YEAR: 2002

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: July

DATE: 9th or 10th

PROVINCE: Ontario

COUNTRY: Canada

LOCATION DETAILS: Hwy 557 runs north just of HYW17 which is a main road to Sault Ste. Marie The location is 3/4 of the way up 557 at the foot end of Bear Head lake. The area is generally impenetratable bush with some logging in areas. The area is over run by black bears and they are common, they always run when they see a person.

NEAREST TOWN: Blind River

NEAREST ROAD: Hwy 557

OBSERVED: I found your site over the summer, I'm not sure what I saw except it wasn't a bear.

The area is north of the North Shore of lake Huron, north of Blind River by about twenty miles on Bear Head lake. The area is incredibly dense bush and in most places impenetratable due to low scrub and swamp. We were at a cottage, one of about 8 or 9 on the lake on the east side. The west side of the lake had no habitation just rock and thick bush. There are lots of critters, bears, wolves, moose and deer along with porcupines. I am fairly faimiliar with all of these animals and their noises, for the most part they are scared of humans and they bolt when they see a person. We had been at the cottage a few days perhaps 3, when whilst sitting around the kitchen table talking fishing late at night with my sons we heard a series of grunts chirps and squeals. I thought it might have been a bear with young across the lake as the cubs often can be heard squealing and playing in this area. The noises however were much more organised than bear cubs and were coming from two different locations. The distance across the lake is perhaps 500 yards. It was fairly obvious that the sounds were coming from two areas about 15 degrees apart. The noise of wood breaking and banging was quite loud and it was interspersed with a series of whooping grunts, best decription. We stepped out on to the deck to listen better, it was fairly obvious that one noise was getting closer to the other. My neighbour who has lived on the lake for 40 years was out having a beer and taking the night air. His knowledge of the woods and area is way better than mine. I called him over to listen and as we all hushed and listened for a few minutes. I could tell by his head shaking that he had no idea what it was. The noises were really loud and it sounded like mayhem was breaking loose trees being smacked and banging noises shouts and whoops. Then it went quiet really quickly which was followed by a series of deep whooping noises and clicks which went on intermittently past the point I went to sleep.

The following day my lads headed out in the canoe out to where a fallen tree could be seen across the lake the day before, immediately it was obvious that the tree had gone from our perspective. I shouted to them where is the tree? They went across and then started to paddle back. I was looking at eagles overhead through the binos, when I scanned back to the lake and my lads. I drew a line on the shore behind them when I see this big black brown thing sitting on a boulder about 20 feet above the water. I thought at first it was a bear, but when a bear sits its legs just stick out in front slightly splayed. This thing had knees and it was sitting on its haunches with its knees up near its chest, I was not sure of what I was seeing so I looked away and went back to it and could see that I was not mistaken it had knees and was covered in hair with no neck, it sat on its haunches and then slapped its hands on the rock about three times both hands at the same time. I started waving and shouting to the kids who were about 300 yards away and pointing and trying to keep an eye on it through the binos. I could not tell if the kids understood so I went back to looking and waving my hand and pointing, the thing just stood up and walked into the bush behind it, the thing had no neck and looked kind of straggly and matted, it did not have a bears profile it was like the back of its head sloped down to its back, it was huge on top like the chest area but it had scrawny (by comparison) legs, the hair on its legs was thinner and lighter. When the kids got into dock I asked them if they saw what I was pointing at, they didn't and couldn't figure out why I was waving, I told them I seen a bear. When I asked them about where the tree had gone, they told me someone had dragged it to the beach, which in their words was weird. I did not and have not told them or anyone of what I saw, it's sort of embarassing and I figure they would have thought I was just kidding them.
The noises that we heard the night before continued that evening, but from a point further up the lake, we did not hear them again for two nights after that, then we heard about an hour of crazy noises, similar to (and I hate to say it to a monkey) but with great bass or chest in it. The sounds had weight. Moose make odd noises also bears but neither had the weight of this sound it was a BIG sound. I have heard owls make the most amazingly complex series of whoops and yells at ear splitting volumes but they don't have the weight or bass these sounds had nor the organisation in the way the sounds that we heard were vocalized. I am sure of what I saw and I can't think of any creature that would match what I saw. It feels really weird even to be writing this, and I am sure on reflection what I have written above is the absolute truth as I remember it.

ALSO NOTICED: The only odd thing was the tree being moved from a position of having fallen over to a place 50 feet from where it was.

OTHER WITNESSES: Just me to the sighting 4 to the sounds we heard. All just sitting around shooting the breeze on a hot night. Folks had had a few beers but no one was intoxicated. I was drinking juice.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: about 10.30am sunny dry and still temp about 90 degrees. bright sunlight illuminating area under observation.

