YEAR: 2004

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: October

DATE: 10/15/2004

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Stevens County

LOCATION DETAILS: On Dunn mountain

NEAREST TOWN: Addy

NEAREST ROAD: Swiss Valley Rd

OBSERVED: On the last day of hunting season just before dark my friend and I were walking slowly on an old logging road. We were heading through an area where a small spring crossed under the old road. The forest was very dense on one side of the road and clear cut 30+ years prior on the other side so there was alot of brush, but still quite open. Just then about 50 ft into the dense thicket above us we hear a very loud breathy yell followed by what sounded like a large stick hitting a tree. We were so close that we could feel the percussion in our chests from its yell, and the knocks echoed for miles. We both checked to make sure that our rifles were loaded not knowing what the noise was we make our way back to our spots we had chosen to sit until dark. Over the coarse of about an hour it yelled about 50-60 times following each yell with 1-2 wood knocks per yell. There were no other people that had access to the area and we saw no one else all the way down the mountain. My friend never spoke a word of it to anyone and has since past away (RIP) it scared him so bad he never said a word to anyone what we had experienced.

ALSO NOTICED: The next morning we were sitting at my house watching the Discovery channel when a bigfoot show came on where a scientist in western Washington was in the forest yelling and wood knocking just like we had heard the prior evening. My friend didn't say a word and just got up and left and never spoke a word to anyone about it.

OTHER WITNESSES: 1 other witness hunting deer on the property my mother was raised on.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Between 4pm - 5pm

ENVIRONMENT: Fir and pine forest at the base of the Dunn mtn just west of Swiss Valley Rd.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Darrel Verney:

The witness spends most of his time in the outdoors. He is a long-time hunter and works in the logging industry. He is very familiar with the local wildlife. The details he recalled reflect his observant nature. He was some-what reluctant to talk about his experience and still feels anxious when he thinks about this particular incident. He and the other hunter could hear the subject take a breath before it bellowed, so they knew they were close and that it was big. He further described the tree knocks as aggressive, estimating the number of knocks to be over 80. There were over 50 yells and one to two knocks per yell. They didn’t know what it was, but weren’t feeling much fear at the time since they had high powered rifles. When they realized what was probably out there after seeing the show on the Discovery Channel, some fear crept in. His friend was a big man who wasn’t afraid of anything, but he never talked about what they heard, even to his own family. His friend never went back to that area and never hunted again.

About BFRO Investigator Darrel Verney:

Originally from Alaska, Darrel now lives in north central Washington. He studied Wildlife Biology and Wildlands Recreation, and has worked for the National Park Service and National Forest Service in the past. He feels fortunate in having had several sightings and numerous encounters during expeditions and informal outings. Darrel has attended the Redwoods ’06, North Cascades ’08, ’09 & '16, Olympic ’09 & ’11, and Morton ’12 & ’13 expeditions.