YEAR: 1963

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

DATE: friday the 17th

STATE: California

COUNTY: San Bernardino County

LOCATION DETAILS: The name of the cabin was called Peyton Place.

NEAREST TOWN: Big Bear Lake Resort.

NEAREST ROAD: I do not remember the name.

OBSERVED: This is not a sighting, but I strongly believe it would have been. It happened 40 years ago this past summer. The year was 1963. I had to go out to California with my family. I really did not want to go, but I did not have a choice. We went out for the whole summer. My uncle rented a cabin at Big Bear Lake for a week.

On the last night at Big Bear Lake my aunt took my mother, sister and me to the movies in town. The movie was over around 8pm so we then headed back to the cabin. Once we arrived at the cabin I realized I did not have my wallet. I asked my aunt to drive me back to the movie theater, and she refused to take me. So I decided to walk to town to see if I could find my wallet. When I arrived at the movie theater, I asked the girl at the ticket booth if I could look for my wallet. She gave me permission to enter the theater to look for it. To my surprise, I found it stuck in the seat.

When I came back outside it was dark. Something I didn't think of when I left the cabin. There was only one road back up the mountain, so off I went. The road went up the side of a mountain, and it was a gravel road. I was walking along and started to hear something moving on my left. It was the sound of branches snapping when you step on them. Remember the road was on the side of a mountain. The terrain on the right side of the road was a steep hill upward with a lot of thick trees and underbrush. On the left side of the road was a steep angle going down. It would be very hard for a human to climb without slipping. There were no trees, but a lot of bushes and underbrush. That was where the sound was coming from. When I stopped to listen to the sound it stopped too. So I started to walk again. The sound of branches snapping did too.

As kids back in Pennsylvania we always carried stones with us just in case we ran into trouble. I had some nice sized rocks in my pocket. I started to lob them into the air so they would fall on whatever it was down there. Then the breaking of branches became more vigorous. When I stopped to listen, the thing kept on coming up the side. The road went off to the right about 20 yards ahead of me. At the speed this thing was moving, I would not make the bend. Therefore I told myself if a car came around the bend I was going to be a hood ornament. There was no way I was going to let it go by me.

God must have been with me, because a car came around the bend. I stood right in the middle of the road waving my hands up and down like jumping jacks. My aunt was driving with my mother and sister in the car. I must have scared her, because she slammed on her brakes and stopped with only a foot to spare. I ran to the side of the car and got in. The first thing I said was lets go.

I did not tell anyone about this at the time, because I was too shook up. My sister knew something was wrong just by the look on my face. I did not tell my sister the story until we got back to good old Pennsylvania.

ALSO NOTICED: My uncle came out to California in 1955. He said there are strange things that would happen in new logging camps.

OTHER WITNESSES: None.

OTHER STORIES: No!

TIME AND CONDITIONS: The time of day was 9:pm, and it was a dark, clear, and cool night.

ENVIRONMENT: Lots of trees, I really do not know the territory, but I know there is a big lake.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Richard Hucklebridge:

R.L called me tonight, the tenth of February 2004, from Pennsylvania, and he went over the encounter he had forty years ago in the San Bernardino National Forest, near Big Bear Lake. For forty years R.L. has wanted to tell his story to someone who might take him seriously, and maybe explain just what might have followed him up that steep canyon. He had been affected with this mystery too long and wanted some closure on this, his most memorable encounter. R.L. couldn't remember the name of the road, but said that the cabin they were staying in was called Peyton Place.

As R.L. was walking up a dark gravel mountain road, towards the cabin, he began to hear something moving up the steep brush covered canyon below him, and it sounded like it was a large bipedal creature. The creature was breaking the brush limbs loudly, and moving loose rocks around, as it continued on up the canyon towards where the road and the canyon intersected. He said at first, when he walked, the creature moved, and when he stopped, it also would stop. This frightened him enough that the hairs on the back of his head were standing up, and he began to pick up rocks in the road, and then tossed them into the canyon to persuade the creature to stop its advance up towards his location.

This rock throwing didn't slow the creature down as he hoped, but it began to move faster towards the intersection. R.L. then began to believe he was going to die when the two of them met at the intersection. Just a few seconds later his Aunt and some of his family came around the corner in their car on the way down the hill looking for him.

In summary, I felt this large creature had some intelligence by the way it would stop and start when he did, and it seemed to get a little hostile towards him as he began throwing rocks down on it. R.L. never heard any sound from the creature, saw or smelled anything out of the ordinary, but his encounter does have some of the same characteristics that sasquatch has shown in the past. R.L. further stated that the canyon was way too steep for a person to climb, or make the noise it did while breaking branches and moving rocks around on its way up towards him and the road.