Posted on 04/14/2008 10:26:30 AM PDT by BGHater
I was with the 9th Infantry Division (long since decommissioned) as an infantry platoon leader. Just down the road from my battalion was the 2nd Ranger Battalion. The First Special Forces Group had not yet been posted there as it is now. The S1 (personnel officer) and the HHC cdr had both been very close friends of mine in college. I knew a few more of the guys from associating with them. Enough that I was referred to as a NAP (Non Airborne Personnel) rather than a LEG (Lack of Essential Guts) which is very derogatory. I'd not been to jump school. But these guys basically adopted me and taught me some very high speed (sophisticated) tactics that I put to good use back in my own unit.
So I was invited over to the Ranger compound late one Saturday night and there were four Rangers & me. Three officers and one E-6 Staff Sergeant who was on the "Hot Seat." The officers wanted to know why an emergency extraction had been called for when no medical emergency was present.
The staff sergeant said that he had been in charge of the patrol and the mission was to set up an ambush on a firebreak while waiting for another unit (possibly Canadian I can't remember) to walk into the kill zone so the Rangers could open up with their weapons all loaded with blanks. The ambush was supposed to trip at around 0300HRS. That's 3:00 a.m. for you civilians.
The patrol was operating very close to the Canadian border and was really deeeeep in the woods. Very isolated location. No big deal these were army rangers after all. They set up along a firebreak got the security elements out and waited silently at around 1:00 am. By about 0200HRS there was quiet movement in the woods across the firebreak.
One of the junior sergeants sent word that it looked maybe like the opposition had showed up early and were in recon mode across from their position. The observation was made that for a large body of troops, they were moving really quietly. So the patrol leader switches on his night vision along with the fire team leaders. What they saw was a large "creature" standing maybe eight feet tall on two legs and weighed (estimated) about 500 pounds... staring at them from just across the open area and "it" was looking dead at them without the aid of NVD (night vision device)! The decision was made on the spot to allow the intruder that portion of the forest to itself so the rangers picked up and moved about 1000 meters along side the firebreak and higher headquarters was alerted of the location change without mentioning the reason. They moved and set up again in exactly the same manner.
About ten minutes later there was a distinct sound of quiet movement across the cleared area of the firebreak across from the patrol. This must be distinguished from the movement of an animal. Elk, bear and deer are really noisy when they move thru the woods, they don't know the meaning of the word "stealthy." This movement was definitely stealthy. On came the night vision. Sure enough there "he" sttod, STARING at the patrol. Up to this point there had not been any sort of overt signs of aggression. Now, however a deep rumbling could be heard. Menacing. That was enough for this patrol. They formed a tight 360 perimeter and broke out the tear gas grenades which were their only effective means of defense. The chopper was called and they sat there in a kind of stand off with an apelike critter staring at them and growling. As the chopper approached the growls grew more pronounced. So the patol lead pulled the pin on a trip flare and ordered his men to shield their eyes. He lobbed the illumination device at the Bigfoot and hit the deck. The light from a flare like that is so intense that it will sear thru your eyelids even when your eyes are shut tight. When the darkness turned to daytime, there was an ear shattering howl of pain and a noise of tree trunks snapping and brush being stomped down. Not stealthy that time! The bird settled to a landing and the patrol clambered inside and it lifted. Then the brouhaha started with why they'd lifted out early when nobody was injured. Immediately three of the guys on the patrol vomited and they were taken to the hospital.
That killed the official inquiry but these officers still wanted to hear what really happened. I was invited on the strength of an unseen encounter I'd had myself (no sightings but an eerie silence and a distinct feeling of being watched) & confirmed by my PLT SGT who was a 'Nam vet and not prone to being "nervous in the service."
I have to wonder how many of the special ops forces of both the American and Canadian military have had encounters like this?
A question: was it your sense that all of the guys were 100% certain that what they saw could not have been a large grizzly bear standing upright?
http://www.gunsnet.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=200905&highlight=bigfoot
Dont believe the blasphemers :-)
(grin)
These guys are the folks who define the phrase professional soldier. The atmosphere in that room was so taut that night it was almost unimaginable. No these guys were 100% certain that what they encountered was not a bear. There are a couple of indicators from the account, number one being that it moved stealthily. Bears and other critters don't understand noise discipline. When a four legged animal wanders in the woods you can hear it a long ways off. Why would a bear up and follow a group of guys over 1000 meters (very quickly) to simply stare at them on two legs when it had to be moving (very quickly) on four?
