A Hunter Was Dying in the Forest. A Bigfoot Appeared. What Happened Next Will Shock You!

The pain in my leg was unbearable, and the forest floor gave way beneath me with every movement. I tried to call for help, but my voice barely carried beyond the towering pines. That’s when I heard it. Heavy, deliberate footsteps coming from somewhere in the mist. A Bigfoot was approaching, massive and unmistakable, and I knew my life was about to change. My name is Cecile Ward.

I’m 54 years old, and I’ve been hunting these Oregon mountains since I was 12. My father taught me everything about tracking, about reading the forest, about respecting the wilderness. For over four decades, I’ve walked these trails, and I thought I knew every secret these woods held. I was wrong. It was November 15th, 1986.

I remember the date clearly because it was opening weekend of deer season, and I’d been planning this trip for months. My wife Margaret had packed my thermos with hot coffee that morning at our house in Bend. She’d kissed me goodbye at 4:30 a.m., made me promise to be careful, and told me she’d have pot roast waiting when I got home that evening.

I can still see her standing in the doorway in her blue robe, waving as I pulled away in my 82 Chevy Silverado. We’d been married for 32 years, and she knew the drill by now. I’d leave before dawn, come back after dark, usually with a deer in the truck bed and stories to tell over dinner. The drive to the Dashuites National Forest took about an hour and a half.

I listened to the local AM station the whole way, catching the tail end of some news about the Iran Contra thing that had been all over the papers lately. President Reagan was getting grilled about it, and the whole situation seemed like a mess. The DJ played a few Merl Haggard songs after the news, which put me in a good mood. There was something about Oki from Muscogi that always got me ready for a day in the woods.

The sky was just starting to lighten when I pulled into my usual spot, a small clearing off Forest Road 46 that only a handful of hunters knew about. I’d been coming to this particular area for nearly 30 years. It was remote, about 15 miles from the nearest town of Sisters, and the deer population was healthy. The terrain was challenging, steep ridges, dense timber, and plenty of creeks cutting through the valleys.

But that’s what kept most hunters away, and that’s exactly why I loved it. I’d learned these woods from my father, Harold, who’d learned them from his father. This was Ward family territory in a sense, not legally, of course, but in the way that matters to people who spend their lives in wild places. By 6:15 a.m., I was geared up and heading into the woods.

I had my Winchester Model 7030 Dun06, a reliable rifle I’d owned since 1967. That gun had put food on our table for nearly 20 years, and I trusted it completely. My hunting vest was loaded with extra ammunition, a silver compass I’d bought at Bmartart, a buck folding knife, about 30 ft of nylon rope, a small first aid kit, and two Snickers bars Margaret had snuck in there.

I wore my heavy wool coat, bright orange, as required by law, thick canvas pants, long underwear beneath, and my well-worn Redwing boots that I’d had resoled three times. The temperature was hovering around 38 degrees and the weather report I’d caught on the radio predicted possible rain by afternoon.

I figured I’d be back at the truck long before any bad weather hit. The morning started perfectly. The forest was quiet except for the occasional bird call and the crunch of fallen leaves and pine needles under my boots. The sun was rising, casting long shadows through the trees, and the air had that crisp, clean smell that only exists in the mountains before dawn.

I spotted some fresh deer tracks around 7:30 and followed them up a ridge. The trail was clear, a decent-sized buck based on the depth and spacing of the prints, and I was confident I’d have a good shot before noon. I’d taken this same route dozens of times over the years. There was a rhythm to hunting that a lot of people didn’t understand.

It wasn’t about the taking, though I won’t lie and say filling the freezer wasn’t important to a family on a working man’s budget. It was about being part of something bigger, something ancient. Out here, I wasn’t Cecil the mechanic from Bend, who spent his days at the Texaco station fixing carburetors and changing oil.

Out here, I was just another animal in the woods, following instincts that went back thousands of years. Around 9:00 a.m., I reached a plateau I’d hunted many times before. There was an old lightning-struck Douglas fir there that had fallen years ago, creating a natural blind. The tree had to be at least 300 years old when it went down.

The trunk was easily 6 ft across. I settled in behind it, opened my thermos, and sipped some coffee while watching the clearing ahead. Margaret made good coffee, strong and black, the way I liked it. The forest had that particular smell of autumn rain and pine needles that I’d always loved. Mixed with the coffee, it was about as perfect as life got.

I sat there for nearly two hours, barely moving. Patience is the most important skill in hunting. Something a lot of younger guys never learned. They’d stomp through the woods with their brand new gear from the sporting goods store, making noise, scaring off everything within a mile. But I knew how to wait, how to become part of the landscape.

My father used to say that a good hunter doesn’t hunt animals. He becomes part of the forest and lets the animals come to him. It took me years to understand what he meant, but once I did, my success rate went way up. The forest around me was alive with small sounds. A squirrel was working on a pine cone somewhere above me. A raven called out in the distance.

The wind moved through the treetops, making them sway and creak. I knew these sounds, knew what was normal and what wasn’t. That’s why what I heard at 11:20 was so disturbing.

But before I get to that, I should tell you that I finally spotted movement. A four-point buck emerged from the treeline about 70 yards away, right where I’d expected based on the tracks.

He was magnificent, probably 180 lb, moving cautiously, stopping every few steps to test the air with his nose. His coat was thick for winter, a beautiful gray-brown that would have made him nearly invisible if he hadn’t been moving. I slowly raised my rifle, controlled my breathing like I’d done a thousand times before, and lined up the shot through my scope.

The crosshairs settled on his shoulder right where they needed to be. My finger was on the trigger, applying just the slightest pressure when I heard something that made me freeze completely.

It was a sound I’d never heard in all my years in the forest. A deep, guttural vocalization that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It started low, almost like a growl, but then rose in pitch and volume, becoming something between a howl and a roar.

The sound carried through the trees with an intensity that made my chest vibrate. It wasn’t a bear. I knew bear sounds intimately. It wasn’t an elk. It wasn’t a mountain lion. It wasn’t a wolf. It wasn’t any animal I could identify.

The buck heard it too and bolted immediately, crashing through the underbrush and disappearing in seconds. Whatever had made that sound had scared him badly. And deer don’t scare easily.

I lowered my rifle and stood up slowly, trying to pinpoint where the sound had come from. The forest had gone completely silent. Even the birds had stopped singing.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I felt watched. I decided to head back to my truck.

And then the rain came.