YEAR: 2004

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: July

DATE: 03

STATE: Oregon

COUNTY: Jackson County

LOCATION DETAILS: Go to Butte Falls. Go through town. At the fish hatchery turn onto the Butte Falls - Prospect Highway. Approximately 10 miles north near the side road to Camp Creek.

NEAREST TOWN: Butte Falls

NEAREST ROAD: Prospect/Butte Falls Highway

OBSERVED: My wife, daughter and I were towing our trailer up to a local camp site on a Saturday morning for an overnight campout. I was driving along on the Prospect/Butte Falls highway. I came around a corner and was slowed down to about 30 mph. As we turned the corner, about 40 yards down the road on the right hand side, I saw what I thought was a man take a step from the road into the forest. I clearly saw an arm swing and a leg. What struck me strange was that he was pitch black from head to toe. I said to my wife, "What was that?" She said, "I don't know."
At this point I am still thinking that it was a person, but that it was strange. There was a dirt logging road that crossed the highway right where the creature was standing. I started slowing down and expected to see a person, or a truck or camper on the road. As we went by and looked, there was nothing there.
We continued down the road and my wife and I talked about what we had seen. My daughter was in the back seat of the truck and did not see anything. I all happened very quickly. I did not see anything until it moved as I was proocuppied by driving and towing. My wife saw it standing there by the road before it moved and clearly saw hair and could see both sides of the torso. I kept running over in my mind what it might have been. I have lived in this area all of my life and have seen every animal that lives in the woods. This did not fit in any catagory. The only thing that color is a black bear, and this clearly was not a bear. We finally agreed that it may have been a bigfoot. We decided to hurry to out camp and drop the trailer and get back down and look for tracks. I had my camera and my intention was to find some tracks and get some pictures of them.
We went to camp and hurried back to the spot. The time since we went by was about an hour. The logging road turned out to be very dry and hard. I searched all around in the forest and on the other side of the highway for tracks, but could not find anything that was clearly a bigfoot track. I went back to were it was standing an stood in the same spot and was looking up in the tree standing there looking for a bees nest or something that perhaps a bear might be interested in. I was still trying to eliminate all other possibilities. Then it occured to me that when I had seen this creature step off of the road that it had stepped behind some branches on this tree. As I looked up I realised that the branches were way above my head. I am 6' 4". This thing was big. That convinced me.

OTHER WITNESSES: My wife and I. Just driving. This was the last thing I was thinking about.

OTHER STORIES: I have always been interested in Bigfoot and have heard about various things from northen California and southern Oregon.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was around nine in the morning and a sunny, clear morning. The area is very green and full of vegetation. It has been logged in years past and there is a combination of large firs, madrone, oak, brush, etc. A typical western Oregon forest.

ENVIRONMENT: High altitude forest in Cascade mountains. Flat area with trees, brush, logging roads, meadows, creeks.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Dr. Wolf H. Fahrenbach:

The passenger (wife) had a view undistracted by the demands of driving. She mentioned that at first sight - at about 100 feet - she thought it was a person in totally black clothing, inappropriate to the season. Next she realized that the individual was about 8' tall and had a coat of hair that glistened in the sun. At closest approach, she thought that the sasquatch had some similarity to a tree stump in the forest, at least with respect of its degree of camouflage.