came in that area was my dad. So that again wish On Reservoir that's in the mountains above Fresnow, California. And then other than that, I was a water well driller and I commuted up into the Tahoe area for ken summers and we drove around a lot of areas and I think it's three ninety seven or three ninety three ninety five that goes in between Trucky and Sierraville and you kind of go out.

16:20 You really don't go over a summit, but you go you sort of go up and down. And about halfway through that one night, in a place where there's no place to park a car, and it was up a twenty foot cliff, there was a some kind of a road sign, and I forget what the exact road sign was, but there was a human looking figure standing up against the road sign with his hand on it in a place where there's no people, no parking, no cars at nine around it was after and I was a little after nine o'clock at night, and you could just see the silhouett standing up there. It was kind of weird that in this mountainy area that there was somebody just standing there in a place you really couldn't even cross the road. And again that everything I say could have been a person, could have been just a person standing up there. But why it would be uh bed, I don't want to say, you know everything I see the freaking Bigfoot, but that was a it was kind of a weird, a weird place, and it was basically in the middle of nowhere. So I don't know why somebody would be standing up there. But those are the stories I've got to got to share.

17:37 Wow, those those are fantastic accounts, and thank you for sharing those. I mean that I don't think I've ever heard anything from the Blue Lakes area. And just for you to be able to be cognizant enough at that time to be able to interview people and just ask, hey, you know, have you ever experienced anything weird? Maybe you said something like that and you still remember it. Man, I'm I like to talk and I chat with people. And I did forget to add that I was cross country was so there's at the below Blue Lakes. There's a blacksmith, the remnants of a cabin. It ain't much remnants left, but there were there were people there in the eighteen hundred and I collect the old bottles from the eighteen hundreds in California, and I love the history and the anthropology side of the whole thing. So I would go cross country around there and would I would look for stuff. And I was in between on the far side of Lower Blue there's a small ridge that kind of goes up and on the other side of that ridge is Twin Lake and there's a road on the next Twin Lake on the opposite side that in that little sort of valley that that that lake lies in.

18:56 I was coming down that ridge cross country and I'm moving through and I heard a whistle that was it reminded me of a hunter going, Hey, I'm over here. And that's the gunt feeling that I'd gotten. I yelled out, hey, don't shoot, I'm you know, I'm over here. I thought it was a hunter going, hey, I'm over here, you know, don't you know, don't mess with me. And i'd just, you know, let him know, because I didn't want to get shot by some freaking more on camper that was was out hunting when he shouldn't have been. And we did get gear hunter every once in a while that would camp five miles away. And there's also a place called Bear Valley and they would go down to Bear Valley and hunt that area, you know, five miles away down a four wheel drive road. So anyway, I didn't know what it was, but I went and looked for and that whistle came from ground level and it was a loud whistle, and it wasn't a normal bird whistle I've heard. I've been out in the woods my whole life.

19:56 I've never heard a bird sound like a human whistle that close. Anyway, you can usually tell the difference pretty pretty easy. But I heard that, and I went towards the whistle where I heard it from, which is only like twenty yards away, twenty thirty yards maybe, So I walked that, you know, one hundred ish feet, and there was nothing. I couldn't see anything. The brush was I got to a point where the brush whistle thick. I couldn't investigate any more into it, and that was just okay. Never thought much more about it. I did tell that to BFRO and I did talk to buzz It Bob or Robert Strange, and I had a conversation with him and told him about this about that whistling event, and it is posted at the BFR's website. I never even mentioned the the crab walking one because I didn't even think at the time. I never even put two and two that it was a you know, I never even thought about it, so it wasn't something that that I had to, you know, go and tell anybody. But that was another aspect of that of that general area. And after we hang up, I'll probably remember some things that some other people said. That's how long ago? Wow, that's that is very interesting.

21:17 You got to talk to I believe that individuals this Bob Strain, which that's very cool. He's a great guy to talk to. I've talked to his His wife, Kathy, is very knowledgeable. They're both knowledgeable about Bigfoot for sure. Wow. Wow. A few things I wanted to to to clarify or ask you about, especially the the crab walking incident. Do you remember roughly about how tall it was or it also did it have a certain color to its hair if. You saw right right right? So it was it was black and This was, you know, the same way when you see a brown beard that's all black. It was just that same, you know, it was black from head to toe. And it was an even colored black. You couldn't make out I couldn't make out again even facial features because of the distance involved. But when I say black, it was the same color black from head to toe.

