Hunter Gets UPCLOSE Shot Of GIANT BIGFOOT | BIGFOOT STORY

The Ridge Line Witness

A Hunter’s Encounter in the West Virginia Wilderness

Chapter 1: Into the Silence

I’m still shaking as I write this. What happened to me last month in the mountains changed everything I thought I knew about what’s out there in the woods.

I’ve been hunting these hills for over 20 years and thought I’d seen it all. I was wrong.

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This really happened to me, and I’ve got the photo to prove it. I’m sharing this because people need to know what’s really living in our forests.

It was the second week of November—prime deer season in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia. I’d been planning this trip for months: five days solo in some of the most remote country you can find. The spot I picked is about three hours from the nearest town, up old logging roads that’ll tear your truck apart if you’re not careful.

I got to the trailhead around sunrise, packed my gear, and headed into the woods. The weather was perfect. Cold enough to keep the deer moving, but not so cold you can’t feel your fingers.

I set up my base camp about two miles in near a little creek that runs year-round. The first thing I noticed was how quiet everything was. Usually, these woods are full of life. Squirrels chattering, birds calling, chipmunks rustling through the leaves. But that morning—nothing. Dead silence, except for the sound of water running over rocks.

I figured maybe I just picked a bad spot. So I moved deeper into the forest, found some decent deer sign—tracks and droppings that looked fresh. But still, no animals anywhere. Not even a single bird.

After hunting the same area for two decades, I know when something’s off. This was off.

Chapter 2: Signs in the Trees

Around noon, I stopped for lunch by a big oak tree. As I was eating my sandwich, I noticed something carved into the bark about eight feet up.

At first, I thought it was just natural scarring, but when I looked closer, it was definitely made by something. Three parallel lines gouged deep into the wood—like claw marks, but too precise, too deliberate.

The hair on my neck stood up. Those marks were fresh. You could still see the white wood underneath where the bark had been scraped away. Whatever made them had been there recently, and whatever made them was tall enough to reach eight feet up a tree trunk.

That night, I woke up to rain pattering on my tent. Nothing worse than hunting in the rain. But I’d driven three hours to get here, and I wasn’t going home empty-handed. I waited for the worst of it to pass, then headed out around 8:00 a.m.

The rain had turned all the forest trails into mud, which was actually good for tracking. That’s when I found them—the biggest footprints I’ve ever seen in my life.

They were human-shaped, but massive. Easily twice the size of my size 11 boots. Everything was proportional—not just long, but wide, too, like they belonged to something that weighed 400 pounds or more.

I knelt down next to the clearest print, my heart racing. The detail was incredible. You could see individual toe impressions, the arch, even what looked like skin texture in the mud. This wasn’t some hoax or costume print. This was real.

The stride length was what really got me. Each step was nearly four feet apart. I’m six feet tall and my normal stride is maybe two and a half feet. Whatever made these tracks was not only huge, but covering ground fast.

I followed the trail for about a quarter mile. The prints led uphill toward the ridge line, following no trail I knew of, just straight through the thickest part of the forest. The weird part was how the prints just stopped—not at a creek or a rock outcrop or anywhere that made sense. They just ended in the middle of a small clearing, like whatever made them had just vanished into thin air.

I took photos of the best prints with my phone, measuring them against my boot for scale. When I showed them to people later, most said they had to be fake. But I know what I saw, and I know these mountains better than anyone.

Chapter 3: The Night Watcher

That night, I realized I wasn’t alone out there. I’d gotten into my sleeping bag around 10:00 p.m., listening to the normal sounds of the forest settling down. Usually, you hear owls calling, raccoons moving around, all the normal night sounds. But that night was dead silent.

Around midnight, I woke up to what sounded like something moving around outside my tent. Heavy footsteps in the leaves, but not random movement. These footsteps were circling my campsite in a deliberate pattern, like something was studying my setup.

I lay there listening, trying to figure out what kind of animal would be bold enough to come that close to a human camp. The footsteps would stop for a few minutes, then start again from a different direction. Whatever was out there was taking its time, being patient.

