Witness describes nighttime sighting during Civil War reenactment

Oregonbigfoot.com file# 03961

REPORT OVERVIEW

Date: June 08, 1991
Lewis county, WA
Nearest town:
Elbe
Nearest road:
Not sure. I was only there once. Elbe Railroad runs around Mineral Lake
Conditions:
a little over cast; a little rain the day before
Time:
night
Location:
My sighting took place at a place called Mineral Lake in Washington State near Mt. Rainier. A railroad called Elbe Railroad ran around the lake. I was only there once so I'm not sure how to get back there.

REPORT DETAIL

Description of event: I was participating in a Civil War reenactment at Mineral Lake. The day's activities were done and it was around midnight. I walked with my dad back to his van, where he was going to sleep. I got something out of the van and started to walk back to camp. I decided to follow the railroad tracks back to camp because I thought the tracks circled around the camp. I didn't know that the tracks went around the entire lake. Anyway, I was walking along a set of tracks and there was another set of tracks to my left with an empty boxcar sitting on them. Just as I passed the boxcar I smelled a horrible smell that I thought was a skunk. So I stopped and froze in my tracks.

To my right was a heavily wooded area with a ditch next to the tracks I was standing on. To my left was the boxcar and second set of tracks and a hill that was the rear of our camp, although I didn't know it at the time.

When I stopped, this creature stepped out of the ditch and onto the tracks about 20 feet from me. The only light sources were the moon and my flashlight, which was pointed at the ground. It was too dark to get a good look at the finer features like the face, but I remember the eyes the most. They were red. I saw fear in those eyes. We stared at each other for one or two minutes. I was frozen with fear. Suddenly, this thing crossed the two sets of tracks in one leap/stride and powered itself up the hill. I turned and ran and made it back to camp somehow in the dark.

I didn't tell anyone about what I saw. I tried to go to sleep. An hour or two later, the camp was awoken by gunfire in the hill. As reenacters we aren't allowed to carry live ammunition. Two reenacters who were sleeping up in the hill with no tents came running off the hill in fear saying they were shooting at a "banshee". That's the word they used. I think they slept in their cars that night.

After the camp was calmed down everyone went back to bed. We woke up the next morning to find that our camp was in shambles. Things were thrown around and knocked over. A log that took three of us to roll up next to the fire pit was found about five feet from camp, like it had been tossed like a toy.

Everyone attributed what happened to the weather. I tried to tell my dad about what happened but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I finally came forward when I learned of the Bigfoot Research Project in 1994. That's about it.

Source: oregonbigfoot.com
record updated:2007-10-14 23:37:23