SC EP:1120 Police Officer Encounters Sasquatch

Paul writes “Hi Wes. I’ve been listening to your show for quite some time now. I’ve had two sightings in different locations here in Louisiana but have been reluctant to share with anyone for a few reasons.

I’m born and raised in South Louisiana and also spent a lot of time in East and NE Texas. I’ve spent a good amount of time outdoors and in the woods hunting, camping and fishing. I’m a Police officer which is one of my reasons for being reluctant to share.

The First event took place on June 1st 2019

I say event because I didn’t physically see anything. My son (he was 6 1/2 at the time) and I were remote camping in the Kisatchie National Forest. The location was located between Alexandria and Natchitoches LA. We had camped at this same location at least 3 times prior to this without any issues. It was not a designated camping spot but more of a clearing with bluffs on 3 sides. It’s a beautiful location that’s slightly off the beaten path of a remote fire road. We had met a friend of mine and his girlfriend there the day before for a couple of days of camping and off-roading. We set up camp on Friday afternoon, the day before. We both drove off-road Toyota 4runners. He had a roof top tent on his and we set up our large ground tent. Now me being a LEO I go pretty much everywhere heavily armed, especially remote camping. This trip I had my sidearm, a Sig P320 9mm, and also my suppressed .300 Blkout SBR M4 style rifle with two 30 round mags. Yes I’m a gun nerd. We all just hung out that evening around the fire and had sandwiches. That night we went to bed at about 10pm. I had my pistol and rifle in the tent with me. My son and I slept on a queen size inflatable mattress. We heard nothing outside of the normal forest sounds that night. The next day we went off for the day exploring and off-roading around the area. I left my tent and gear setup there, as I did many times before.

We got back to camp around 4pm Saturday afternoon. It seemed like a few items were scattered around but I couldn’t be sure and just thought maybe it was the wind or something. That evening rather than sandwiches again we cooked tacos and made smores. Yeah they were jam up!! We sat around the fire again just talking until about 9ish and then went to our tents. I’d say we were about 30-40 yards from each other. My son wanted to watch a movie on the iPad so we did that for a while until he fell asleep. I remember it was right at 11pm because I got out of the tent to put the iPad in the truck to charge. My phone was also in the truck because there was zero cell coverage there so it was pointless having it in the tent. I went back in the tent, took my pants and shirt off because it’s hot as shit here and got settled in for bed. Then it dawned on me I forgot my rifle in the locked case in my 4Runner. I had my 9mm with me so I said screw it as I didn’t feel like getting dressed again to go get it. Only real threat we have here would be black bears although I’d never seen one out there so I figured 16 rounds of 9mm would be more than sufficient for anything I might need.

I had no way at this point to tell the time but I’m guessing it was about 30 minutes or so later that things got really strange. I was just drifting off to sleep but an eerie sense of complete silence came over me. I mean nothing was making noise, no crickets, birds or anything. Then I heard something coming up from the slight bluff through thickett behind us. It was a moderately wooded area but not real thick. My kid was playing in that same area that afternoon so I was familiar with the area. Whatever was coming up from the woods was stealthy but still made some noise moving through the brush. I could easily tell it was big, at least big in the sense that it wasn’t a opossum or raccoon or something like that. My first thought was a bear. My second thought was I didn’t have my damn rifle and the truck was locked and at least 30 yards from the tent. I reached for my pistol and slid it out of the holster and layed it across my chest. I thought about getting the truck keys and setting off the panic mode, hoping that would scare off whatever it was. I reached around trying to find where I put my pants to get my keys but I couldn’t find them from where I was laying.

I was trying not to make any noise so I didn’t want to get up. It was at that time that I heard a loud pop, like when you step on a stick and it breaks. The movement at that time completely stopped. It was as if whatever it was knew it made a loud noise and paused walking. At least a minute or two went by without a single sound, then it started walking toward the tent again. As it got closer I could clearly tell that it was walking on 2 legs. It was definitely bipedal, no doubt. I thought this is a person but who hell would be coming out of the woods at midnight and approaching an unknown camp. The sound and weight of the foot steps as it got closer was no way a person. They were so heavy sounding.

As it stepped close to the tent you could feel them on the ground. Not shaking the ground per say but damn you could feel the percussion of them. It walked right next to the tent down one side, and I mean right next to it. Wes I’ve never been scared for my life until this night. My only thought was “please don’t let my son wake up”. I knew if he did he would make noise and I was trying to be completely quiet. I had a death grip on my pistol but something told me a 9mm was not nearly enough for whatever was out there. I made up my mind that shooting it was a last ditch resort. I thought my safest option was complete silence. It made its way around the head of the tent and then stepped away a little bit. Like maybe to check out the truck. I immediately heard it come closer to the tent again and start down the other side, walking the opposite way, like toward where it came from. It was then I almost died. It touched the outer roof of the tent as it walked the entire length of the tent.

I could only imagine that it drug its finger down the tent as it walked along. It was a pitch black night so I couldn’t see anything or even a shadow, but I could see the tent shake and it touched the roof. As it got to the end of that side it paused for a few seconds and then continued out towards the woods. This walk was different though. It was more hurried and seemed to not care about the noise it was making. As it hit the woods you could hear it pick up the pace as it made its way through the brush. I layed there completely still. Maybe after a few minutes or so the forest returned to its normal sounds.

