Sightings - Under Siege: The Batle of Ape Canyon

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Washington, 1924: Five gold prospectors seeking fortune in the shadow of Mount St. Helens instead found themselves under siege by something far more terrifying. Trapped in a remote cabin through a nig...ht of unrelenting attacks, they would give a name to one of the strangest mysteries in American folklore. Sightings is a REVERB and QCODE Original. Find us on instagram @sightingspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Did you lock the front door? Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection,
Starting point is 00:00:14 and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web? Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit tellus.com slash total security to learn more. Conditions apply. The wilderness can feel endless, untamed, and indifferent to man's ambitions. But what happens when the forest itself begins to stir?
Starting point is 00:00:47 When strange calls echo across the ridges, and unseen eyes study your every move? And when night finally falls, what do you do if the darkness outside? Inside your cabin walls isn't empty at all, but alive and closing in. Welcome to sightings, the series that takes you inside the world's most mysterious supernatural events. Each episode brings you a thrilling story that puts you at the center of the action, followed by a discussion that dives into the accounts that inspired the story, and our takes on them. I'm MacLeod. And I'm Brian, and welcome back from our final break of the summer, because that's right,
Starting point is 00:01:30 Cloud, sightings is back to new episodes every week. Every week! Woo! Party time! It is. And what a better way to kick off the fall season than with a spooky, twisty, action-packed encounter that pits five men against a group of mysterious creatures. It's the infamous event known as the Battle of Ape Canyon.
Starting point is 00:01:55 But did the men encounter apes? Bigfoot were something else in time. Find out on this episode of Sightings. Hey, McLeod, guess what? It is our favorite time of year. Spooky season? It is. fall, which is my favorite time of year
Starting point is 00:02:32 aside from spooky season. So the leaves are turning. We're getting ready to layer up. I love a good sweater. Guys, though, if you are still rocking old beat up boxers under those flannels and jeans, it is time to upgrade to me, undies. They're just like so soft, so breathable, perfect
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Starting point is 00:03:11 with fun prints, including McLeod, some that glow in the dark. Are you serious? Well, good. Now I won't need nightlights when I get scared from our stories. So take it from us because we wear them. Meundies is your new fall essential. And right now, sightings listeners, that means all of you can get cozy and spooky for less with deals up to 50% off at meundies.com slash sightings and enter promo code sightings. That's meundies.com slash sightings. promo code sightings for up to 50% off. Meundi's comfort that's made for fall. Thanks meandies for sponsoring this episode. back, and I'm 41 years old. I've been prospecting in these mountains for the better part of six years now, and I'd like to think I know every trail, creek, and ridge, like the back of my hand.
Starting point is 00:04:09 But what happened to me and my partners this past July in the shadow of Mount St. Helens? Well, let's just say I didn't know these mountains quite as well as I thought I did. And I'm not proud of that. But if a man is bound to carry a thing, he may as well set it down plain. The whole thing started with gold, like most of the trouble these days. Five of us were working a claim we called the Vander White, about two miles east of the mountain near a deep canyon. Marion Smith was the leader of our outfit, a tough old bird who'd been hunting and trapping these parts since before I was born.
Starting point is 00:04:48 His son Roy was with us too, and of course John Preston and Gabe Lefev, all good with a pickaxe and not too bad with a bottle of hooch. We'd been having decent luck with the claim, not strike it rich luck, mind you, but enough to keep us coming back. We built a cabin out of what the mountain gave us, nothing fancy, just a single room with a fireplace and no windows. We cooked outside, slept inside, and hoped it worked to keep out the weather and the bears. Of course, we had no idea we'd soon be needing it to keep out something else entirely. The first sign something wasn't right came earlier in the spring. We'd been finding tracks near the creek.
