YEAR: 1996

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: April

STATE: Oregon

COUNTY: Union County

LOCATION DETAILS: Upon further discussion with the witness' husband, it was determined that the incident occurred east of Pendleton, OR in Union County. Witness could not pinpoint location off existing maps due to the many years since the incident.

NEAREST TOWN: Pendleton, OR

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 104

OBSERVED: My husband and I lived in Walla Walla, WA during the '95-'96 school year, and often went exploring in the nearby Blue Mountains. Nearly every little diner and gas station seemed to have "bigfoot" plaster casts on the wall that "were found 1 mile from here." I thought it was all a big joke intended to boost tourism. I did NOT believe in Bigfoot.

One Saturday we were looking for an out-of-the-way place to explore where we wouldn't run into anybody. We were driving down a remote track, maybe it was an old logging road, and finally had to stop when it crossed a large stream that was too deep for our little Geo Metro. Since we were miles from the last sign of civilization, and since we couldn't go any farther, we decided to do some exploring right there.

I remember getting out of the car and immediately feeling an intensely eerie sensation of being watched. It was the kind of "being watched" that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I've never experienced that feeling either before or since. The really odd part was that I could pin-point exactly where I thought I was being watched from, even though I couldn't see anything. Just on the other side of the stream was a small, steep, tree-covered hill. The weird sensation of being watched was coming from a point about half-way up that hillside, probably 40 feet from the stream.

I knew there wasn't anybody else out there because we were so far out in the wilderness, so I figured it was all in my head.

We started poking around the streambank (the stream was probably 15-20 feet wide) looking for Indian artifacts, animal tracks, wildflowers, anything interesting.

The ground was soft enough for our car tracks to leave a bit of an indentation in the ground, but too firm for us to leave any tracks. It was very grassy and weedy along the stream banks where we were.

After about 20 minutes of poking around, I came across a huge footprint indented about an inch deep in the grassy ground. It looked like a flat-footed human print complete with 5 toes but it was approximately 16-18 inches long. And it made an indentation in an area where, at 150 pounds, we couldn't make ANY tracks.

I couldn't believe I was really seeing this footprint, so I called my husband over to verify it. He confirmed that I wasn't seeing things.

I briefly scouted around and found 2 more tracks but by this time I was really getting scared. Those huge tracks coupled with that eerie feeling of being watched nearly unnerved me. We practically raced each other back to the car, and by that time I was on the verge of panic. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I was also an instant believer in Sasquatch.

A friend later asked me if I'd gotten pictures of the tracks. I told her that I couldn't remember if we had a camera in the car but that even if we'd had, you couldn't have paid me to have gone back for a picture.

ALSO NOTICED: I have the vague impression that when we got out of the car, I thought I smelled a skunk.

OTHER WITNESSES: My husband. He was poking around nearby.

OTHER STORIES: Yes. In the watershed that supplies Walla Walla. I was a home health R.N., and told my experience to one of my elderly patients, never expecting her to actually believe me. (Nobody else had). Instead, she nodded and said her son and daughter-in-law had been hiking in the watershed, and from a high hill observed 3 tall, dark, figures walking (upright)across the valley down below. She said 1 of the figures was much smaller than the other two. By the time the 2 hikers got down there, the figures were gone, but they found long black hair on a fence they'd crossed. She said they had the hair sent to a lab for DNA analysis and the report came back that it didn't belong to any known human or animal. That account put another notch in my new believing-in-bigfoot belt!

Another possible encounter occured in Brown County, IN in Brown County State Park about 16 years ago. We were camping with our horses and trailriding during the day, often exploring "off" trails, which were supposed to be off-limits to riders due to erosion and such. Therefore, they were little-ridden, mostly just used by deer.

My dad and I were on an "off" trail, and observed numerous large logs that had been either moved or else ripped open, and large rocks that had been moved. You can tell they've been moved because leaves and stuff build-up around them and when they're moved there's a sharp line of demarcation where the leaves were pressed up around the rock, and then a flat, clear spot where the rock had been sitting.

We observed these unique signs for probably a mile along the trail, and were excited, thinking we were seeing signs that a bear had been there. We rode those trails every summer for 10 - 12 years, and had never seen anything like that, either before or after.

When we got back to camp, we told the state park people what we'd seen and that we thought it must have been a bear. They looked at us really strangly, like we were nuts, and informed us that no bears had been in the area for 100 years.

I don't know if they were right or not, but I've always wondered what moved those large logs and rocks. There's no way a raccoon could have done that. Whatever it was, it had to have been very large. Now I wonder if it might have been a Sasquatch.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was afternoon. As I recall, the weather was cool and somewhat overcast.

ENVIRONMENT: We were in a small valley with a 15-20 foot wide stream running through it. The track we were driving on crossed the stream and kept going. The landscape was grassy and cleared where we were but right across the stream from us, and to the right of the track, was a small, steep hillside, densely wooded with evergreens, where I had the sensation of being watched from. It seems like the small valley was surrounded by forest.