YEAR: 1944

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

STATE: California

COUNTY: Siskiyou County

LOCATION DETAILS: Leave North from Yreka to the Klamath River. Follow the river East... to Horse Creek. The first road should be Mckinny Creek (Mackenney). Go South about 7 miles. It was called the willows... It could have changed alot in 57 yrs. I'll bet that family is still around.

NEAREST TOWN: Yreka

NEAREST ROAD: Leave the klamath at Horse Creek

OBSERVED: My Name is Margaret Whitney...1944.. I was 9 yrs. My brother was 8. We lived in N. Ca. Just off the Klamath river, on McKinney Creek. We were walking on a dirt road.. passing a clearing. across the clearing about 50 yds, we saw three strange animals. It was like looking at PaPa bear, MaMa bear and baby bear. From where we were..They seemed to have long necks. There arms hung down almost to the ground. We stood and looked at them. They looked back at us. My brother and I kept asking each other "what are they"? They turned and walked back into the woods.. we ran home to tell our Mother...She insisted that we saw sheep. We know they were not sheep. Later years..when Big Foot was reported... I know that is what we saw.

ALSO NOTICED: Nothing unusual. The animals stood and watched us for a good 2 min. They had long hair, that seemed to glimmer white. in the sun. When they turned back toward the woods, the hair seemed black.

OTHER WITNESSES: My brother Robert Bonine and I. We had walked over to help..bring in the hay. We throught that Dad was cutting the clearing, called willows. We didn't find him there and were returning to the house. The two story house.

OTHER STORIES: I know of no other stories. We left the Klamath Sept of 1944. never returned.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Day time before noon. after 9:00. It was a clear day. no clouds.

ENVIRONMENT: Red Wood Forest.. very thick growth. Mechlin owed the land. There was a 2 story house. set back from the road. A barn was at the drivway edge. We were about 1/4 mile S. of the house.

Follow-up investigation report:

I talked with the witness by phone and the following details can be added to the report:
--This sighting happened in 1944, long before "Bigfoot" was in the press.
--The three animals were on two legs, with flat faces and long hair. They did not have a face like a bear.
--The little one was 5 feet; "Mama" was 6 feet; and "Papa" 7 feet tall.
--They had the impression it was a family group based on the three sizes of the animals.
--The area then was very remote, and only one other family was in the area. Margaret's family owned most of the area, including the creek.
--Her mother was afraid to stay up there, and they ended up moving after just one summer.
--In the 1950s, when the famous "Bigfoot" sightings began, Margaret talked to her brother and they both agreed that the description of the bigfoot matched what they had seen in 1944.

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