YEAR: 1988

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: June

DATE: 25

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Kitsap County

LOCATION DETAILS: N. of Naval Submarine Base Bangor.

NEAREST TOWN: Keyport

NEAREST ROAD: 308

OBSERVED: My Marine buddy and I were on a hiking/camping trip. The area is very wooded, and very remote.

We were walking for about 4 hours down a game trail when we heard strange grunting sounds, almost like a buck (deer) during mating season. Being an avid hunter though, I knew it wasn't a deer. We walked quietly towards the sound, hoping to find perhaps a bear or something. We were both armed with military type rifles, so we were not fearful of our safety.

Moving another 100 meters or so, the sound became louder and more frequent. The sound was now accompanied by the crashing of rocks. As we rounded a bend in the trail, just SE of us I spotted what appeared to be a huge black bear standing upright. It didn't see us, and it was only about 80 meters away, but the woods still masked it. We moved even closer, and now it appeard as if there were more than one. As we got close enough to make the creature, it was nothing either of us as seen before.

It was about 6'5 or more, it had a huge upper body and it appeared to be lacking a neck. This was NOT a bear. My buddy and I looked towards each other, remaining silent and using hand signals. We moved away, we were both scared to death! Don't ask me why, we were armed to the teeth but we just didn't know what we had just seen. We moved back to the safety of the bend we just rounded and began talking about the possibilities. We both concluded it was a bigfoot we just ran into.

Now confident we were able to defend ourselves (we talked about old stories of them being hostile.. I knew nothing about them), we moved back to investigate. Actually, we planned on confirming this was not human or a common animal, then we were going to terminate it. Yes, we though we would be famous..

As we moved back towards the last known location, we were unable to find the creatures. We found evidence of their being there, two rocks that weighed at least 200lbs were sitting one on to of the other (fresh marks on them as if one was dropped on the other from several feet) and broken branches. We didn't find any foot prints, but there was a lingering odor...like animal dung but more powerful. We got the heck out of Dodge and told no one, until now.

We looked in the base library and discovered that there were laws on the books protecting these creatures in many states. I am glad we didn't run into it (them) again.

I don't really know what it was trying to do. It was moving things around in the immediate area, but it didn't seem to have a purpose for doing so, unless it was marking its territory like other animals.

A & G References: Pg. 78, C3

Follow-up investigation report:

From the Western Bigfoot Society public reports page.