The Peneobscot County Ridge Monster, Maine - 1988

As this is being written, there are well over 3000 Sasquatch reports filed. Sometimes I get these wonderfully friendly letters from credible and co-operative people like this father and son who live near Millinocket, Maine. They wish to remain anonymous which I have honored here, but their names are in the file for serious Sasquatch research inquiry:

I have a story for you from the eastern United States...Maine. This event took place about 10 years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. My father and I were fishing for brook trout in the northern Maine woods. In 1988 I would have been around 13 years old at the time and my father was 38.

It was a beautiful early summer day and the fish were biting. This particular area of the Maine woods is extremely thick and dark almost gives you a feeling that someone or something is watching you. We were wading down the brook when we noticed the half-eaten remains of a snowshoe-hare [rabbit] lying on the bank of the brook.

On closer examination we noticed that the head of the hare was half eaten. My father did not think too much of this since he is a avid outdoorsman and has seen nature at work before, but myself (a young boy) was amazed at the sight and after poking and prodding at the remains with a stick moved on down the brook. We also noticed the water in the brook had been disturbed and since the water was moving slowing it had happened recently. Even I noticed this at my young age but we both didn't think much of it until later that night when we recapped the amazing day.

Anyway back to the story. We had caught our limit if brook trout that day and were heading back to the truck, which was parked about 5 miles away at the end of a logging road. This is the road we followed on the way out. When I say logging road I mean an old logging road which has not been logged in over 30 years and was very grown-over but made for easier walking then through the thick cedars. We didn't talk much on the way down the road until we came across an old cabin deep in the woods, we stopped to sit down for a while and rest. We noticed a log-book on the table and we read it and throughout the book where entries about the owners of the cabin seeing the "Ridge Monster" as they called it and they gave details about the creature, which now matches ours.

Rested, we walked on down the trail when all of a sudden my father stopped dead in his tracks. I figured he was talking another break so I stopped and examined some flowers on the ground. When I looked at my father I saw a face on him I had never seen before and hope to never see again! He was looking toward a small opening in the forest for perhaps 15 - 20 seconds. I became concerned and asked him what he was looking at since female moose have there young this time of year and are usually very protective.

We had seen plenty that day, when he suddenly grabbed me and told me to hurry. My father was very uneasy. We made the 5-mile trip out of the woods and back to the truck in record time. I still had no idea why my father was in such a hurry and it was hard for me to keep up with him since I was so small and he is a man of over six feet tall.

When we got to the truck he told me to get in with a tone of voice I dared not disobey. On the ride home he told me the incredible story of what he had seen. At the time we rounded a small corner in the trail my father had caught movement out of the corner of his eye. When he looked up he saw what could have only been and was a Bigfoot. The Maine Ridge monster. My father described the creature as being at least 8 feet tall and estimates it weighing over 500 pounds. The creature had one long arm grasping a tree and one foot up on a slope in the forest floor and remained there staring at my father and I for about 15-20 seconds. My father said the creature "seemed to be bored" with us all of a sudden and simply pulled itself up with the one hand grasping the tree and silently disappeared into the woods. My father, through shear terror for my sake and to maintain sanity never told me until we got to the truck.

Imagine what I would have thought when he told me a 500 pound mythical creature was within 20 yards of me. I never saw the creature only my father did and he was amazed not only at the incredible sight itself but the agility and stealth of it. My father and I then conclude we startled the creature feeding on the hare down by the shore of the brook. It followed us throughout the day out of curiosity while keeping its distance. When I thought about all of the stories I had heard over the years and how a smell accompanies the creature I did notice a strange smell when we stopped on the trail but that could have been the smell of a cedar swamp spring.

The brook has no name where we were fishing. It was early summer to late spring 1988 at about 10:00 am, I don't remember the direction of the wind but the prevailing winds usually blow NE. I did notice a faint smell but not as strong as some I have read about. The most significant thing one remembers of the creature was the huge size and the silence it possessed in its movement. My father believes it was male since there was no breasts, the creature appeared to be in good health, was fast and strong.

We have heard Maine Indian stories of a gentle giant as they call it that has lived in the Maine woods since the Indians first settled there and many sightings have been made in modern times. My father is a well-respected man in our community and has never told anyone outside of our family and plans to keep it that way in order to protect the animal from pursuit. I thought your collection could use this remarkable sighting to add to the diversity this creature seems to have all over the country and the world. Please don't use our names.

© Bobbie Short