It Wasn’t an Escaped Gorilla! - My Bigfoot Sighting Shorts Episode 3

My big foot sighting happened when I was ten years old. I'm now sixty
five, so that's been many, many years, but it's as clear to
me now as it was then. We were camping my parents and I I
was the only child along at that time. My sister and brother had left
the house. Anyway, we were camping up in northern Minnesota on the Gunflint
Trail, which is way way north, and we were at a very remote,
small campground. I do not remember the name of it. It's been
too many years. I was too young, but it was just a small
campground, very remote, and I took off probably late afternoon, I want
to say, about three o'clock with our family dog, our black lab Sal
and decided to go on a hike by myself. It was during the week,
so there were not a lot of campers. There are just not a
lot of people, so I decided to take off on this trail. It
was just a narrow dirt trail, wasn't very wide, and thinking back,
very very tall pine trees, a lot of pine in the area where I
was hiking, and I knew I didn't want to be gone long because I
was heading out, you know, later in the afternoon by myself, and
I want to say, I walked in my memory about a mile and a
half and I noticed that Sale just started acting funny, just nervous. I
couldn't put my finger on it, but she was just normally I had her
on a leash, Normally she would be pulling, she would be sniffing,
running around, and she just kind of got quiet, stayed by my side
and was acting different. And at ten, you know, and that really
didn't register as danger or anything. I just just noticed it was weird.
But I kept walking, and it was fairly dark because the pine stands where
they were so tall, there wasn't a lot of sun coming through, so
from that standpoint, it was a bit spooky. But what I heard was,
and I don't know exactly how to describe it, but kind of a
clicking sound. I was the only one on the trail, had not passed
anybody, did not hear anybody, and I heard I just don't know how
to exactly describe it, but it was kind of like a clicking sound,
but indifferent, you know, fast slow. As I got older and looked
back, it almost sounded like to me like some kind of language, and
it was on both sides of the trail, you know, I could hear
it, and I just thought, well, what weird bird animal? What
is that? You know, And again my ten year old mind, you
know, trying to figure out what that was. I was not initially scared.
I just thought it was weird. But the longer I went, it
started bothering me because I did notice that everything was quiet. I had heard
birds and seeing chipmunks, and there was just a movement and you know,
your normal forest animal life and sounds, and that had stopped. And about
that time I looked up ahead of me on the trail, and you know,
I just it's so hard to estimate feet. I'm not good at that
anyway, and especially remembering back, I really honestly can't say how far ahead
up it was. But I could see something behind a huge pine and it
was rocking, and I just remember stopping in my tracks. And first I
thought it was somebody like playing a joke on me or messing around. I
mean, I just as a kid, I just couldn't figure it out.
But it was huge. I mean like at that time, looking at it,
I would have put it at about seven feet or taller. But like
I said, that's my ten year old memory. I really don't, no,
but it was very very tall and wide, just wide, wide shoulders,
and it was moving, rocking, but it would like come out from
the tree and then rock back. It would come almost fully out and then
rock back, and it just kept rocking. And I just remember being absolutely
petrified. I was frozen on the trail. Sal was behind me, cowering.
She wasn't making any sound, but she was just kind of shaking,
so she had seen it or sensed it or whatever. But I just remember
being frozen. I was just so terrified. I could not move and I
just stared at it. And you know, I had no knowledge of bigfoot
anything like that. No, you know what this thing was. I can
tell you it was very tall, very wide, long, dark hair,
dark brown hair. I couldn't really make out details of its face. It
was too dark, the woods was too dark, and it just didn't come
out long enough for me to I could just see a lot of hair around
its face, but I couldn't make out facial detail. I did notice long,
long arms, I don't remember noticing the hands, and I was just
terrified. So I stood there, just frozen, petrified, and move on.
My thought was, as a child, well, it's an escaped gorilla,
you know, a grilla got out somewhere, and it's escaped gorilla in
the woods, because that's the only context I could put it in at that
time. And so I sat there and just stared, just frozen. And
I can't tell you how long I went by, because in my mind it
was about ten minutes because I was so scared, but I'm sure it was
probably only seconds. And then it turned and just walked back into the woods,
just slowly, but it was out of sight, you know, within
seconds. And at that point then I turned with sal and ran all the
way back to the campsite, just absolutely petrified. And I did not tell
my parents. I wanted to tell somebody, but I knew they wouldn't believe
me, and which is weird because I normally somebody that, even at that
day, which had been very open, would have been talking about it.
But I just didn't. I don't know, I just couldn't tell them.
I figured they would think I was crazy, they wouldn't believe me. And
in my mind at that time and for many years, in my mind,
it was an escaped girl. Up until I was older, and then started
hearing about Bigfoot and learning about it and becoming interested in that. So then
looking back, I realized that's likely what I had seen, But yeah,
it's I was petrified. I had nightmares for probably a month, night terrors.
I would wake up. I remember my mom coming in the room to
calm me down. It was just it was petrifying. And then gradually it's
always been with me. I can remember it like it happened yesterday, but
gradually, just you know, I just became less and less afraid. I
kind of got over that. And then when I later on in life heard
about Bigfoot and became interested in that subject, you know, now it's just
I'm fascinated by it, so no longer really afraid. But yeah, it
was incredibly scary experience at ten years old, and then feeling like I couldn't
tell anybody made it that much worse.