Starting point is 00:05:38 Tracks that honestly were too big to be of anything we'd ever encountered before. Marion claimed to know every animal in these woods, but these prints, some 19 inches long, by my own measure, were just plain unnatural. So we'd keep our rifles close and hope we never came face to face with whatever. them. And for a while we didn't. But then the sounds started. And well, once that happened, it was about a week before everything went to hell. Every evening, just as the sun was starting to
Starting point is 00:06:13 dip behind the mountain, we'd hear this peculiar whistling. Not like a bird, mind you. This was too loud and deliberate. It would drift across the timber from one slope, and sure as noon follows 11, an answer would come from the opposite side. Later, the whistles were joined by a hollow thumping, as if something were beating its chest, slow and deliberate. It would echo across the canyons and put an itch right between my shoulder blades. Roy joked that maybe we had ourselves some mountain gorillas up there, but nobody was laughing, because the way those sounds carried,
Starting point is 00:06:54 Whatever was making them had to be enormous. For my part, I tried to carry on as though nothing had changed, but my anxiety was compounded by a toothache that had settled in at the worst possible time. And I know what you're thinking, it's just a toothache amid all these other distressing elements. But there are some inconveniences a man can bear, and some that grind him. This toothache fell into the second category. It hammered my jaw with a steady, mean pulse, and I told Marion one afternoon we ought to run back to town for a dentist
Starting point is 00:07:32 before the pain turned me into something unpleasant. But Marion was dreaming of gold, and neither God nor the devil could get him off that mountain before we sunk more holes. So I was stuck with an aching tooth, an annoying sense something very bad was coming our way. And sure enough, it did. That evening, the whistling sounds started up again, louder and more frequent than before.
Starting point is 00:08:01 Marion suddenly stood up and said he needed to get water from the spring. It was only about a hundred yards from the cabin, but he asked me to come, and something in his voice made me nervous. I saw he had his rifle at his side, so I grabbed mine and followed him into the gathering dusk. We were halfway to the spring when Marion stopped dead in his tracks, and raised his rifle. I tracked his gaze, and that's when I saw it.
Starting point is 00:08:31 A massive, hairy creature standing about a hundred yards away on the other side of a small canyon. At first, my mind tried to make it into something normal, a bear standing on its hind legs, maybe, or a man in a fur coat. But this was no bear or man. It was massive.
Starting point is 00:08:52 at least a head taller than me and covered in blackish brown hair from head to toe. And though it had a human shape to it, it seemed wrong somehow. The arms too long, the shoulders too broad, the head sitting strange on its neck. It ducked behind the tree when it saw us looking, then poked its head out again like it was studying us. Marion, meanwhile, didn't hesitate. He fired three shots and quick. succession, and I saw bark fly off the tree with each one. The creature recoiled, and I thought for a moment that Marion had hit it. But then we saw it running, and I mean running faster than any man
Starting point is 00:09:36 could move, down the canyon and away from us. I raised my own rifle and fired three shots of my own before it disappeared from view, though I could have sworn I saw it stumble. Marion was certain we'd wounded it, but when we went back to tell the others, They laughed at us. They thought we'd seen a bear and let our imaginations run wild. But Marion insisted we'd encountered what he called mountain devils. And after some discussion, we all agreed to pack up and head home the next morning. I'd have insisted we leave right then and there,
Starting point is 00:10:11 but it would take us several hours to hike back to where we'd left the truck. And I don't think any one of us wanted to embark on that journey in the dark. So we decided to spend one more night in the cabin. One last night that nearly killed us all. Dark fell heavy on the canyon with clouds covering the stars. We sat in the cabin smoking our pipes and trying to act normal, but everyone kept glancing at the door. Marion had his Remington automatic close at hand, as he always did.
Starting point is 00:10:46 I had my 30-30 Winchester within easy reach. The others had their weapons ready too. We sat around talking about the trip home and trying to convince ourselves that everything would be fine. And eventually, thanks to the hooch or exhaustion, we fell asleep, only to be woken up around midnight when Marion suddenly started yelling and kicking.
Starting point is 00:11:11 At first we thought he was having a nightmare, but then we heard what had awakened him. A tremendous thud against the cabin wall. The impact was so powerful, that some of the chinking between the logs and the wall knocked loose. All of us were up, weapons ready, trying to make sense of what was happening. And as we listened more, we heard sounds outside. Footsteps and lots of them, rattling over the pile of roof shakes we'd left stacked near the cabin.
