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Geographical Index > United States > California > Siskiyou County > Report # 21354
 
 Report # 21354  (Class A)
Submitted by witness R.M. on Friday, August 31, 2007.
Multi-witness road-crossing sighting on Hwy 96 outside Happy Camp

YEAR: 2005

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

DATE: 5

STATE: California

COUNTY: Siskiyou County

LOCATION DETAILS: The Seiad Valley area of Highway 96!

NEAREST TOWN: Happy Camp

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 96

OBSERVED: I was traveling from San Francisco to visit my daughter, and since the coast was so foggy along highway 1, I went east from Eureka, Ca. to Willow Creek, Ca. Since I did not want to travel south again to Redding we decided on highway 96 to Yreka, and I-5 as a shortcut.

My youngest daughter was with me, and we had driven a long ways and so we gassed up in Willow Creek and decided to continue to drive. It was late and it was a boring uneventful dark drive up this "Bigfoot Highway 96”, but finally we crossed a bridge on the Klamath River and got to a campground where we finally saw trailers and trucks and people type stuff. The road then goes up a switchback to a ridge for a mile or so, and I slowed my speed down to 25 mph.

So, as I got to the ridge, maybe a couple miles from the bridge, I came around this last switchback, and to the right my headlights swept the left embankment and I thought there was a bear coming down the embankment towards the highway. I slowly crept ahead and began to stop as this bear was shuffling down this embankment on two feet, but it was not a bear. I stopped completely and not over one hundred feet in front of me was this thing intent on getting across the road the road in front of me.

If I didn't see it on the bank I probably would've hit it, because it was that close. It got to the center line in three long steps and looked at me and then jumped off the road. I mean from the centerline on its right leg it jumped clear off the pavement and over a two foot embankment and was out of sight.

It was not overly tall probably just six feet or a little taller, but extremely was thick maybe in the 300 pound range this thing was built. It was hair not fur and matted and dark brown but with a rusty auburn tint to it. I was extremely close with high beams on, and stopped in the road. It had long arms like a gorilla or something, and it sort of lumbered forward like a gorilla only fast with definite long strides; it had something it was aiming for and when it looked at me it turned its head back straight and this thing jumped off the road like an elk on one leg. It had extremely thick legs and shoulders, and no man could make a jump like that. If I had a video camera in the dash of my car you would have seen the video of your life. I couldn't make out any genitalia it was so hairy I would estimate its body hair like six inches long and matted and dangly, but not so much on its butt or the back of its legs. I could make out the thighs and they were some guns.

I was too scared to get out of my car to look over the embankment, that and my daughter was freaked out. Get the heck out of here. I took a picture of the hillside he came down. I can find the exact spot and in fact am on vacation this next week and I got an infrared camera and a motor drive dslr this time, and oh, I ain't getting out of my car without my gun. Don't get me wrong I ain’t a gun freak but I could have rammed this thing with my car the first time. I don't want to hurt anything, but I don't want to get my head ripped off by something just on the other side of the dark roadside either.

This sighting was at 12:55 am and I was wide awake. I checked my odometer from where I saw him it was forty two miles to the next bridge on the river at a small town before I got to the freeway on 96. I am a recreational hunter in my younger years but this isn't something you hunt; this is something you gawk at. Oh and as close as I was the eyes didn't glow. I must have counted 60 deer along that road and I saw eyeballs everywhere in the road along side the road from that ridge to Yreka. This thing didn't have glowing eyes, and I had the high beams on and watched it cross the road and look at me. It didn't have animal eyes that glowed. It struck me that it was going to cross the road and go down to the river and was aware of its purpose like an intelligent being.

ALSO NOTICED: Nothing else unusual. I heard no sounds or smells. I read once where these things stink real bad. Well I rolled the windows down a little and stopped and smelled nothing like a Billy goat or anything like that. No strong odors or anything else unusual except the large deer population in the area.

OTHER WITNESSES: One other witness my 17 year old daughter.

OTHER STORIES: No but I live in central Washington at Moses Lake and I thought I could contact a ranger or that Bigfoot museum in Willow Springs, but was unable to link to anyone by phone or email. And also, I been in the woods hunting for probably twenty years, in which I saw all kinds of game, but never seen anything like this. Who would believe me, and I don't really care, but think about it. I saw something I will probably never see again. Nobody has bagged one right?

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 12:55 am. Weather: clear skies, and it was very dark except for car lights or artificial lights, very secluded area.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Richard Hucklebridge:

I received the following e-mail after I sent out my e-mail to R.M. on the evening of August 31, 2007, and just before I talked with him by phone.

Hi Richard,
I never heard of your site before, and I was looking for maps and goggling Bigfoot highway thinking there was a ranger station at Willow
Creek or somewhere to report this to after it happened. I also don't have very good maps and I am not sure where the Oregon Caves are located or even where Happy Camp is located for that matter. I do know I can get there again and in fact, am traveling down that road again this Labor Day Monday. This time I will be going from Yreka to Willow Springs, and I will get a map of the area somewhere down there.

