Bigfoot Attacked an Alaska Sightseeing Train—The Passenger Footage Was Never Released

I’ve told this story a hundred times in my head, always changing one detail—always trying to make it sound more reasonable, more explainable.

An avalanche. A mechanical failure. A freak accident.

That’s what the official report says. That’s what the news anchors repeated with calm voices over stock footage of snowy mountains.

But I was on that train.

And I know the difference between a mountain sliding… and something pushing.

I know the sound metal makes when it bends under weight it was never designed to resist. I know what it feels like when a vehicle the size of a house lurches sideways as if someone has grabbed it with both hands.

Most of all, I know what I saw through the frost-smeared glass—dark shapes moving in perfect coordination, pacing us through the trees like wolves escorting prey.

They didn’t want the train derailed.

They wanted it stopped.

And once it stopped, they started taking us out of it.

1) The “Arctic Explorer Line” That Didn’t Feel Like a Tour

I booked the winter wilderness tour on a whim. Mid-January in Alaska isn’t peak season for anything except survival, but I wanted to see the backcountry the way the brochures promised: untouched snow, quiet forests, a kind of raw beauty you can’t buy anywhere else.

The company called it the Arctic Explorer Line—two passenger cars pulled by an old diesel locomotive on narrow-gauge track. The kind of train you imagine in a museum, except this one still ran, still carried people into places maps barely bothered labeling.

The station was small. The employees were efficient. The whole operation felt older than regulations.

There were 23 passengers when I boarded. I remember because I counted them—an old habit from traveling alone. Tourists with cameras. A couple locals dressed like they expected to sleep outside. A young couple celebrating an anniversary, laughing too loud, taking selfies by the window. A handful of college students on some nature program, energetic and confident. A teenage girl traveling alone with a tight expression like she regretted everything already.

The conductor did his safety briefing. He looked like someone carved out of weathered wood—gray stubble, heavy coat, eyes that didn’t waste time blinking.

“Stay seated,” he said. “Don’t open doors or windows. Emergency exits marked. If we stop, wait for instructions.”

Standard words. Everyone nodded like they always do.

Inside, the car was warm. The windows fogged. The heater clicked and hummed.

Outside was a different planet—white forest, distant mountains, frozen streams turning in the sun like cracked glass.

For two hours, it was perfect.

Then we reached the pass.

A narrow corridor of rock walls and dense spruce where the trees leaned inward as if listening. The train slowed to a crawl, grinding through drifted snow.

I remember thinking—clear as a warning I didn’t understand yet:

If something goes wrong out here, we’re not getting help quickly.

And then something hit us.

2) The First Impact

It wasn’t a derailment.

Derailments have a rhythm—tracks, wheels, gravity. You can almost imagine the physics.

This was a shove.

The first impact threw the entire car sideways. People slammed into windows, into seatbacks, into each other. My ribs cracked against the glass and the pain came so fast it felt like a bright white light behind my eyes.

Metal screamed—an awful, tearing shriek that made everyone go silent for a fraction of a second, the way people do when reality shifts and their brains stall.

Then the lights flickered.

Emergency red bulbs clicked on, turning faces into frightened masks.

Outside the frosted window, I saw a massive dark shape pressed against the car.

At first my brain tried to label it safely.

Moose.

Bear.

A fallen tree dragged by wind.

Then it moved—upright, deliberate—and the label broke.

It was tall. Nine feet at least, maybe more. Fur dark as wet bark against the snow. Shoulders too wide. Arms hanging low, swinging with controlled power.

And it was pushing the train.

Not charging and bouncing off like an animal.

Pushing—hands planted on metal, muscles working with calm, methodical force.

The side wall buckled inward.

I watched rivets pop free like tiny bullets.

Windows spiderwebbed.

The whole car bent the way a soda can bends when someone crushes it slowly.

People screamed.

Some prayed.

The conductor grabbed his radio, shouting into it—words I only caught in fragments:

“—multiple contacts—something’s hitting the cars—need immediate—”

Then the radio cut into static.

And in that moment—before the second impact even landed—I understood something that made my stomach turn cold:

Whatever was outside didn’t want us calling anyone.

3) Not One. A Group.

The second impact hit from a different angle, harder, and the train car tilted until the floor became a slope.

Passengers tumbled like loose cargo.

Through broken glass and blurred frost, I saw more shapes emerging from the treeline.

Not one.

Three, maybe four, moving into positions—front, back, sides—like they knew exactly where to apply force.

The howling started.

Deep calls that seemed to vibrate in my chest, bouncing off rock walls, answered by others farther back in the forest.

We weren’t just being attacked.

We were being surrounded.

Then one of them moved toward the door.

It didn’t run. It didn’t rush. It approached with the confidence of something that doesn’t fear steel, locks, or humans.

Up close, it looked worse.

The arms were too long. The chest too broad. The hands—God—those hands were like clubs with fingers thick as branches.

It reached for the door.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then it pulled.

The steel shrieked. Rivets shot out. The entire door—frame and all—tore away as if the train had been built from cheap foil.

Freezing air slammed into the car, instantly turning breath to smoke.

And with that air came the smell—wet fur, old earth, something rancid and wild that made people gag.

The creature stood in the doorway, a silhouette against the failing light, and its eyes reflected faintly like dark glass.

Not confused.

Not startled.

Focused.

The way a hunter looks at prey that’s finally cornered.

Panic turned into stampede.

People crawled over seats. A man tried to shield his wife. The college students scrambled toward the far windows. The conductor tried to herd people toward the rear exit.

And the Bigfoot reached in.

Not wildly.

Precisely.

It grabbed an elderly man who couldn’t move fast enough, caught him by the coat, and pulled.

The man’s nails tore at upholstery. His scream ripped through the car.

Then he was yanked out into the snow.

His scream cut off in three seconds.

I heard a wet, heavy impact outside.

Then nothing.

That’s when I knew the truth we all avoid until it’s too late:

They weren’t trying to scare us away.

They were taking us.

4) The Window Escape

Someone—one of the younger men—started kicking at a cracked window on the opposite side. The glass held for a few blows, then finally burst outward in a spray.

Cold poured in.

It felt like stepping into a freezer filled with knives.

I climbed through the jagged frame, hands shaking so hard I could barely grip. Dropped six feet into powder so loose it swallowed my legs to the thigh. I landed wrong on my ribs and nearly blacked out.

Others followed. Not everyone—just whoever was close enough, fast enough, lucky enough.

Eight of us made it out:

me
two middle-aged women wearing fleece like it was a mild winter day
three older men, already pale with shock
the college hoodie guy
the teenage girl in real winter gear, face blank with terror

Behind us, the train car was on its side like a wounded animal.

And Bigfoots were everywhere—at least six I could see, maybe more in the trees.

They moved through deep snow like it didn’t exist.

I saw one chase a man who tried to run toward the locomotive. It caught him easily, lifted him, slammed him down so hard the snow shook.

The conductor went down too.

The howling intensified—calls answered by more voices from deeper in the forest.

They weren’t exhausted.

They weren’t frantic.

They were organized.

And we were stumbling through waist-deep snow like toddlers trying to outrun wolves.

We hit the treeline and plunged under branches heavy with snow. The forest swallowed light. Darkness came early, thick and absolute.

We kept moving until our bodies refused.

5) Night One: The Ravine

We found a shallow ravine with a rocky overhang and collapsed beneath it, huddling like animals. My sneakers were soaked through. I couldn’t feel my toes. My fingers went stiff and clumsy.

One older man had a gash on his forehead that wouldn’t stop bleeding. He drifted in and out, mumbling nonsense.

We had no supplies. No fire. No map. No signal.

Then we heard footsteps in the snow.

Heavy. Unhurried.

Everyone went silent so fast it was like the air got sucked away.

Through a gap in the rocks I saw it pass—maybe twenty feet away. It moved slowly, sniffing the air. The kind of confident patrol you’d expect from something that knows the land belongs to it.

It stopped near the ravine.

Turned its head slightly.

And for a long moment, I was sure it knew exactly where we were.

I held my breath until my lungs burned.

Then it inhaled deeply—one long smell of the air—and moved on.

The footsteps faded.

We didn’t move for an hour.

Around midnight, the injured man’s breathing slowed.

Then stopped.

No dramatic last words.

Just the quiet ending of a body that couldn’t fight cold and blood loss at the same time.

We left him there, because the alternative was joining him.

And that guilt still sits in my throat like a stone.

6) Day Two: Realizing We Were Being Tracked

Morning came late, gray and weak.

We looked like ghosts—blue lips, pale skin, that glassy stare that means hypothermia is winning.

We picked a direction that felt like south and started moving, step by step, dragging ourselves through snow that fought every inch.

That’s when we started seeing the footprints.

Huge tracks—eighteen inches long, maybe eight wide—fresh in the snow, crisscrossing the forest.

They weren’t random.

They overlapped our trail.

They ran parallel.

They circled ahead.

They weren’t just in the area.

They were following us.

One woman suggested walking along a frozen stream to hide our tracks. It sounded smart. It also sounded like the kind of decision people make right before the wilderness punishes them.

The ice cracked under one of the women.

She went in to her waist, gasping as freezing water grabbed her.

We pulled her out fast, but in that temperature wet clothing is a countdown.

Her pants began to freeze stiff within minutes, making a crackling sound when she moved.

We tried to make shelter.

Tried to get a fire going.

Our hands were too numb.

And then the howling came again—closer.

This time they didn’t just trail us.

They closed.

Three figures emerged from different directions, spreading out with frightening calm like wolves forming a ring.

Everyone scattered.

I ran with the teenage girl and the hoodie guy, crashing through brush, lungs burning, ribs screaming.

Behind us came human screams—then silence.

We slid down an embankment and nearly went over a cliff edge, catching ourselves against frozen rock.

Above us, we heard them moving—grunts, low rumbling sounds like communication.

Not mindless noise.

