Terrifying Hermit Priest’s Encounter With Bigfoot – DISTURBING BIGFOOT STORY Compilation – Part 1
WHEN THE FOREST ANSWERED BACK
Part One: The Trial in the Wilderness
Chapter I – A Life Set Apart
In all my years of serving God, I believed I had grown accustomed to mystery.
.
.
.
Faith, after all, is built upon the unseen. We pray to a God we cannot touch, trust in promises we cannot measure, and submit ourselves to a divine will that often reveals itself only in fragments. Yet nothing in my decades of ministry—nothing in the writings of the saints or the quiet discipline of prayer—prepared me for what unfolded in the wilderness of northern Oregon.
I record these events now not to invite fear or fascination, but as testimony. A record of God’s providence when human understanding failed entirely.
I am an Orthodox priest, ordained for more than twelve years. Four years ago, after decades of serving urban parishes—crowded churches, endless confessions, relentless noise—I sought solitude. With the blessing of my bishop, I withdrew to the mountains of northern Oregon, settling nearly thirty miles from the nearest town.
My cabin stood alone in a small clearing, embraced on all sides by ancient forest. Old-growth pine and fir rose like cathedral pillars, their crowns interwoven so tightly that sunlight filtered through in pale, reverent beams. I cultivated a modest farm: a vegetable garden, chickens, two goats, and a gentle mare who had become my quiet companion. It was a life stripped to essentials—prayer, labor, silence.
For four years, peace reigned.
Until early September.
Chapter II – The First Sign
The first disturbance came on a Tuesday morning, unremarkable in every way except one.
Mist clung low to the forest floor as I walked the perimeter of my land, checking fence posts and offering silent prayers of thanksgiving. Near the creek that bordered my eastern boundary, something in the soft earth stopped me cold.
A footprint.
It was enormous—eighteen inches long, seven inches wide, pressed deep into the mud as if the ground itself had yielded under immense weight. Five toes were clearly visible. Human in shape, yet grotesquely large.
I knelt beside it, heart pounding, trying to reason away what my eyes told me. A bear, perhaps. Distorted by rain. But bears did not leave prints like this. Bears did not have arches. Bears did not walk upright.
A quiet unease settled over me.
I said a short prayer and continued my walk, but the forest felt altered. Heavy. As though something watched from behind the tree line, patient and unseen.
Chapter III – Footsteps Near the Altar
I tried to forget the print.
For several days, I buried myself in routine—prayers at dawn, tending the animals, study in the afternoons. Yet during evening prayers, my thoughts wandered. I found myself recalling the Desert Fathers, those early monks who fled civilization only to encounter trials far greater than any city could offer.
Saint Anthony wrote of terrifying visions. Saint Macarius spoke of beings neither beast nor man. Their resolve was tested in isolation.
Was this my desert?
Three days later, the second footprint appeared.
This time it lay in my garden.
Between rows of beans and squash, pressed so deeply into the soil that the earth around it had cracked. I knelt to examine it, my hands trembling. The toes were long. Nail marks gouged into the dirt. The heel was broad and sunken.
But it was the arch that disturbed me most.
Too perfect. Too human.
That night, I prayed longer than I had in years.
Chapter IV – Gifts from the Forest
The gifts began four days later.
I noticed the first one hanging from a low branch near the chicken coop—a bundle of smooth river stones threaded together with strips of bark, knotted carefully into an intricate pattern. The stones were polished by water, perfectly rounded.
The nearest river was over two miles away.
I examined the object with care. The bark had been deliberately prepared, twisted and dried. This was not random. This was intentional.
I hung it back where I found it.
By morning, it was gone.
Two days later, another appeared—this one suspended above my garden gate. Feathers, small bones, and carved wood woven together with the same bark strips. Crow. Hawk. Perhaps eagle.
The bones were cleaned.
Arranged.
I began to feel less like a hermit and more like a watched participant in some ancient ritual.
Chapter V – Circles and Symbols
The sense of being observed became constant.
During morning prayers, my eyes drifted toward the forest. While splitting wood, I felt watched. And one afternoon, while walking the perimeter, I discovered something that made my blood run cold.
Footprints.
Not one.
Many.
They formed a rough circle around my cabin, just beyond the clearing, half-hidden in shadow. Some were fresh. Others older, filled with leaves.
The realization struck me with force: whatever this creature was, it had been studying me for weeks. Learning my routines. Measuring my life.
The third gift appeared a week later, placed directly on my porch.
A carved wooden plaque.
The symbols etched into its surface did not belong to any language I knew, yet they told a story. Animals. Human figures. A structure resembling my cabin. Larger figures watching from the edges.
The carvings were deep—cut with tremendous force.
That night, sleep abandoned me entirely.
Chapter VI – The Shrine
As the signs multiplied, denial became impossible.
Trees deeper in the forest bore clawed markings seven feet above the ground. Branches were snapped and uprooted, not broken by wind but torn from the earth. I discovered crude shelters constructed from logs—too large for any man.
Then I found the clearing.
A circle of stones.
Bones arranged carefully at the center.
Feathers. Carved symbols.
An altar.
As I stood there, a profound sense of trespass washed over me. This was sacred ground—not to God, but to something else.
I fled back to my cabin, whispering prayers with each step.
Chapter VII – The First Encounter
Three weeks into this ordeal, I finally saw it.
Late afternoon light filtered through the trees as I chopped wood behind the cabin. Movement caught my eye—too deliberate to be wind.
Between two massive pines stood a figure over eight feet tall.
Upright.
Broad-shouldered.
Covered in dark hair.
Its face was heavy, primitive, yet undeniably intelligent. It did not charge. It did not flee. It simply stood there, allowing itself to be seen.
We stared at one another in silence.
Then it turned and vanished into the forest.
I stood frozen, axe slipping from my grasp.
The world I thought I knew had cracked open.
Chapter VIII – The Countdown
Aggression followed revelation.
My chicken coop was torn apart. Hens vanished. Symbols carved into the earth. Stones placed deliberately—five, then four, then three—each closer to my cabin.
A countdown.
I reinforced my home. Moved my animals close. Boarded windows. Barricaded doors.
That night, the forest went silent.
Then the sounds began.
Footsteps.
Growls.
More than one.
They circled the cabin, coordinated and patient.
When the pounding started, the walls shook.
An eye appeared at my window.
Watching.
Thinking.
Then my horse screamed.
And the creatures turned away.
Chapter IX – Dawn of Understanding
Morning revealed devastation.
My animals lay dead or missing. My horse… gone.
I followed the trail into the forest and found what remained of her.
She had drawn them away from me.
Her terror had saved my life.
As I knelt there, grief-stricken, a terrible clarity settled over me. God had answered my prayers—not by removing danger, but by redirecting it.
A sacrifice.
I left that day.
I have never returned.
Chapter X – The Mystery Continues
I now live among people again. I serve God within walls and voices and light. Yet the forest has never left me.
I still see that eye when I close my own.
And I know—deep in my soul—that what I encountered was not mere animal, nor simple evil.
It was part of creation.
A mystery permitted.
And this was only the beginning.
