YEAR: 2024

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: June

DATE: June 30th

STATE: New Mexico

COUNTY: Catron County

LOCATION DETAILS: 33.48375degrees N, 108.09322degrees W. The location is a meadow between pine forest on each side. Elevation is about 7k ft. My son and I were off roading on the chloride trail.

[Investigator (MM) Notes:
GPS that can be pasted into Google Maps / Google Earth:
33.48375, -108.09322

This location is close to the boundary between Socorro County and Catron County. Aguilera was coming from the Socorro County side and continued into Catron County the rest of the way until the Arizona border.]

NEAREST TOWN: Gila national forest I can provide coordinates

NEAREST ROAD: Chloride off road trail

OBSERVED: It was drizzling and he was standing less than 10 feet from the road.

At the coordinates I sent it was about 25 feet from the single tree. It had hair that looked like a mop or dreads. Later when I processed it was drizzling to it’s hair was probably matted. Its nose was very distinct. The bridge of it was a perfect angle and flat triangle shaped nose.

I live in south Texas and this was about 1k miles from my home but my son and I had doubts of what we saw. I only told my wife but I couldn’t go without knowing if maybe I saw a stump so we went back the following weekend. Drove the 1k miles to the exact spot . There was a print in the exact spot we saw it and no trees or stumps around. I have a picture of the print.

We drove by it about 2 miles per hour [that night]. We must have caught it crossing the meadow and it must have tried to make us think it was a stump.

OTHER WITNESSES: Myself and my 13 year old son

OTHER STORIES: I live in Texas a thousand miles away so I don’t know about any Bigfoot history there.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 2145 drizzling 68 degrees clear f150 raptor led lights with 4 fog lights

ENVIRONMENT: Meadow in between pine forests. Over 7k in elevation.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Matthew Moneymaker:

This particular case has a great degree of both reliability and anecdotal import. It is a landmark encounter. I really hope this encounter can be re-enacted on camera someday.

I spoke with Irwing Aguilera. His son was nearby to confer. He and his wife are business owners in Texas. They are credible and certain. They did not expect to gain anything from talking about what he and his son saw in the Gila Mountains. This occurred during their road trip from Texas to California to buy a particular dog breed in the Sierras region.

They decided to include some backcountry adventuring on the way to California. Irwing has a capable 4x4 truck (Ford F-150 Raptor with big tires) that can handle jeep trails, so they took an ambitious detour ... a 150 mile long jeep trail through the Gila Mountains ... which are probably the most forgotten, unpopulated, isolated mountains in America.

Even though this area is in southwest west New Mexico, it is not desert. Most of it is between 7,000-10,000 feet elevation. It is alpine forest that catches plenty of rain from summer "monsoons". It is loaded with wildlife by North American standards.




In one sense there is not much to the Aguilera's encounter story, because the sighting didn't very last long.

In another sense ... there is a whole lot to this story.

There are two separate major notable things for bigfoot field researchers to absorb stemming from this story. One relates to the location. The other relates to the physical appearance of the animal, because this father and son got a better, closer look at the bigfoot up close in strong lights than anyone ever has, as far as I know ...

The bigfoot was less than 15 feet away. This occurred in after dark around 9:30pm but the bigfoot was lit up by powerful fog lights on their 4x4 truck.

Irwing Aguilera and his son, drove right next to the bigfoot, rolling by very slowly on a remote jeep trail in the Gila Mountains. They both observed the bigfoot for about 10 seconds or so as they passed it.

It was holding perfectly still, apparently pretending to be big stump. It was on the right side of the road in the dark in drizzling rain.

Irwing says it was close enough that his son could have poked it with a broom stick.

They both saw the bigfoot as they drove by it. It took a few seconds for both of them to process what they just passed. The boy was the first one to speak up, asking his dad if he saw what they just passed. The father, Irwing, was in shock at the moment. "A feeling of doom" hit his gut. He said the bigfoot's biceps were "bigger than my thighs".

It quickly occurred to him that this huge animal was big enough and close enough to flip the truck over sideways ... if it wanted to. So Irwing kept on driving. ANYONE would have kept on driving.

Around 300 yards further down the road he had to stop and open a cattle gate. That requires stopping, getting out of the truck, walking to the gate, opening it, walking back to the truck, driving through, stopping, walking back to the cattle gate to shut it. He was terrified knowing "that thing" was out there in the dark watching him.