Then I heard something that made my heart nearly stop: the sound of my tent stakes being tested. A gentle pulling on the guy lines, like something was checking how securely my shelter was anchored. The tent fabric moved slightly as whatever was out there investigated my camp.

I reached slowly for my rifle, trying not to make any noise. But as soon as the sleeping bag rustled, everything stopped. Dead silence for about thirty seconds. Then I heard those heavy footsteps moving away, crashing through the brush like whatever had been there suddenly didn’t care about being quiet anymore.

I didn’t sleep the rest of that night. When morning finally came, I found muddy prints all around my tent—big, humanlike prints with clear toe impressions, some less than three feet from where I’d been sleeping. Some of the prints showed the creature had been standing in one spot for a long time, just watching my tent, watching me sleep.

Chapter 4: The Hunt Turns

The third day was when I realized I wasn’t just sharing the woods with something unusual—I was being actively hunted.

I’d moved my hunting spot to a ridge about a mile from camp, hoping to catch deer moving between feeding areas. I’d been sitting in my tree stand for about two hours when I heard something moving through the trees below me. Heavy footsteps crunching through the leaves, but moving in a pattern that wasn’t natural. Too slow, too measured, like whatever was making them was trying to sneak up on something.

Maybe it was the buck I’d been waiting for. I raised my rifle and waited for whatever it was to step into the clearing. I had a perfect view of the area below—good shooting lanes in every direction—but nothing came out.

The footsteps stopped right at the edge of the trees, maybe fifty yards away. I could hear breathing—deep, heavy breaths like something big trying to catch my scent. But I couldn’t see anything, even with my scope.

That’s when I realized the breathing wasn’t random. It was deliberate, controlled, like whatever was down there was testing the air, analyzing what it was smelling. And I knew with absolute certainty that it had found my scent and was figuring out exactly where I was.

I stayed motionless in my stand for what felt like an eternity. My muscles started cramping from holding the same position, but I didn’t dare move. Whatever was down there was playing a waiting game, and I was losing.

After about thirty minutes, I heard a new sound—something moving through the trees to my left. Then something else moving to my right. The original breathing sound was still coming from straight ahead. There wasn’t just one of them anymore. I was surrounded.

Chapter 5: The Circle Tightens

My mouth went dry. I’d hunted predators before—bears, mountain lions—but this felt different. This felt coordinated, intelligent, like they were working together to corner me.

The sounds continued for another twenty minutes, always moving, but never coming close enough for me to see anything. It was psychological warfare, and it was working. My hands were shaking so bad I couldn’t have made a clean shot, even if something had presented itself.

Finally, I heard one clear sound—a low whistle that seemed to come from directly below my stand. It lasted about five seconds, rising and falling in pitch like a signal. Immediately, all the other sounds stopped. Then, I heard them moving away all at the same time, like they had received an order to retreat.

I waited another hour before climbing down from my stand. When I finally worked up the courage to investigate the area where I’d heard the breathing, I found something that made my skin crawl. Impressions in the leaves where something large had been lying down, watching my stand. The depressions were huge, at least eight feet long and three feet wide, positioned with a perfect view of my hunting spot.

That afternoon, I found more sign—broken branches at about the eight-foot level, snapped clean off, not chewed by deer or bears. The wood was still green inside. I also found what looked like a bed or nest made of pine boughs and leaves tucked under a rock overhang. It was big enough for a person to lie down in, but no person would make a bed like that. It looked primitive, but too organized, too purposeful.

Chapter 6: The Visitor

That night was worse than the first. I’d moved my camp about half a mile, thinking maybe I could throw off whatever had been tracking me. I picked a spot with good visibility in all directions and my back to a large boulder.

Around 1:00 a.m., I woke up to the sound of something moving through my gear. Not inside my tent, but outside—going through the pack I’d left by the fire ring. I could hear zippers being opened, items being moved around like something was conducting a careful search.

