He Fed Bigfoot for 40 Years, Then He Learned Why It Fears Us – Sasquatch Story
🌲 The Price of Trust: A Ranger’s Decades-Long Secret
My name is Thomas McKenna, and for nearly four decades, I kept a secret that changes everything we think we know about Bigfoot. I am a 66-year-old retired forest ranger from the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington State. I didn’t just see a Bigfoot; I fed the same one, whom I called “Old Jack,” since 1986. What he eventually revealed to me about why his kind fears humans is a heartbreaking truth rooted in our own violence.
👣 The First Encounter and the Lie
The autumn of 1986 found me, a 28-year-old rookie ranger, investigating reports of property damage at an old hunting cabin. The storage shed door had been wrenched off its hinges with incredible force, and the soft earth held prints that were not of any known animal. They were enormous: 17 inches long, 7 inches wide, vaguely humanoid with five distinct toe impressions, and suggesting a creature weighing between 600 and 800 pounds.
The forest fell unnaturally quiet. Then, I heard it: a low, guttural vocalization that resonated through the trees. Between two massive cedar trees, partially obscured, stood a figure: easily 8 feet tall, covered in dark brown hair, with broad shoulders and a face that seemed to possess unsettling intelligence. This creature, a Bigfoot, watched me.
In the ensuing panic, I drove back to the station and lied to my grizzled supervisor, Bill Henderson. I told him it was a “close call with what might have been a bear.” Bill, however, recognized the detailed measurements and sketches of the prints.
“I’ve been a ranger in these woods for 32 years, kid. I’ve seen a lot of things,” he said, advising me to document it professionally and “keep an open mind.” He hinted that some things were best kept off the official record. I knew then that the secret was shared, at least on the periphery.
🤝 Building a Trust Across Species
For weeks, I couldn’t stop thinking about the creature. My curiosity evolved into a commitment to understand. On November 7th, 1986, I encountered him again. He was standing about 40 yards away, clearly visible in the gray daylight. I slowly sat down on a log and tossed an apple—part of my lunch—halfway between us.
The creature hesitated, then made a series of soft clicks and grunts. It then reciprocated, reaching down to place a branch of huckleberries on the ground before taking the apple. We had established a bizarre, fragile rapport.
Over the next three months, I encountered Old Jack six more times, always bringing offerings—apples, granola bars, dried fish. He left small gifts in return: interesting stones, pine cones, a perfect bird’s nest. By January 1987, he approached within 10 feet. I saw not just intelligence in his eyes, but sadness and weariness.
He reached out, touched a nearby tree trunk, then touched his own chest. He was telling me: the forest is my home; this is who I am in this place.
I promised: “I won’t hurt you, and I won’t tell anyone about you.”
👨👩👧 Family, Scars, and the Dark Truth
The relationship deepened over the following years.
Communication: We developed a form of communication based on vocalization, gesture, and intuition. I learned his preferred foods (salmon, berries).
Trust: In 1989, Old Jack led me to a small, hidden cave—his home—where he kept food, ferns for bedding, and crude, but unmistakable stone tools. He was trusting me with his most vital secret.
Family: In the spring of 1995, Old Jack showed me his mate, whom I called Sarah (smaller, with reddish-brown fur), and their newborn baby. The reunion was a profound, human moment of protection and love. He deliberately sat and ate near me to show Sarah I was safe, the deepest gesture of trust yet.
As the years passed, however, I noticed his increasing agitation, particularly concerning human intrusions (campsites, trash, hunting stands).
In the summer of 2003, the terrible truth was finally revealed. I found Old Jack hunched over, making deep sounds of emotional anguish. He approached me, turned his back, and lifted his arm, revealing deep, old scars running in parallel lines across his ribs and back.
He then communicated his story through gestures and pantomime:
Attack: As a youth, he had a family (before Sarah). Hunters, perhaps four or five figures with guns (clapping hands), ambushed his group.
Survival: He was shot (tracing the scars) and survived only by playing dead while the hunters examined the bodies and left.
The Cover-up: Later, official-looking figures (uniforms) came and took the bodies away, covering everything up.
Genocide: He showed me small, medium, and large figures (families) disappearing one by one, closing his hands into fists repeatedly to show the relentless population decline. He had been hiding alone, traumatized, for nearly a decade before our first encounter.
“That’s why all of you hide,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face. “Because we hunt you. Because we’ve always hunted you.”
He confirmed this, then showed me old, yellowed newspaper clippings and photographs he had collected—evidence of Bigfoot hunting expeditions, bounties, and his kind being displayed as trophies or captured for laboratories.
🕊️ The Final Farewell
By 2010, the wilderness was shrinking. The family was under constant threat.
One late autumn night, Old Jack led me urgently through the fog to a secluded grove. Sarah was seated on the ground, shot. A hunting round had grazed her muscle, lodged deep, and she was bleeding and in shock.
I, a ranger, was their only hope. I cleaned the wound with my canteen and antiseptic from my cabin, knowing standard medical help was impossible. But as I worked, a warning was left in my cabin—a note in heavy, unnatural handwriting: “Don’t go back there.” Someone knew.
As dawn broke, three hunters in camouflage emerged from the fog, rifles slung. They had returned to finish the job. The leader recognized me: “McKenna? Should have known you were hiding something.”
Old Jack rose to his full height, an unyielding wall between his family and danger. I stepped between them and the leader, pleading with him to stop, to see the family as I did.
“You shoot him,” I said, “and you’ll prove everything he’s ever believed about us.”
The leader hesitated, seeing the injured mother and the trembling Little Jack. He saw a father, a survivor, not a monster. The hunters eventually retreated.
Knowing they would return, I urged them to leave, to go deeper, farther into the untracked mountains. Before they disappeared into the mist, Old Jack performed one last gesture: He placed his massive hand over my heart, a final act of gratitude, goodbye, and a transfer of the duty to remember.
I never saw them again. I retired in 2016, but I still leave apples on a stump deep in the Gifford Pinchot. They are always gone by morning. I keep the truth silent, not to deny the world the proof, but to honor the promise I made to a family that found sanctuary from humanity’s fear and violence. They are a living legacy, quietly enduring in the deepest parts of the forest, protected by their silence.
