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I'm 2 weeks late getting this posted but ive been swimming in busy work and follow ups. Below is the report as it was sent in to us at the West Virginia High Strangeness Collective. The gentlemen who has this encounter is a friend of mine from one of my other hobbies, field herpetology, and up until this point had joked on occasion about bigfoot. His words are in "--" and the investigation notes follow. I'll attach pictures of the findings velow as well, this was by far one of the most exciting days of my life. "I share this event completely aware of the backlash, and ridicule I will receive. The day of April 12, 2020 had weather conditions shaping up to be perfect for my favorite hobby, amateur herpetology. So like every spring night when the rain is falling heavy I decided it would be a great night to cruise the roads and document the species of reptiles and amphibians crawling on the floor of a local state forest, and like normal an unnamed passenger (at this time) opted to cruise the backroads with me on the search. We arrived at the state forest a little after 8pm, the sun not yet fallen, and the skies not quite dark enough for the animals I was searching for to be emerging from their hiding places yet. So, we took a drive through the park to kill time, look for other interesting animals and wait for the sun to fully set. Nothing unusual was happening. The frogs were starting to call as the sun fell behind the mountain and night began to fall. The birds chirping fell quiet with the sunset. The deer were retreating from the wet valley I was intending to search that night. Absolutely nothing unusual for the area I frequent on a regular basis. In an average week I visit this same location 5-6 times to document any new egg masses, the species I observe, or anything else I may find interesting at the given time. I have observed and heard coyotes and owls in this valley on several occasions, and have become familiar with their behavior and noises as a result. This average night was about to take a terrifying turn I never imagined. In this particular forest I have a handful of areas that host great habitats for documenting a wide variety of species. I made my way to the first vernal pool area I wanted to check in the flooded valley wetland that night. I exited my vehicle, the time now approaching 9pm, and I observed a toad on the gravel parking area. I decided to document the first species of the night. I stopped, got my phone out of my pocket and snapped the first picture of the adventure. That would end up being the only explainable thing I encountered in that valley that night… as I took two to three more steps, just passed the giant rocks that prevent vehicles from driving into the open area of the woods, towards the first vernal pool I was intending to shine with my flashlight, I heard a groan that I have never heard in these woods before. This groan was deep, almost sounding human or at least primate in nature, clearly agitated, and extremely too close to where I was currently standing. I had clearly interrupted something, and it was furious about it. Something was in this valley with me, and I had no identification for the sounds it was expressing towards my presence. The chills that shot down my spin and covered my body was like nothing I have experienced in my life. I looked back to see the unnamed person with me void of color with eyes as large as I have ever seen on anyone. My first reaction was get back in the vehicle and try to make sense of what we clearly both just witnessed. What was a short distance back to the vehicle felt like an eternity carrying the fear that had consumed my body at this point. Merely thinking about that groan is enough to spark those same chills through my body. As we sat in the vehicle for what in reality was likely only a few seconds, but felt like minutes, asking each other what that noise was, a second, now closer, groan rang through that valley and the fear struck every molecule of my body again. This thing, whatever it was, was literally on top of us. My only mission at this point was to get the hell out of that valley, and my unnamed passenger expressed the same mission aloud. People often ask why there was no video, or picture, or recording of some kind in the age of everyone having a phone in their pocket, but after experiencing that sound, in near complete darkness minus my own lights, I can definitely understand why people just bolt. I lost all the preconceived ideas we all have that we would be the one with the guts to stick around to find out what just made that sound. I drove over an hour to search a completely different forest and wetland area for species that night because I no longer wanted to be in that area and sleep was sure to elude me for days after this unexplainable experience. After returning home that night and the following day I attempted to make sense of the sounds we witnessed. I messaged friends avid in the outdoors to jokingly tell them I heard a murder or a bigfoot last night, hoping for identification suggestions from anyone close to me that could give me an answer more reasonable than either of those ideas. Nothing. I