Starting point is 00:11:42 Marion pushed past me and squinted through the gap where the chinking had fallen out, and I saw his muscles tighten as he stared out into the dark. He said there were at least three of them out there. Three of those mountain devils. Massive hair-covered humanoids that moved with disturbing intelligence. And now they were coming for us. Grab a coffee and discover Vegas-level excitement with BetMGM Casino, Now introducing our hottest exclusive, Friends, the One with Multi-Drop.
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Starting point is 00:12:49 Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. It's funny. I don't believe I thought about my toothache even once that night. I was too terrified and charged with adrenaline to think about anything other than survival. It was past midnight, and the things outside were still circling our cabin, like they were sizing us up or waiting for us. And we thought maybe we could wait them out, too. The cabin walls were thick logs, and we were all armed. Did the things
Starting point is 00:13:43 out there know that? Did they think at all? Based on their behavior, I presumed as much. They began their attack slowly and intentionally. First, they'd circle the cabin, then throw themselves against it. Then they'd pull back, and we'd have a few minutes of quiet before they came again, each time with just a bit more force. Soon enough, the whole structure was shaking, and we were desperately firing our rifles through the walls.
Starting point is 00:14:13 The bullets scared them off for another few minutes, but they kept coming back. always coming back then they found the door they pushed so hard against it that we had to brace it with a pole from the bump bed we even drove two spikes
Starting point is 00:14:29 through the brace into the floor and that gave us a little confidence then they climbed onto the roof and began hammering at it with rocks we responded by firing round after round through the ceiling hoping to drive them off the sound of gunfire
Starting point is 00:14:46 and that enclosed space was deafening, but we had no choice. If we stopped shooting, they'd break through. Rocks started raining down on us through the chimney, good-sized ones that could crack a man's skull if they hit right. We all huddled in the corner furthest from the fireplace, but we could hear them right above us, seemingly tearing the roof apart, trying to get in.
Starting point is 00:15:10 Between the impacts and sounds of movement, I could hear them making noises, Not speech, but clearly some form of communication. Soon one of them managed to get an arm through the gap in the chinking and grabbed our axe by the handle. The arm was massive, covered in dark hair, and had fingers far longer than any man's ought to be. I managed to turn the axe head sideways so it would catch on the logs, and at the same moment, Marion fired his rifle right at the thing outside. The creature let go with a sound that was part six.
Starting point is 00:15:44 scream, bark growl, and snatched its arm back. This went on for what felt like ours. Marion and I did most of the shooting while the others pressed themselves against the far wall, clutching their guns with white knuckles. Roy, bless him, looked like he might faint. Gabe muttered prayers in French. John stared at the door like he was waiting for death himself to knock. At some point, I don't know when exactly.
Starting point is 00:16:14 Marion started singing. If you leave us alone, we'll leave you alone, and we'll all go home in the morning. Over and over, he's saying it, his voice cracking with fear and exhaustion. But it didn't quell the attack. If anything, it only intensified it. They kept coming, wave after wave.
Starting point is 00:16:37 The walls shook. The door splintered. We began running low on ammunition and worried we might not make it through the night. Then part of the roof caved and cold air rushed in followed by a shadowy arm. Roy swung the axe like a man born to it, and Marion's Remington cracked. The arm recoiled, but rocks began to rain down through the hole. One of the big ones clipped me at the back of my head and took me down in a brief ringing dark.
Starting point is 00:17:06 When my witch returned, I was under the table with blood sticky in my hair. The others had gathered in close, shouldering their barrels up towards the roof's hole. Outside, I could see the first gray light of dawn stretching across the sky, and I prayed, possibly for the first time in my life, that it would all end soon. And then, as if God himself were answering my call,
Starting point is 00:17:33 everything went quiet. The pounding stopped. The footsteps faded. We waited, hardly daring to breathe, listening for any sign they were still out there. But there was no sound to be heard. Slowly, Marion rose and pulled open what was left of our door. The morning mist hung heavy in the canyon, making it hard to see very far. And we crept out into the light, half expecting to be grabbed at any moment by those hairy hands.
