YEAR: 1941

SEASON: Fall

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Yakima County

LOCATION DETAILS: It happened in the foothills of Mt. Adams at the Western end of the Yakima valley. I don't know what the county was but I'm sure it was west of the city of Yakima, Washington on the East side of the mountain. In 1941 there were very few roads into what was basically wilderness. Only a few forest service roads went into the timber, unpaved.

OBSERVED: My mother related the story to me in 1969. I remember it clearly.

"Your father and I had gone to Mt. Adams to picknick and enjoy his new Ford. We had driven some miles up into the hills when we found a partial clearing where we could park and enjoy ourselves. This was when we were engaged in 1941 and were just graduated from Grandview High School in Grandview, Washington. We stayed for part of the day at that spot. In the afternoon we had decided to leave. We had packed up and loaded the Ford with our stuff and were turning out of the clearing to go back to Grandview.

As we were leaving I turned to see if we had left anything behind us and noticed something black moving in the clearing next to where we had parked. What I saw was a tall black creature covered with hair and very muscular walking quickly across the clearing parallel to us towards the forest. I said to your father, 'Look, whats that,' and pointed behind him at the creature. He slowed the car back down and looking where I pointed he said he didn't see anything. By the time he had slowed the car and looked the creature had dissapeared into the forest.

I was the only one that saw it. When I told him what I had seen he said it was only a bear looking for berries to eat probably. I didn't want to argue with him as we were close to getting married and I didn't want to ruin a great outing and throw cold water on what had been a beautiful trip.

OTHER WITNESSES: They had gone to the mountains to enjoy driving my fathers new 1941 Ford and had stopped in a partial clearing to enjoy the out-doors and picknick.

OTHER STORIES: I didn't bring it up again untill the late 60's when we were walking through a store passing a magazine rack and I saw a book with a drawing of a creature on it that looked exactly like what I had seen in the forest.

I stopped and exclamed to your dad, thats it. Thats what I saw in the forest at Mt. Adams years ago. They call it a Bigfoot."

My mother bought the book and kept it until she died. The book is Roger Patterson's 1966 book, "DO ABOMINABLE SNOWMEN OF AMERICA REALLY EXIST? written and published in Yakima, Washington by the Franklin Press. On the inside cover is a note that it was purchased by my father for my mother in January of 1967. On the cover is a drawing of the face of Bigfoot.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: This sighting occured in the fall of 1941. My mother did not remember exactly when, only that it was during the short engagement she had with my father before marrying him.

ENVIRONMENT: My mother stated that they were picknicking in an area of forest and clearing. It had not been logged but was natural and of course first growth virgin timber. It was fairly dense as they were not high on the mountain but down in the foothills at the base of Mt. Adams. The elevation was probably 2,500-3,500 ft. No snow yet as it was early fall.

A & G References: Pg. 36, B1

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