YEAR: 1977

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: October

DATE: 1

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Pierce County

LOCATION DETAILS: Somewhere in the backwoods of Ft Lewis. This are is full of deadfall, creeks, ridges, thickets, swampy areas, small caves, and is very inhospitable, and can be dangerous if you get lost.

NEAREST TOWN: Nisqually, WA

NEAREST ROAD: I believe it was near highway 510

OBSERVED: OK fellas - here goes. In 1977, I was an Army instructor at Ft Lewis, WA. We had to take lower ranking enlisted men to the woods for part of the month long training, while in the NCO Academy. During one of these exercises, (a patrol or something)we had set up an observation post along this trail in the woods. I moved away from the troops so as I could better observe them and therefore, "grade" them on their skills.Sometime during the early morning hours, I began to smell this foul odor ( kind of like garbage or rotten eggs - whatever). A few moments later I heard this rustling of brush and braking of branches and tree limbs. All this was taking place, PROBABLY, about 25 to 30 meters in front of me. Keep in mind, it was very dark and only a little illumination from the moon. As I tried to focus on the location of this "event", I recognized that there was a pair of "eyes" looking directly at me. This creature was moving from my left to my right, staring at me. It was evident to me that "it" could see me clearly. I was frozen in place and panic set in immediately. I even crouched down in the bushes to try to hide myself. This "thing" kept moving and eventually moved out of our area. When it left, the odor disappeared, there was no more tree branches breaking, and I was petrified. I know this sounds like a load of crap - but, this happened and I have no reason to even mention this after all these years.But, do with it what you want. I just thought I'd let you know about my expereince. Thanks for your time. (Name edited out)

ALSO NOTICED: Not that i can remember now. It's been over 30 years ago.

OTHER WITNESSES: There were at least three other NCO's who mentioned that they had seen or heard something "weird" in the woods from time to time.

OTHER STORIES: No. I now live in Pennsylvania. And trust me, we have a few unusual things going on out here.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Probably around 1:00 to 2:00 A.M.

ENVIRONMENT: See above response.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Scott Taylor:

This now witness lives in Pennsylvania. We talked for about an hour about his experience and about Bigfoot related questions that he had as a result of this encounter.

As stated in his report, he was an instructor at the Fort Lewis NCO academy, and his duty that night was to observe and grade the students as they conducted a nighttime field exercise. We talked about exactly where this happened so that I could get a more precise location. His memory of the exact location has faded over time. So all he could tell me was that it was out the back gate of Fort Lewis. I know where that is. The location coordinates bracket the training area I believe they were in.

Fort Lewis is vast. The base has a central area where access is tightly controlled by fencing and guarded gates. Then there are extensive areas outside this fenced area that are partitioned off into training areas. These areas are not open to the public, but are not controlled by fences or gates. The public can drive the paved roads, but not off them. There are roving MP patrols. A non-military person does not want to be caught there. These training areas are mostly forest of varying ages ranging from old growth timber to trees about 60-70 years old. The forest floor is a mixture of very dense salal, ferns, holly, and blackberries. There are open areas where parachute landings are conducted. Creeks and ponds are scattered throughout the base property. It is ideal habitat for the typical Pacific Northwest big game animals and small animals. Hunting is permitted provided one goes though a training course and registers in and out of the training areas. I have access to these areas as I am registered to hunt there.

Talking with the witness I could hear the emotion in his voice. It still has an effect on him when he thinks back to the encounter. He said that the first indication that something strange was going on was the rotten egg smell, which he says he can still remember when he thinks about it. Then what he saw was the eyes. They were teardrop shaped, and glowing orange. It looked at him as it moved from left to right in front of him about 30 yards away. He knew it could see him as it was focused right on him. As it walked, it snapped sticks and deadfall branches by stepping on them and the popping and snapping branches were quite noisy. As it walked the creatures gait was such that the eyes would rise about six inches with every step. His impression was that the stride was 4 to 5 feet. From his vantage point, it was walking in a shallow draw and the witness was looking down slope, but yet the eyes were at his level. He said that would make it about 8-10 feet tall.

The next day, he went to where it was walking to look for tracks. He could not find any. This is not unexpected due to the nature of the forest floor here. He said that the area was quite wet and marshy.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord, as it is now called, has a history of people seeing sasquatches. There are reports from the surrounding area also. There are quite a few other reports from years past where soldiers who did report seeing Bigfoot creatures to the military were told to never speak. Many were so intimidated that they did not tell their stores until a long time after they were no longer on active duty. This behavior from the military authorities is common. I believe the military cannot permit general knowledge of these creatures inhabiting the training areas because the young soldiers would not be able to effectively perform night training.

I enjoyed talking with this witness. He was to the point and serious. He did not speculate anything at all. It was many years later that after reading reports on our website that he really began to understand what really happened. This is when he decided to report it. The combination of smell, eye-shine, long stride gait, and being able to see in the dark are all attributes that are reported for sasquatches. These are the same things which I have experienced with sasquatches on several occasions. I believe this witness had a typical Sasquatch encounter.

About BFRO Investigator Scott Taylor:

Scott Taylor is a retired aerospace manager. He lives in Mason County, Washington. He had his first bigfoot encounter in October 2005 where he was stalked and later heard vocalizations.

Scott has attended official BFRO Expeditions in the Washington Cascades in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. He also attended 2007 Central Oregon Cascades and 2007 Utah. He now organizes BFRO expeditions in Washington and has participated in bigfoot conferences over the past 17 years.

Scott will be leading a Washington BFRO expedition in 2025 (July 17-20) which is open to non-members. For more details and registration information for that trip click here.