YEAR: 2002

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: November

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Mason County

LOCATION DETAILS: Coming from Highway 101 take Matlock exit, take a left before the store on a dirt road, go past a house that has solar panels on top, go about 1-2 miles and take a left on the road that goes down towards Bingham Creek.

NEAREST TOWN: Matlock

NEAREST ROAD: Shelton-Matlock Road

OBSERVED: It was early November 2002. My buddy and I went fishing on Bingham Creek in the Matlock area. It was in the early afternoon. It was a snowy day, and I was kind of suprised that it was snowing so early. We were fishing in hip waders, my friend was about 20 feet upstream from me when we heard a sound like a huge log being smacked against a tree about 100 yards away from us, I think to our west/northwest. I think the sound of the log hitting the tree was about 3 times, whack, whack, whack. Soon after we heard the same sound coming from about 100 yards away from the first one, and the same distance from us. The area that the noises were coming from were on the same side of the stream that we had come from our vehicle from. I looked at my friend and said, "what was that?" He replied that he didn't know. My friend has been hunting all over western Washington since he was nine years old, and is very familiar with the wild life here and the noises they make, I might add. We didn't think much of it when a few minutes went by and we heard the most eerie growling roar I have ever heard. I really don't know how to describe it, but whatever made that sound was not being as close to as loud as it could have been, and the sound still went right through me. I could feel it in my chest. I was more terrified than I had ever been in my life and I ran to my friend upstream. I don't know which one of us did it first, but we both ended up putting our hands up over our heads and yelling trying to dissuade whatever it was from coming after us. I was more scared than I had ever been. We got out of the creek at this point, and grabbing some rocks headed back to the truck through the woods. I was bringing up the rear and keeping watch as we went. I was much calmer walking back. On the way back we were even joking around about it. Back at the truck I asked my friend what he thought it was. He said he didn't know, but he knew it wasn't a bear, cougar, elk or anything else he'd ever heard before. I never made a report of it before because I just never thought of it before until reading some similar stories on your site. I believe that whatever we heard that day was a sasquatch. My friend also believes what we heard was a sasquatch.

ALSO NOTICED: Just that right before everything got really quiet and still, and when whatever it was growled/roared it wasn't nearly as loud as it could have been

OTHER WITNESSES: My buddy who was also in the creek fishing

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Afternoon, snow on the ground

ENVIRONMENT: Some clear cuts around the area. Lots of pine trees around where we were at, but not old growth. The creek usually has a big fishing hole there, but it was flooded that day.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Dr. Wolf H. Fahrenbach:

The combination of tree knocking and the roar make this a very probable sasquatch encounter. The witness stated that he perceived the very deep, grumbly roar, about 50 yards away, to be at about 10% percent of the potential volume, an intuitive perception of the size of animal producing this warning growl.

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