YEAR: 2015

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: October

DATE: October 25

STATE: North Carolina

COUNTY: Montgomery County

LOCATION DETAILS: Uwharrie National Forest

NEAREST TOWN: El Dorado, Uwharrie

OBSERVED: To begin, I am 34 years old, I have a degree in Biology, and I have spent my entire life in the woods mostly by myself and have grown accustomed to the noises animals and the forest itself makes. I go backpacking and backcountry camping year round. I am not an expert but I have experience in the woods.
My wife, two dogs, and I were camping in Uwharrie National on October 23 -25. Friday night we heard a lot of noises ranging from coyotes far away to leaves rustling just outside our site. I just purchased a hammock and wanted to try it out in the woods. So Saturday I set up my hammock 20-30 feet into the woods just outside our site. Our site is on the side and near the entrance of the campground and the most secluded with the woods to its back; this is why we choose it. So I go to bed in the hammock Saturday night facing the campground and the woods behind me, and all is well until 2:30am, I wake up to branches breaking behind my head. The branches sounded like they could have been as close as 30 feet to as far away as 50 feet to my right. Imagine if my head is 12 o’clock and my feet are 6 o’clock, these branches were being broken at 11-12 o’clock or over my right shoulder. At first I thought it was a deer or a bear passing by but I know what they sound like as they walk (a couple months ago I was face to face with a mother bear and her cubs), but I never actually heard distinct footsteps and as the breaking didn’t move in location I became a little freaked out. I’m lying in the hammock trying to explain what is going on and nothing is making sense. I never made a noise to scare it away and didn’t shine my headlamp.
Then I hear a noise that is hard to explain come from about 1 o’clock or over my left shoulder. I can only describe this as similar to the noise a deer makes when it’s alerting other deer to danger, but if a deer were to make this noise it would have to be 20 feet tall. It was deeper than any noise I’ve ever heard come from the forest. Deeper than a lion’s roar and as long as a human’s sigh. The branch breaking continued for about 15 minutes until I start hearing the alternating branch break and what sounded like a large bird flapping its wings one time. I heard ‘snap whoosh, snap whoosh, snap whoosh’.
About this time, I hear my wife coughing and before we went to bed she said that her stomach was feeling a little upset, I thought maybe she is sick. I muster up the courage to get out of the hammock hoping that in doing so I will also scare away the animal. I go up to her and she’s fine, now I have a dilemma, I don’t want to go back but I can’t stay in the tent because my sleeping bag is in the woods.
So I go back and I pick up a branch, snap it and throw it in to the woods three times. Then I urinate all around my hammock. While I was doing this the branch breaking had ceased. I get in the hammock and seconds after turning off my headlamp the breaking begins again. I listen, while getting more and more scared, to the breaking for a couple more minutes. I shine my light into the woods and the breaking stops, I turn off the light and it starts back. I waited a couple more minutes and turned my light on again and the breaking stops, I turn the light off and it starts back.
I’m lying in the hammock completely terrified at this point and decide the only thing I should do is retreat to the tent with my wife and dogs. It was like torture to be in the hammock. So I quickly grab my sleeping bag, walk to the tent, get in, and lay down. We both heard the branches being broken for about 15 more minutes, then we heard one large break that sounded like a 4 inch log being broken in half that echoed through the woods. It was almost as if they were saying ‘And stay out’. I was so terrified and my adrenaline was pumping so much that I couldn’t sleep for about an hour.
The next day my wife and I look around the area for any sign of foot print or the branches themselves. I didn’t find any sign of activity. We did find a grassy area with three large rock piles. Two of the piles were old and had trees growing out of the pile, one was newer with nothing but small vegetation growing on top.
One thing to keep in mind is that the area is frequented by campers so there are few branches, especially large ones, on the ground for anything to step on; and there are paths all through the area and as we all know animals will always take the easiest route when traveling. Something else we thought of is Saturday we both went to the bathroom deep in the woods, we thought "what if we encroached in their land?". Before I was skeptical but now I know there is something out there and this experience has truly changed my life.

OTHER WITNESSES: 2 witnesses (including myself).
We were sleeping. I was in a hammock 20 feet from the site and my wife in the tent at the site.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Started at 2:30 am.
Cloudy, dark, around 50°F.

