YEAR: 1976

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: September

DATE: 15

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Pierce County

LOCATION DETAILS: Back and NW of the Sumner Sportsmans club. Near the swamp.

NEAREST TOWN: Alderton. By Mcalder grade school.

NEAREST ROAD: Orting highway

OBSERVED: Seen, Large 8'+ tall manlike hairy creature at a distance of 60 - 70' for between 45 sec. to a minute +. As I came through the head high brush it raised up behind a tree. I was clearly able to see it from mid torso up. F@"/ing HUGE! All the sound turned to white noise and the tunnel vision took over. I have never felt more alive. Totaly focused on this thing. It was grey black, long hair that came down to meet masive shoulders. If you were to look at your typical doorway. It's shoulders would have extended a full foot beyond it's width and it's chin would have been the only thing seen below the celling.
It had a dark brown face visable through it's hair. As I said I first noticed movement when I came through the brush into thfe clearing. It must have seen me and stood up for a better look. We locked on eachother and froze. I in amazement. I could not move. I was so fixed on this thing. I heard some children approching 50 yards or so behind me. Some protective instinct kicked in. I spun around yelling at my partner to "GET THOSE KIDS OUT OF HERE"! And I ran to head off the kids. I told my boss about it and after telling me that i looked like had seen a ghost, that there had been bear sign around. Bear my aunts fanny. I have been in the woods my entire life and I can tell you that there are things that go bump in the night.

ALSO NOTICED: Just minutes prior to my sighting the two horses in the area had been spooked enouge to plow through a "live" electric fence and were last seen at a full run for parts unknown.

OTHER WITNESSES: No

OTHER STORIES: Many

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Late afternoon. Clear, sunny and warm. Creature was just inside the treeline but not shaded.

ENVIRONMENT: Heavy forest, swamp with some clearings.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Scott Taylor:

I first talked to the witness over the phone. At the time of his sighting he was working as a trap-boy at the Sumner Gun Club, he was 14 years old.

He was out picking up clay pigeons when he noticed the sasquatch. The sasquatch was crouched behind a tree that had grown up into a V-shape. Crouching, it was facing to his left at a 45 degree angle. When it saw him and stood up, it kept behind the tree, but turned square-on to face him, looking between the “V”. As it got up, it moved in a very fluid motion. He said that it was huge. The body was thick, stocky, broad shoulders. It was at least 2 feet wider than a standard 30 inch door. They both froze, looking at each other. It was 50-70 feet away. It was gray in color with black underfur. The top of the head was cone shaped. The head hair was long and came down to its shoulders on both sides and covered part of its face. The skin of the face was dark brown. There was no neck. He estimated the height at 8 feet. The body hair was shorter and resembled fur, about 4 inches long, and was completely covered by hair except for part of the face. The hair on the head and body was unkempt looking. He could see no skin on its body at all. The only thing that he could see skin on was the face. He could make out a closed mouth, a flat nose, the brow line, and they eyes were all dark, with no white showing. He said that the face was human looking.

When he saw it, he said that he went into that hyper-focused mode where you get sort of a tunnel vision and time dilation feeling. He was completely focused on it. He felt frozen and unable to move. It was only when he heard the kids approaching that he was able to turn away. He said that his friend, who was also working there, was right behind him and had a look of total terror on his face. He moved to intercept the kids who were coming and to get them out of there. He did not see the sasquatch after he turned away.

He has since lost track of his co-worker and friend.

Two weeks later, the witness, who traveled about 60 miles to meet with me, met me at the grade school across the road from the gun club. He told me that this was the grade school he went to when he was a boy. He described how the countryside looked back in the mid-seventies. It was much less built up. We then drove over to the gun club gate, which was locked. The club was closed, so not wanting to trespass, we checked out the surrounding area, as well as the river bank under the bridge. As we did so, he told me more of the encounter. Having the location there to work with, he was able to tell of the encounter in more detailed terms of size and distance. The witness is a tall man, over six feet tall. He was able to describe how large the sasquatch was by raising his arms and hands as high as he could to show me how tall it was, how big the head was, and how wide the shoulders were. We were able to access some property next to the club and get to the fence where we could look in. He pointed out where everything happened. We looked for signs of recent sasquatch activity in the nearby forest areas and found one possible track impression that was about 17 inches long and 6 inches wide. As we talked about his experience with this sasquatch, I asked him if he felt any funny sensations in his body at the time. He said he didn’t, but then went on to describe the buzzing feeling he felt in the back of his head at the time when he and the sasquatch were looking at each other. He said that he had felt that same feeling once before. He said that he and a friend were camping up on the power-line right-of-way on the west hillside of Bonney Lake. They were sleeping on the ground. He said that he felt that buzzing feeling in his head when he heard something walk up to him in the dark, then he felt something touch him gently on the back of his head. It is quite likely that he was visited by a sasquatch at that time too.

I sketched out what I think the witness saw, based on his description. He said that this sketch is a pretty close match.


This is the impression that we found. Interesting but inconclusive.


Examining imagery from Google Earth, one can see that it is possible for sasquatches to be able to travel from the Cascades, down the Carbon River, almost all the way to the town of Sumner, and be able to stay hidden in the woods on either side, especially at night. There are forest patches around the gun club that are large enough for sasquatches to hide in even today.

I believe that this witness had an actual close-up sighting of a sasquatch.

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.