Starting point is 00:18:08 The area around our cabin looked like a war zone. The pile of roof shakes had been scattered everywhere. Rocks and chunks of wood lay strewn about. Deep scratches marked the logs where those things had tried to claw their way inside. But more disturbing than the physical damage was the footprints, they were huge and pressed everywhere into the earth. My own boot fit cleanly within all of them. We gathered what few supplies we could carry and left behind probably $200 of equipment and provisions.
Starting point is 00:18:46 And as we began our long march back to the truck, I caught movement near the canyon rim. One of those creatures was there, staring at us. It made no attempt to hide or flee. It just stood there, as if evaluating whether we were still a threat. In the morning light, could see its features more clearly than I wanted to. The massive chest, the powerful arms, the intelligent eyes beneath heavy brooding brows. Without thinking, I raised my rifle and fired three quick shots. The creature toppled backward and disappeared over the edge of the cliff,
Starting point is 00:19:29 falling some 400 feet into the gorge below. It took us three hours to reach Marion's truck. and I don't think any of us drew a full breath until we were bouncing down the road back to town. When we finally reached it, we stopped at the first tavern we found. We must have looked to sight. Five grown men, dirty and dishevelled, our eyes wild with fear and exhaustion. We huddled around the back table, and after a few stiff drinks to calm our nerves, we made a pact. We wouldn't tell anyone what happened up there. people would think we were crazy or drunk or both
Starting point is 00:20:10 we'd make up some story about the claim not panning out and leave it at that but secrets like that don't keep especially when five men share them so within a week the story had leaked out someone I never found out who told their wife were their drinking buddy and before we knew it reporters were showing up at our doors
Starting point is 00:20:35 asking about the Battle of Ape Canyon. If I'm being honest, I hate the name because those things weren't apes. No, sir. Park rangers went up to investigate our claims and found the cabin exactly as we left it. They even took plaster casts of some of the footprints and measured them carefully,
Starting point is 00:20:56 19 inches long, just as we'd said. But for all their investigations, they couldn't explain what made those tracks or attacked our cabin. But I know what those rangers were thinking. Same thing everyone else was thinking that five grown men had let their imaginations run wild and turned an encounter with a bear or two
Starting point is 00:21:17 into something fantastical. They figured we'd panicked and started shooting its shadows, then convinced ourselves we'd been fighting monsters. But the truth is there's something in those mountains. I know it as surely as I know my own name, and I know that whatever they are, they don't belong in our world. I've never gone back into those mountains and I never will. Neither have the others as far as I know.
Starting point is 00:21:50 So go ahead and call us liars. Call me a fanatic. I've heard it all. And I always say the same thing. Believe what you will. But if you ever find yourself in those mountains and hear a strength, and hear a strange whistling from the ridges, then friend, you'd best head back the way you came. And whatever you do, don't wait until dark.
Starting point is 00:22:21 Sightings will be back just after this. Welcome, welcome, everybody from the Battle of Ape Canyon. They're coming for you. I don't know. I guess it's just Halloween's approaching and I'm in that place, Brian. You're right. It is almost spooky season, but not quite yet, McLeod. You're jumping the gun here.
