‘WE WERE SENT TO KILL BIGFOOT’ – Army Veteran’s Terrifying Sasquatch Encounter
THE MOUNTAINS THAT REMEMBER
Chapter One: The Life I Built to Forget
I never planned on telling this story.
For five years, I convinced myself that silence was the safest option. I signed papers that said I wouldn’t speak. More than that, I made a personal promise to myself that I wouldn’t dig those memories back up. Some things, once unearthed, don’t go back into the ground cleanly.
.
.
.
In 2019, my life was quiet by design. I was a veteran—two tours overseas, enough combat to last me the rest of my lifetime. When I came home, I didn’t chase excitement. I didn’t chase purpose. I chased routine. I bought a small, aging house with a roof that leaked when it rained. I worked part-time at a hardware store, helping people find screws and paint colors. I lived off my military pension.
It was boring. Wonderfully, painfully boring.
After everything I’d seen, boredom felt like peace.
I wasn’t looking for adventure. I wasn’t looking for danger. And I definitely wasn’t looking for answers about what might still exist beyond the edges of civilization.
Then, one Tuesday afternoon in October, my phone rang.
The number wasn’t saved. I almost let it go to voicemail. But old habits die hard. I answered.
The voice belonged to someone I’d served with years earlier. We hadn’t spoken in six years, but recognition was instant. We exchanged the usual small talk, the polite lies veterans tell each other about how well we’re adjusting.
Then his voice shifted.
He asked if I needed money.
The question hit harder than I expected. I told him I was doing okay. That wasn’t entirely false. My pension covered food and utilities. But the roof needed work, and I’d been ignoring dental problems because of the cost. Every unexpected bill felt like a slow-motion disaster.
He told me he had an opportunity. Private contract work. Five days, maybe less. Fifteen thousand dollars in cash.
No questions asked.
I should have hung up.
Instead, I asked what kind of work it was.
“Security,” he said. “Remote. Mountains. They need people with military experience. People who can handle themselves.”
Against my better judgment, I agreed to hear the briefing.
That was the moment my quiet life began to unravel.
Chapter Two: The Briefing at the Edge of Nowhere
Two days later, I drove north to a small airfield in Washington State.
The farther I went, the more remote everything became. Cell service faded. Towns grew farther apart. Forest swallowed the roads. By the time I reached the airfield, it looked like something forgotten by time—one cracked runway, a few weathered hangars, dense forest pressing in from every direction.
Five other vehicles were already parked there. Trucks and SUVs. Practical choices. Nothing flashy.
Seven men stood near one of the hangars. All veterans. You can always tell. The posture. The eyes. The way everyone quietly assessed each other without a word being said.
No one used last names.
Inside the hangar sat a large civilian helicopter, rotors idle, a pilot running checks without acknowledging us. At the back, a folding table held topographical maps of a mountain valley deep in the Cascades.
The man running the briefing wore expensive outdoor gear and introduced himself using only a first name. Former military intelligence. Now private security and consulting. He represented clients who preferred anonymity—people with problems that couldn’t be solved through official channels.
Then he asked a question I’ll never forget.
“How many of you believe Bigfoot is real?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
No one else did.
The man waited patiently for me to stop, then continued as if nothing had happened. He said Sasquatch were real—remnant hominids, intelligent, powerful, perfectly adapted to deep wilderness. He explained that they avoided human contact, which was why sightings were rare and evidence scarce. According to him, certain government agencies actively suppressed proof to avoid the legal and ethical complications of acknowledging an intelligent non-human species.
I kept waiting for the punchline.
It never came.
He showed us photos first—blurry trail cam images of something massive moving between trees. Then he showed us crime scene photos.
Three hikers. Dead. Torn apart. Injuries that didn’t match any known animal. Officially labeled as bear attacks, but the wounds told a different story. Deliberate. Intelligent. Targeted.
Two weeks earlier, a park ranger had seen one up close. Eight to nine feet tall. Dark reddish-brown fur. Walking upright. Watching him with human-like eyes before disappearing into the forest.
The mission was simple.
Track the creature to its den. Eliminate the threat.
Off the books. No records. Fifteen thousand dollars each.
We were given two hours to decide.
Two men walked away.
I didn’t.
Chapter Three: Into the Wilderness
We lifted off in the late afternoon, the sun already sinking low in the October sky.
Below us stretched endless forest—mountains rising like dark walls in the distance. No roads. No trails. Just untouched wilderness. The plan was to land in a clearing about half a mile from a suspected den near a cave system.
