Piscataquis
County, Maine
July 12, 2003
Near Baxter State Park
My wife and I along
with my 17-year old would-be geologist rock nut son have been hiking some
of the major trails in the Baxter State Park in Maine for the past 6 or
7 summers. The scenery up there is spectacular and the history is interesting.
We stay out for about a week during each trip so we usually leave word
what trails we're taking at the Millinocket HQ. We always stop to talk
to other hikers, especially the older folk like us.
On Saturday evening July 12th we met on the trail a retired botanist and
his wife who invited us to camp nearby and share rations. They were returning
from Roaring Brook via the Russell Pond Trail, which was our direction.
We made ourselves comfortable, and chatted about this and that when our
botanist friend perked up his ears. "Hear that?" my
wife interrupted, "sounds like the whistle of a hawk circling
nearby." Thinking they went to roost at night, (and it was getting
close to dark) we all sat still and listened. The shrill came another
two or three times, each one sounding just like a hawk crying overhead
but the shrill coming from opposite directions. Maybe two red-tailed or
Cooper's hawks?
The ladies excused themselves to find a bush before it got completely
dark and my botanist friend leaned over said, 'you know, that sounded
more like the Katahdin creature." I asked what the Katahdin
creature was and he replied, 'you know, those 'injun devils' up here
that come out at night, probably just a campfire story, but we heard about,
well you know, those bigfoot things that live in parts of the Mt. Katahdin
region." For as long as we've been coming up here, that was
a new one on me. We continued talking about the stories he had amassed
about these wild things and what they might be when we saw the flickering
lights shining hither and yon as the women worked their way back to camp.
My son was deep into some pocket computer game he carries, the gals were
sitting down pullin' on jackets when the loudest whistle came from very
close by and the shrill was loud enough to raise the hairs on the back
of my neck. My son jumped up, grabbing a high power flashlight and shone
it in the direction the shrieking whistle came from. We all went quiet
and listened. But nothing more was heard, Jon Jr., found nothing with
his flashlight and went back to playing with his pocket game boy thinking
we may be disturbing late nesting hawks or something in the trees.
We went on talking until about 10:30 maybe 11:00, it was getting cold
and we were thinking it was time to turn in when my wife tore open a bag
of malted milk balls and passed them around; one last treat before we
turn in for the night, she has to have her chocolate.
Suddenly a small rock landed in the midst of us! Thoroughly annoyed, I
yelled, "what the hell was that" when another small
pebble came flying inbound and hit the center flap on my tent. I grabbed
Jon's flashlight because it had a stronger beam, higher powered and flashed
it around to see what jerk was doing the rock throwing when the botanist
guy says "I think we got company and it isn't a hawk,"
my light followed his light beam which fell on the damnest thing I ever
saw. My jaw dropped. There, standing half way behind a tree was a "something," a man (maybe) but covered with reddish-brown hair everywhere except his
face, naked, no clothing, just covered in hair, some parts shaggy like
under the forearm. The thing stared into our lights for a bit then it
raised its right arm up to sort of shield its eyes then slipped behind
the tree and out of our line of sight and that was about a distance of
some thirty or forty feet. After several rounds of "did you see
that" and "what is that thing" we decided
it was too dark to investigate and the women were to scared to try to
pack up and leave the area. We don't know how long it had been the area,
but we figured the loud shrieking whistles were coming from it or them
and it had been there for some length of time.
The gals calmed down, climbed into the tents and went to sleep. We stayed
up another hour or so until the battery on his flashlight began to dim.
Not knowing what else to do about whatever that thing was standing out
there, finally we agreed to have a look in the morning and turned in.
The rest of the night was uneventful and when morning came, we found no
trace of the hairy man.
It's all very interesting though, now we have a campfire story to tell
in the future. Once we got back home my son and I scoured the Internet
and found your website. I can't be sure, but I think we saw a bigfoot
and I see there have been reports of this creature around Maine's Mt.
Katahdin area since the early 1800's. All the more interesting, wouldn't
you say?
There is nothing more to describe, but we all saw the same thing, just
standing there momentarily then pulled back behind a large tree. That
is our report as preposterous as it sounds, it is all true but sounds
crazy in this day and age. If you put this on your website, no names,
no email address, please.
Just sign me Jon from Orono, Maine (Bangor)
Wednesday August 27, 2003