I had a Grizzly Bear encounter myself, there once. It was terrifying and hilarious all at the same time. I was leading a patrol deep in the Nisqually training area and I had a point guy about maybe 100 meters in front of the main element. Suddenly we heard a scream and this guys comes ripping back thru the formation at a dead run. He's got no weapon, no helmet, no rucksack and he is sprinting like the devil himself were on his tail. Well almost....as he puffed by me I could hear him muttering to himself: F*** it! F*** it! F*** it! I turned around after his disappeared to our direct "six" and there was Mr Grizzly all POed over something. This guy IIRC was on two legs but dropped to four and he was yowling and growling and spittin' mad. So my whole patrol opens up on him! Too bad all they had was blank ammo. LOTS of noise and this thing wasn't in a mood to play. So I fished out a CS grenade and lobbed it right between his legs & below his nose. When that thing popped...that bear ATE that gas. I felt a little sorry for the critter since he was crying and rubbing his face with his paw. I tried to tell him not to rub it (makes the pain about 100 times worse) but he didn't listen. I'll bet he was traumatized to the point of being (forgive me) un-bearable.
There have been a number of bear encounters in and around Fort Lewis. Especially by the Rangers. No, these guys knew it was no bear. I was sworn to secrecy because no official report was made. The guys throwing up on the chopper made it a medevac mission and thus justifiable.
What if they bury their dead? I can't speak for South Carolina but do you have any idea how rugged the mountains are in the Pacific Northwest? Look at it this way: On a standard topigraphical map the lines between the contour lines are a standard 20 feet. On a map of Fort Lewis the lines are spaced at 100meters and all squished together in some spots means it's often like climbing a ladder while humping all the gear of an infantryman.
The vegetation is so dense that a machete is a waste of effort and time. The Rangers mastered a new technique for slipping thru the woods quietly. They'd follow each other very closely. When the guy in front got hung up on the dangling vines we called waitaminute vines (The person snagged would urgently whisper wait a minute!) and the patrol would have to be constantly pausing. So if every guy carried a small pair of garden clippers he could just reach up and snip the vines so they slid away silently and the patrol could move more normally. My point being that in such steep, rugged and dense terrain it would be very easy to overlook remains if you were even lucky enough to come across them.
My best friend retired from SOF as a Lieutenant Colonel several years ago. He was not at Fort Lewis when this incident occured sine he had been an officer in the 2nd Bn previously. I guess he'd moved on to IOAC by then.
The incident to which I refer was a 2nd RANGER Bn FTX and as I had indicated at the time period when it happened, the 1st Group hadn't even been located there yet.
This is a far more believable account and it's chilling as well as well written as I would expect from SOF. Rangers can barely spell but most of the ummmmm green beanies have college degrees, even among the sergeants. Very bright folks.
Thats a possibility.
Thanks again for your detailed commentary! If it wasn’t a bear, that doesn’t leave much to choose from among known fauna, I reckon. I’ve got no explanation for these specific reports, and they certainly don’t seem easily classifiable into the hoax/dupe category...
If they bury their dead, they have to live in larger groups, which would be more easily noted. It also doesn't account for individuals that die as a result of mishap away from the group, or groups killed off by disease.
Why also haven't the burial sites been found? Humans bury their dead for two reasons. They are sentimental about the bodies of their dead, and to prevent the spread of disease.
If they are sentimental, why aren't the burial locations marked somehow.
Preventing the spread of disease can be done by simply moving out of the area if they are nomadic, or even taking the body away from their home.
If they live in stationary locations, their homes would be obvious to someone coming across them. The area would be cleared from traffic even if not cleared intentionally.
I can't speak for South Carolina but do you have any idea how rugged the mountains are in the Pacific Northwest? Look at it this way: On a standard topigraphical map the lines between the contour lines are a standard 20 feet. On a map of Fort Lewis the lines are spaced at 100meters and all squished together in some spots means it's often like climbing a ladder while humping all the gear of an infantryman.
I've done little hiking in the Pacific Northwest. I've done considerable more in the southeast, and even a few trips in Central America. I've humped heavy packs up mountain trails where the guides we hired were clearing a trail with machetes. I can find my way from point A to point B with a GPS, but it's a heck of a lot easier with someone who knows the lay of the land leading, and if you meet strangers along the way in the mountains, it's better if you're not just a bunch of gringos up in the mountains on your own.
The sides of steep mountains aren't very habitable. Any place that would be reasonably habitable, gets logged for lumber pretty much anywhere in the US. There are no untouched, old growth forests anymore. Small areas that are preserved are well visited.
These are pretty big creatures. They aren't going to move though such dense vegetation without leaving a trail, and they aren't going to break new trails every day.