researched large cats that are not supposed to be here, and those that are, nothing resembling that groan in felines I listened to. I researched coyote and wolf chatter, again nothing in the Canine world. I researched owls, raptors, bears, and once more nothing matched that bone chilling sound. I honestly hoped and waited for the news to report a body, seriously, I was just seeking answers at this point. I was admittedly becoming desperate for answers. Someone has heard this noise in these woods before. I couldn’t possibly be the only one. So I desperately contacted a friend of mine (he will be making his own posts about this event) highly interested and invested in the fields of cryptozoology, and the paranormal. Admittedly I made this contact in hopes to get an answer something along the lines of “that’s not a sound I’m aware of” much to my surprise he wanted to know more. Where did this happen? When did this happen? Can you tell me what you recall? I gave him the details of what I recalled, the above event, with the location in more detail, and the investigation was on. The details of his investigation are heavily documented in photograph and video. What he found matches almost too unbelievably perfect to the experience I described to him. I don’t want to go into detail of his side of documenting this event since he will do that better than I can. However, the evidence I received after he visited the site of my experience literally made my heart drop, I could feel the color once again leave my face. I’m still not sure what we heard in that valley that night, but what he uncovered leaves me completely unsettled about where the evidence appears to point. The only thing I’m sure of is whatever it was didn’t want to share that valley with us and it still gives me chills when I think about it. You can be the judge of the evidence for yourself. I won’t tell you what to believe, because I’m still unsure what to make of this myself." - Jon Tinney Field notes : Weather conditions have been in perfect to preserve physical evidence between now and the the sighting. Once I arrived on site, I located the vernal pool and immediatly noticed 2 footprints that were very deep in the substrate on the edge of the pool. As I navigated the game trail that lead around the pool I noticed a sapling broken at chest height, and twisted with a second break 18 inches above the first. Moving along the game trail I located a smaller game trail that made its way toward the area where i saw the initial prints. On this trail i found another foot print in the mixed soil and leaf litter. I marked that print with a glove and continued to the original set of prints that i noticed off the bat. As I nelt by the first two prints I heard a series of tree knocks from above me higher up the mountian. The series was in this pattern ***----** i find this inconsequential yet noteworthy. The first two prints were full of water, I documentdd them with pictures and video and moved toward the secondary track. While I was moving debris from the print to verify that it was castable I noticed an accompanying print that was the other foot completing a left and right set. I prepared the area as per Dr. Jeff Meldrum instructions in his Sasquatch field guide and poured the plaster casts using creek water and plaster of Paris. While i waited for these to dry i discovered additional 2 prints but didnt have enough plaster to cast these, they were also very shallow and would not have yeilded much of a cast sample. I documented them in photographs. There is about 7 miniutes of video footage that accompanies the investigation. The casts are now cleaned and pictures will be included, midtarsle breaks are present in both casts, the heels and midtarsle break are the most impressive features to these casts as the ground is very hard and the toes were not clear but were disernable . I tried to leave impressions by jumping up and down but was unable to make impressions that were as deep as the footprints. No hair samples to be found. When I showed the results to the witness they could not believe that the evidence corroborated their encounter. The subject was actually much closer to him durring the encounter after I showed him pictures of the area and where I was finding the trace evidence. The footprints were pointed in such a way by a tree that it would have been watching him and was actually within 50-75ft most of the encounter. The recovered casts measured at 14 1/2 inches long. A follow up site walk through was preformed with Dr. Russ Jones, he reviewed the casts as well. The exact location of the site will not be exposed as it is an active investigation area. I'll post more pictures tomorrow as I've reached a post/response limit for today 😆

Which do you think is the best candidate for Bigfoot? Gigantopethicus A hominid such as: Paranthropus Meganthropus Neanderthal Homo erectus Home heidelbergensis Wood Ape Forest people

I chose Meganthropus because I liked the name the most! I actually read the descriptions and the cool named mixed with where it may or not be on the evolutionary chain gave me a good sense of a non homo answer. This is like a blind dart given my knowledge of evolution.

