Ken Lea
Illinois, 1981
I had an encounter with 2 Bigfoot creatures in the Shawnee National Forest. I was seventeen at the time I was getting ready to go off to the military. I used to love grabbing a rifle, a fishing pole and my tent plus something to cook in like a frying pan. I never took any food with me. I would eat what I could catch or shoot for food. My dad would drop me off at a creek that ran from below my home all the way to the Ohio River. I would come out at a town called Golconda. When I got there I would call my dad and he would come and get me.
I loved the outdoors and was always very comfortable being in the forest or on a creek and I never had trouble finding something to eat or drink. Southern Illinois and the Shawnee National Forest is a really beautiful place to go and see. Vast forest, horse trails, rock climbing, repelling just about everything that a person who loves the outdoors would love. My encounter occurred on one of these trips I used to take.
I had heard of Bigfoot, but like most people thought “yeah right” if anyone would mention it or I would just laugh at them and say something rude to them. You know you didn’t want some kooky person associate with you right? Well on the day that this happened I went from not believing to knowing for a fact that they do exist.
On my trips I would always walk down the creek or swim some of it. My pack was water proof and would float. So if I came across a area I could no longer walk the bank I would simply tie everything to my pack, attach the line to me and swim pulling my pack behind me. If the current was strong I would just hold onto the pack and let the current take me downstream. It was a lot of fun and the adventures were always awesome.
I had been traveling down the creek for awhile when I noticed it was starting to get kind of late. It hadn’t rained in some time so the creek was really low, but there were deep spots here and there and I would stop and fish them. That day I had caught quite a few of blue gills (really good sized ones) which are my favorite fish besides crappie. Anyway I got to a nice sandbar and decided to make camp.
I set my tent up, got a bunch of rocks and made a fire pit. I boiled a bunch of water while I was cleaning the fish. Everything seemed normal and I went up the bank to look for some wild garlic and onions which I did find! You want to talk about cooking some good tasting fish on an open fire beside the creek! Put in garlic and onions, it’s absolutely delicious. I took the water off, it had boiled long enough. I sat the water can in the creek to cool off and started to cook my fish. While I was settling in for the night I noticed that I couldn’t hear anything; not a bird chirping, no owls calling, no frogs barking. I mean it was dead quiet! I had never known or experienced that in all the years I had been doing this. I just shook it off and kind of laughed and I thought to myself what’s next; Bigfoot? Right!
Well that’s exactly what happened! I just looked up for a moment from cooking the fish, they don’t take long to cook and it’s easy to burn them. I looked up and less than 25 feet from me on the other end of my sandbar was not one but two of them crouched down like they were just watching me they never made a growl or nothing. They just stayed there looking at me!
Well I can tell you that these creatures are definitely big, but I didn’t smell no horrific odor. When I stood up they stood up and started walking towards me. I started stumbling backwards and finally fell flat on my ass! I had went maybe 15 feet, but by that time they were right at the fish. I thought “well bud I guess today is the day I die”, but they never once made any signs of aggression towards me, nothing.
They ate all of my fish even the raw ones then they got up and walked up the bank and I never saw them again. The minute that they got gone everything returned to normal, birds singing frogs barking, except I needed to go wipe my ass! Lol!
I have went back there multiple times after I got out of the military, but I have not ever seen them since that day. What I can tell you is that they were not violent towards me in anyway. I think that they were just hungry, smelt my fish cooking and decided to invite themselves to my dinner. Which I gladly gave up without resisting them in any way!
I don’t think that they are the man killers that a lot of people make them out to be. I would say if you pissed one of them off you would have a very big problem, one I don’t think you would live to tell. All I had with me was my 22 rifle for squirrel hunting and that wouldn’t have done anything but piss them off, besides my rifle was in my tent and I had two Bigfoot creatures in between me and the rifle.
I just laid there on the ground watching them eat, which by the way was not really nice! They literally would put a entire fish in their mouth and swallow it as if they hadn’t chewed a thing. They really seemed to enjoy the cooked fish the most and they kind of had a little fight over the last cooked fish and then proceeded to eat the raw ones.
One other thing before I finish this encounter! As they were walking off the biggest one turned its head looking right at me and gave me what I think was a smile. My guess it was a female and her son. The biggest one looked like it had a chest, but they were covered with hair so to be honest I’m not sure. It all happened so fast I didn’t really have time to get my adrenaline down enough to think about what I was seeing. I stayed the night on that sandbar and continued my journey the next morning.
I told my dad what had happened he told me “yeah right” and he asked me if I had been smoking marijuana, which I never did and said no of course! He then advised me that maybe I should just keep this to myself. I have done just that until now. I am 57 now and I could care less what other people think any longer; to a point that is. I don’t want to have people laughing at me and saying rude things to me like somebody I knew before my encounter!