How do they get around? Where do they sleep? Do they sleep on the ground? It gets awfully cold up there, how do they get out of the cold and wind? What do they eat? These are large creatures that are going to eat a lot of food, and if they are living in family or larger groups, they are either going to have to move around a lot, which means they are far more likely to run across people a lot since both they and hikers need water.
Solitary and shy creatures makes more sense, but pretty much excludes burying their dead.
Narrowing the target area to the pacific northwest, the terrain and climate might explain the lack of readily or easily discoverable evidence. Even accounting for the rise in BigFoot exploration groups there's not a heckuva lot of folks actually looking. The rain forests are continually wet and cool, if not downright cold. The foliage there doen't break with even extensive movement. It bends and snaps back. The forest overcomes trails very easily. The soft mulchy type floor of the forest doesn't retain prints very easily, but it does make a nice bed having used it myself many times. As long as you know how to stay dry, warm and hydrated, the Olympic and Cascade mountain chain is a dandy place to hang out and get away from it all. Perhaps these creatures bury their dead to avoid detection. No markers. No clusters of graves. Just willy nilly wherever a body drops dead.
No logging in Mount Rainier National Park and the base of that mountain has seen a huge number of sightings over the years. Same thing for the Olympic Peninsula National Park. Sure there are camp grounds that see heavy tourist traffic, but there are zillions of square miles of wilderness that do not.
Did you read the account in the link I posted about the veteran SOF team that followed some clear tracks in Alaska? Over 150 years of SOF experience between the 11 men and within a few hours of heavy tracking they were confronted with a verbal warning that scared them off. I'll bet there are plenty of sightings involving loggers, too.
In fact there is a chilling account of a group of trappers that was nearly wiped out by "something" in northern California. That story is recorded in a book by none other than Theodore Roosevelt. He believed, too.
A GPS just lets you know exactly where you are. I can load the topo maps on mine, but unless you have one with a built-in compass, you still need a good compass. A GPS by itself can only tell what direction you are going as you move, and the direction often jumps around. Without the compass you have trouble knowing which direction you are headed, without the topo, you're going to have a much rougher time getting from point A to point B in mountainous areas.
I'm spoiled by the GPS, so I have some trouble figuring out where I am a lot of times, with just a topo and a compass.
Ever heard of a stretch of jungle in C.A. known as the Darien Gap? I've "hiked" that area.
That area is a bit to scary for me. I've been in Belize, but not too close to Guatemala, and in Mexico a few hours north of Mexico City.
We were exploring caves. Mostly we'd drive into a tiny village. Talk a bit, make some friends, hire a guide, and hike up into the mountains to a pit, and be thankful they were nice enough not to cut our ropes while we were rappelling into and exploring pits and caves. Of course we always left some people topside as well. Never a good idea to be excessively trusting.
The pits were about 300 feet deep on the small side, and the deepest was 1200 feet deep. I was very thankful to have a guide and be able to hire teenage kids to help carry gear. Long ropes are heavy. Especially 1600 foot spools.
Narrowing the target area to the pacific northwest, the terrain and climate might explain the lack of readily or easily discoverable evidence. Even accounting for the rise in BigFoot exploration groups there's not a heckuva lot of folks actually looking. The rain forests are continually wet and cool, if not downright cold. The foliage there doen't break with even extensive movement.
It is amazing how fast things grow with all that rain and moderate weather. Things also rot quickly and get covered by debris quickly.
On the other hand, that area typically gets logged a lot because things regrow so fast. I've been to the Ho Rain Forest in Washington State, but we just did a day hike on existing trails. I've never hiked off trail in a rain forest, but I can imagine that if the critters were nomadic, it would be hard to tell where they had been.
If they are solitary, they'd probably learn to move away from where the logging is going on. It's not like logging operations are quiet, so they might not have a lot of difficulty avoiding them.
However, I still have a hard time believing that remains have never been found if they exist.
No logging in Mount Rainier National Park and the base of that mountain has seen a huge number of sightings over the years. Same thing for the Olympic Peninsula National Park. Sure there are camp grounds that see heavy tourist traffic, but there are zillions of square miles of wilderness that do not.
Yea, few visitors to parks ever set foot off of the main trails.
I've only been up in that area once, and only for a few days. It was absolutely beautiful.
Did you read the account in the link I posted about the veteran SOF team that followed some clear tracks in Alaska?
I don't place much credibility on anonymous reports. It's a detailed, well written report which lends something to it's credibility, but it could easily be written by someone who's particular sense of humor led them to submit a bogus report and then watch the reaction on the site.
If you choose to believe it, it's evidence, but if you're skeptical, there's really nothing that compels you to believe it.
