YEAR: 1972

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: August

STATE: Minnesota

COUNTY: Pine County

NEAREST TOWN: 5 mi east of Willow River, Mn.

NEAREST ROAD: unmarked gravel road a couple miles east of Interstate 35

OBSERVED: Two white big foot spotted in open field from car. These creatures were appx. seven and nine feet tall. The shorter a gorilla shape and female, the taller a more human shaped muscular brute head more rounded than female also. Froze in mid stride as deer will do when caught in similar spot. As a rural resident and outdoorsman I was not shocked by them at all. This area has wolverine and cougar in it that once were deemed extinct from Mn. Did not get out to investigate as I was lightly armed and in awe of their size. Would compare to Clydesdale horses in height. Would presume the creatures were in annual migration from wisconsin just like the bears.You will find reports on them to be more active moving east to west from mid August to October. Bears den on the cold [north] side of a slope. So this bigfoot likely uses the south side. Once had hell scared out of my dog by a small black creature that appeared to be sitting on ground with legs crossed eating. This was so near dark and before I saw the big ones that I assumed that the shadows in the forest "created " the little guy. Now I'm not so sure. Anyway!!!! If you want to photo bigfoot I suggest the area around the St. Croix river at dusk in early autumn. The French explorer traders called this area passe a'lours - passage of the bears. There are a lot of these creatures out there. Nosey bears could be a problem for the hunt however.

ALSO NOTICED: In roaming this area of and on there were some screams from cougars in the evening at times is all.

OTHER WITNESSES: I was alone and headed out to do a little fishingat a remote lake.

OTHER STORIES: Found out much later that others had seen a white bigfoot all over the place from near Duluth to Webster Wisc. Guess I was the only one that saw the two together. Believe that like lions and people the male and female have some different bone structure. Unless I,m badly mistaken the skull shape of male and female is very dissimularIt is surprising to say the least.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: appx 9 am bright and sunny 55 or so

ENVIRONMENT: Area is heavly planted with pine trees with some grassy clear cut fields in between.However these animals were in transit from the wilder area a few miles further east. Mosquitoes had just recently diminished from some early frosts and that always makes the critters not just bigfoot more active.

Follow-up investigation report:

The witness referred to the animals as "a male and a female" and said his conclusion was based not upon observation of any obvious secondary sex characteristics, but upon the animals' overall appearance; their posture, relative size, and behavior. He said both animals were completely white, whiter than even a polar bear, he thought. He also said more than once that the creatures were "huge." The male's face was gray (he did not see the female's), and the face seemed haggard and reminded him of Gabby Hayes's face. The witness had seen the Patterson/Gimlin film and said that, aside from color, the creatures he saw looked essentially the same as the animal in that film. One other difference he noted was that the hair covering the creatures seemed thicker and longer than that of the filmed animal..

The witness was quite impressed by the physical differences between the two animals he saw. He repeated several times that the female was very heavy. When asked what he meant by that he said that she was fat, very well fed looking, and he described her coat several times as being shiny. He said he got the impression from the animals' appearance that the male must have been more active and said that perhaps the female "stayed at home" more and the male ranged out for food. He also thought the male looked older and seemed to suggest it might have been in a later stage of its life.

Other differences between the animals include their head shapes; the female's showed a knob toward the back, what sounded like a sagittal crest, while the male's did not. This head shape difference was especially striking to the witness and he commented that they might have been two different kinds of bigfoot. In addition, he said the male, which he estimated to be nine feet tall, was about a foot and a half taller than the female. The witness said he didn't really see the female's face because she turned in toward the male upon his sudden arrival on the scene. He said her body language suggested to him that she was embarrassed or feeling vulnerable at having been caught in the open and that at first both animals froze when they saw him but then each moved slightly, the female turning her head in toward the male's chest and bringing her near arm up, obscuring the view of her chest, and the male turning his head to look at the witness as his car passed.

After passing by the animals at only about thirty yards, the witness quickly turned his car around to go back for another look but found that they had gone, apparently into the woods bordering the field. The witness was impressed that the animals had made it into the woods, some sixty yards away in the time it took him to turn his car around and return to the spot. He said he did not get out of his car to search the area because the animals frightened him.

When asked why he was just now reporting an incident that happened thirty years ago, the witness said he felt proprietary about the finding and that he thought he would try to photograph them himself and prove they are real. He subsequently moved some distance from the area, became busy with life, and never put much effort into achieving that goal. In addition the witness only recently got a computer and learned of the existence of organizations, such as the BFRO, interested in solving the bigfoot mystery.

I interviewed the witness, a 54-year-old man, for about one hour by phone. He seemed very honest and his account of his 1972 sighting was absolutely convincing. The man is an avid hunter and fisherman. When asked if the animals he saw could have been humans or bears he said he was certain they were not, that he got a very good look at them and that they were definitely bigfoot creatures. And he said that he saw no way the incident could have been hoaxed.

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