Helicopter Pilot SPOTS Giant Sasquatch Carrying Human Body – Shocking Bigfoot Story

Three Knocks in the Cascades

Name’s Daniel Kerr. I’m 53 now. This was October 2012, up in the Oregon Cascades, first wet snow of the season. I flew helicopters for search and rescue out of Redmond. I’ve hauled hunters, lost kids, bodies. I don’t scare easy. But there’s this one flight—one Bigfoot flight, I guess—that still wakes me up.

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It was supposed to be routine. Missing hiker, bad weather, late afternoon. We’d already brewed the coffee, filed the flight plan, just another cold call-out. Then, over one drainage, I saw something wrong. Tall, dark, carrying a person like a rag doll. I shouldn’t be telling this, but it’s been years. I still have a clip on an old phone in a drawer. I won’t show it. People hear Bigfoot and they laugh. All I can hear is the rotor noise and those three knocks that followed.

The Call

The hangar doors rattled in the wind. Three quick bangs, metal on metal, while the rain needled the roof. The fuel smell mixed with burned coffee and that cold, dusty concrete scent. I remember the yellow strip lights over the bird, flat and tired looking.

Dispatch came over the speaker, voice grainy. Male hiker overdue near the Mount Jefferson wilderness. Light snow up high. We’d done this a hundred times. I checked my watch, then the weather. Low ceiling, marginal, but doable. Our crew chief, Mike, muttered while sorting harnesses, “Bet it’s another Bigfoot call. Ranger said the trailhead folks been hearing screams up there.” I snorted. “Yeah, sure, Bigfoot. More likely a drunk elk.” Truth is, I’d grown up hearing Bigfoot stories on late-night AM, but as a pilot, you can’t believe that stuff. You just fly.

Still, when the doors banged those three times again, I checked the locks twice and told myself it was only the wind.

Into the Storm

The helicopter sat in the wash of yellow light, patient and ready. We pulled on flight suits, checked radios, ran through the pre-flight checklist like we always did. Mike climbed into the back, securing gear with quick, practiced motions. My co-pilot, Rick, slid into the right seat, strapping in. The panel came alive with green and amber lights. Outside, the rain kept coming, steady and cold. I felt the collective under my left hand, the cyclic in my right. Everything normal, everything routine—except I kept hearing those three knocks in my head.

The rotor thump settled into my chest like a second heartbeat. Out the windscreen, everything was gray. Low clouds, mist over pine, the kind of soft blue light that makes distance look closer than it is. The panel glowed amber and the intercom hissed with background static. I could smell jet fuel and someone’s chew spit in a bottle behind my seat. Normal.

The Search

Target area’s that north drainage, Rick said. Guy parked his Subaru at Pamelia Lake trailhead and never came back. The helicopter pushed through bands of weather up and over ridgelines that looked like dark wrinkles in a blanket. Below us, the forest was endless. You could drop a house down there and never find it again. That’s what made search and rescue hard. That’s what made it necessary.

“You hear the locals?” Rick added. “Ranger said some campers called in a Bigfoot last week. Tall shape in the timber. You believe that?”

“I don’t believe in Bigfoot stuff,” I said. “People get turned around, hear branches snap, lose their minds. That’s all.” I said it like I was sure.

But as we pushed through a band of sleet that ticked against the windscreen like fingernails, I nudged the collective a little higher, suddenly aware of every shadow under the trees. The mountains rose around us, silent and patient. We were just noise passing through. And when the intercom went silent for a few seconds, my mind filled the gap with those three hangar knocks again. Wood on metal, deliberate, waiting.

Signs

Snow streaks in the landing light, turning the world into static. Below the ridgelines were dark green smudges cut by pale threads of old avalanche shoots. The GPS showed our search grid. My hands moved on habit. Bank, trim, scan, check fuel, check altitude. The same loop I’d flown for fifteen years.

The radio cracked. Then a ranger’s voice slid in, thin and distant. “Air 1, just so you know, those campers last week said they saw some big, I don’t know, a Bigfoot or whatever. Same basin. We’ve had livestock go missing on those ranches downhill. Probably just bears, but—copy.”

I cut in. “We’re looking for one human, not a Bigfoot. We’ll call if we see Santa, too.” Mike chuckled in the back, checking the hoist. I wanted it to sound like a joke. Real pilots don’t talk about Bigfoot on the radio, but the ranger’s voice stuck with me. The way he’d said Bigfoot like he was embarrassed, then cleared his throat, like he was apologizing for even bringing it up.

Wind buffeted us, and the tail boom shuddered. For a moment, all I heard was rotor slap and my own breath. The mountain air was thin and cold. It smelled like ice and pine bark.