In fact there is a chilling account of a group of trappers that was nearly wiped out by "something" in northern California. That story is recorded in a book by none other than Theodore Roosevelt. He believed, too.
I've met a lot of intelligent, and rational people that have somethings that they believe in a totally irrational manner. Back then there as a lot more of the country that was unexplored, so such tales were more credible.
Where is it written that if the creature is sentimental, then it must mark a burial location in some way? Why cant it just not mark the burial site, assuming they do bury their dead?
The sides of steep mountains aren't very habitable.
Albert Ostman reported that when he was kidnapped, he was taken up a steep side of a mountain, to a small valley.
How do they get around?
Walk? Call a taxi?
Where do they sleep? Do they sleep on the ground?
On the ground, under trees, in caves, etc. Wherever they want.
It gets awfully cold up there, how do they get out of the cold and wind?
I assume their hair helps to insulate them from the cold, plus they can seek shelter in overhangs, caves, or just tough it out in the open.
What do they eat?
Animals, roots, etc
These are large creatures that are going to eat a lot of food, and if they are living in family or larger groups, they are either going to have to move around a lot, which means they are far more likely to run across people a lot since both they and hikers need water.
"Far more likely" as opposed to how often it already happens? How do you measure this.
The Teddy Roosevelt story from his book ‘The Wilderness Hunter’:
Frontiersmen are not, as a rule, apt to be very superstitious. They lead lives too hard and practical, and have too little imagination in things spiritual and supernatural. I have heard but few ghost stories while living on the frontier, and those few were of a perfectly commonplace and conventional type. But I once listened to a goblin-story, which rather impressed me.
A grizzled, weather beaten old mountain hunter, named Bauman who, born and had passed all of his life on the Frontier, told it the story to me. He must have believed what he said, for he could hardly repress a shudder at certain points of the tale; but he was of German ancestry, and in childhood had doubtless been saturated with all kinds of ghost and goblin lore. So that many fearsome superstitions were latent in his mind; besides, he knew well the stories told by the Indian medicine men in their winter camps, of the snow-walkers, and the specters, [spirits, ghosts & apparitions] the formless evil beings that haunt the forest depths, and dog and waylay the lonely wanderer who after nightfall passes through the regions where they lurk. It may be that when overcome by the horror of the fate that befell his friend, and when oppressed by the awful dread of the unknown, he grew to attribute, both at the time and still more in remembrance, weird and elfin traits to what was merely some abnormally wicked and cunning wild beast; but whether this was so or not, no man can say.
When the event occurred, Bauman was still a young man, and was trapping with a partner among the mountains dividing the forks of the Salmon from the head of Wisdom River. Not having had much luck, he and his partner determined to go up into a particularly wild and lonely pass through which ran a small stream said to contain many beavers. The pass had an evil reputation because the year before a solitary hunter who had wandered into it was slain, seemingly by a wild beast, the half eaten remains being afterwards found by some mining prospectors who had passed his camp only the night before.
The memory of this event, however, weighted very lightly with the two trappers, who were as adventurous and hardy as others of their kind. They took their two lean mountain ponies to the foot of the pass where they left them in an open beaver meadow, the rocky timber-clad ground being from there onward impracticable for horses. They then struck out on foot through the vast, gloomy forest, and in about four hours reached a little open glade where they concluded to camp, as signs of game were plenty.
There was still an hour or two of daylight left, and after building a brush lean-to and throwing down and opening their packs, they started upstream. The country was very dense and hard to travel through, as there was much down timber, although here and there the somber woodland was broken by small glades of mountain grass. At dusk they again reached camp. The glade in which it was pitched was not many yards wide, the tall, close-set pines and firs rising round it like a wall. On one side was a little stream, beyond which rose the steep mountains slope, covered with the unbroken growth of evergreen forest.
They were surprised to find that during their absence something, apparently a bear, had visited camp, and had rummaged about among their things, scattering the contents of their packs, and in sheer wantonness destroying their lean-to. The footprints of the beast were quite plain, but at first they paid no particular heed to them, busying themselves with rebuilding the lean-to, laying out their beds and stores and lighting the fire.
While Bauman was making ready supper, it being already dark, his companion began to examine the tracks more closely, and soon took a brand from the fire to follow them up, where the intruder had walked along a game trail after leaving the camp. When the brand flickered out, he returned and took another, repeating his inspection of the footprints very closely. Coming back to the fire, he stood by it a minute or two, peering out into the darkness, and suddenly remarked, “Bauman, that bear has been walking on two legs.”
