YEAR: 1964

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

STATE: Colorado

COUNTY: Gunnison County

LOCATION DETAILS: Near Longs Lake, about a quarter mile west of the lake.

NEAREST TOWN: Between Crested Butte and Gothic

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 135

OBSERVED: I was bow hunting with my wife Joyce. I pulled off the road and parked my jeep. It was the middle of the afternoon. As we were walking up in the timber we kept hearing things behind us. I knew it was big because of the noises we were hearing. We would walk and it would start walking and it would stop whenever we did. I never saw it but we knew it was there.

We were walking very softly through the quakies and I saw an ear flicker. I drew my bow and the deer stood up. It was a four point buck. It was about 50 feet in front of us. When I shot and hit the deer the it fell. Immediately whatever was behind us let out a loud, shrill, deep-throated, dragged-out chirp.

I cannot explain it as I never had and never have since heard anything like it. I have spent my whole life in the mountains of Colorado and think I have heard just about everything. This was new. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I knew it wasn't a bear because I know a bear is not capable of that noise.

The deer stood up and kept going down the hill to the right. We followed the deer and the thing behind us kept following, thrashing the brush all the way. It sounded like it was breaking over trees. It was ticked off because I shot the deer. I never saw it because it wouldn't come out of the trees. We decided to forget about the deer and high-tailed it out of there as fast as we could. I haven't went back in those trees since.

OTHER WITNESSES: Myself and my wife Joyce. We were riding in my jeep prior to the incident.

OTHER STORIES: After this happened we went into Crested Butte and stopped at Jack's Conoco on the corner of Main Street. At the time Jack had the world record elk rack hanging in the station. I asked the attendent if there were ever any bigfoot sightings in the area. He told me yes and they were pretty common. I told him my story and he replied, "I believe you."

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was about 1 oclock in the afternoon. Beautiful sunny day.

ENVIRONMENT: Thick quakies and almost waist deep grass. Very lush forest.

Follow-up investigation report:

Excerpts of interview with witness, a retired locomotive engineer.

"It was only 50 or 75 feet from us in the quakies. We never saw it but I knew it was following us. As soon as I shot the deer, it just went crazy. We could see the trees shaking and going down, and them suckers were moving.

It started making this godawful noise, like a big bird, a chirping noise. The deer ran off to the right, we followed the blood trail down the hill and this thing came after us. We knew it was behind us, but I still couldn't see it. So I told my wife, "Let's get out of here because I don't know what this thing is but I think we're going to get in trouble here and all I got is this bow and arrow.''

As we left, it followed us, still making this godawful noise. It came all the way to the edge of the timber, still howling and screaming.

I've lived in Alaska, I've hunted all my life: brown bears, grizz... I've hunted all over the world and to this day, I've never seen anything like it. A deer or bear ain't going to move those big quakies around.''

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