Posted on 12/20/2006 6:38:42 AM PST by aculeus
I wanna see what the offspring of ManBearPig and a sporkweasel would look like?
This is exactly the sort of thing I keep using to justify the purchase of the new Survival Kit currently being marketed by Smith & Wesson that has lessee...a signal whistle, two space blankets, a copy of The Most Dangerous Bear Attacks of the Twentieth Century and oh yeah...a S&W 460 magnum with a 2.5 inch barrel. Maybe somebody can post a pic of that package? I think Impact Guns has one on their website, but I can't access anywhere "gunny" from school, DANG IT. But as I say to the wife...Honey we need to spend a grand on this! What if we're at...the MALL...and BigFoot attacks? It could happen. Think of it as ummmmm insurance! So far, it hasn't worked. But the more stories like this that appear the better my position....
Teddy Roosevelt relates one friend's account of an unknown creature. Here's a passage 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.
(Shudder)
When I was stationed at Fort Lewis, WA in the mid 1980's I could count on at least one good BigFoot spook scare every year. It usually happened on the last night of a long FTX when everybody had been without sleep for days, and in the eternal condition of the light infantryman: wet, cold, tired, hungry and...miserable. I'd get my night position set up, set out the LP/OP's and walk my perimeter setting fields of fire. Finally I might get to roll up in a poncho & liner to grap a few hours of rest. Then it'd happen. One of the Listen/Observation Post guys would come scurrying up to see ME. He had to jump the chain of command. Couldn't tell his fire team leader....nor the platoon sergeant....noooooooo he HAD to see "the old man." That'd be me...shavetail lieutenant.
SIR...ya gotta come quick! It's....BIGFOOT!
I'd open one eye and ask if he was SURE and always the frantic nods. So I make him a deal. If I walk out there 100 meters off the perimeter and really do find the creature, I'll give him a four day pass. OTOH, if I walk out and jump up a deer or some farmer's escaped cow...he'd owe me a whole weekend cleaning the platoon area in the barracks. I had the cleanest AO in the battalion.
However, every once in awhile you'd hear similar rumblings from the Ranger Battalion. That was different. Sure they'd lie to us in a moment. We weren't Rangers...part of the outfit. I was privileged to hear one such report take place between two Ranger Officers. I won't give the specifics like time and date or personnel since I was sworn to secrecy. The ONLY reason I was allowed to hear was because one of the men present was a lifelong friend of mine and the others respected that bond. I have honored that oath since 1983. Suffice it to say that a Ranger Training Patrol ran into a BigFoot at the base of Mt Rainier in the dead of night. They had jumped into the area from choppers and were setting up operations for training along a national park firebreak. Everybody had NV capability. One moment they were alone and the next.....just about 25 meters away it stepped into the open. It was STARING at them. It had no NVGs. Not a word was uttered. Hand signals, nobody freaked out. The patrol just upped and moved a whole "klick" along the break away from the creature. Hey....they'd leave a grid square if something considered that area it's territory. Moments later. there it was again. No hostility. Just staring. AND BIG. the reports written later by every man present varied depending on the angle of observation but from seven to nine feet tall. No details thanks to the degradation from the NVGs. Remember these were probably 1st Gen units from the 1980s. THAT time a decision was reached and the Rangers extracted via BlackHawk.
I wasn't there. But I trusted these men with my life. MY troops? Well I'd say it was a drug induced hallucination. Or a royal hangover. But the Ranger Battalion? And you should have seen the looks on their faces. I believed them. You might not. That's okay. But I suspect it happens to elite units that go into the deep woods to train. And I'll bet it happens more often than many think. I also know that most of these units carry live rounds for an emergency. The story always ran that they were "worried" about running into dopers harvesting a marijuana crop or Bikers (when near main roads) who might be looking to ambush them for the weapons they carried and knowing it was army policy to have only blank ammo on hand. But a couple of belts for the M60's? Hmmmmmmmm.
Thank you for your contribution. Your comment has been submitted for review.....what the heck does this mean?
I once read a breakdown of BigFoot behavior across several different regions. Seems that in Washington State, Oregon and British Columbia, BigFoot sightings ran to startled but placid and reticent. Observed feeding patterns were almost exclusively that of a herbivore....plants and berries. Whereas the sightings in northern California take on a more aggressive stance. IIRC the story related by Teddy Roosevelt took place in Northern California. Feeding patterns there are more omnivorus with an edge to carnivorus. Same for the Southern sightings especially in the Louisiana and Arkansas regions. Same again for the so called Florida SkunkApe which is my neck of the woods. But the terrain in those swampy areas lends itself to a diet of fish and game. You might remember a movie that came out (made for tv) in the 1970's and was based on a terrifying true encounter of the aggressive sort in Arkansas. The title of the flick was The Legend of Boggy Creek and it scared the crap outta me from high school thru the Infantry Officer Basic Course. At that point I realized we were the baddest dudes in the forest, bar none. Even in training.
Legend of boggy Creek isnt a made for tv movie. It was made for theatrical distribution (and it was a box office success)
Anyways, a couple more classic bigfoot stories:
Canadian version of the Flim Flam Man?
I have. Island Park, Idaho, just east of Yellowstone.
When I grew up and became an infantryman, I learned that there is virtually no limit to the number of bullet holes that can be produced in a living target and that given a sufficient number of rounds any creature can be felled. Bigger bullet holes require fewer bullets. Thus, the solution to BigFoot aggression presents itself: BIGFOOT MEDICINE
Mayge Nifong can introduce it into the Duke trial....
Maybe Art Bell can have a Saturday nite special on this sighting....
or maybe (fill in the blanks)
You have seen something not many others ever will. Most hikers and casual forest users will never even see a deer carcass and they vastly outnumber Bobo the Bruin.
Manbearpig LOL! Doncha just love Southpark.
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