From Willow Creek I crossed the Klamath River Bridge and soon saw a campground with trailers and campers and stuff. Went up a hill with some switchbacks and at the top of the hill there was a grassy bank on the north side and the embankment down to the river on the south side. It was just at the crest of this hill that I saw it and it wasn't too far from that bridge. (“Please note this witness drove for 4 hours from Willow Creek before he crossed the above bridge.”) Probably sometime towards the end of next week I will send you more details of the location.

Here is a photo of the grassy bank it came down. My daughter just changed her cell phone number so I will have to get that for you too. This picture was using a Sony 717 with an external Sunpak 383 flash. I wish it would have been mounted and ready when I saw this thing I can light up a parking lot with this flash. I know I was scared enough I wasn't getting out of the car cause I was thinking what if it didn't run down the bank, and what if its just off the road watching me? And my daughter was freaked.

I saw it long enough to say that's not a bear, that's one of those things!! And my daughter shrieked "Oh @#&$" and it was gone in seven maybe eight seconds tops. I would estimate it at about six feet high with really long arms. It wasn't running, but it was taking long quick strides, three steps from the bottom of the bank to the centerline of the pavement and that one turn towards me and the jump. It hurdled the south embankment from the center of the road on its right leg with the left leg straight out like a hurdlers position.

It was built extremely stocky with a thick chest and shoulders and it had extremely thick legs. Not as tall as I always heard. But I actually thought that it was a lot of hooey anyway. I don't think so anymore. The only other detail I remember is it was hunched forward swinging its arms almost straight out and straight back sort of ape like with fingers cupped almost like leading its gait with knuckles. And the hair straight from the eye sockets down its front about four to six inches long but shorter on its back and the back of its legs. It wasn't fur it was hair. It was dark brown with almost reddish or rust colored streaks or a tint to it. And its eyes did not glow like a deer or something would. A man would be jogging at a good clip to keep up with this thing walking. I'm not sure whether I would like to see one of these again. It scared me. I would but I wouldn't you know?

Listen I don't really talk about this to a whole lot of people cause I Don’t know, it’s strange and most people are skeptical I guess. I wish you luck seeing one of these. I have a question though. Since I know these things are real; you would think by now somebody would have found a dead one or something wouldn't you, or a skeleton or something maybe by deer hunters or somebody? (“I advised him that some of us think that they bury their own.”)I would like to read about this if you know any good web links or something. I will send you better details of the location though.


I called R.M. tonight, August 31, 2007, and we went over his encounter on Hwy. 96, somewhere I believe to be between Happy Camp and Yreka, in the early morning hours of August 5, 2005. The reporting party is a very believable and credible person, and he is going to attempt to make a positive location of he and his daughter's encounter this Labor Day weekend. He was traveling east bound on hwy. 96 and the creature crossed this two-lane highway going from North to South, when it made this gigantic leap from the center of this hwy. to several feet off of the other side of that road towards the Klamath River. The witness stated, “That no man could have pulled that one off.”

This Sasquatch encounter put his heart in his throat, and it is still very vivid in his mind and he was excited to get to tell his story. R.M. is a family man over 50 years of age, and he had two cameras with him in the back seat of his 1996 Ford Explorer, but this encounter only lasted approximately 8 seconds. He was a nonbeliever prior to this encounter, but he is now a 100%er with very few people to tell his story to.

He took a picture of where this creature came down the embankment but it was too dark and to dry to see any footprints. I enlarged this photo and I thought I could see some slide marks in the dry grass, but maybe it was only wishful thinking on my part. Per R.M. this photo does not show any footprints or sliding in the dry grass. This photo was taken at night with a flash and really does not show anything except a dry grass embankment and about half of a paved road which is Hwy. 96 out to the double yellow lines.

R.M. said of the creature, “That its arms were overly long for its height, like down to its knees, and to him it had at least a 7foot arm swing span looking like that was way too long for its size.”

On September 9, 2007, I talked with R.M. after he made a recent daylight trip backwards down Hwy. 96, from Yreka to Willow Creek, but he couldn’t locate the spot where he and his daughters sighting took place. I attempted to talk with M.M., R.M’s daughter, but she thought better of it, but she did advise her dad where the incident took place. She kind of pinpointed the Hwy. 96 sighting/crossing somewhere around the Seiad Valley area, which is East of Happy Camp, Ca. R.M. couldn’t get over all of the people using that Klamath River, doing their recreational things while he made his Labor Day weekend trek down Hwy. 96; he really wanted to warn them about what was lurking out there in that river area of California.

I found the following information in a pamphlet about California’s back road adventures Dated 2006: Has a small map with a statement, “Bigfoot Scenic Byway” with an arrow pointing to Hwy. 96, saying, “Keep your eyes peeled for Sasquatch as you drive north from Willow Creek. Get the skinny on the beast at the Willow Creek-China Flat Museum,” Info at 530-629-2693.

About BFRO Investigator Richard Hucklebridge: