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Three expedition participants in the January group
were experienced hunters from Montana. They were friends who came
as a team and stayed in the same tent. They were camped on a wooded
slope, at ~7600 feet, on a spur ridge of Sierra Blanca peak. Two
other expedition participants were camped ~100 feet away on the
same slope.
The Montanans described hearing a two bipedal-sounding prowlers
around their tent at night, three nights in a row, in the early
morning hours.
The prowlers were likely not humans, and definitely not bears.
A small banquet of food was left out at night, partly to determine
if bears were in the area. If the prowlers were bears they would
have eaten at least some of the food -- cooked buffalo liver,
biscuits, bannanas, Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc. None of the food
was touched.
If the prowlers were humans, they would have needed
flashlights to move around in the no-moon blackness. With no moonlight
it was too dark for a person to walk quietly and quickly through
the camp.
The camp was on an uneven hillside, with ankle-spraining holes every
few feet and crackling wood debris everywhere else. The wood debris
had only been cleared around the tent.
Beneath the wood debris there was a thick layer of
dead grass. The only mud was on the nearby jeep trail. That mud
would show footprints in the daytime, but it was frozen solid at
night.
First Night: One of the Montana guys was awake when the prowlers
came by. He first heard it around 1:30 AM
In the tent with the others, he was in his sleeping bag, sweating
and motionless as he listened to some slowly crunching steps in
the grass outside the tent, inches from his head. There were no
vocalizations or other noises.
The prowlers were only there for a few minutes. One of the prowlers
gently touched the wall the tent a few times before they left. This
greatly impressed the guy who was awake. He only slept during the
day for the rest of the trip.
Second Night: The guys from Montana attempted to film the
prowlers, using a 2-million-candle-power spotlight and a camcorder.
All three were awake when the prowlers came around the second night.
It was freezing outside, as usual. To avoid hypothermia they had
no choice but to be inside their sleeping bags. When they decided
to make a move it was a noisy process getting outside the tent.
From the time they started rustling from their sleeping bags, to
putting on their boots, finding the camera and the spotlight, and
locating the zipper of the tent, about 30 seconds had elapsed, by
their own estimates. Whatever was outside the tent had already ran
off. The area around the tent was trampled grass that would not
show distinct footprints.
Third night: The Montanas got ahold of a trail-cam from a
local Walmart and positioned it well on the window of their vehicle,
aiming at the tent.
A trail-cam is a motion-detector-triggered camera used by hunters
to automatically photograph deer passing along a game trail.
The prowlers returned, but did not approach the tent. The prowlers'
footsteps were heard further up the slope behind the tent. The trail-cam
was not triggered that night, except for some test shots when it
was first mounted on the vehicle.
After two nights with little sleep the Montana guys were exhausted
and returned home the next morning.
A statement from them, describing the specific course of events
before and during those three incidents, will be linked to this
page when it's ready.
There will also be statements from two other participants
who were camped ~100 feet away and described similar things happening
around their tents in the same time frame.
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