Evidence

Below, the drainage cut deep into the slope, a narrow V of shadow and rock. I told myself it was all rumor. Mountain towns love their legends. Loggers, hunters, people who spend too much time alone. They see stumps in the fog and call it Bigfoot. They hear a tree fall and say something pushed it.

Still, when a loud crack echoed up from the valley like someone hitting a tree with a bat, I looked down and a part of me wondered who or what was knocking.

We dropped lower along a drainage, skimming just under the cloud layer. The trees parted around a narrow meadow half covered in new snow. In the white, every line was sharp. Fallen logs like black ribs, animal trails like pencil strokes. Everything stood out.

“Hold on,” Mike said over the intercom. “Slide left. You seeing that, Dan?” I eased us over. The snowfield filled the windscreen. At first, I saw normal stuff. Deer tracks. Maybe elk. Then my brain caught up. There was a line of prints that didn’t make sense. Long, deep impressions, almost like bare feet. Each spaced too far apart for any human who wasn’t running on stilts. No boot tread, no snowshoe pattern.

Rick whistled. “Hell, maybe your ranger friend was right about Bigfoot, huh?”

“Could be some guy in big boots,” I said. But my stomach tightened. There was no tread pattern. Just smooth ovals with toe shapes at the front. No heel marks, no drag marks, just clean, deep prints in a straight line across the meadow, then into the trees. The rotor wash kicked up powder that danced in the landing light. For a second, I imagined a huge barefoot pressing into that snow, water steaming off, smelling like wet fur and earth.

We marked the coordinates. As we pulled away, a hollow, distant knock came from the timber. Three in a row, spaced slow, like someone with all day to be heard. The sound carried up through the rotor noise, deliberate and patient. I told myself it was just a branch in the wind, but I wrote possible Bigfoot sign in the margin of my kneeboard, then scratched it out so no one else would read it.

The Encounter

We sat down on a small rise near the tree line so Mike could do a quick ground check. The skids touched, the helicopter shivered, and then the rotor beat turned into a steady wall of sound around us. I cracked the door. Cold air rushed in, sharp with the smell of wet bark and something musky under it, like a dog that’s been in the rain too long. Mike hopped down, his boots crunching through crusted snow, and jogged toward a splash of color near a log. Something red against the white.

“Got something?” he called, voice thin against the rotor. It was a backpack, bright red, half buried, no owner. While he checked it, I scanned the treeline. The trunks were dark vertical bars. Somewhere in there, a raven called once, then again. The third call sounded like a knock, more than a caw. Sharp, hollow.

Mike climbed back in, shoving the pack between our seats. “ID says Mark Ellison. That’s our boy. No blood in the pack, just food, jacket.”

“Why’d he ditch it?” Rick muttered.

“Maybe Bigfoot carried him off, man.”

“Cut it out,” I snapped. “There’s no Bigfoot.” He probably stumbled, dropped it, kept going downhill. Still, the straps were torn in a way that looked pulled, not unbuckled, and the musky smell clung to the fabric. I turned the cabin heater up, trying to push the chill out of my bones.

The Flight

As we lifted off again, snowflakes swirled in the landing light. Between the trees, I thought I saw a dark vertical shape move, then vanish. Could have been a stump. Could have been anything. I banked away, pretending I hadn’t been staring at the spot where the raven had knocked three times.

Dusk had settled into the valleys, turning them into bowls of ink. Our landing light carved a tunnel through the gloom. The rotor noise was louder now against the rock walls, a steady chop that you feel more than hear. My shoulders burned from holding the controls steady in the wind.

“Thermal,” Rick said, leaning over the FLIR monitor. “Got a hot spot center screen, moving uphill, bigger than a deer.”

“Could be our guy,” I said, banking us in. The image came into view on the small gray screen, white against black terrain. At first, it looked like a blob. Then the shape clarified, a tall form, upright, moving with long strides, and slung across its front—cradled another smaller shape, limbs dangling.

My mouth went dry. “You seeing this?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Rick breathed. “That’s a Bigfoot carrying a body.”

“Don’t say Bigfoot on tape,” I snapped automatically. “Old habit. Could be a big guy with a pack.” But the smaller form bounced like dead weight with each step. No movement, no struggle. The big one—my brain had already labeled it Bigfoot, whether I liked it or not—climbed over downed logs like they were twigs, heading toward thicker timber.

The thermal signature was massive, taller than any man, wider through the shoulders than seemed possible. The cabin smelled like hot electronics and cold air leaking around the door. I realized I was holding my breath. Part of me wanted to swing the light right onto Bigfoot, flood it, prove something. Another part wanted to back away and pretend we’d just lost the signal.

