YEAR: 2010

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: October

DATE: October 25, 2010

STATE: California

COUNTY: Amador County

LOCATION DETAILS: It's pretty simple to get to. If you know the California area around here that is. Drive into Sacramento and drive down freeway 99. Find Peltier road and drive about 8-10 miles down until you find a bridge that is connected to Mackville road. Drive on it until you find highway 88. It takes you right to it. If you are coming from the south drive through stockton on freeway 99 until you find the off ramp for highway 88.

NEAREST TOWN: The town I live in is called Clements, but the nearest cities are Lodi/Stockton/Valley Springs/Jackson.

NEAREST ROAD: It happened on a highway actually. highway 88 and the nearest to it is highway 12.

OBSERVED: It happened a couple nights ago. I was watching a movie in my room when I heard a noise outside. This was about 1 in the morning PST. It sounded like a long blowing horn, so I turned my TV on mute thinking it was a siren. I knew it was not a siren when I heard it again, and I knew it was coming from something alive. I went outside and the noise was so disturbing that I actually felt scared of it. It was more like this cry but in a howl, like it was hurt and moaned in pain by an injury. I have a few dogs, and each of them were very disturbed by it too. They refused to come near the front or back doors. It was like they didn't want to come outside. I assumed it must be a bear or a mountain lion, but the one thing that confused me was I don't think animals like them sound like that.

The day after this happened, my friend came to pick me up around 8 at night. We enjoy going to casinos, and there is one about 35 miles from where I live. The sun had just set, and we drove maybe no more than 4 miles down the road when I heard the noise again. I rolled the window down more, and my friend heard it too. It was close to where we were, so we slowed down to get a better hear. The noise stopped, so we started driving again. About no more than ten seconds later we saw what looked like a 10 foot man, covered in hair. This is not a joke, and when the headlights shined on his eyes they glowed. Human eyes don't do that! He was pretty far from our vehicle, and no I didn't see his face. His hair was black maybe dark brown, and yes his eyes glowed by light! The first thing we both thought was bigfoot, but neither of us agreed. I did a little look-up on my computer and found information on bigfoot. The howling, and the sight of that animal could not have been a human, and if it were then he had some massive eyes with big contacts to make them glow like that. I am pretty sure the car behind us saw it too, because they slowed down and stayed behind for about a minute after we drove away. We went about our business to the casino that night after our encounter, and now I am a true believer and have decided to notify you about this.

ALSO NOTICED: Just the sounds. I've never heard anything like it that was so scary. If it's bigfoot or not, I don't want it coming around my house.

OTHER WITNESSES: My friend who was in the car with me.

OTHER STORIES: No.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: The noises I heard was the night before we saw it, so the 24th at around 1 or 2 in the morning PST. The night we saw it was the 25th, around 8 at night.

ENVIRONMENT: Cold, but clear skies. We live close to the mountains, but the area we saw him in was just field. It's a rural area. There is some forest areas close by and some lakes called amador and camanche. I've lived out here since I was 13 and know the area pretty good. There is also a river that flows through very close to where it happened called mokelumne river. The bridge I mentioned that connects to mackville road runs right across the river.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Tom Yamarone:

Regarding the sound event at 1 a.m. on October 25th,
- It went on for close to an hour and a half.
- The howling sound was like an animal hurt or in pain; very plaintive and mournful.
- The witness lives with his grandmother who also heard the sound and she did not know what it was either.
- He overheard people talking about the loud, unusual sound heard at night while in town the next day.

With regards to the sighting along Highway 88 that evening at 8:00 p.m., there is more detail to add. Upon discussing the incident with the witness, it is clear they both had a good view of the subject along the side of the highway. His initial written report was not as detailed as his recounting of the event. He and his friend both are certain they saw a large, hair-covered, bipedal creature on October 25th along highway 88 in the San Joaquin Valley of northern California.
After our discussion, I have the following details to add:
- The driver of the vehicle (his friend) exclaimed, “There’s going to be an accident!” as the car in front of them braked and swerved to the left. Then his friend shouted, “What the (heck) is that?!” They were forced to brake and slow to approx 5 mph when they sighted the creature ahead of them and approx. 40 feet from the right shoulder of the road.
-The duration of his sighting was between 20 and 30 seconds.
-The subject was illuminated in the periphery of the headlights of 3 vehicles.
- The creature turned and stared at the lead vehicle. This afforded the witness a good look at its features. “It did not look back at us, but at the car in front of us.”
- What stood out most was the large, glowing eyes. He described them as white, with a reddish aspect – “very much like an animal’s eyes when a light is shined on them.”
- The arms were noticeably very long, hanging well below the waist.
- The shoulders were broad and the height was estimated to be close to 7 feet tall or more. He stated it was like looking at NBA basketball player Yao Ming.
- As he states, the hair was dark brown and black. It seemed to cover the face as well. He did not notice any bare skin on the face, but as he mentions, he did not get a clear view of the facial details. The eyes seemed to hold his attention.
- He believed the creature was crossing the road and was nearly hit by the lead vehicle. When asked what it did after turning around to look at the lead vehicle, the witness stated, “It walked off into the field. It was trying to get out of the way.”

Both the witness and his friend were very much impacted by what they saw. Their initial reaction was one of fright and disbelief. We discussed the possibility of the subject being a person in a costume, but the height, the arm length and the natural, fluid walking motion rule this out according to the witness. They returned home later that evening by a different route and are still wary of returning to the location. The subject did not threaten them or intimidate them, but the intensity of the experience has left both the witness and his friend shaken. This was his first and only encounter with a sasquatch and no friend or relatives have ever discussed the subject.

NOTE: Visited the sighting location on Saturday, Oct.30.
I did a survey along both sides of Hwy 88. No footprints or obvious spoor was discovered. The location is a few miles into Amador County from San Joaquin County, approx. 1 mile north of the Hwy 88 and Jackson Valley Road junction.

About BFRO Investigator Tom Yamarone:

Tom resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. He conducts field work primarily in the central Sierra Nevada Mountains and in Humboldt County.

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