Coordination.

They searched in patterns.

Checked hollows.

Probed clusters of trees.

Methodical, patient—like they knew time was on their side.

Because it was.

The cold would weaken us even if they didn’t touch us.

7) Night Two: The Snow Cave

By dusk, it was just me, the teenage girl, and the hoodie guy.

He was slipping—slurred speech, confusion, violent shivering, the classic spiral.

We hid beneath dense evergreens. One of the creatures came within ten feet. I smelled that wet, rancid fur again and almost vomited.

It paused.

And I thought that was it.

Then it moved on, continuing the grid search.

That’s when the hoodie guy lost his mind.

Hypothermia does that—turns rational people into panicked animals.

He bolted into the open.

We tried to grab him. Missed.

The chase lasted maybe twenty seconds.

A dark shape moved through deep snow with impossible speed.

A scream.

A wet impact.

Silence.

The teenage girl sobbed silently beside me, tears freezing on her cheeks. I covered her mouth with my hand, not to hurt her—because even a single loud sound felt like a flare in that forest.

We crawled away and found a small snow cave formed by drift and wind, packed snow at the entrance, and waited in darkness so complete it felt like being buried alive.

Outside, we heard them all night.

Footsteps circling.

Occasional low calls.

Once something heavy walked directly over the roof of our cave and the snow partially collapsed, spilling down onto us.

We dug ourselves out silently, shaking with terror.

The girl whispered she couldn’t feel her feet.

I didn’t answer, because saying the truth out loud would’ve broken what little will we had left.

8) The Lake and the Helicopter

At first light we dragged ourselves out. She couldn’t walk anymore. I half-carried, half-dragged her, my body running on pure refusal to die.

We reached a frozen lake and stepped onto the ice because it was faster than pushing through forest.

Halfway across, I saw four figures at the treeline.

They watched.

They didn’t follow onto the ice.

Not because they feared us—because they feared the ice.

Then they began howling—long calls that echoed across the lake.

Calling others.

Marking our location.

When we reached the far shore, we collapsed.

And then—faint, distant—the sound that saved us:

Helicopter rotors.

I screamed until my throat tore.

Waved my arms.

The girl barely moved.

Behind us, crashing through trees—fast.

They were coming to finish it before rescue could reach us.

The biggest one burst from the treeline, charging straight at us, snow exploding under its feet.

I tried to move. Fell. The pain in my ribs nearly blacked me out.

Then gunshots cracked through the air.

Four rangers appeared from the left with heavy rifles, forming a defensive line like they’d rehearsed it.

They fired—sharp, controlled warning bursts.

The charging creature veered away into the forest.

But more silhouettes appeared at the edges, testing the perimeter, trying angles.

The rangers kept firing, pushing them back.

And that’s when a cold, ugly thought hit me:

They weren’t surprised.

Not the way anyone would be if a “myth” charged out of the trees.

They moved like this was a scenario they’d trained for.

The helicopter dropped into a clearing. The side door slid open. More rangers jumped out.

They loaded the girl first.

Then me.

As we lifted off, I looked down.

At least six of them stood in the snow, perfectly still, watching the helicopter rise.

Not scattering.

Not hiding.

Just watching—intelligent and unafraid.

Like predators denied a meal, not defeated.

9) The Cover Story

In Anchorage, I woke up with IV lines and pain so deep it felt like my bones were humming.

Hypothermia. Frostbite. Pneumonia. Broken ribs.

I lost toes. I lost feeling in fingers.

The girl lost more.

And then, within a day, two men in dark suits came to speak with me.

They asked questions like they were checking boxes, not discovering anything.

How many did you see?

How did they move?

Did you hear vocalizations?

Did the rangers speak about protocols?

They weren’t shocked.

They were confirming.

A week later the official report hit the news:

Avalanche and mechanical failure. Passengers separated. Deaths from exposure and injuries. Some injuries blamed on wildlife—bears.

Bears.

In January.

In that pass.

I tried to contact a reporter.

Within an hour, the “suits” were at my hotel with a settlement and a non-disclosure agreement.

They didn’t threaten me loudly.

They threatened me politely—using words like public panic, national security, evaluation, facility.

I signed, because I was broken and terrified and very aware that eighteen people were dead and nobody in power was interested in a truth that didn’t fit.

The route shut down. The area became restricted. The rangers were transferred.

And everyone else went on believing winter wilderness is dangerous only in the normal ways.

10) Why I’m Telling You Anyway

Three years have passed.

I still wake up hearing howling in my dreams.

I still see dark shapes standing in snow, watching, waiting.

Maybe you’ll call it fiction. Maybe you’ll call me insane. Maybe you’ll say grief and trauma twisted my memory into monsters.

But if you ever find yourself on a remote route—train tracks slicing through forest, mountains hemming you in, daylight fading too fast—listen to the oldest instinct you have.

Not the one that says this is exciting.

The one that says:

You are not alone out here.

Because what hit our train wasn’t weather.

It was not bad luck.

It was a hunt.

And we were never supposed to make it out.