I grabbed my flashlight and unzipped my tent flap just enough to peek out. What I saw froze my blood. A massive shape hunched over my backpack, silhouetted against the starlight. It was going through my supplies methodically, examining each item before setting it aside. The creature’s movements were careful, almost delicate, like it didn’t want to damage anything.

It spent several minutes with my GPS unit, turning it on and off, apparently puzzled by the electronic beeping sounds it made. When it found my trail mix, it opened the bag and sniffed the contents carefully, then tasted a small amount, chewing thoughtfully before setting the bag aside.

It was learning about me through my gear, trying to understand what kind of creature I was.

When it finished, the creature carefully repacked everything exactly as it had found it. Nothing was missing, nothing was damaged. It was like it had conducted a scientific study of my equipment. Then it stood up to its full height—easily eight feet tall—and turned toward my tent.

I pulled my head back inside and zipped the flap shut, my heart pounding so hard I was sure it could hear it.

Chapter 7: The Chorus

For the next hour, I listened to footsteps circling my tent at different distances. Sometimes far away, sometimes close enough that I could feel the ground vibrate under its weight. The most terrifying moment came when the footsteps stopped right outside my tent, and I heard a new sound—sniffing. Deep, loud sniffs like a bloodhound investigating a new smell.

I could see its shadow through the tent wall, a massive bulk blocking out the stars. It stayed there for what felt like forever, just breathing and occasionally sniffing. I lay perfectly still, barely daring to breathe myself.

Finally, it moved away. But instead of the usual crashing through the brush, this time it moved silently. One moment the shadow was there, the next it was gone. No sound, no indication of which direction it had gone.

By the fourth day, I was starting to think about cutting the trip short. I hadn’t seen a single deer, and all the weird sign was making me nervous. But I’m stubborn, so I decided to push deeper into the mountains, farther than I’d ever gone before.

Chapter 8: The Hidden World

I hiked about four miles from my base camp up into country that probably hadn’t seen a human bootprint in years. The going was tough—thick undergrowth, fallen trees, and steep rocky slopes that left me exhausted.

Around 2:00 p.m., I stopped to rest and eat lunch by a little stream. That’s when I heard it—a sound like nothing I’d ever heard before. It started as a low moan, almost like wind through trees. But it built into something else, something that sounded almost like singing, but not human singing. More like whale songs, if whales lived in the forest.

The sound was coming from somewhere up the ridge, maybe half a mile away. But it wasn’t just one voice. As the first call faded, another answered from a different direction, then another. They were communicating with each other, and I was right in the middle of their conversation.

The calls went on for about ten minutes, echoing off the rock faces and creating an eerie chorus that seemed to surround me. When they finally stopped, the silence that followed was even more unsettling than the sounds had been.

Chapter 9: The Cave

Curiosity got the better of me. I started climbing toward where the first call had come from, following what looked like an old game trail. But the more I followed it, the more I realized it wasn’t made by deer or elk. The path was too wide, and there were more of those broken branches at the eight-foot level.

As I climbed higher, I started finding structures—piles of rocks balanced in ways that couldn’t be natural, sticks woven together into shapes that looked almost like symbols. The most elaborate structure was about twelve feet off the ground, suspended between two large trees. It was an intricate pattern of interwoven branches, decorated with the skull of a small deer.

Then I found the cave. The opening was huge, at least ten feet high and eight feet wide, big enough for something very large to walk through upright. But it was what surrounded the cave that really got my attention—bones everywhere. Piles and piles of animal bones sorted by type. All the deer skulls in one pile. All the leg bones in another. Ribs stacked like cordwood.

Most looked old, bleached white by years of weather. But some were fresh, still had meat on them. This wasn’t random scattering. Everything was organized, purposeful. The skulls were all facing the same direction, like they were watching the cave entrance.

Hanging from the trees around the entrance were dozens of those stick totems I’d been finding. But these were elaborate, decorated with feathers and animal hair and strips of hide. They moved in the breeze, creating an eerie rattling sound that sent chills down my spine.

