Retired CIA Agent Confirms They’ve Been Hiding Bigfoot Since 1973 – Shocking Sasquatch Story

Deathbed Confession: Ex-CIA Agent Breaks Silence on Secret Bigfoot Facility

Spokane, WA — The rain beats against the window of a small rental apartment on the edge of Spokane as Tony Carmichael, 73, records what may be his final message to the world. Diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, Carmichael says he has only days left. But before he goes, he’s determined to share the secret he’s kept for half a century—a secret that, if true, could rewrite the story of one of America’s greatest legends.

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“I signed papers that said I’d take certain secrets to my grave,” Carmichael says, his voice thin but urgent. “But there’s one I can’t. Not anymore.”

The Assignment That Changed Everything

In the fall of 1973, Carmichael was a young CIA agent, fresh from Georgetown and eager to prove himself. After two years of desk work and pattern recognition, he was summoned to his section chief’s office for a new assignment: a long-term domestic posting in northern Idaho. “High security, extreme isolation, no communication with family for the first six months,” he recalls.

He was handed a file containing only a topographic map with a red circle over a blank patch of forest, grid coordinates, and a chilling note: Biological containment level five classification.

Three days later, Carmichael landed in Spokane, met a silent driver at a private hangar, and was driven deep into the Bitterroot Range. “The roads got narrower and rougher until they weren’t roads at all, just gravel paths between Douglas firs,” he says. Rain fell constantly, turning the windshield into gray static.

At a hidden checkpoint, guards checked his credentials and waved him through. Finally, Site 17 came into view: a cluster of prefab buildings, a 12-foot chainlink fence crowned with razor wire, generators humming, and floodlights piercing the gloom.

Inside, Carmichael met Commander Hackett, a Marine veteran whose face betrayed no emotion. Hackett wasted no time. “You’ve been read into the existence of this facility, but not its purpose,” he said. “Cryptid containment. Specifically, specimens classified under Project Granite Shadow. You’re familiar with the term Bigfoot?”

Carmichael laughed, thinking it was a joke. Hackett didn’t. “We currently house four specimens. Two adult males, one adult female, one juvenile. Your job is perimeter security and specimen observation.”

Behind Electrified Fences

Carmichael’s first night was spent walking the northern perimeter with another agent, Kowalsski. The path ran parallel to the electrified fence, close enough to hear the hum of current.

“You’ll hear them at night,” Kowalsski warned. “Vocalizations. Don’t react. Don’t shine your light unless you see a breach. They don’t like the lights.”

That night, Carmichael heard a low, resonant call from deep within the containment zone. “Not quite a roar, not quite a moan—something between animal and human, so loud I felt it in my chest.” More calls answered, including one plaintive cry from the juvenile. “They were communicating. Whatever language it was, it had structure, rhythm, intention.”

Carmichael spent the night in his quarters, unable to sleep, haunted by the sounds.

“Specimens” or People?

On dayshift, Carmichael saw the creatures clearly for the first time. The main containment zone was a natural clearing, divided by internal fencing. “The setup reminded me of a prison yard,” he says.

The adult male, designated Specimen A1, was massive—8’2”, 400 pounds, reddish brown fur, enormous human-like hands. “He sat near the fence line, back against a Douglas fir, watching the perimeter with dark, intelligent eyes. His posture was disturbingly familiar. He seemed aware—aware of his captivity, aware of us, aware that this would never end.”

The logs revealed A1 was captured in October 1971 near the Oregon-Washington border after months of surveillance and a high-risk operation involving tranquilizer darts meant for elephants.

Carmichael dove into the files. “The government had been tracking Bigfoot sightings since the late ‘40s. The Patterson-Gimlin film in ‘67 triggered something—some decision at a level above my clearance. By 1968, there was a directive: Contain, don’t kill. Study, document, keep it quiet.”

Site 17 wasn’t the only facility. There were references to similar sites in Washington, Northern California, Montana. How many specimens in total? The files didn’t say.

Adapting to Captivity

Carmichael rotated through every position: perimeter patrol, observation post, supply check, maintenance. He learned the rhythms—morning feeding at 0600, veterinary checks, behavioral documentation.

The specimens had patterns, too. The adult male walked the fence line twice daily. The female built structures from branches and stones. The juvenile mimicked guard movements, walking the same routes.

“They were adapting,” Carmichael says. “Not resisting, not trying to escape—just adapting like any intelligent creature would.”

One afternoon, the male approached the fence directly below Carmichael’s observation post. “He looked up at me—direct eye contact, unblinking. I saw intelligence in those eyes. Not animal cunning, but something deeper. Understanding, recognition, maybe even judgment.”

The male made a low, controlled sound, almost as if trying to speak. Kowalsski later confirmed, “They do that sometimes. Try to communicate. We’re not supposed to respond.”

Carmichael began to see the creatures as people—different, yes, but people. “That night, I wrote a letter to my sister, explaining where I was and what I’d seen. I got three paragraphs in before I realized how insane it sounded. I burned the letter.”

Experiments and Suffering

In January 1974, a new juvenile was brought in, captured near Granite Falls, Washington. For three days, he screamed constantly. The adult female answered every time—her calls lower and sadder. “They were trying to reach each other. Parent and child, maybe. Or just members of the same species recognizing shared captivity.”

