YEAR: 1970

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

DATE: unknown

STATE: California

COUNTY: Shasta County

LOCATION DETAILS: This was at the McCloud Campsite on Lake Shasta. It was before I knew how to drive so I do not recall highways and such. I have no idea if McCloud is still there. It was pretty popular then though, but not over corwded. For all I know it could be a huge hotel and casino by now ... I hope not. It was quite rustic at the time I was there in 1970.

NEAREST TOWN: Lakehead

NEAREST ROAD: Gilman Rd.

OBSERVED: I was on a family camping trip. There were a lot of us. I was 13 at the time and I had never heard of Bigfoot. The way our camp was laid out was that all of us girls (two sisters, their friends and a friend of mine) were all staying in one big army tent. My brother and his friend were in a smaller tent off to the east closer to the drop off to the lake. Then my parents were in their own tent at the far west end of the campsite. There had been a lot of trouble with bears that summer so all campers were advised to hang their food high up in the trees. My Dad did that and I remember him standing under the bag of food a good three feet over his head about 10 to 15 feet from the door to our tent to the left. My Dad was 5'10".

As for myself, I really wanted to see a bear. I was a very outdoorsy kid and would have preferred to sleep outside of the tent actually. I had little fear of the dark, or the night, and it was my goal to see a bear. I am quit sure we were there for two weeks that year and as I remember it, my sighting occurred about a week in to being there ... since I spent several days after that looking for traces of what I had seen.

I slept closest to the door and somewhere during the middle of the night I heard a little stirring outside. Everyone else was asleep and I didn't wake anyone since I had already been informed (emphatically) that no one else wanted to see a bear. I very quietly and carefully crawled to the door of the tent and cautiously stuck my head out the door. I looked over to where the food bag was hanging and saw something that was unquestionably NOT a bear. What I saw was two dark hairy creatures just standing there under the food bag like they were negotiating how to get it down or something. One of them was a good foot taller than the other. My Dad would have come to the bottom of chest of the biggest one. They were just huge! The smaller one was probably just a head taller than my dad. I had that as a gauge after all since I had seen my Dad standing there in the very same spot under the bag, and he hung the food bag in the same place every night. They were VERY tall and very upright.

I had never heard of a Bigfoot at that time, but I knew these were not bears. Bears are pear shaped and standing upright isn't a position of comfort for them. For that matter, they don't just 'stand' next to each other like they are carrying on a conversation. The incident took place very quickly. It was fast, but I was VERY impressed and it was clear to me immediately that I was seeing something extraordinary.

What happened was that as I saw them, and saw that they were something unexpected, I did one of those surprised intakes of breath ... a true 'gasp' I guess you could say. They heard that and both turned and looked at me. Then, they turned and looked at each other, looked back at me again, and then ... they were just gone. They made not a sound. One moment they were there, and then they were not. I did not go out of the tent. I did think about it, but ... I laid awake all that night thinking about it. I had absolutely no idea what I had seen.

The next morning the first thing I did was go out in the direction I saw them leave to see if I could find tracks, but the earth was very hard and dry there. I didn't see anything. It might be that someone more skilled than I was at the time might have found some trace, but I didn't. I did spend a goodly amount of the remainder of that vacation watching and walking in the woods. I recall I even passed on water skiing a few times to go search the woods.

I didn't tell anyone what I saw until a few years later. I told NO ONE at the time. I was the youngest in my family and already endured a considerable amount of teasing on a regular basis ... you know, kid stuff. I was not about to tell anyone I saw a 7 foot (or so) tall hairy man creature in the campsite. It would not have gone well.

Oh, what I saw of them ... Hairy, with long hanging brown to black hair. I didn't catch any gender features. I just assumed the smaller one was female, but I have no reason to think that since I was mostly just seeing their height ... and the fact that they looked at me ... they LOOKED at me. Uh ... there just aren't words. I did catch that the arms were quite long and they were very big in the chest, shoulders and upper arms, not so much in the hips. Nope these were not bears at all. I do not recall if there was any strong scent associated with my sighting.

I didn't know what I saw until a year or so later when I saw a picture of the famous movie footage. I was so excited to see something that looked like what I had seen.
I am 49 now ... I will never forget.

ALSO NOTICED: Well, there was a strangeness about it all like it just seemed staged or something. If they had been standing anywhere else I would have not had such a clear gauge of their height and bigness. They were just standing there like they were waiting for somethng to happen. I did not have the impression that they were interested in the food bag itself, but they were standing directly under it. Do I think it was persons in hairy outfits standing in our campsite in the middle of the night? No. It did feel strangely like a staged event though. That has always been a mystery to me.

OTHER WITNESSES: Just myself ...

OTHER STORIES: No.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Sometime in the middle of the night while camping. Lighting was not good enough to see great detail, but plenty good enough to make out eye contact.

ENVIRONMENT: It was pine forest at the edge of the lake. The lake level had dropped a few years before leaving a wide band of exposed bank that was mostly rock covered in the area where we were. Beyond our campsite was a dry creekbed that I am sure was a stream in the rainy season. Our camp was at the west (?) edge of the camp grounds up on a hill area away from the central grounds.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Richard Hucklebridge:

I called M on August 18, 2006. She now lives in the state of Washington.

After discussing her incident I asked if she would be able to give an artist enough details to make a good sketch. She said she didn't see enough details for a good sketch. There was just enough moonlight and star light to see a clear silhouette of the figures.

As she stated above, she heard an odd sound which woke her up. Consequently she quietly moved to the tent door flap on her belly, expecting to see a bear. Standing on two legs before her were two very tall unknown creatures that were very tall and large, especially around their chest and shoulder areas. When she made a gasping sound both creatures immediately turned to look in her direction. She could momentarily see the moonlight reflecting off of their eyes. She said, “When they turned to look at me, it was like two persons at a dinner party being startled by the sound of something falling on the floor loudly." She added, "They must have had necks; they just weren't highly definable or visible due to the hair around the neck. Anyway, they turned their heads as they looked down at me, then they both seemed to look back at each other and then back down at me again.”

The figures moved off in different directions from where they were standing and quietly disappeared into the darkness.

Her observation lasted about 5 or 6 seconds. She was about 15 to 20 feet away from them, on her belly, looking up at them from her tent door. She saw the side profile of them -- the right side of the smaller one and the left side of the larger one.

As they moved away she noticed the hair hanging from their long strong arms and back. The creatures seemed to be dark in color, could have been ether black or dark brown. She did not see any facial features, just the eyes that briefly reflected the moonlight.

M saw the Patterson footage a couple of years after her encounter. She is very credible.

About BFRO Investigator Richard Hucklebridge:

• Four years in the United States Navy, 1955-1959 (Combat Air Crewman on P4M Mercator Patrol Aircraft)
• 37 years in the aerospace industry: 33 years with General Electric at Edwards AFB; More than 5 years with the Northrop Grumman Corp. at Edwards AFB (Flight Line Mechanic on the B-2 Bomber).
• During 20 of those years at Edwards he was a Reserve Deputy Sheriff for the County of Los Angeles.