As a paranormal researcher, I have experienced many encounters with the unknown. I’ve faced down everything from ghostly presences to UFOs and cryptids in the forests of the Western U.S.
I’ve seen shadow people run in front of my car outside of Las Vegas while driving on the freeway in the dead of night and have been pushed, shoved, kicked and even felt like I was stabbed in all manner of paranormal attacks by unseen presences.
I have EVPs of unseen and unexplained voices in my libraries that I estimate the number of in the several thousands of recordings and regularly target EVPs heard in YouTube videos that channel owners don’t even realize they’ve captured until it is pointed out.
I do not say any of this to boast. I say it because these things HAPPENED. A life spent in the paranormal world is one where a person WILL encounter unknown phenomena and you must be prepared to deal with unseen things or to have experiences for which you were least prepared. It does fascinate me how many people in paranormal research are in it for attention and media exposure. The real action however, is to experience these things for yourself and go about seeing amazing things for yourself in relative freedom without the burden of unwanted and often negative attention following you around.
There is an old saying: Be careful if you chase the unknown because if you look hard enough, it will come looking for you. There is a great deal of truth to that statement. I tend to keep a much more reserved stance with any investigations I do now because of that fact and with increasing age comes wisdom and a certain amount of respect for things which lie outside accepted explanations of the Universe. Of late however, I’m a little more willing to strategically poke at the unknown again and try again to see what secrets I can wring out. I want to get back into the field to poke at the unseen and see what sparks come flying my way.
Plausible Deniability and Intellectual Stupidity go hand-in-hand
It can’t be real and I don’t want to hear anymore!
My point of view and conclusion to date is that the great majority of our so-called “science” is filled with people more comfortable with what they “know” to be truth than with actually dealing with the truth. They KNOW there are things out there outside of their control and prefer to sit behind their computers and hide because they are AFRAID of such things.
I took the risk of stepping out into the unknown with basic tools and found experiences that defied scientific explanation more times than I could count. You cannot sit behind a computer and experience the unknown but it is precisely that tactic that many skeptical organizations engage in and which reveals them to be more dedicated to propaganda than to truth.
I remember one of my bosses who knew of my exploits who was so threatened when I spoke factually about what I had encountered that he screamed in my face that such things could not exist and that I should shut up about it.
Of course, I refused to back down and I concluded that he had had a very negative experience that he wanted to forget about and my mere existence as a paranormal investigator brought up those negative memories. People who have had unexplained and often traumatic paranormal things happen and cannot rationalize them often seek to deny the experiences, often to the point of invalidating ANY talk of the unknown. I expect a LOT of scientists and ordinary people fall into this category and the sheer vitriol from many of them indicate minds firmly closed for precisely the reasons I have outlined.
Of late, I’ve been following more Bigfoot/Sasquatch news because, of all of these “unknown” topics I find to be interesting, Bigfoot/Sasquatch has been that one creature that we can reasonably say ACTUALLY lives among us in the flesh 24×7. There is so much evidence of it’s existence that in a court of law the case could be made that this creature exists and deserves to be recognized. I do believe it is only a matter of time until the creature is revealed to the world by scientific proof of it’s existence in modern times and that it likely is a form of Human-being or a very close relative of Humanity.
Sasquatch encounters in and around El Dorado County
I’ve had five encounters with this creature over fifty years and have concluded that they are not at all rare and that the great majority of the population have, at some point in their lives, been in close proximity to one or more of these creatures. Of these five encounters, one has taken place during daylight hours in El Dorado county back in 2018 in the spring while in the high country near Kyburz off Highway 50.
Only 20 miles east, in Alpine County, I had a close encounter while sleeping in a vehicle, only 3 feet from me in the dead of night as one of these creatures rocked the van I was in. It was trying to scare us out of the area and it didn’t succeed. We left late the next morning on schedule, but felt watched the entire rest of the morning. It was clear they didn’t like us being there. It was September 2017 when this happened.
I’ve taken to trying to find examples of more recent cases reported on the Internet One that caught my interest was the story of another foothill resident, likely near Grass Valley, California, whose family was terrorized by a Sasquatch for quite some time at a residence.
The family had their animals terrorized, banging on the house and taps on the windows and dead and eviscerated animals left outside their home for quite a length of time. The quoted time frame in the story was that this occurred in late 2017. The events seemed to draw to a close six months later in early 2018 and this fits in well with my theory of these creatures coming down to lower elevations, often overlapping or in close proximity to human settlements.