I naturally wonder why this bigfoot made the decision to stand like a stump right next to the road where it knows a vehicle will be passing imminently. Was it just bad timing? ... as if it figured out too late that the vehicle was so close. Irwing said they had to come up over a rise before the lights fell on the tree he passed before noticing the "stump".

Or was intimidation? Was it trying to show the humans that is so big that it could flip the vehicle over sideways?

Other encounters where a bigfoot approached a parked pickup truck in the dark, the bigfoot seemed to be most interested in what was in the bed of the truck.

In one case a highway worker in Wisconsin who was tasked with collecting roadkill from the highways says his gov pickup truck was approached from behind as he was parked in the dark. His engine was running and his tail lights were on when the tall bigfoot walked up and leaned over the bed of the truck. It picked up one of the roadkill deer and walked off into the dark with it.

Incidents like that lead me to think this bigfoot was positioning itself close enough to the road so it could see into the bed of the truck as it passed by. That might tell the bigfoot whether the humans were out there hunting anything.

If there had been a dead deer, elk, bear, etc., laying in the bed of their truck, that bigfoot might have reached in, pulled it out and walked away with it ... no questions asked ...
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The Aguilera's close range observation of the bigfoot's face under very bright lights makes them both very qualified to judge various depictions of a bigfoot's face, and say which ones are more accurate and which are less accurate.

That is a whole separate article. I wrote that article after receiving this report, but for years I had been talking about the faces popularly associated with sasquatches, and how they strayed so far from the real deal ... which will come as a big surprise to everyone eventually. You will see exactly what I mean at some point down the line.

Here is the link to that article: Evolution of Bigfoot's Face. Below is a collage of the influential depictions discussed in the article.





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The other notable element for bigfoot researchers is the LOCATION.

Anyone who says the vast Gila Mountains of southwest New Mexico are two far from the Rocky Mountains for a bigfoot to make that journey ... is confessing a lack of knowledge about credible bigfoot sightings in this part of the country.

Here is a map (click it to enlarge) showing the mountain zones of the southwest where there have been either credible sightings and/or experiences on our own expeditions over the years. There is a history of sighting incidents in all of those red circles, and scattered sightings along the red lines that connect a few of those circled areas.






























This is the 4x4 truck they were driving. This photos was taken the day of the incident. The boy in the photo is Irwing's son.

They both saw the bigfoot as they drove by it. It took a few seconds for both of them to process what they just passed. The boy was the first one to speak up, asking his dad if he saw what they just passed. The father, Irwing, was in shock at the moment. "A feeling of doom" hit his gut. He said the bigfoot's biceps were "bigger than my thighs". It quickly occurred to him that the bigfoot was big enough to flip the truck over sideways.





This photo shows Irwing standing at the spot where the bigfoot was standing frozen, pretending to be stump as the vehicle passed by.





Here is a view of the road looking toward the reference tree that the bigfoot was standing near (roughly 25 feet). The camera and vehicle are pointing in the opposite direction that their truck was travelling that night. The bigfoot was on the right side of their vehicle.





Here is one of the footprint impressions found where the "stump" was standing still near the road. This photo was taken on their return trip to the spot one week after the incident.





They say there are many bears in this area. These are only a few. They sent me more photos of other bears they saw but those would be redundant to show with this report.





There were so many deer and elk in these mountains that they didn't bother taking many photos of them.

Towns are very few and far between in this region. The county seat (i.e. largest town) in Catron County (a large county) has a population of 289 people. It doesn't get more sparsely populated in the lower 48 states ... if you ever have an urge to drive a beautiful, forgotten, 150-mile-long jeep trail on which you probably won't see another vehicle the whole time.






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About BFRO Investigator Matthew Moneymaker:

Matthew Moneymaker is originally from the Los Feliz District of Los Angeles, California.

- Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

- Juris Doctorate (Law degree) from University of Akron School of Law

- Founder of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization,1995.

- Writer and co-producer of the Discovery Channel documentary "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science", 2001.

- Co-producer of the TV Series "Mysterious Encounters" for the Outdoor Life Network (OLN Channel), 2002.

- Producer of the "2003 International Bigfoot Symposium" (Willow Creek Symposium) DVD set, 2004.

- Co-host of "Finding Bigfoot" on Animal Planet Channel, 2010 - 2017.

- Current Director of the BFRO

- Available for private bigfoot expeditions and conferences. To inquire please email ContactUS@BFRO.net