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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Fresno Bee reported on Bigfoot sighting in 1986

According to an article ran in the Fresno Bee in August of 1986, a five man construction crew was spooked by what they say was Bigfoot while working on a job.

The job entailed building a foot/horse bridge near the Pacific Crest Trail on the south fork of the Kern River in the Inyo National Forrest (roughly about 25 miles south of Mt. Whitney) and given the remote location the men were camping at the site where they worked. One day, as the sun was setting the five men heard a scream so loud and described the intensity of it as something that "sounded like a stadium loudspeaker. The scream came three more times, and one of the workers used a rifle to fire a warning shot in the air.

At that moment, four of the five men saw a humanoid figure several feet away from them. They weren't able to make out any details but say the figure was at least 8 feet tall and as it walked away it look like it was "lumbering and kind of hunched over" but was traveling upright on two legs. Spooked the workers walked two miles to their vehicle and drove to the nearest ranger station to stay the night.

Several rangers think what the men heard was nothing more than a mountain lion and that then spooked a bear to rise up on two feet and that is what the men saw.

The lone member of the crew who did not see the figure, but heard it, disagrees. John Davis, a Mono Indian, said he had worked in the mountains for over four decades at the time of the sighting and claims what he heard sounded nothing like a mountain lion. And even though he never saw the figure, he says that the description sounds nothing like that of a bear.

The story doesn't end here though. It seems the original story got the attention of several bigfoot hunters. An unidentified man accompanied by two Dobermans was seen at the Blackrock ranger station informing the rangers that he was there to search for Bigfoot and wanted to know where the crew was currently at. Apparently this was the only sighting of the man. The only other incident regarding a Bigfoot hunter was when a man by the name of Danny Perez who runs at the time a newsletter called BigfooTimes (did a bit of research and he now has a website here) visited the Fresno Bee office looking for directions to the construction site and then soon left. Whether this is the same person who was seen at the Blackrock station was never stated in the article.

Personally I don't think what the men saw was a bear. Yes bears do stand on their hind legs, but I've never heard of one walking on its hind legs for more than a few feet (if I'm wrong someone please correct me). And as for the scream, I'm not sure on that. I know several Bigfoot hunters claim to have the creature's call recorded on audio. But these calls where more of a hoot, similiar to other primate calls. Whether this is the sound the workers heard is hard to say. But what I really find interesting is that the Fresno Bee ran two articles on Bigfoot, one on the sighting itself and the other on the Bigfoot hunters searching for the site. Whatever these men saw, the local newspaper felt it was a big enough story to report on it.

Below are scans of the newspaper articles I was able to get off Google News. Click on them for a larger view.



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool find. I think they actually saw one!

Anonymous said...

I had not thought about what I and my family saw some 45 years ago in the middle of the road while driving to Yosemite, until recently. A few days ago, I was driving with my sister when she turned and said "this may sound weird, but do you remember?" when I interrupted her and said, "what we saw in the middle of the road traveling to Yosemite" (Hwy 41 North of Oakhurst) There were five of us in the car. My father and other sister were asleep and my mother was driving. It was late into the night, 2:00 AM or so as we traveled up the mountain road towards the Yosemite entrance. My sister was in the passenger seat and I was in the back seat leaning forward against the front seat looking out the front window. (seat belts not required back then), when we came around a corner and in the middle of the road was? Well at that time we really did not know what we were looking at? It looked like some sort of primate ape like creature? Not too large but smaller, like a young gorilla you would see in a zoo. As we slowly moved the car forward it stood up on its' two hind feet and quickly ran off the road. At that time we assumed whatever it was? it must have escaped from a local zoo, and we never spoke of it again. I have hiked and backpacked in the Sierras since I could walk. This was not a bear, and there are not, nor were there any zoos, much less habitats of any kind around our sighting, just dense endless forest. I am now convinced that what we saw/witnessed was a young Squatch.

Many years later (1980), while backpaking near Mt lassen, I heard what I now believe to have been a Squatch running on the other side of a small lake were we camping, followed by rocks being thrown into the lake?

I Believe

LurxtyQW said...

I heard horrible screams one night in Mi-Wuk Village,CA in the early eighties. All I remember was that feeling like the blood draining from my face I must have been pale white. It sounded like a woman in distress, I can't even come close to imitating this sound. So loud, so very frightening. I have listened to many mountain lion recordings and none really sound like what I heard. I was 14 or so at the time and my friend an I woke up his dad but it had stopped by this time. Would love to hear if anyone else has experienced this personally up in this area, I know there have been a few reports and a pretty well known article from 1963 about some screams up in Cold Springs. In a way it kind of is unfortunate because I am a little bit chicken to go camping!

Anonymous said...

I lived in Twain Harte from 78 to 84. I remember a summer evening in 79 as we laid out on our back deck on Knox Rd. A blood curdling "Scream" came up from the gully next to our house. My brothers and I immediately got up and ran in the house terrified! I remember hearing thrashing about in the manzanita brush down there. I now wonder if it was the wild cat that my parents claimed it was.

SilverFaux said...

I lived in Twain Harte from 78 to 84. I remember a summer evening in 79 as we laid out on our back deck on Knox Rd. A blood curdling "Scream" came up from the gully next to our house. My brothers and I immediately got up and ran in the house terrified! I remember hearing thrashing about in the manzanita brush down there. I now wonder if it was the wild cat that my parents claimed it was.