‘I’m a Logger and Bigfoot Terrorized Us’ – BIGFOOT ENCOUNTER STORY
THE FOREST THAT WAS NEVER EMPTY
A Testimony from Northern California, 1993
Chapter I – The Sound That Never Left Me
I never believed in any of that cryptid nonsense.
Not Bigfoot. Not forest giants. Not hidden species or government coverups. I was a logger—plain and simple. A man who trusted steel, horsepower, and hard facts. Trees fall when you cut them right. Machines break when people make mistakes. And the woods, no matter how deep, are just woods.
.
.
.
That belief shattered in late September of 1993.
Even now, more than thirty years later, I still wake up some nights drenched in sweat, my heart hammering, hearing that sound again. A sound like a freight train made of muscle and rage tearing through timber older than history. A sound that didn’t belong to any animal I’d ever known.
What I’m about to tell you isn’t a campfire story or an internet hoax. It isn’t something I want fame or attention for. I stayed silent for decades because I was paid to, threatened to, and honestly—because I was scared.
I’m telling it now because I’m old, tired, and done carrying this alone.
Chapter II – A Job That Paid Too Well
The job came through a contractor we’d worked with before. Big company. Big money. Lawyers everywhere.
We were offered nearly double our usual rate to clear a section of old-growth forest about sixty miles northeast of Eureka, deep in Northern California. Eight hundred acres of virgin timber—Douglas fir and redwood—trees so tall and ancient they felt more like monuments than lumber.
The pay should have been the first red flag.
When someone pays you twice what a job is worth, there’s always a reason.
Our foreman, a grizzled old brute we all called the Old Man, spread a topographical map across the hood of his pickup on the first morning. A section was marked in red pencil. That was our world for the next six weeks.
The strange part wasn’t the scale.
It was the location.
We were deep in what everyone knew was protected national forest land. When one of the younger guys asked how the company had permits to log there, the Old Man just shrugged.
“Paperwork’s above my pay grade,” he said. “As long as the checks clear.”
We should have walked away.
None of us did.
Chapter III – The First Unease
The first week went perfectly.
Too perfectly.
The equipment ran smooth. The weather held. The timber was incredible. We worked out of a temporary camp the company had already set up—sleep trailers, a mess hall, maintenance shed. Everything ready, like this operation had been planned for a long time.
It was on the eighth day that things began to feel… off.
The skitter operator—fifteen years of experience, tough as nails—came over to me during lunch looking nervous. He kept glancing toward the tree line.
He said he’d heard footsteps that morning while dragging logs. Heavy ones. Following him.
Not bear.
Not human.
Two legs.
Bigger.
I laughed it off. Told him bears were getting hungry this time of year. But he didn’t laugh back. He just shook his head and went quiet.
The next day, our climber came down from sixty feet up a redwood pale as ash. He said he’d seen something walking upright through the trees below him. Too tall. Too broad. Covered in dark hair.
The crew joked. Mocked. Made caveman noises.
The climber didn’t smile once.
Chapter IV – Signs of Intelligence
By the second week, sightings weren’t isolated anymore.
Dark shapes on ridgelines. Smudged footprints near the maintenance shed. A sense of being watched that crept under your skin and refused to leave.
Then someone—or something—opened the door of a feller buncher during the night.
The metal hinges were bent. The safety glass cracked.
Not vandalism. Not mechanical failure.
It looked like the door had been yanked open by raw force.
The Old Man suggested eco-saboteurs. But there was no real damage. Nothing disabled. Just… a message.
Whatever was out there wasn’t trying to stop us.
It was letting us know it could.
Chapter V – The Camp Breach
The mess hall was hit during the third week.
The door frame was splintered like kindling. Canned food crushed. Rice scattered. Wet streaks on the walls that looked disturbingly like saliva.
But it was the handprints that ended the jokes.
Pressed deep into the metal refrigerator. Enormous. Human-shaped. With opposable thumbs.
No bear left that.
No human could.
That night, the Old Man ordered watch rotations. Nobody moved alone. Nobody worked solo. We were professionals—but fear had moved in with us.
And fear doesn’t clock out.
Chapter VI – Voices in the Dark
On my midnight watch, I heard trees being torn apart.
Not snapped.
Not broken.
Torn.
Slow, deliberate sounds of wood groaning under impossible pressure.
Then came the calls.
Low. Guttural. Almost vocal.
Not language—but close enough to chill the blood.
The next morning, we found a massive fir snapped twenty feet up. Healthy. Solid. Claw-like gouges ran down the bark of nearby trees—eight feet off the ground.
Whatever lived here was tall.
And strong.
And angry.
Chapter VII – The Settlement
The climber found their camp.
Hidden among ancient redwoods. Shelters woven from branches. Fire rings. Food caches. Sleeping depressions big enough for something far larger than a man.
There were tools.
Not crude accidents—but shaped wood and stone. Spears. Scrapers.
And human belongings.
Boots. Shirts. License plates. Watches. Wedding rings.
Collected.
Displayed.
The Old Man tried to report it. Corporate stalled. Told us to keep working. Avoid the area.
That’s when I realized we weren’t supposed to find this.
Chapter VIII – The Attack
It happened fast.
Too fast.
The forest went silent around my loader. No birds. No wind. Just my engine.
Then a roar tore through the trees.
It stepped into view—eight, maybe nine feet tall. Upright. Dark hair. Human posture. Inhuman power.
It stared at me.
Thinking.
Then it charged.
I ran.
Behind me, metal screamed as my loader was torn apart like a toy. Hydraulic lines snapped. Steel twisted.
Others emerged.
Six of them. Coordinated. Surrounding us.
One destroyed a forty-ton machine with its bare hands and shoved it down the slope like it weighed nothing.
Then it stopped.
Watched us.
And let us leave.
Chapter IX – Silence Has a Price
We fled.
Left everything behind.
At headquarters, we were interrogated for days. Then the story changed.
Classified project. Rare primates. National security.
We were paid a year’s salary to forget.
Threatened if we didn’t.
We signed.
What choice did we have?
Final Chapter – What Still Watches
I bought a farm far from old forests. Tried to forget.
But people still go missing.
Equipment still gets destroyed.
Stories still surface—then vanish.
Those beings weren’t monsters.
They were neighbors we refused to acknowledge.
And they’re still out there.
Watching.
Waiting.
The forest remembers.
And someday, it won’t stay silent anymore.
[END]