22:17 It didn't have like a jacket line or you know, or light black you know, and with different colored pants. So but it was black, and I would guess it to be. It didn't have a big, stocky bill. It was if I my best guestam, it would be six foot tall and just a human sized build. It didn't look you know, super super broad. I've heard some people say that, you know that they're the size of their body shapes like a fifty gallon barrel or just huge, you know, thickness wise, And it looked no different than the human at that distance, you.

23:01 Know, forty to forty five minutes, that's a really long time to watch something, especially you know, something like it like a bigfoot. Did you notice, you know, you already mentioned that it was waving to stick around playing in the water with it. Were there any other like fidgety movements it would do, or maybe that. Was see nothing really, So the distance that this thing was away, you couldn't see fidgety. Okay, you know you could see the basic You could see if somebody somebody that far away, you can you can make out their arms and legs and head quite clearly. You know, I couldn't make out a neck or or lack of neck again. Yeah, yeah, I thought my My my impression was at the time was that it was a guy with a black hoodie.

23:49 So yeah, you get I didn't see a neck. And uh, I'm just going to say, with that kind of a distance, there really weren't any details that I could add or I would have probably shared it with you. It was. It was just one of those things. I never would have even remembered this event if it wasn't for that crab walk the thing going upside down. But the weird part about it was the rock was was you know, it had a dome and it moved from one side of that rock to the other in one fluid motion upside down with its back facing the rock. And that was just the that was like, holy crap, you know, you know, I go, that's not human I go, if I ever find out again, i'd if I ever find out Bigfoot or in this part of California, that's a bigfoot. Forgotten it for for you know, a long time up until you know, I got tore going.

24:45 Oh yeah, so it was it was was it a very quick transition when it went to that crab walk, So. I didn't what I saw was when I looked over across the lake, all I saw was it in that crab position, and then in one it went. It had so its back would have been about two foot. There was like a two foot gap between its back and the rock, and it went up and over the top of this rock. That was probably if I said it was eight foot, and it just was fluid the way it went, you know, with its back up and over to the other side. And it didn't disappear. I don't remember when it went to the other side of the rock.

25:35 It didn't disappear completely. But I didn't see what it did after that. Gotcha, I mean, very interesting accounts. And so when you said you were hearing samurai chatter, I would assume it probably also heard the Sierra sounds. I've heard heard some of them. Yes, Okay, was that similar then to what you heard during those nightsy minutes. The volume and the loudness was similar. The words being used. I I don't remember. I mean, I just remember the loud the loud chatter, because I was it was so many years ago. I don't remember the the did the any of the wording or aim because it wasn't something that I was. I was used to her and I heard samurai chatter probably you know, fifteen years ago. Maybe I don't know whenever, I mean ten, ten, fifteen years ago when when internet got popular. I think I had searched it and and heard the Sierra sounds, gotcha, but I talked, uh more, I believe is it? Is it?

26:47 Ron Moore? Ron moorehead? Yep, yeah, Ron moorehead. That's something I actually was kind of curious about on the side. But man, how cool is that to know that, Hey, you're in the general vicinity of where Ron and al Berry captured that audio back in the early seventies. Very very cool, right, And I'm sure you would have told me if you had. But during the Samurai chatter anything at that there was not anything captured on audio or video. Correct. No, this was in the late seventies, so it wasn't in a time where people had cell phones or any sort of equipment with it, you know. And I'm just I had a thirteen year old brother and a fifteen year you know, maybe in fifteen and we're sitting there, you know, and Dad took us with him. We were sleeping out at night, and you know, and I never heard the samurai chatter in the week of outdoor camping right there in that general location while Dad was working, we never heard, heard or saw anything. But the only thing I do remember is the samurai chatter and then the screaming below the damn that sounded like I can escape chimpanzee with dogs on his tail. And you know, I wish I would have known a lot of the stuff that I know now because I spent three summers at eight thousand feet. How many you know, if you heard how you know, you go, what's that? But you

28:17 didn't make any notice of it. I wonder how many good sounds I could have if I was there and had recording equipment that I would have just you know, been able to record instead of you know, what was that and not even remember it now? Absolutely how what a fascinating account a group of accounts, really, and have you ever in the time since then look to see if there's been other sightings or encounters in these same areas. Yes, so they're in the general not far from where I had the crab walking siding, is not far from I think it's snow Lake. But they're on the BFRL website.

