YEAR: 1955

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: August

STATE: California

COUNTY: Tulare County

LOCATION DETAILS: The area was a large cattle ranch made available to the scouts to camp on.

NEAREST TOWN: Porterville, California

NEAREST ROAD: unknown

OBSERVED: This incident occurred in the fall of the year, in Tulare county, Ca. The year was approximately 1955, plus or minus one year. I was about eleven years old, and on a boy scout camping trip. Although this happened to me a long time back, I now can remember it clearly. I say now because for along time I blocked it out of my mind. Sometime in the early morning hours I left the tent to visit the latrine, which was maybe fifty yards away at the edge of a small ravine. As I was standing there relieving myself I began to hear small limbs and heavy brush breaking just on the other side of the ravine. My first thought was that a steer or cow was over there, and I quickly directed my flashlight beam in the direction of the sounds. What I saw Froze me in terror. It looked to be about seven maybe eight feet tall, covered with long shaggy brown hair and kind of teetering back and forth on it's two feet. The head was very large with no neck to be seen, and the eyes about ten to twelve inches apart,with round glowing orange appearance. The arms were very long, and hung straight down.
I turned and ran back to the tent, wetting myself all the way. Everyone that I tried to relate this incident to just laughed at me, including my own family. Finally I just told myself that it didn't really happen. Thats how I left it untill one day a few years ago I picked up "The Bigfoot Case History Book", and while paging through it, suddenly there was the picture of what I saw so many years ago. Not ape like at all, but what they referr to as the diving helmet type.

ALSO NOTICED: Nothing I noticed .

OTHER WITNESSES: No witnesses. Sorry!

OTHER STORIES: No, I had never even heard of a creature like this at the time.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Approximately 2:30 am, on a dark night.

ENVIRONMENT: Grassland with scattered oak trees and brush.
A creek flowed through it.

Follow-up investigation report:

I talked with this witness and can add the following details:
--hair was 4-5 inches in length and matted;
--bigger than a man, but since he was a child at the time, no estimate made on height or weight;
--it had very long arms, big head with no neck, eyes reflected to the light;
--didn't appear to him to look anything like a monkey or primate, but most looked like the Diver Bell Helment Type described in the book above.

Before talking with witness, I called various long time residents of Tulare County to try to better locate the boy scout camp that this witness was at. All three contacts noted that the only Boy Scout camp, located on a large cattle ranch, that they were aware of in 1955 was actually located above Porterville, California on the Gill Ranch, and was called Bartlett Park. The witness thought it was possible that this was the location, rather than above Exeter (he remembers coming out of Visalia and heading toward the foothills). Anyone with additional information is encouraged to contact me at the below email address.

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