The whole thing lasted what seemed like maybe 5 minutes but honestly I really don’t know. Other than the footsteps it made little to no sounds other than 2 maybe 3 slight huffs, if you know what I mean. There was a noticeable odor as it was close but nothing putrid as I’ve heard people report. Wes again I was terrified for my son’s safety the most. I swear I layed in that exact position until the sun came up. I don’t think I fell asleep at all. I wanted to get up and try to retrieve my rifle from the truck but I was scared that it was still watching. If my kid wouldn’t have been there I think I would have reacted differently but also probably foolishly as well. I feel him being there may have actually saved my life. I didn’t get out of the tent until I heard my buddy get out of his. I came out and looked around and nothing had been disturbed. I asked him if he heard anything last night. He said he thought he heard someone walking around but figured it was me getting up to pee or something. I looked around the tent to see if I saw prints of any kind but the ground was hard and grassy. I could see where the area around the tent was disturbed but no prints of any kind. I don’t know what that thing was but I know it was huge. There is no way anything that wasn’t walking upright could reach the roof of the tent. I know without a doubt it was not a person. If it was, he was huge!!!! Again I know I’m leaving out so many details here.

Second Sighting

This sighting was on November 8th 2020. It was just North of I-10 near the town of Rosedale. This is on the Eastern edge of Atchafalaya Basin and very close to the Sherburne Wildlife Management Area. The area is very rural, with wetland woods and sugarcane fields. I was on my way home from Texas traveling East on LA 76 about 1am. Again the road has no lighting and is very dark, with no traffic at that time of night. My 4Runner has ditch lights installed for off-roading. These are in intensity LED cubes mounted at the base of the windshield angled at 45 degree outward. They are to light up the ditch area out to the side of the truck when off-road. I normally wouldn’t run these on the highway but I usually do on this road because it’s so dark and there are deer everywhere along this stretch. Where I was the highway is elevate about 3-4′ higher that the surrounding field.I was traveling along a cane field which is separated from the road by a deep ditch, maybe 10′ deep and about 20′ wide, and there is about a 20 yard separation from the edge of the ditch to where the cane is planted.

November is right at harvest time so the cane is about 10-12′ tall at this point. I’m going about 45 mph along this cane field and coming up to a point where the cane ends and the woodline starts. I travel this road often so I know where the marker reflectors are but in the distance I see a pair of what I thought were amber reflectors in the field where I know they shouldn’t be. Now keep in mind I have way more lighting than the average vehicle so I’m seeing this at probably 100 yards or so. I know this isn’t right so I took my foot off of the gas and started slowing down a little bit to check this out. As I get closer I see that these are not reflectors. I very clearly see a huge creature standing at the corner of this cane field holding a dead deer in its arms. I’m completely in shock at what I’m looking at but I immediately know what it was. There was at least an 8′ Sasquatch standing there looking back at me.

It was standing against the cane close to where the woods were. It was maybe 2′ shorter than the cane so it was easily 8′ tall. It was holding a whitetail doe in both arms like it was cradling it. The deer’s head was twisted the wrong way from where it should have been, obviously its neck had been broken. My thought is it had chased the deer down from the cane or woods and I just happened along at that moment. It was looking at me with the same amazement as I was looking at it. It just had the oh shit I’m caught look. It was completely frozen as I was passing. I would have thought it was a statue except as I passed it took a step with its left foot to watch me pass, rather than turning its neck. I just drove past it until I couldn’t see it any longer and then thought to myself, “you idiot why didn’t you stop”.

Like before I just had this fear come over me. When I snapped but to my senses I knew I had to go back. Maybe another 100 yards past there was a culvert over the ditch that I was able to turn around at. I floored it back to where it was but it was gone. I pulled over another culvert right where it was, shining my lights down the stretch of dirt road between the cane and the woods but didn’t see anything. I really thought about driving back there or getting out and looking for tracks but all I had was my 9mm with me. There is almost zero chance that would have offered me any protection from this creature had it chosen to come after me. I sat there for 10 minutes just looking all around hoping for another glimpse.

Like I said it was at least 8′ tall with dark brown hair (I’d say cinnamon brown but darker). It was completely covered in hair except for the face around the eyes and cheek area. The skin there is what I’d describe as brown for several shades lighter than the hair, I guess maybe tan. The eyes were huge like the size of coffee cups and the eyes reflected a bright amber color, reflected not shined. The head was smaller in proportion to the shoulder width than it should have been with a slight pointy shape toward the top. It had a flat wide nose but more human shaped than ape shaped.

The arms were long looking but hard for me to say how long because they were curled up supporting the deer it was holding. The legs were massive looking with the upper leg length very out of proportion compared to a human. I guess I’m trying to say the knees looked much lower making the upper thigh area look longer. It stood with the knees slightly bent. Okay this will sound crazy but the only thing I have to compare it to would be Patty and Chewbacca. LOL It had the Patty look but the build of Chewbacca. It looked much taller and leaner than Patty. It was at least twice as wide as a large person though. This thing had to weigh 600 plus pounds easily. I was on the elevated roadway in my truck but almost looked eye level with it. Maybe it was taller than 8′.

I know I’m leaving out details here. I’d be happy to answer any questions that I could if you have any. I could also get pics of the area and pinpoint them on a map. The sugarcane has already been harvested this year so pics probably wouldn’t help much. Why didn’t I think to go back and document things better? I was in shock for so long I guess. I still have a hard time processing all of this and especially talking about the first incident. That was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. I hope all of this makes some sense and if you’d like any further detail just let me know. Thanks for your time Wes and thanks for putting out this podcast for us. I never thought listening to your show that I’d be writing this email. Hope you had a great Christmas and have a happy New Year.”