Bauman laughed at this, but his partner insisted that he was right, and upon again examining the tracks with a torch, they certainly did seem to be made by but two paws or feet. However, it was too dark to make sure. After discussing whether the footprints could possibly be those of a human being, and coming to the conclusion that they could not be, the two men rolled up in their blankets, and went to sleep under the lean-to. At midnight Bauman was awakened by some noise, and sat up in his blankets. As he did so his nostrils were struck by a strong, wild-beast odor, and he caught the loom of a great body in the darkness at the mouth of the lean-to. Grasping his rifle, he fired at the vague, threatening shadow, but must have missed, for immediately afterwards he heard the smashing of the under wood as the thing, whatever it was, rushed off into the impenetrable blackness of the forest and the night.
After this the two men slept but little, sitting up by the rekindled fire, but they heard nothing more. In the morning they started out to look at the few traps they had set the previous evening and put out new ones. By an unspoken agreement they kept together all day, and returned to camp towards evening. On nearing it they saw, hardly to their astonishment that the lean-to had again been torn down. The visitor of the preceding day had returned, and in wanton malice had tossed about their camp kit and bedding, and destroyed the shanty. The ground was marked up by its tracks, and on leaving the camp it had gone along the soft earth by the brook. The footprints were as plain as if on snow, and, after a careful scrutiny of the trail, it certainly did seem as if, whatever the thing was, it had walked off on but two legs.
The men, thoroughly uneasy, gathered a great heap of dead logs and kept up a roaring fire throughout the night, one or the other sitting on guard most of the time. About midnight the thing came down through the forest opposite, across the brook, and stayed there on the hillside for nearly an hour. They could hear the branches crackle as it moved about, and several times it uttered a harsh, grating, long-drawn moan, a peculiarly sinister sound. Yet it did not venture near the fire. In the morning the two trappers, after discussing the strange events of the last 36 hours, decided that they would shoulder their packs and leave the valley that afternoon. They were the more ready to do this because in spite of seeing a good deal of game sign they had caught very little fur. However it was necessary first to go along the line of their traps and gather them, and this they started out to do. All the morning they kept together, picking up trap after trap, each one empty. On first leaving camp they had the disagreeable sensation of being followed. In the dense spruce thickets they occasionally heard a branch snap after they had passed; and now and then there were slight rustling noises among the small pines to one side of them.
At noon they were back within a couple of miles of camp. In the high, bright sunlight their fears seemed absurd to the two armed men, accustomed as they were, through long years of lonely wandering in the wilderness, to face every kind of danger from man, brute or element. There were still three beaver traps to collect from a little pond in a wide ravine near by. Bauman volunteered to gather these and bring them in, while his companion went ahead to camp and made ready the packs.
On reaching the pond Bauman found three beavers in the traps, one of which had been pulled loose and carried into a beaver house. He took several hours in securing and preparing the beaver, and when he started homewards he marked, with some uneasiness, how low the sun was getting. As he hurried toward camp, under the tall trees, the silence and desolation of the forest weighted on him. His feet made no sound on the pine needles and the slanting sunrays, striking through among the straight trunks, made a gray twilight in which objects at a distance glimmered indistinctly. There was nothing to break the gloomy stillness which, when there is no breeze, always broods over these somber primeval forests. At last he came to the edge of the little glade where the camp lay and shouted as he approached it, but got no answer. The campfire had gone out, though the thin blue smoke was still curling upwards.
Near it lay the packs wrapped and arranged. At first Bauman could see nobody; nor did he receive an answer to his call. Stepping forward he again shouted, and as he did so his eye fell on the body of his friend, stretched beside the trunk of a great fallen spruce. Rushing towards it the horrified trapper found that the body was still warm, but that the neck was broken, while there were four great fang marks in the throat. The footprints of the unknown beast-creature, printed deep in the soft soil, told the whole story. The unfortunate man, having finished his packing, had sat down on the spruce log with his face to the fire, and his back to the dense woods, to wait for his companion. While thus waiting, his monstrous assailant, which must have been lurking in the woods, waiting for a chance to catch one of the adventurers unprepared, came silently up from behind, walking with long noiseless steps and seemingly still on two legs. Evidently unheard, it reached the man, and broke his neck by wrenching his head back with its fore paws, while it buried its teeth in his throat. It had not eaten the body, but apparently had romped and gamboled around it in uncouth, ferocious glee, occasionally rolling over and over it; and had then fled back into the soundless depths of the woods.
Bauman, utterly unnerved and believing that the creature with which he had to deal was something either half human or half devil, some great goblin-beast, abandoned everything but his rifle and struck off at speed down the pass, not halting until he reached the beaver meadows where the hobbled ponies were still grazing. Mounting, he rode onwards through the night, until beyond reach of pursuit.
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