We circled once more. The FLIR showed Bigfoot stop, turn its head up toward us as if it heard the rotor from inside the mountain itself. For three long beats, all I could hear were those knocks in my memory, like Bigfoot was inside the rotor noise now. The monitor flickered with static as snow intensified. Then Bigfoot moved again, faster now, disappearing into a fold in the terrain.

The Rescue

The snow thickened into a white curtain. The landing light picked up flakes that looked like sparks floating past. My hands were steady on the cyclic, but my shoulders burned. We were flying on the edge of what I considered safe. Wind gusts rocked us. Ice was starting to build on the windscreen wipers.

“Target’s changing course,” Rick said, eyes glued to the FLIR. “Bigfoot—sorry, that big guy. It’s angling toward a small opening. Looks like a meadow.”

“Mike, get ready on the hoist,” I said. “If that’s Ellison, we might have one shot.” I dropped us lower, rotor wash whipping the treetops. The smell of pine resin hit us sharp through a crack in the door seal.

Below, through the gaps, I caught glimpses—a tall, dark figure, one arm under the shoulders of another body now, half dragging, half supporting, not slung like cargo anymore. Careful, deliberate. And then Bigfoot did something I didn’t expect. At the edge of a narrow clearing, Bigfoot stopped, knelt, and laid the human form down carefully against a log. Even from the air, you could see the gentleness in the way Bigfoot’s head dipped toward the person, like checking their face, making sure they were still breathing.

“Is Bigfoot helping him?” Rick whispered, forgetting the recorder, forgetting everything.

Before I could answer, Bigfoot turned its head toward us again. I swear it looked right at our light, our noise, our intrusion. Then Bigfoot moved sideways into a stand of trees and vanished. Just a dark smear swallowed by darker trunks. Gone.

The Aftermath

We hovered over the clearing. Snow blew sideways in sheets. My heart hammered. Somewhere below the rotor thunder, a deep hollow series of knocks rose up. Three, spaced evenly, like someone asking a question we didn’t understand. Like goodbye. Like warning. Like both.

I had to choose: chase Bigfoot into the timber and probably lose the hiker, or land for the human and pretend Bigfoot had never been there at all. That’s where the fear truly started.

The world shrank when we sat down. Rotor wash blasted the snow flat, then sent it swirling. The noise became a physical force pressing on my chest. Headset on, door open. I smelled everything at once. Jet exhaust, cold soil, and underneath it, a thick musk like sweat and wet fur baked into old canvas. That smell said Bigfoot had been here minutes ago.

Mike and the county medic sprinted toward the motionless figure at the log. In the landing light, I could see the guy’s jacket, bright blue, torn at one sleeve. Mark Ellison. His face was pale, streaked with mud. One leg was twisted wrong. He wasn’t moving.

“Pulse!” Mike shouted, leaning close. “He’s alive.” Hypothermic, busted leg, pupils slow but reacting.

I kept one hand on the collective, the other on the cyclic, eyes flicking between gauges and treeline. The trunks stood like a crowd in the shadows just beyond our pool of light. Silent, watching. I could feel it. Something shifted between two firs. A darker dark. A hint of height. I felt my mouth go dry again.

I clicked my boom mic. “Rick, treeline. 2:00. See that?”

“I see something,” he murmured. “Dan, that’s Bigfoot. That’s the same shape from the FLIR. Taller than the branches there.”

The outline leaned forward slightly, then back, like Bigfoot was deciding whether to step into the light. I could almost feel Bigfoot’s hesitation, matching my own. We’d invaded this space. We’d taken back what Bigfoot had carried down the mountain. And now Bigfoot was watching us do it.

The medic raised his head, followed our gaze. His gloved hand brushed the rifle slung over his shoulder. That tiny motion broke whatever spell we were in. The shadow straightened, then slid behind a trunk. We heard it then, a heavy footstep in the snow. Another, and then three slow, deliberate knocks. Wood on wood. Closer now. No wind tricks. Bigfoot was talking, or warning, or both.

“It was a Bigfoot,” I said quietly into the intercom. No jokes left in me. No question. But Bigfoot was terrified, too. You hear that in the knock?

I felt a strange protectiveness, like I’d walked into someone’s home uninvited, like I’d taken something that wasn’t mine.

We loaded Ellison, slammed the doors, and lifted out. Under the fading rotor thump, the last thing I heard from that basin was silence. Thick, deliberate silence after those three knocks, like Bigfoot had decided to let us go.

What Remains

Night had settled in full by the time we reached the lower LZ. A rough patch of gravel scoured out beside an old logging road. Portable flood lights threw harsh white cones into the drizzle, illuminating the helicopter in sharp angles. Generators growled in the background. Radios crackled in short, tense bursts. We’d handed Ellison off to the ambulance. He’d mumbled on the stretcher, words slurred from cold and pain meds. “Bigfoot carried me. Didn’t drop me. Big hands.”