I had a bit of a late start on this one and am only a little down pg 4 so maybe this has been addressed here or elsewhere, I'm wondering what the cost of an e-dna test would be. Are we talking $5? $500? $10,000? Can one submit those like home water quality samples? Can one set up a relationship with a vetted lab and just gather samples? Could use gofundme to cover costs. Given some of the crap people want money for (i want to trek in the Andes for my personal growth but don't like saving money--please help) I think there are enough folks interested to source a few tests if they aren't exorbitantly priced. I think you could make a good pitch hiflier. Can a layman learn the protocol and carry out a "scientifically" valid test? What sort of equipment does one need to "read" the sample? I've no idea but that's the route I'd start thinking about if no one else in the so-called scientific community will ask the question and research it. I thought about doing that for lyme testing in my area, a local one stop, one hour results sort of operation. Learn the protocol, set up shop, get going. Of course by the time i repurposed my military surplus, helicopter or truck portable, self-contained photo lab as a testing station, bill gates would have come up with a supposed vaccine that if it didn't make one a paranoid schizophrenic it might make us immune to lyme...I should just do it. About the OP, I see your point and it is interesting, don't know why you are getting any guff over it. I appreciate how you grab hold of a question like a pit bull and hash it out as much as possible given the info available, that's how to find answers, even if we don't have them here. I imagine if e-dna works for finding unknowns, it's been done, probably even with results that could be paradigm shifting. If it is "that easy" (and it sounds that way to me though I know squatch about the matter other than how you explain it.) maybe that's why it's no-go territory because it WOULD indicate an unknown in our midst, maybe that's too conspiratorial a line of thinking. Or maybe no one has tried it with any success and that's why it can't be found on the interwebs. But you say folks have mentioned using it in a case or two but no mention of results--weird indeed. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Hello. Im new to the forum and am just a casual interested layperson on the topic of Bigfoot. I have two freinds who have had direct sightings of bigfoot and have known both of them for long enough and well enough to really trust them and what they saw. Over the years I have become convinced that Bigfoot do exist. I am not really on the fence about that anymore due to hearing too many credible accounts of people having interactions with them. I wanted to share something that happened to me twice years ago in the Wasatch Mountains in Utah and hear any perspectives on the chances it was a bigfoot encounter. I'm not looking for definite answers as obviously these cannot be given for my experience but any insight and/or knowledge about activity in this area would be appreciated. I used to live in a pretty rundown neighborhood and there were a few boys whose parents were not doing basically any supervision at all with them. No curfew or bedtime, they could run around all day and night and even didn't go to school often and these boys were only 9 or 10 years old. Anyway I took these boys under my wing and we are all freinds to this day. My wife and I used to take them camping and hiking all the time. I used to love going hiking at night (I know now that is not very smart) and so one night I went hiking around 10 at night with a friend of mine. We were at the top of Big Cottonwood canyon and the hike started at a lake called silver lake right off the main road. It was around 10 or 11 at night and we hiked up from that lake to another smaller lake about a mile and a half up into the mountains from there. That whole area is a famous ski resort area and there are even houses at the base where the hike began. There is no camping allowed up these trails and no road that goes to the lake we hiked up too. When we got to the top we sat at the side of the lake, its more like a very big pond actually. Anyway while sitting there enjoying the evening and solitude we heard the sound of a large boulder being thrown into the water and this spooked us because there are no cliffs or steep hills a boulder might be thrown from. It was dark but there was moonlight and we could not see anyone standing near the lake all around. It was not a fish jumping and it was not a beaver slapping its tail. The sound had that bass to it from something big being thrown. I yelled out that I had a gun and then we decided to leave because it was weird that someone was messing with us so late at night out in the woods. I did not think much of that after leaving. About a month later I decided to take three of those boys with me on the same hike again around 10 or 11 at night. We got to the lake and were sitting by the waters edge and the same thing happened. A boulder was thrown into the water judging by the sound of it and this time I was more spooked because it just seemed so strange for it to happen again to me a month apart from the other experience. Another one was thrown and I yelled out that I had a gun and something about not messing with us. I decided we better leave and so we started hiking out of there. This time though something followed us out off trail and behind us a ways. It was breaking sticks and branches loudly. The kids were terrified and one of them "Little Chris" was shaking so badly he could barely walk. Whatever it was was getting closer as we walked down the trail. It finally got close enough that I thought we were in real trouble. This part lasted about 5 minutes with the breaking of the branches and the following and getting closer. I had made sure to be behind the boys and so put myself in danger. At this point I picked up a softball sized rock and prepared to face whatever this thing was. I really thought "it" was about to happen and prepared for the worst. I started yelling loudly to try and intimidate whatever it was and waited for it to happen. I was very scared and kicking myself terribly for taking these boys out into the woods so recklessly. But nothing beyond that happened and the breaking sounds stopped happening too and we made the hike all the way back to the car without incident. Back then I did not have internet and so it was puzzling and scary and we never could figure out what that whole situation was but a few years later when I got on the net I happened across a Bigfoot forum or blog or something and danged if what happened to us did sound like a typical Bigfoot situation. Anyway any thoughts on this would be appreciated and especially any thoughts on if they are thought to exists in the Wasatch Mountain range in Utah or not would be welcomed. Thanks.