Chapter 10: The Face in the Dark

I started taking pictures with my phone, documenting everything I could see—the bone piles, the totems, the cave entrance itself. Each photo revealed new details: claw marks on the rocks, symbols carved into the stone, patterns in the bone arrangements that suggested meaning and purpose.

I was so focused on getting good shots that I almost didn’t notice when something moved in the darkness inside the cave. At first, it was just a shift in the shadows, so subtle I thought I might have imagined it, but then I saw them—two points of light reflecting back at me from deep inside the cave. Eyes, huge, intelligent eyes watching me from the darkness.

My heart stopped. We stared at each other across maybe thirty feet of space. Predator and prey sizing each other up. The eyes were too high off the ground to belong to any normal animal. At least seven feet up, maybe eight.

I raised my phone slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements. The eyes tracked my movement, following the phone as I brought it up to take a picture. Whatever was watching me understood what I was doing.

That’s when I heard the breathing—deep, controlled breaths that echoed from inside the cave. Not the random breathing of an animal, but the measured breathing of something thinking, planning, deciding what to do about the intruder in its territory.

Chapter 11: The Roar

The eyes moved closer to the entrance. I could make out more of the shape now—a massive dark bulk moving through the shadows toward the light. My finger hovered over the camera button, knowing I might only get one chance at this.

Then I heard a low rumble that seemed to come from deep in the creature’s chest. Not quite a growl, not quite speech, but something in between. It was trying to communicate with me. The sound built in volume and complexity, becoming a series of grunts and rumbles that almost sounded like words, like it was asking me a question or making a demand.

I took a step backward and immediately the vocalizations changed—sharper, more urgent, a warning. The message was clear: I’d gotten too close, stayed too long, seen too much.

That’s when the creature stepped into the light. It filled the entire cave entrance, eight feet tall at least, with shoulders that must have been four feet across, covered in dark brown hair from head to toe. But the face—the face was almost human. High forehead, deep-set eyes, a nose that was flatter than human but more prominent than ape. The expression wasn’t blank. This creature was thinking, evaluating, making decisions.

We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, but was probably only three or four seconds. I raised my phone and hit the camera button just as the creature took another step forward, moving fully into the light. The camera made its little electronic clicking sound, and the creature’s head snapped toward the phone. Its expression changed from curiosity to something else—recognition, maybe, or alarm. It understood what the device was, what I had just done.

Then it opened its mouth and let out a roar that shook the entire mountain.

Chapter 12: The Chase

The sound was incredible—louder than any bear, deeper than any lion, with harmonics that seemed to resonate in my bones. It wasn’t just noise. It was a declaration, a challenge, a promise of what would happen if I didn’t leave immediately.

But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was when other voices answered from deeper in the cave. More roars, more calls, different pitches and tones. A whole family of these things lived in there, and I’d just announced my presence to all of them.

The creature in the entrance let out another roar and took a step toward me. That’s when my survival instincts finally kicked in. I ran faster than I’ve ever run in my life, crashing through brush that tore up my clothes and over logs that nearly sent me tumbling down the mountainside.

Behind me, I could hear it following—but not just it. Multiple sets of heavy footsteps pounding through the forest, breaking branches and sending rocks tumbling down the slope. The sound was terrifying, like a stampede of giants charging through the woods, getting closer with every second.

I could hear them calling to each other as they ran—short, sharp barks that sounded like hunting calls. They were coordinating their pursuit.

I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw dark shapes moving between the trees, maybe fifty yards behind me. They were keeping pace easily, not even breathing hard while I was already gasping for air. If they wanted to catch me, they could. The fact that they weren’t closing the distance made it even more terrifying. They were herding me, controlling my escape route.

I stumbled and went down hard, scraping my hands and knees on the rocky ground. For a split second, I thought it was over. But when I looked back, the shapes had stopped. They were just standing there in the trees, watching me struggle to get back on my feet.

One of them, the big one from the cave, stepped partially into view. Even at fifty yards, its size was incredible. It raised one massive arm and pointed down the mountain toward my camp. The message was clear: Go that way and don’t come back.