The paramedic had given me a look somewhere between curiosity and dismissal. I didn’t repeat what Ellison said on the official notes.

I stayed with the bird, walking around her, feeling the skin of the fuselage under my palm. Warm metal, tiny vibration from cooling systems. I always do one last walk-around. Habit. Maybe an excuse to be alone.

Down past the edge of the flood lights, the treeline began again. Wet trunks, black against a gray sky, mist hanging low. I heard a low sound from there. Not a growl, not quite a hoot, two short whoops, then a pause, then one longer exhale that sounded almost like a sigh. The rhythm lodged in my chest. I killed my flashlight and just stood there.

At the edge of the light, maybe thirty yards away, a tall shape stood half behind a tree, shoulders wider than any man I’d flown with, head just under a branch I knew was twelve feet off the ground because we’d measured it against the rotor disc. We looked at each other, or at least it felt that way. The floodlight glare didn’t reach Bigfoot’s face, just outlined it as a darker absence. I didn’t see eyes, I felt them.

“I know,” I whispered, though my throat was dry. “I know you brought him down. Thank you, Bigfoot.”

Saying Bigfoot out loud felt wrong and right at the same time, like speaking someone’s real name after years of nicknames.

There was a soft thump, like a hand on a trunk. Then three quieter knocks, not as loud as in the basin, almost gentle. Bigfoot’s outline shifted back, then was gone. Generators hummed on. Radios kept talking. No one else turned their head.

Legacy

For years afterward, whenever I shut down a helicopter and the rotor slowed through that deep rhythmic beat, I’d hear those knocks layered under it, like Bigfoot had tuned my hearing differently.

Twelve years since that flight and I still found myself out on the porch, wrapped in a flannel shirt, cup of cold coffee in my hands, listening. The mountains were a darker smudge against the sky. Same range, same pine smell when the wind shifted. When the breeze came from the west, I could almost taste wet bark and that deep musky fur scent that shouldn’t be familiar, but is.

My wife had long since stopped asking what kept me up. I told her the basics. Hard mission, near-miss landing. I didn’t tell her that some nights in that thin place between waking and sleep, I saw Bigfoot standing at the edge of the treeline by our yard, just outside the porch light, watching, making sure we were okay.

I hate even using that word, I muttered into the dark. Bigfoot. It felt softer now, like I was talking about a neighbor who moved away years ago.

A branch clicked against the side of the house. Three light taps, spaced just far enough apart to make my skin ripple. The rational part of me knew it was wind. I still got up, checked the deadbolt, and made sure the porch light was really on.

Inside, the fridge hummed. The dog’s nails clicked on the floor. These small sounds grounded me. Out in the yard, the darkness stayed quiet, like the forest was holding its breath. I went back to my chair, stared at the treeline, and wondered if Bigfoot ever sat somewhere listening to us snore the way I listened for those knocks.

The Truth

I’m recording this on an old handheld voice recorder I dug out of a box. The little red light is on, and it sounds like my whole life is buzzing in the background. If you’re hearing this, you probably found it after I’m gone, or I finally got tired of carrying it alone.

The desk lamp casts this dull yellow cone over a mess of bills and an even older smartphone. The phone’s screen is spider-cracked, battery swollen. Inside it, behind the case, is that SD card, the one labeled flight data, the one with Bigfoot on it. I hold the card between my fingers sometimes like a little stone from a river. It’s smooth, light, doesn’t feel like proof of anything, but I know what’s on there. Bigfoot carrying a man. Not like a trophy, but like a burden. Bigfoot laying him down where a helicopter could find him. Bigfoot looking up into the rotor wash like we were the intruders.

I’m not going to upload it. Not to a forum, not to a show, not even to some Bigfoot group online. I’ve had twelve years to think about it. Every time I get close, I picture hunters, drones, people stomping through that basin trying to claim a legend. Some truths aren’t for everyone.

The house creaks as the temperature drops. Wood settling with small random pops. One of them comes as a neat little sequence. Three soft knocks from the hallway. I pause the recorder, go check. Nothing there. Just the coat rack, my boots, the faint smell of pine cleaner.

Back at the desk, I hit record again. It wasn’t a dream, I say, more to myself than to the mic. It was a warning, or maybe a favor. I don’t know. I just know Bigfoot is not a joke to me anymore. Bigfoot is someone I owe.

I slide the SD card back into the phone, then into the drawer under old tax forms and a faded search and rescue patch. The drawer closes with a soft wooden thud. For a moment, everything is quiet. No fridge, no TV, just the faint whir of the fan and my own breathing. In that thin silence, if I really listen, I still hear it. Three knocks, far off in the trees, patient as memory.