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Trapper. There is a poster on another forum that I belong to that has mentioned his encounter in Utah several times over the past few years. While I do not know him personally, he does not seem to be interested in Bigfoot or the paranormal outside of his one encounter. His story has stayed consistent and never wavered for close to 15 years. His encounter took place near Midway, Utah...which I believe was is located in the Wasatch Mountain Range. I will cut and paste one of his posts detailing his encounter below. I have had several PMs asking me to give some additional details about our encounter so I'll post them here. I've posted them before but the get buried in the old posts. my wife, who was my fiance at the time, and I were driving around midway Utah (above Heber) late at night on a Friday looking for a cabin we had been invited to to spend the night with some friends. We got SUPER lost and were just driving around in the woods. I got kinda tired of driving around aimlessly and just decided to get out of there as fast as we could. I wend down a gully, came up the other side about 60 miles an hour and hit a sharp corner I didn't see coming, I slammed on the brakes and slid around the corner in the gravel, as soon as I cleared the corner, there was something HUGE standing in the middle of the road. I slammed on my brakes and slid to a stop. Standing right in front of us, in high beams, was the biggest humanoid I've ever seen. he had dropped into a crouch and half twisted to see us when we came flying around the corner. we'd clearly caught him off guard crossing the road. He was facing right to left and was sideways to us, slightly twisted back to face us. He was maybe 8-9 feet from my face in the high beams. I could clearly see his eyes, teeth, skin and hair. we locked gaze for a few seconds, and in those few seconds I can still remember the details I processed like it was yesterday. Long brown hair, fairly thick overall but very thin on and around the face. not a human face but not ape. the closest thing I can think of is the pictures of Neaderthal's in the National geographic. It looked a LOT more like us (humans) than an ape but the brow was heavy, very heavy jawline, flattened nose, high cheekbones, deep set eyes. The eyes were dark but hard to see the color because they were squinting in the light. the thing was frozen for a few seconds and then it slowly uncrouched just a little bit then took off across the road, three long bounds and then it leapt over this hedge of brush and scrub oak that was maybe seven feet high. It went over arms first, superman style, and never touched the bushes. the important parts of the encounter are: - this thing was 7 feet plus high. I would guess 7'2"-7'3". I can guarantee it's size within a couple of inches because at the time I was an offensive tackle at brigham young university. My best friend was (is) 6'8" and about 435. This thing was MUCH taller than Will. - it was physically enormous. The largest animal I've ever seen that wasn't a moose. it's biceps were literally the size of my thighs. At the time I was 6'5" and about 320. I have big thighs. It's biceps were that size. It's thighs were the size of my waist. I was about a 44" waist. - I have never seen anything move so fast in my life. After BYU, I went to the buffalo bills where I was the second team O tackle and I blocked Bruce Smith on a daily basis for the better part of a year. Bruce is the quickest human I have ever seen. It took me two weeks to even touch Bruce, let alone block him. This thing was easily 2x as fast/quick. I would guess this thing was pushing a 3.7 to 3.9 40 yard dash speed, maybe faster. It was hard to tell because it was so huge. It was so big it might have looked slower than it was moving. It covered an entire road and over some bushes in three steps. - I would guess it weighed 700+ lbs. It was simply massive. Still hard to believe even having seen it in very bright lights. as it ran off, I was terrified. There is something primal about looking at something so close to you that could *CLEARLY* destroy you in a thought. We were in a mazda 626, with an open sunroof, late at night, with a craptacular tanfoglio CZ75 9mm under the seat for protection. This thing could have ripped the roof off, and yanked us out and eaten us if it wanted to. I could not even talk. I was speechless. I finally decided I had hallucinated the entire episode and finally stammered out "did you see that?!" my wife, who had not breathed an iota in the brief time since we'd seen it could only reply "That was a BIGFOOT! Get us the he** out of here!" There was no thought of shooting it, it was too fast, too intelligent and frankly too scary. I floored the accelerator and didn't let up for a mile and a half until I almost wrapped around a tree on another blind corner. I still almost don't believe it sometimes, i have to check with the wife. I don't care if you or anyone else believes it. It simply doesn't matter to me. I can tell you that we were two newly wed, innocent mormon kids who have never had a drink, don't take drugs, and take honesty very seriously out for a drive and we saw a bigfoot. I have my theory as to who it was, and if I'm right, there IS only one of them. that would explain why there have never been bones. But I know what we saw that night, and it was a 7 foot plus, thousand pound animal who moved with the speed of an olympic runner, had a 45+ inch vert jump, a sub 4 second 40 time and moved like a ghost. I never heard a sound through the open window or sunroof over the ticking engine save the sound of the brush as he cleared it and a thump as he hit the ground on the other side. You may not believe in bigfoot, but there is at least one of them. Or there was in Midway Utah in the late summer of 1992. I am not sure why I tell people, as invariably people think you are insane, as I would if someone told me the same story, but it is the truth and I (an my wife) have incontrovertible proof for ourselves that there is at least one bigfoot.