YEAR: 1981

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: July

DATE: 2

STATE: California

COUNTY: Sonoma County

NEAREST TOWN: Jenner

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 1

OBSERVED: Well I have collected enough information from various bigfoot sites about screams to conclude that I heard a sasquatch on a bicycle touring trip from Portland, OR to Santa Barbara, CA in the summer of 1981. My girlfriend & I arrived at Fort Ross Historical Park north of Jenner, CA in Sonoma County on an evening in early July. We decided to camp there at Fort Ross as it was marked as a campsite on our map, but it had no campsites. There was no one at the main house nor around the fort (Old Russian Fur Trading Fort) or on any part of the grounds. We rode to a campground further south but it was too expensive & we decided to ride back to Fort Ross. We camped to the left of the upper parking lot under some monterey pines next to a picnic bench. We ate dinner & went to bed at around 9 p.m.

At approximately 1 a.m., we heard a scream 20 feet to the left of the tent (our heads were facing the ocean). It was a blood curdling scream of various sounds in succession that lasted at least 9 seconds. It frightned me to my bone marrow. I froze in fear knowing that whatever made the sound was huge. It was so close I could hear the timbre in its throat. Since I'm a musician I realize how much force it takes to make a sound that loud. I've also been camping all my life, & have heard various animals but this was different.

Anyway, my girlfriend said in a whisper "What the [edit] was that!" I started to reach for a flashlight and her hand grabbed my wrist with a vice-like pressure so I didn't move. We remained frozen listening to every little noise for an hour. Incedently there were sheep running free everywhere going baah baah & they didn't stop making noise when the scream occured. Finally my girlfriend fell asleep & I remained on guard with my hands hovering around the tent pole to use as a weapon, thinking that at any moment it would stick its fanged head into our tent. At around 2:30am (I guess) I heard another scream down by the fort in the lower parking area. I figured it wasn't coming back so I fell asleep. It didn't occur to me the next morning that it was a sasquatch so I didn't look for footprints. Nor did I hear it walking the night before.

ALSO NOTICED: Earlier that day as we were riding we both felt very uneasy as we did when we arrived there. The whole place made us feel uneasy.

OTHER WITNESSES: Just my girlfriend & I

OTHER STORIES: Yes, on other reports I have read from 1982 on other websites.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was foggy & pitch black at around 1 or 2am.

ENVIRONMENT: Fort Ross is an old Russian fur trading fort on a grassy area overlooking the ocean. Pine trees are scattered on the mountains across Hwy. 1.

Follow-up investigation report:

I talked with the witness by phone. The following details can be added to the report.

--Scream was extremely loud, obviously from something very large with a big lung capacity.
--The scream lasted about 9 seconds and started in a guttural scream, turned to some sort of gibberish, then to a high pitch, ending in a low, deep pitch.
--There were no lights (from other campers) and the area was quiet right after the scream.
--As the witness finally settled down to go back to sleep, he heard the exact same scream again, but further away.
--Witness later felt that the scream came from the gully next to where they were camped.

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