Starting point is 00:22:53 But what do you think of the story? I like going back in the past like this and the prospector vibes. You did bring us the, what's the guy's name from There Will Be Blood. I'm an oil. man. There you go. That's it. Yeah, this story was really cool. And I didn't think I was going to like it going in because I was like, oh, it's a Bigfoot story. But is it a Bigfoot story? That's a good question. Exactly. Before we dive into that, though, let me say that the story that you read was the account. Everything that happened in the story happened to these guys allegedly. And tell me more about
Starting point is 00:23:26 the account. Like, is it written or is it like, because it's from so long ago, how did it reach us? here. Well, there's lots of newspaper articles about it that you can go and find. Okay. So, yeah, just to set the scene again, like July 1924, this is Washington State in the, in the shadow of Mount St. Helens, basically, I guess before it blew its top. But yeah, these guys were from a town called Kelso, which was known in the early 20th century as Little Chicago, basically. And I guess the reason they called it that was there were a ton of brothels there. So lots of miners, lots of loggers. Lots of houses of ill repute. That's it. A lot of, you know, rough and tumble stuff going on, I guess, in that area. Like the quintessential Old West, maybe? Seems like it, but I imagine more tall pine trees and... Right, it doesn't have that dusty desert vibe.
Starting point is 00:24:20 It's... No, no. But I think the point is one day, these five prospectors drive out of the wilderness and stumble into this tavern early in the morning, apparently. And it's kind of unclear of how exactly. the story got out, but it sounds like they started talking as soon as they, you know, got into the tavern and started drinking. Right. Even though in the story, I remember him saying they all made a pack to not talk,
Starting point is 00:24:45 that seemed to have lasted about five minutes. Right. And then they just started talking. And ironically, the guy who was talking the most was the guy who you read, Fred Beck. Fred Beck, Motormouth. Yes. But I guess the gist of it is that eventually word started spreading or there were some park troopers who were in the bar at the time or showed up later. It's kind of really unclear. But the point is that there's these two Rangers, troopers, whatever you want to call them. Okay. So these two Park Rangers got the prospectors drunk basically and convinced them to go back up the mountain with them. I don't know how many of the prospectors went back up. I know that Fred went at a minimum. And they
Starting point is 00:25:23 went back to the site where it happened. And what do you think they found? At best, my guess is they found like a roughed up cabin. Like, did they find footprints everywhere? They did find footprints everywhere. Yep. And they found a devastated cabin. No trace of the monsters, though. Remember that they called these a race of mountain devils. Sure. Because Bigfoot wasn't really in the cultural lexicon at the time. And the cabin was devastated, apparently. You know, the furniture inside was shattered. The room was littered with boulders. There was like a hole in the roof. And these park rangers did take impressions of all the footprints that were in the area. And just so you can get a gist of what I'm talking about. here. And I'm going to put this on Instagram as well for everyone. But we got a picture of one of these footprints. Oh, interesting. I mean, it's huge, for one. Kind of weird shaped, though. Does it not look weird? It is weird shaped. It's like the toes extend kind of along the outer ridge of the foot. It's very strange. It's very strange. The gist of this is, though, that these park rangers
Starting point is 00:26:26 thought this was a load of crap. So they thought that, oh, these miners could have roughed up the cabin themselves and scattered the boulders around and stuff. And they said that it looked like they were able to make those kind of prints with their knuckles and their palm. Do you think that picture right there, that print could have been made with knuckles and a palm? Well, the first thing that came to my mind, just given the kind of slightly odd shape, was it somebody who's not very good at drawing a foot, making an impression.
Starting point is 00:27:01 I'd be like, all right, and get those toes. But there's nothing that immediately screams hoax to me looking at this footprint. It looks like a big, weird foot. But yeah, I think the point is these Rangers thought it was kind of bunk, but the story did get picked up by local and national media. And that's where the name the Battle of Ape Canyon came from. Because remember, these guys did not mention apes or Bigfoot or anything like that. They're like they are mountain devils.
Starting point is 00:27:28 And I guess from the descriptions of big hairy creatures, attacking them, people kind of ran with it and Ape Canyon was born. And in the wake of that, though, I think people started swarming the area and kind of camping out all over the side of Mount St. Helens looking for these things. And wouldn't you know it, no one ever caught a glimpse of the mountain devils again. Right. Right. So that's kind of the background and the gist, and that's how we know about it, obviously. So it seems to me the next step in trying to figure out how true this account may or may not be is getting to know these guys a little bit. better. Can you tell me more about the backgrounds of these people who claim to have had this experience? The one who I know the most about is Fred. And the reason that we know most of his account and his thoughts on the whole matter is because he wrote little pamphlets. I feel like at that time pamphlets were a pretty big deal. Yes. So he never backed down from his story, even after people were claiming it was a hoax or it was made up or whatever. But that said, as steadfast as he believed all of this, he also became relatively infamous for evangelizing the idea that these creatures and eventually, I guess, Bigfoot, in general, were interdimensional beings.