Based on the story detailing the location as being “in the foothills”, this would be anywhere from 1000 to 3000 foot elevation where the biome of the forests range from oak trees into spruce, ponderosa pines and douglas firs. The foothills would be idea country for a Sasquatch who was seeking the easy life.
Historical Encounters and Theories
Most of my encounters have happened in early fall to winter with only one summer encounter in Montana which was at high elevation in the Rockies. This is a pattern seen time and again with MANY encounters across North America.
The BFRO web site lists a number of sightings dating most recently back to 2014. My county is one of the more active ones with regard to sightings, but I suspect the number of unreported encounters, including my own, until-this moment, private encounters in Alpine, El Dorado and Butte counties, are far larger and that the real numbers likely range in the hundreds of encounters.
As I live in the lower Sierra Foothills at around 1400 foot elevation, I have begun to wonder if these creatures extend their range down to the foothill communities here near where I live. I believe they come down in the Fall to escape the harsh weather of the high Sierras and then return to the high country around April or May. I would hazard the guess that they once DID range down to the valley floor when it was a swampy area and in which elk and other game roamed, forming a perfect hunting ground for such a beast.
Painted Rock Hairy Man, also known as Mayak datat (mi!yak datr!atr!) or sunsunut (shoonshoonootr!)
The Miwok tribe of American Indians speak in their legends of such giants that would steal humans to eat. There are a number of such legends and stories across this wide ranging tribe relating to giants who would kill human beings for food or out of malice.
Another tribe called the “Yokuts” lived in the San Joaquin Valley and foothills of California and had documented their experience of the hairy man in their petroglyph paintings.
The band of the Yokuts that lived at a site called Painted Rock were called the O-ching’-i-ta, meaning the “People of Painted Rock” and these were the people who documented the giant in their art. There are stories from the Yokuts of giants who would take acorn harvests from the women who pounded the acorns on rocks as part of the harvest activities.
To say the least, it is clear most if not all of California’s tribes knew who the Hairy Man was and that this creature was dangerous in the worst cases and an outright thief most of the time.
If this creature was pilfering food from American Indian food stocks before the arrival of the White Man, then why would it be so strange that these creatures would be living the good life off of farms all up and down the state of California from the 1800s onward to the modern day?
From certain spots near my ranch, I can look east to see forest all the way to the Sierra peaks just 20 or so miles to my northeast. My theory is that they do come down and sometimes range right on down past Placerville and even lower, nearing the ranches just above Folsom. There is a lot of food and resources to be had here. Ranches and farms are numerous and separated only by boundary lines or short fences that a tall creature would simply step over to get from place to place.
Just above Placerville lies the small logging and farming town of Camino and I have often wondered about the popular farm community known throughout the area as “Apple Hill” with many small farmers who grow apples, pumpkins, Christmas trees and many other crops. Driving through there recently, I saw apples on the ground near the orchards and wondered if there have been cases of Sasquatch being encountered in and around Apple Hill. If anyone has a story, I would love to hear it!
Food, Sasquatch and Hard Times
With talk of supply chain issues and food disruptions being a reality we may all face, I have had the thought that if farms begin to curtail food production then the Sasquatch who have, until this point in time, remained in the familiar pattern of living high in the Sierras for the Spring and Summer and in the lower elevations in the Fall and Winter months, will see a need to range even closer to Humans to get their food.
And this shortage of food for the Hairy People may involve attacks of pets, people or theft of food far lower into the foothills or even into valley communities here in Northern California. This might become a similar pattern nationwide if the shortages are seen all over the country and end up driving Sasquatch populations to seek food in new and novel ways.
Conclusion and final request for your encounters
In conclusion, I am citing that this creature is far more common now than it was before the advent of modern farming techniques. It has literally evolved to live off our food excess and garbage. In rare cases, it also consumes people when the opportunity presents itself and if the creature is driven by hunger or other factors. The number of actual encounters likely far outnumber the few reports that brave people have filed and it leaves me to conclude that Sasquatch numbers are not declining, but are at least static in size or growing based on the abundant food supply at their disposal as a result of human activities.
I am certain that local, state and the federal governments are ALL well aware this creature exists and seek to contain and manage it. I have my own theories as to WHY they wish to hide the truth of the creature as a new species of ape and/or human but that is another article for down the road.
I intend to keep a close eye on the reported cases in El Dorado county and to see if there are any other facts that can be teased from the reports as they come in. If you have had an encounter, please use my contact link so we can discuss the encounter(s).