Phantoms and Monsters

As a kid growing up in the 1970s, I enjoyed watching the classic documentaries about Bigfoot that were produced in those days.

I would never miss a late night TV showing of "The Legend of Boggy Creek," even though it scared me at the time. I can't forget going to the House Theater to catch the docudrama "Sasquatch" back in 1977.

For the past week, I have had the opportunity to once again enjoy one of the best Bigfoot movies of them all: "The Mysterious Monsters." Hosted by Peter Graves, this 1976 movie takes a look at both the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot mysteries. It also contains some of the most vivid and scary recreations of Bigfoot sightings. You can check this movie out on YouTube, even though you have to watch it in 10 parts.

They certainly don't make documentaries like those anymore. And that is a shame because today we seem to hear about more Bigfoot encounters than ever.

The Web site for the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) contains a tale about something that happened this summer. The BFRO's Web site is a place where folks can post their sightings anonymously.

In his report, a man talks about a camping and fly-fishing trip he took in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado in June of this year. The man states that he had been camping, hiking and fishing in this area for about six years. He was also very familiar with all the sounds the various animals make in Colorado's forests and mountains. He had only one companion on this weekend camping trip, his Labrador retriever.

"The second evening, I had cooked dinner and taken the Lab out for a last evening walk around the meadows," the man wrote in his report. "It had been a good day of fishing and we were both tired. We went to bed in the tent just at dark. It was a night of an almost full moon. We both fell asleep quickly."

A bit later, the man was awakened by something outside his tent. At first, he thought it was a deer.

"After about 10 minutes from out of nowhere, I heard this unreal, LOUD, clear, resonant, scream/screech/howl/roar type sound from not too far away," he wrote in his report. "It sounded maybe 300 to 400 yards away and like it might have been just across the canyon on the mountainside. It was like no sound I have ever heard in my life."

He describes it as a "fairly high-pitched" sound and was not like the screams of wild cats.

"It seemed to be two parts screaming howl and one part roar, as it had that deep quality but was still high-pitched," he wrote. "I sat there for a minute stunned, and then realized what it must be."

The man wrote that he had previously read accounts on the BFRO's Web site from folks who reportedly heard the screams of a Bigfoot. What he heard that night matched their descriptions.

"The sound seemed to be coming directly toward me, like it might have been screaming at or towards me or this meadow area where people sometimes camp," he wrote in his report. "It felt territorial, aggressive, even a little threatening. Even though I had a (.357-caliber Magnum) loaded with hot hollow points and a strong flashlight, the prospect of encountering some big, hairy 'man-thing' outside my tent in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, and alone, was a little more than I wanted to deal with."

The man got his dog into the truck and he drove away from there as fast as he could, with his .357 in his lap. He drove that night looking for a place to stay.

"I have lived and backpacked extensively in Montana and in the Canadian Rockies and dealt with the reality of grizzly bears with no real problem," he wrote. "But this noise and the creature that most likely made it really freaked me out."

He spent the rest of the night in his truck. At daybreak, he went back to his campsite.

"I did not find any tracks in the greater area in which I was camping as it was mostly grass, although I did walk around and search for a bit," he wrote. "Now I am paranoid and worry that I might not be doing any more backpacking in this beautiful and remote area for fear of running into one of these spooky creatures, especially at night."

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Bigfoot Encounter - San Juan Mountains, Colorado
Bigfoot Encounter - San Juan Mountains, Colorado