Starting point is 00:28:45 Okay. Based on what? I think the idea that, well, number one, that, you know, they kind of popped up when we never saw them again. Okay. You know, they got attacked in that night and they weren't there. He also started to spin a whole narrative that linked Bigfoot or the creatures that he encountered, because I don't really know when Bigfoot became part of the cultural lexicon as a name, but the idea that these hairy beings in the Pacific Northwest were related to the Yeti in, you know, the Himalayas and things like that. And I think what he decided was, well, the only way that we could have beings in the Pacific Northwest and in Himalayas that are very similar, that there's no explanation for how. they got there, where they live, or anything like that is they must be interdimensional beings.
Starting point is 00:29:28 And they can just portal around the planet. Just portal around the planet. Yes. So was he ahead of his time, maybe? Is there anything to indicate it could be the Scooby-Doo theory that, like, he was genuinely attacked by a bunch of people masquerading as something to scare him off his. You're spoiling all the fun already in the cloud. You're being such a Velma.
Starting point is 00:29:54 What? Velma, yeah. Is Velma the one? Yeah, yeah. What a Velma. Yes. So we're going to jump the gun a little bit here. But in the 1950s, the Seattle Times reported that the former members of a child YMCA troop, basically that was camping nearby, said that they were the ones who actually attacked this cabin.
Starting point is 00:30:17 That's like right off the bat sounds like, no, a bunch of kids couldn't do this. A bunch of kids couldn't hurl giant boulders through a cabin. Valid. They did say that the miners were all drunk. Okay. That's like, I mean, I assumed this. That they were throwing the rocks from an elevated position onto this cabin, basically. And the miners and making a lot of weird noises and things like that to scare these miners.
Starting point is 00:30:41 And they were drunk enough that it worked. Gotcha. I don't know. What do you think of that? You seem to scoff a children right off the bat. It doesn't fully quite align with, like, kids throwing. rocks, but maybe, I mean, if they're like literally had a like vantage point almost directly over this cabin and were hurling like really big, dangerous size rocks onto it.
Starting point is 00:31:03 It could have been terrifying. Yeah, and especially if they were drunk. So it's possible. Well, then let's move on to this was some kind, they encountered some kind of creature, perhaps, be it bigfoot, be it something else. It's worth noting before we actually talk about the creature aspect. This isn't the only weird thing that's happened in this area. In the middle of the 20th century, there was a experienced mountaineer and skier who pretty much vanished off the face of the earth right near that same canyon.
Starting point is 00:31:36 No one knows what happened to him. They never found a body. Are they related? I don't know. But it is something that's popped up in a lot of the talk about this particular event because it did happen so close to it. Also, my mother would kill me if I did not mention this. because she really likes Bigfoot and has told me, you need to do an episode on Mount St. Helens. After Mount St. Helens erupted, there are reports that bodies were discovered.
Starting point is 00:32:04 Bigfoot bodies? Bigfoot bodies were discovered. I think I would like to do an episode on this, so I don't want to spoil it all. But let me just say Mount St. Helens and Bigfoot stories go way back and just kind of keep popping up over and over and over again. So does that mean there's Bigfoot on the side of that mountain? I don't know. but let's take a step back from Bigfoot and just talk Native American lore more broadly maybe
Starting point is 00:32:25 because there is a foundation for all of this. Okay. So among tribes in the Pacific Northwest, a lot of them have stories about the strange race of hairy beings. The most famous of these legends involves creatures that are called, and I'm probably butchering this, they're called the sciatic, who were said to be between seven and eight feet tall
Starting point is 00:32:45 with bodies covered in hair, which admittedly sounds a lot like a Bigfoot. Yep. However, these Bigfoot's had magical powers, it sounds like. Okay. Kind of. So they could hypnotize those that they encountered. They could make the sound of any animal in the forest.