29:04 There's somebody that actually got a print and photographed a print in that general neighborhood, so I do know, I do know that's there, but uh, they listed mine as I believe as fisherman. Here's whistle. Uh you know, here's I think it's whistle in the wit or something. Is what they what they had put down for. That event, gotcha And nothing else about the Blue Lakes area though. No. And what's what's funny is every story that I'm telling you is is not in there either, because well, the pgn E guy, he you know, wasn't something he was really interested and he's deceased now, so it's not like I can I can't go back and confirm with him any other things. But I grilled him pretty well while he was there, and he didn't have anything, you know, extra to add about it or say he never saw anything from flying over with sierras for you know, his whole career. But he did mention that, you know, with thirty foot deep snow that he did find. He says, you could see that it wasn't a boot, that it was actually a foot print in the bottom of those you know, in the in the snow when the snow was thirty foot deep, which is interesting because it's you know, eight thousand foot with thirty feet of snow. I want, you know, how does something stay alive in that kind of environment. You know, it's you would think I've always been curious about the migration pattern of them, or if

30:38 they migrate, but you know that kind of goes against that. Yeah, this interview is a great example of how important it is for an individual that has you know, accounts like this to reach out to a show like mine, or you could do other shows, but at least have it documented in the public somewhere, because there's no other accounts that I can find either of sasquatch activity around these this Blue Lake area, the Blue Lakes of California, and you've got a ton of them, and this could be the only time that it's talked about, though it'll be interesting if other listeners reach out. Maybe they've had their own activity in the same region.

31:23 But well, that's what part of my conversation with you and doing this is. I'm hoping that that other ranger who is Cheeko State's number two runner, I'm hoping that he hears it and comes forward with, hey, that was me and you know, and I doubt that he will, but maybe he's taken an interest to it in his later years and wants to share is what he actually saw that day or but it was. It's just it's not hilarious, but it was. It was such a stunning thing to see a guy fifty feet away and see him why is a ghost and knew that something was radically wrong just from the look at his face from a distance and you could see it. So yeah, whatever it was, it scared him and he didn't. And this guy was straight laced. I mean he was you know, he he would drink you know, you know, maybe one, maybe two beers. When I say he was drinking beer, he wasn't you know, a six pack or a twelve that kind of guy. He was one or two custom you know, fancy beer. And you know he didn't smoke, and you know, he was just you know, he was a stand up guy. And I don't think he wanted anybody to I don't think he knew how to process what had whatever it happened to him. And you know, maybe it was a mountain lion or bear, but the fact that he denied that it was any of the wild animals in that area leaves me open to, you know, to lean towards you know, the possibility of a bigfoot. Absolutely,

32:55 and I'm trying to stay as objective as. Possible, right right, Yeah, And that individual is more than welcome to reach out if if they would like, they can reach out to me, a big for Society, jumid dot com, or anyone else with info about the areas that are talked about in this episode. But wow, what a fascinating conversation. And John, thank you so much for coming on the show spending some time this afternoon to share what you experienced. I want to make sure that you were able to share everything that you came to the show to talk about today. Absolutely, I think I think I've picked up everything. I don't think that there's any other details right off the top of my head that are worth mentioning fantastic.

33:40 Well again, thank you so much for coming on the show today, John, It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Sir Smiting. Take a minute to say thank you for listening to this episode of the Big for Society podcast. John story is one of those rare accounts that haunts you not just because of what he saw crawling across the boulder, but because of the questions that leaves behind about how close these creatures can really get. So huge thanks to John for sharing his memories from the Blue Lakes region of California and beyond, and for keeping these stories alive after decades in the back of his mind. If you enjoy this conversation, please subscribe to the channel on YouTube, hit the bell icon so you don't miss any new episodes, and share this one with a friend who's in the Bigfoot, the California Wilderness, or just a good old fashioned mystery.

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