ENVIRONMENT: lake with dense bush all around it and a few older cottages for hunting on the east side. The terrain is rocky with abrupt granite outcrops some 300 feet high, swamp in the low areas and lakes everywhere. Pine and balsam trees along with maple and birch grow right to the waters edge in most places except where boulders and rocky outcrops break the shore line.

Follow-up investigation report:

I interviewed the witness and author of this report, G, by phone and also exchanged several emails with him. He made it clear that he has never been too sympathetic to the idea of bigfoot creatures being real. And it was evident that he was having trouble coming to grips with what he and his family experienced near Blind River. Using binoculars he clearly saw an animal he knows was not a bear or a man and which did not fit into his preconceptions of “what’s out there.” Despite having seen this animal well and associated with the extraordinary vocalizations, he still couldn’t bring himself to say to me… it must have been a sasquatch. He would only say, “I don’t know what it was, I just know it wasn’t a bear or a man.”

Later in his letters G said, “You asked the question was this a bear or a man? I am loathe to put a name to what I saw, but it was not a man nor was it a bear. I have seen lots of bears over the years… If it was a bear then it was a new species of bear with knees and hands that walks upright. If you have ever seen a black bear walk on its back legs you would know that it is not happy doing it, and it isn’t pretty or smooth. The thing I saw was fluid graceful and just stood up like a person, gave one last look and walked into the bush. It’s insane and I’m not crazy. What I saw was, to put a word to it, a bigfoot. There, I said it. That bloody thing is real. I can still see its rough appearance and the lighter shade of hair on the legs… I will never forget it.”

He went on to write, “I have thought about it almost every day… I have to tell you that saying it out loud and telling someone what I saw was an odd experience… talking about it caused me some distress, call it acceptance, call it awe, call it fear, it felt odd to openly discuss it… denial was not working for me. Personally I was hoping someone somewhere would prove the thing exists and that my mind and my eyes would be vindicated, confirming what I saw and somehow allowing me to come to terms with it… The more I think about it and the scale of the thing in regards to the rock it was sitting on… something that big just can’t be an illusion.”

The sounds G and his family heard seem to have been a combination of mechanical sounds (knocking) and varied vocalizations which included something like whistling.

G is an audio engineer, one who does pure research. He said this about the sounds: “The low frequency content and range of the sounds that we heard indicated to me an animal or animals of great size. The way that the sounds were seemingly responsive to each other was something I have to admit was a little unnerving. I have heard bear and moose, neither has the range of complexity of sounds we heard. The knocking noise was also odd as it had a distinct pattern, not a short term rhythm, but more like the pattern was repeated over a long cycle. It had definite form. The noises continued the night of the sighting and the night after, but further away.”

A man in a nearby cabin who had lived in the area forty years also heard the sounds and told the witness he’d never heard anything like it before. That man used a cell phone to call his son, who was in a boat on the lake, to ask him if he could hear the sounds from where he was. The son replied that he could hear them and said he was also at a loss as to what was making them.

Reported vocalizations are often characterized as screams or howls, but G’s description reminded me of the Sierra Sounds recordings made by BFRO members Alan Berry and Ron Morehead back in the early 1970’s (and some 2300 miles distant). G agreed to listen to the Sierra Sounds recordings to see if they were anything like the vocalizations he heard.

Here is what G said after listening to the Sierra Sounds recordings with his son: “There are a series of sounds which my son and I both agree are the exact same sounds we had heard. The ‘ung ung ung and then a whistle’ are the same as we heard. Not similar, the same. I was quite stunned by the whistling as we had heard it on several occasions and did not attach the two sounds. I mean why would we? Very peculiar indeed, I must admit. It was my son who said ‘those are the sounds that we heard.’”

And later G added: “I have listened to it (Sierra Sounds) two or three times now and can only add the following observations about a couple of things. Firstly we did not hear the loud screaming vocalizations apparent on the tape, but the odd loud mutterings and the rapping sounds are spot on. I have found myself listening to the whistles and grunts over and over. I still can’t quite get over it or used to the fact that these are the exact sounds that I heard. The loud almost formed muttering was also one of the sounds that we heard, but did not associate at the time. The sounds are so varying that it is hard to believe they come from one animal. But it is also odd, as with the recordings, that coincident with these sounds being heard we heard the same types of sounds at the same time.”

An odd aspect of this sighting is the tree that was apparently moved from its position on the lake shore extending into the water. It is the reason G’s sons canoed across the lake, to investigate its disappearance. I asked G if he could tell me how big the tree was. He responded with: “Regarding the tree, I just asked my 24 year old how big it was. His words ‘It was huge. I went up on the other shore and it was 30 feet away, maybe more. It was weird how it got up the shore, especially with no wind or anything.’”

Thanks to Ron Morehead for supplying the witness with a copy of the Sierra Sounds recordings.

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