ENVIRONMENT: Hardwoods just outside a campground. Low lying drainage for the nearby lake. There was a grassy area with large rock piles.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Larry Sidwell:

I spoke to the witness at length by phone only three days after the event. His recollection of all that occurred was very fresh and detailed. He is an avid outdoorsman, spending lots of time hiking and camping. He has never had anything like this occur in all of his years in the wilderness.

The campground was very full due to leaf watchers as Fall colors are at peak.

He and his wife heard sounds on Friday night that were quite odd. They first heard coyotes howling, then right after they heard a single vocalizer that sounded entirely different than the coyotes. It was much deeper and louder and did not sound like a canine. He said it had more of a deep and wailing sound, and the coyotes were "yipping" in a group. He and his wife did not pay it much attention until the events of early Sunday morning.

The branch breaking started at 2:30am and lasted 45 minutes to one hour. There were at least two animals as the branch breaking was taking place over his right shoulder at eleven o'clock, then at one o'clock. He heard a loud vocalization that he described as "very deep and guttural" from a huge creature that he said was so loud that he thought the animal was "20 feet tall". He said it sounded very similar to a deer "blowing" an alarm, but much deeper, longer, like a sigh. The limb breaking then continued over both shoulders. The limbs being broken were both large and small.

He and his wife listened and pondered what was doing it, he told me he didn't tell his wife but he suspected it was by a Sasquatch. It continued until this extremely loud wood break occurred.

They had dogs with them but the dogs didn't respond in any way at the noises.

The next morning they went and looked for limbs, footprints or other evidence and found nothing. They did notice some odd rock piles, two were very old one was younger. They also noticed lots of mushrooms with the tops eaten, but the stems were discarded.

The witness was skeptical of the possible existence of Sasquatch, but now fully believes in their existence. He is very curious about them and he now looks at the woods in a different light.

This is my second hammock camping incident in the Uwharries, see Report#47026.

The Uwharries continue to be an active area with Montgomery County having the most reports in North Carolina. There is abundant wildlife, forests, agriculture and waterways to support a large bipedal primate.

About BFRO Investigator Larry Sidwell:

Larry became interested in Bigfoot at an early age after viewing the Patterson - Gimlin footage. Spent a lot of time in his youth hiking and exploring his families' farms in Clark County, Kentucky. Now resides in Bridgeport,WV.

BFRO public expeditions Larry has attended: 2012 West Virginia, 2013 Kentucky, 2013 West Virginia, 2013 Western North Carolina, 2014 North Carolina, 2014 ,Kentucky (Bluegrass Region), 2017 Maryland, 2019 Western Kentucky, 2020 Kentucky, 2021 Pennsylvania, 2021 Kentucky, 2022 South Carolina, 2022 Fall Tennessee, 2022 Kentucky.

Private expeditions Larry has attended: 2013 SEBFRO Nantahalla National Forest, 2014 Winter Uwharrie National Forest, 2014 Pisgah National Forest, 2014 Fall Uwharrie National Forest, 2015 Croatan National Forest, 2015 Forbes State Forest, Pennsylvania, 2015 Uwharrie National Forest, 2016 KBRO Kentucky, 2016 Monongahela National Forest, 2017 Monongahela National Forest, 2018 Southwest Virginia, 2019 KBRO Kentucky, 2021 KBRO Kentucky, 2021 ECE Spring Monongahela NationalForest, 2021 Fall ECE Monongahela, 2022 KBRO Spring Kentucky, 2022 KBRO Fall Expetion.

Conferences attended: 2013 Midnight Walkers Southeastern Bigfoot Conference, Dahlonega Georgia, and the 2014 and 2019 Ohio Bigfoot Conference, 2021 Smoky Mountain Bigfoot Conference, 2021 Cryptid Con Lexington, Ky, 2022 Smoky Mountain Bigfoot Conference, Gatlinburg, TN.

2023 BFRO West Virginia Expedition organizer
2024 BFRO West Virginia Spring Expedition organizer
2024 BFRO West Virginia Fall Expedition organizer

• Explanation of the report classification system
• Submit a report for the sightings database
• Please send any comments or inquiries to ContactUs@BFRO.net