LUMMI INDIAN RESERVE, Washington, --More than 100 reports of a Sasquatch-like being have swept this reservation seven miles west of Bellingham, and witnesses include all three members of the local police force

Sgt. Ken Cooper of the reservation's police force said in a telephone interview Tuesday from his home that, the tiny federal government-operated police force has been swamped with the reports since late September.

Sgt. Cooper said he has seen or heard the Sasquatch, which he described as an ape-like being standing seven and a half feet high, three times since October 10.Most of the sightings have been confined to an area of four square miles on the reserve, he said.

The Sasquatch has been blamed for the deaths of three dogs and a neck wound on a horse that required 16 stitches, he said. "There are no people on the road at night now." he said. Most people did not believe the first reports, he said, when they saw the Sasquatch's footprints or heard it, they changed their minds.

Sgt Cooper said so many people were chasing the Sasquatch with guns that the Lummi tribal council voted to outlaw shooting the creature. "We get reports every other day," he said, "In fact, I just received one minutes ago."

The first time he saw the Sasquatch on October 10th it ran off into the bushes, Sgt Cooper said. But on October 24th at 2:20 a.m. he was able to observe the Sasquatch "for a long time" from a range of 35 feet. After answering a complaint about the Sasquatch, he came around the back of a house where a window had been ripped out. "There was a being there about 7 and a half feet tall. "It was nothing like I've ever seen before," he said. He said the being was covered with black hair and was very muscular.

After the sighting, he checked an encyclopedia and found that the legendary Sasquatch resembled an orang-outang, except in size and color. "It was steaming as if it had been running." It had upturned nostrils and had almost no neck, he said. He added the being looked very different from his relatives' descriptions of the Sasquatch.

But Sasquatch hunter John Green said an interview Tuesday from Agassiz that Sgt. Cooper has definitely seen a Sasquatch. He said Indians believe Sasquatches to be more human-like than they actually are. Sgt. Cooper is a Lummi Indian. When asked if he was scared of the Sasquatch, Sgt Cooper said no. "I had a sawed-off shotgun with me."

He decided not to shoot it. He had been anxious to see the beast when the sightings first came in, he said, but now I hope I never see it again." When the Sasquatch was sighted, "it hunched down in the bushes but did not run away," Sgt Cooper said. "It looked like it was studying us." He said several people examined the Sasquatch with two spotlights for a "long time." "Then we just backed off and left."

He said he was unable to photograph the Sasquatch because the police department's camera is out of order, but on November 1, he obtained a 20 second recording of the Sasquatch's yell with a Dictaphone. He recorded the yell, which he said was very powerful" and high pitched, while the Sasquatch followed alongside his car. The car was moving at 10 miles per hour, he said.

He called his brother Lee, also a Police officer, on the radio while the Sasquatch was yelling. "That sound was heard all over Whatcom County," Cooper said.

Lee Cooper said in a telephone interview Tuesday he used the recording two days later to attract the Sasquatch to a garbage dump where it had earlier been sighted. Cooper said he could not see what the Sasquatch looked like, except that it was six feet tall and "its eyes shone in the spotlight." He added that it "kind of walked like an ape."

© The Vancouver Sun Wednesday November 12, 1975.
Story by Chris Gainor, Sun Staff Reporter

Newspaper clipping graciously shared from The Library of the Bay Area Group, Warren Thompson and the files of the late Rene Dahinden......


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