Chapter 13: Proof

I didn’t need to be told twice. I made it back to my truck in under two hours—a hike that had taken me four hours the day before. My lungs were burning and my legs felt like jelly. But I didn’t stop moving until I could see my vehicle through the trees.

As I threw my gear in the back, I kept expecting to see those dark shapes emerging from the forest. But the woods stayed quiet. Whatever had chased me had decided I’d learned my lesson.

It wasn’t until I was back on the main highway that I felt safe enough to stop and look at the photos on my phone. Most of them had come out dark or blurry, but that one shot—the one I took right as the creature stepped into the light—was perfect. Clear, detailed, undeniable. The best photo of a Bigfoot that anyone’s ever taken, as far as I know.

Chapter 14: The Aftermath

At first, I didn’t know what to do with the photo. I knew people would think it was fake, that I’d made it up or edited it somehow. But I also knew that what I’d experienced was real, and maybe there were other people out there who had had similar encounters.

I started by showing it to people I trusted—family, close friends, hunting buddies who’d known me for years. Most of them believed me, especially when they saw how shaken up I still was weeks later.

My brother-in-law wanted to run the story in the local newspaper, but I wasn’t ready for that kind of attention. Instead, I started sharing it online in forums where people discussed this kind of thing. The response was incredible. Dozens of people reached out to tell me about their own encounters—hunters who’d found similar stick structures, campers who’d been stalked by something in the night, hikers who’d seen huge humanlike figures watching them from the treeline.

Chapter 15: The Mystery Remains

Based on everything I’ve seen and heard, I think there’s a population of these creatures living in the most remote parts of our mountains. They’re intelligent, organized, and they’ve learned to avoid humans most of the time. But they’re also territorial. When someone gets too close to their homes, they make their presence known.

The stick structures, the bone displays, the intimidation tactics—it’s all designed to scare people away. Most of the time it works. I was just stubborn enough and curious enough to keep pushing deeper into their territory until I found what I was looking for—and lucky enough to get out alive with proof.

The photo I managed to take shows the creature in remarkable detail. You can see the muscle structure under the hair, the way it’s standing, the shape of its face. This isn’t some person in a costume. The proportions are all wrong for a human. Look at the length of the arms, the breadth of the shoulders, the size of the hands. Look at the face—the heavy brow ridge, the flat nose, the projecting jaw. These aren’t human features, but they’re not quite apelike either. There’s something in between.

Chapter 16: The World Changed

Since my encounter, I’ve been back to those mountains twice—both times with other people. We found the cave again, and it’s definitely still being used. More fresh bones, new stick totems, and clear signs of recent activity. But we haven’t seen the creatures themselves again. It’s like they know we’re looking for them now, and they’re being even more careful than before.

Since I started talking about my experience, I’ve been contacted by dozens of other people who’ve had their own encounters. The stories are remarkably consistent—intelligent bipedal creatures living in remote forest areas, usually avoiding human contact, but occasionally making their presence known.

I never expected to become part of the Bigfoot mystery. I just wanted to hunt deer and maybe bring home some venison for the freezer. Instead, I stumbled onto one of the biggest mysteries in the natural world.

These creatures are out there. I’ve seen them, photographed them, lived in fear of them for days in their own territory. They’re real. They’re intelligent, and they’re sharing our forests—whether we acknowledge them or not.

Epilogue: If You Go Into the Woods

If you’re planning to hunt or hike in remote mountain areas, especially in the Appalachians, keep your eyes open. Pay attention to strange sounds, unusual tracks, stick structures that don’t belong. Trust your instincts if something feels wrong. And if you’re lucky—or unlucky—enough to have your own encounter, document everything. Take photos, record sounds, collect evidence. The more data we gather, the closer we get to proving that these incredible creatures really exist.

But take my advice: if you find what you’re looking for, be ready to run. Because once you’ve seen them, once you’ve looked into those intelligent eyes and realized what you’re dealing with, there’s no going back. The world will never look the same again.

End.