Sacramento, California April 1987 -- Three frightened loggers have filed a report with the Sierra County Sheriff's Department describing their encounters with a creature they said was bigfoot.

Claude Dudley, Tom Ruffing and Lee Janet III, all itinerant loggers reported they were at the picnic area on Highway 89 between Truckee and Sierraville when they began hearing screeching, squawking noises at dusk Friday, said Sgt. Joe Mosley. Several minutes later, as they brewed coffee, they saw what they described as an upright walking animal between 9 and 10 feet tall coming toward them.

"It was this large, hairy burnt black animal walking on its hind legs," Mosley said the trio told him. When it saw them, it ran away toward Prosser Lake, knocking over a small tree in its path Mosley said.

Around 400 feet separated the men from the creature, said Gary Horn, a California Fish and Game Department Warden who conducted an investigation of the area Saturday.

The men estimated that the animal moved with a 5-foot stride, crossing Highway 89 in two steps.

"One guy told me...two strides was enough for me, I packed up my grub and got the hell out," Horn said.

The loggers drove directly to Sierraville, where they reported the incident to Sgt Mosley. The site is in a remote area of California near the Nevada border.

"Those guys were stone-cold sober. They were actually serious about this and so scared that they wouldn't go back up to the campground. They slept in their vehicle right in Sierraville," Mosley said.

Mosley contacted Horn, who returned to the site of the sighting with the three men Saturday. They used a dog trained to track bear and deer but found no physical evidence to verify the presence of such a creature, Horn said.

"They very obviously did see something...but we were unable to come up with anything at all other than their belief in what they saw," said Horn.

The incident is the first report in several years of a Bigfoot sighting in the northern Sierra, Mosley said. A similar creature was reported about 10 years ago in Nevada County near the western Sierra County Line, he said.
- ---

The article is from the extensive files of Bigfoot investigator Peter Guttilla.
January 2011

Back to Stories
Back to Bigfoot Encounters Main page
Back to Newspaper & Magazine Articles
Back to Bigfoot Encounters "What's New" page

Portions of this website are reprinted and sometimes edited to fit the standards
of this website under the Fair Use Doctrine of International Copyright Law
as educational material without benefit of financial gain.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html