On the fourth day, the juvenile went silent, staring at the tree line beyond the fence. Carmichael asked Hackett if the juvenile could be moved closer to the female. “Negative,” Hackett said. “We’re studying individual adaptation patterns. Proximity would contaminate the data.”

“He’s a child,” Carmichael protested.

“He’s a specimen, Agent Carmichael. Remember that or request a transfer.”

Carmichael returned to his post, listening to the silence, hating himself for not doing more. “But what could I do? This operation went all the way up the chain. Presidents knew about this. The conspiracy wasn’t small. It was vast, institutional, protected by classification levels I couldn’t even access.”

Proof: Bigfoot Speaks

In the spring of 1974, the research team built an isolation chamber for controlled experiments. Carmichael was assigned secondary security during the first test, with the adult male as the subject.

They sedated him, moved him to the chamber, and restrained him. Researchers attempted communication—showing him objects, speaking their names, playing vocalizations. The male remained still, but when they played recordings of the juvenile’s distress calls, he closed his eyes in deliberate pain.

A linguist named Patterson drew stick figures on a whiteboard, pointed to himself, then to the Bigfoot. “Are you like me?”

The Bigfoot opened his eyes, looked directly at Patterson, and spoke: “No.”

The room went silent. The Bigfoot spoke again: “Let go.” The words were clear, grammatically correct, not mimicry but comprehension.

Further prompts yielded nothing. The Bigfoot returned to silence.

“He’d proven he could speak English, proven he was intelligent, aware, linguistically capable—and we still kept him in a cage.”

The Moral Cost

After the test, Carmichael couldn’t look at the specimens as animals. “They were people with language, emotion, awareness, and we were running experiments on them.”

He volunteered for night shifts, listening to their vocalizations. “Sometimes I’d hear the female singing. That’s the only word for it. Low melodic sounds, lullabies maybe for the juvenile.”

Hackett confronted Carmichael about his shift preferences. “Are you experiencing moral complications with this assignment?” Carmichael denied it, but inside, he was breaking.

“These specimens represent an unknown potential threat,” Hackett insisted. “Containment is necessary.”

“They can speak,” Carmichael argued.

“Mimicry,” Hackett replied. “Parroting sounds without comprehension.”

Carmichael knew better. The Bigfoot had constructed original sentences—intentional meaning.

The Final Encounter

In August 1974, a civilian intrusion triggered lockdown. Carmichael was assigned to zone A security. After gunfire and a terse “breach contained” message, Carmichael heard the Bigfoot’s voice from inside the shelter: “Dead.”

“He was asking about the hikers. He’d heard the gunshots and understood their meaning.”

“I don’t know,” Carmichael replied, violating protocol.

“No. No. What? Wrong. This wrong.”

“Yes,” Carmichael whispered. “It’s wrong.”

“Help.”

“I can’t.” Carmichael felt the weight of his own cowardice.

“Why?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

A long exhale, disappointment. Silence. The all-clear came. The Bigfoot walked past Carmichael without looking, never spoke to him again.

The Weight of Silence

Carmichael was transferred out in November. He never returned to Site 17, but the guilt followed him through retirement.

“I was the person who knew Bigfoot was real and said nothing. The person who heard one speak and walked away. The person who chose his career over their freedom.”

He watched the world mock Bigfoot sightings, dismiss documentaries, laugh at believers. “I sat there knowing we had physical proof locked in cages across the Pacific Northwest.”

The Confession

Now, facing death, Carmichael refuses to take the secret to his grave. “The United States government has been capturing and containing Bigfoot specimens since at least 1967. They’re real. They’re intelligent. They can speak. And we’ve been lying about it for over 50 years.”

He offers no photographs—cameras were forbidden. No files—everything was classified. Only his testimony, his memory, and the names of other personnel.

He hopes someone will investigate, demand congressional oversight, force declassification of Project Granite Shadow. “Those creatures deserve better than I gave them. The male who spoke to me deserves recognition as a person, not a specimen. The female who sang lullabies deserves acknowledgement as a mother. The juvenile who screamed for three days deserves to be remembered as a child taken from his family.”

Will Anyone Listen?

Carmichael knows what will happen. “The agency will deny everything. They’ll call me senile, delusional, a disgraced agent spreading conspiracy theories. They might threaten legal action, but prosecuting me means admitting the classification level existed. Safer to discredit and dismiss.”

He has no illusions. “Maybe this confession disappears into the noise of internet conspiracy theories and nobody with authority takes it seriously. Either way, I’ve said it now. The truth I’ve carried for half a century is recorded, documented, public.”

As the cancer advances, Carmichael spends his final days thinking of the forest in northern Idaho, the sound of rain on the perimeter fence, the male Bigfoot sitting by his tree, waiting for freedom, recognition, justice.

“I hope he survived. I hope he’s not still in that cage. I hope the program ended, the specimens released. But I don’t believe it. These programs don’t end. They just get reclassified, renamed, moved deeper into the black budget.”

He ends his confession with a simple wish: “I just hope the Bigfoot in zone A, wherever he is now, knows someone finally tried to speak for him.”

Is Bigfoot real? If Carmichael’s story is true, the answer is more complicated—and more troubling—than anyone ever imagined. For now, the rain falls quietly outside his window, and somewhere in the forests of the Northwest, the truth waits to be found.