SC EP:552 Boy Scouts VS Sasquatch

A listener writes "My cousin and I were in a church sponsored scout troop in St. Louis, Missouri. We decided that we wanted to go to scout summer camp and since there weren't enough in our troop that wanted to go we hooked up with another troop in Hillsburo that was also with our church.

We paid our fees and were taken south of St. Louis to Hillsburo and then that Monday morning we arrived at S-F Scout Ranch ( pronounced S bar F). Our troop was assigned a camp site and we went out and made ourselves at home. We followed a path for a couple of hundred yards out from the camp building and here and there there were paths that branched off to the various camp sites.

Ours was one of the outlying camps and was at the end of the lake that was there. The lake was huge. It wasn't too wide you could canoe across it in a few minutes but seemed miles long. From out camp we could just see the lake through the trees. Paul and I were just a couple of inner city boys on our first scout camp. Tents were already set up in a circle around a table and fire pit. Our scout leader brought what he called a fly, a tarp supported with poles that we put up over the table to have a dry place to eat when it rains. There was a short pole on the table the went up to the center of the tart where there was a small hole for the pole to go in and it brought the tarp up to a point over the table. The camp supplied a plywood box with a padlock for us to put our food in that we picked up every day at the px. We never locked the padlock since there weren't any bears around but there were raccoons, skunks and other varmints.

The first night I found out how heavy a sleeper Paul was. Normal midnight hijinkage with the new boys the others tried to tip my cot over from the out side of the tent. I heard them coming stealthy like and kept them from pushing mine over but Paul was already asleep and they dumped him over on the floor and ran laughing. Paul picked himself up and as he got back in the cot he asked what happened. This was all by flashlight since there was no electricity at the camp. The next day Paul didn't remember being knocked over and talking to me. Heavy sleeper.

The third night is when the encounter happened. I, unlike Paul, am a light sleeper, now more than I was before that night. I was awakened by something late at night. Didn't know what it was and couldn't hear anything at first then I thought I heard something moving around the table. So I got out of the cot and put my left hand on the pole by the door of the tent and with my right I slowly pushed open the tent flap. At first I thought I saw someone at the table but in the moonlight and it being under the tarp I could quite tell what it was. At first I thought it was a bear, but I remember the camp people telling us there were no bear in the area.

Suddenly there was a crack and a soft grunt and I could see, my eyes were adjusting to the moonlight, that it was a bigfoot and that it had pried open the food box from the side and bent it up off the hinge. Suddenly I was soo scared I couldn't move. I watched a sasquatch from about fifteen feet from the side over it's left shoulder as it was moving something white from the box to it's mouth. Bread… it was eating our bread. After watching for a while I realized I wasn't breathing and not wanting it to know I was there I slowly exhaled and took in a breath. Still frozen in place I watched it eat an entire loaf of bread and then start rummaging in the box for more. It found our donuts and ate those.

And then suddenly there was a scream of BEAR from across the camp. The sasquatch was leaning over the table and as it had been eating it would straighten up some and it's head would disappear into the pointed center of the fly and I couldn't see it's head but when it was lower it would turn from side to side as it chewed. It was darker under the fly since it was out of the moonlight but I could see the profile. I could not see eyeshine and the eyes did not glow red. When the scream of BEAR rang out the sasquatch stood up straight and when it did it ripped the pegs out of the ground and the fly began to collapse around it's head. It let out a yell and swung it's arms around and the fly fell across the table. It turn away from the yell and it noticed me there. It paused for only and instance and then walked quickly towards me.

I thought it was coming after me but it was really going between my tent and the next one over. It's foot got caught on the loose rope and peg from the collapsed fly and pulled it for a second and it seemed to turn that was and pulled it's leg out of the rope and then disappeared between the tents. I don't know what came over me but as it went by I stepped out of the tent and watched it disappear into the trees. Lights began appearing from all over the place as everybody but Paul had been awakened in our camp and the adjoining camps. The boy who yelled Bear said he just saw the dark shape since it was all he could see under the tarp outlined by the moonlight on my tent and then he ducked back into his tent. I tried to convince everyone that I could see what it was and that it was a bigfoot. Sasquatch wasn't really used then and in Missouri it's called Mo Mo the monster.

The next morning there were no tracks since it was a heavy traveled area and I didn't really feel inclined to go searching for proof in the woods on my own. We had a canoe trip planned for that day and a campout on the other side of the lake. We went and during the night it began to rain and since there was the threat of lighting hitting the lake we hiked in the dark around that massive lake in the rain. The whole way I was searching the woods for the bigfoot. I could hardly sleep the rest of the week and couldn't wait for the camp to end. The sasquatch was big but not huge. I was able to walk under the fly without ducking down but our scout leader couldn't. He had to duck and little so it must have been just below 6 feet at the edge. The sasquatch was hunched under the tarp and it's head would disappear in the peak as it ate. When I stood up it was tall enough to collapse the tarp on itself so it must have been 7 feet tall or more. When it turned and walked past me I was looking up at it's face and it seemed to tower over the tent. I could feel each step as it went by and it looked big and thick. Lots more detail if your interested and I am willing to communicate more on the encounter."