As we descended, the terrain revealed itself—dense forest, rocky outcroppings, steep slopes swallowed by shadow. A perfect place for something that didn’t want to be found.
The helicopter touched down hard. Six men jumped out immediately, forming a defensive perimeter. My old squadmate led them. A former Marine named Richards and I stayed behind to secure the landing zone and protect the helicopter.
The clearing was silent.
No birds. No insects. No movement.
Twenty minutes later, radio chatter confirmed the team had found tracks near a creek. Massive footprints. Too large for a human. Too deliberate for a bear.
That uneasy feeling in my gut tightened.
Then Richards raised his rifle.
I followed his aim toward the northwest edge of the clearing. At first, I saw nothing. Then something massive shifted behind the trees.
It stepped into the open.
Eight and a half feet tall. Broad shoulders. Arms hanging past its knees. Dark fur matted with dirt and leaves. A face that looked almost human—but wrong.
It stared directly at us.
Richards fired first.
The bullet struck its chest. Blood sprayed.
The creature didn’t fall.
I fired next, hitting its shoulder. It roared—a deep, guttural sound with an almost human quality that made my skin crawl. The sound vibrated in my chest, rattled my teeth.
Then it charged.
Chapter Four: The Helicopter Fight
We fired again and again.
The creature closed the distance with impossible speed, moving in a loping gait that reminded me of a gorilla—but faster, more fluid. The pilot saw it coming and tried to lift off. The helicopter shuddered upward just as the creature leapt.
One massive hand grabbed the landing skid.
The helicopter tilted violently.
The creature was pulling us down.
The pilot screamed for us to shoot it, but I couldn’t get a clear shot without hitting the aircraft. Richards emptied his pistol into the creature’s side at point-blank range. It flinched but didn’t let go.
The pilot grabbed an emergency axe and leaned out the door, hacking down on the creature’s hand. Bone split. Blood sprayed. The creature roared in pain and released one hand—but kept hold with the other.
For a horrifying moment, it tried to climb inside.
A violent banking maneuver finally broke its grip. The creature fell twelve feet, landed in a crouch, and rose again—bleeding, furious, but alive.
Instead of charging, it turned and ran.
Straight toward our team.
That’s when the radio crackled.
“Multiple contacts,” my squadmate said. “They’re coordinating. We’re surrounded.”
There was more than one.
Chapter Five: The Ravine
What we found in the ravine wasn’t a firefight.
It was a massacre paused mid-motion.
Six men scattered across rocky ground. Two were already dead. Others were broken, bleeding, screaming. Massive shapes moved through the trees—circling, flanking, using cover.
This wasn’t animal behavior.
This was tactical.
One creature lunged from behind a fallen tree and struck a man with the force of a vehicle. I fired into its back. It turned, locked eyes with me—
Then withdrew.
And then they all did.
Silence fell.
As we treated the wounded, one man started laughing hysterically.
“They were waiting for us,” he said. “Those scratches on the trees weren’t random. They’re territory markers.”
I saw them then—deep gouges high up the trunks. Deliberate. Evenly spaced.
Warnings.
We hadn’t stumbled onto a monster.
We had invaded a home.
Chapter Six: The Message
Extraction was a nightmare.
We moved the wounded in groups, slow and exposed. Something followed us through the forest—never attacking, just keeping pace.
Watching.
On the final run, another creature stepped into the clearing. Larger. Gray-furred.
It picked up a rock the size of a basketball and threw it with terrifying accuracy. Metal crumpled. Warning alarms screamed.
The second rock hit the rotor assembly.
The pilot didn’t wait for a third.
We lifted off barely airborne, helicopter shaking violently as three massive figures stood at the edge of the clearing watching us leave.
Not chasing.
Not hiding.
Claiming victory.
Chapter Seven: What We Learned
Two men died.
Five survived, though none unchanged.
We signed non-disclosure agreements so airtight they might as well have been graves. The money fixed my roof. Fixed my teeth. It didn’t fix the nightmares.
I still see them sometimes—standing in that clearing, watching us go.
They weren’t monsters.
They were defenders.
And now I understand why the truth stays buried.
Because if people knew what really lived out there, they wouldn’t know what to do with it.
So if you’re ever deep in the wilderness and you feel watched—leave.
That feeling isn’t imagination.
It’s permission.
And next time, it might not be given.
