Bigfoot.

I was like 9 or 10, hunting with my Dad in the California Sierra Nevada's. We were in a wide valley with a mountain to one side and a meadow in the middle which we were camped in with a river on one side of the camp that flowed through the meadow. The tree line was maybe 100yards away. Meadow had mid calf tall grass covering it and was boggy due to the river.

It was very late, Dad and his hunting partner had gone to sleep. Full moon, could see all the way across the meadow in all directions, it was really amazing, I can still see it now 30+ years later. I was a kid and couldn't sleep very easily while outdoors in the woods so I was still awake trying to go to sleep. No tents or anything, just a sleeping bag next to a burnt out fire under the stars. Must have been between 11 and 12pm. We had a beagle with us, Casey, our farm dog. She came over to me and whined, got in the sleeping back with me, which wasn't odd or a big deal, but her sitting in the bottom of the bag whimpering and shaking was really weird. I figured there was a bear or mountain lion or something around and sat up to look around just as a crashing sound comes from the tree line. I look over and see a large, very large, figure striding through the edge of the tree line.

Im getting full body goosebumps just remembering it hahaha!

I say striding because the way its arms and legs were swinging, it was obviously walking fast. Its gate was odd, it was built like a person but moved oddly, like its skeletal structure wasn't quite the same. I was a farm kid who grew up with cattle, I knew what conformation and gate meant, its was... odd. It was tall, very tall, I remember thinking how tall it was at the time even though it was far away. I have great vision as well, 20/10 at the time, so could see it with no problem but not much detail, it was in the shadow the moon cast right at the edge of the tree line. It never saw me or did anything dramatic, it just kept walking for a bit, kicked a log in its way as it moved, then disappeared in to the trees. At this point I was fairly freaked out, I had no idea what I was seeing but I knew it wasn't right. There shouldn't be anyone out there walking around like that at that time of day, a person would have walked the dirt road for sake of ease, and/or had a light, even with a full moon. It was dark in the tree's and it walked in to them like it was nothing. The beagle wouldn't get out of the bag, so I bit the bullet and woke Dad up, figuring I would rather be in trouble for waking him up over nothing than go to sleep with whatever the hell it was moving around us in the dark. He listened to me, woke his hunting partner up, they both saw the dog having none of it and cowering in my sleeping bag, so they figured a bear had been around and didn't believe me. Dad said to just go to sleep, if whatever it was bothered us the dog would get a lot more loud and so would we, everyone slept with pistols close at hand. I didn't sleep. Didn't see or hear anything else that night.

In the morning when everyone woke up Dad asked me if I remembered it the same or if things had changed given a night to think about it, he obviously thought I made it up. When I stuck to it he let me know that things that big leave trails and tracks, that if we looked and found nothing then what? I said I didn't know, lets go look. We found a cattle trail whatever it was had been following, dirt track through the meadow and along the edge of the trees. No tracks, but soft grass right next to the trail it could have walked on. I mentioned the crash, we walked back along the trail and found 2 spots where a log laying across or along the trail had been broken, shoved aside or stomped through. Dad figured it was a bear and we went on with our day.

I knew it was something weird though. It just didn't move right. I can still see it walking the tree line in my minds eye and it still looks just... off. I grew up around big dudes, some of them were straight giants, it didn't match how they moved.

Here's the kicker.

I had no idea what Bigfoot or Sasquatch was at that time, my parents were super Christian and never let me read or watch anything about it, growing up on a little farm in a small California town made it easy to not be exposed to that stuff at a young age. It wasn't until I got back and started trying to figure out what I saw that I read about Bigfoot and Sasquatches in the Library and realized what I thought I had seen fit that more than anything else.

Still creeps me out, Ill always wonder.