Starting point is 00:33:02 Okay. It's thought that they live deep in the mountain caves, and they really only came out at night to hunt. Oh, okay. Well, that kind of squares with the story, because our guys got attacked at night. That is true. But the thing with these sciatics are that the legends and the lore and any evidence of I guess seems to have died off before or by the time that the Battle of A Piannion happened since a lot of the tribes in the area thought that they basically went extinct. So does that mean that there were a few remnant survivors who teamed up on a bunch of miners?
Starting point is 00:33:35 I don't know. I don't know. I personally, if I were to go all in on Bigfoot, I would say the Pacific Northwest would be the place for it to happen. That's where most of the lore is. And I feel like this Native American legends were on to something maybe. Yeah, and I guess extinction is plausible, you know. It's hard to, you know, it's a vast landscape to, like, find some bones as sort of just happenstance and luck. And if they went and, like, tucked themselves away in caves to die and were buried their dead or whatever, like, you'd never find them. That's totally valid.
Starting point is 00:34:11 So could the Battle of Abe Canyon been the last legitimate Bigfoot encounter, you know? Right. Maybe. Maybe. So I think we've kind of covered if there was actually an event, if there was actually an attack that I think we've kind of covered the possibilities. The possibilities are like it was a prank from some kids or it was an animal of some sort or it was actually a tribe or pack of Bigfoot-type creatures that it actually just happened. Now the other possibility is he made all this up and he generated the hoax. He made the footprints.
Starting point is 00:34:43 He made up the story. Is there any background on this guy or actions he took that would indicate maybe it was all fake? Not that I could find. Gotcha. But if it was a hoax, to what end exactly? But yeah, I find it really interesting because it is different than a lot of the Bigfoot stories that we've heard in popular culture, which is, you know, the lonely hairy creature wandering through the forest. This is a group of aggressive beings. you know, attacking some guys.
Starting point is 00:35:15 It kind of reminds me the Kelly Hopkinsville encounter that we talked about, except these Bigfoot seemed much better organized and aggressive and competent than the aliens did who are just like, let me touch your hair. You know, it's like I think at the end of the day on this one, I think I'm coming away as like the agnostic narwhal. Wow. Like, because there's the footprints and I don't, there doesn't seem to be much motive to lie about this. So, you know, something it seems to me happened. I'm shocked that we got you to an agnostic narwhal.
Starting point is 00:35:49 Well, yeah, because I can't say, obviously, there was nothing in those woods that attacked. Like, I can't say that. Wow. Well, that's good. No, I think that's a step in a good direction. Is that the ultimate arc of our show is, like, making a believer out of McLeod? It's harder for you than it is for me, I think. But listeners, if you guys are believer beavers on this one, we'd love to hear why.
Starting point is 00:36:12 and if you have any other cool information we might have missed on this one, please send it our way. Or leave us a comment on Spotify or send us a message on Instagram. Also, if you want to see those footprints, go on Instagram. You can see the pictures and all the things we talk about in all the episodes. All right. Well, this was a blast. I truly love imagining this kind of race of beings out in the mountains, an ancient noble race of ape-like creatures, mountain devils. But it's time to climb down from the mountains.
Starting point is 00:36:45 And I'm excited to get to ask you, Brian, where we're going next week? That's right. We're back to Weekly. And next week is going to be a incredible mystery story. It's kind of a mystery story with a supernatural bow on top. It's really cool. All I'll say is we're going to Brazil for this one. Brazil?
Starting point is 00:37:06 Brazil is our first time. Exciting. It's a doozy. So I think you're going to really like it. All right, a little true crime. Yes. So see you all next week, everyone. Same time, same place, right here on sightings.
Starting point is 00:37:24 Sightings is hosted by McLeod Andrews and Brian Sigley. Produced by Brian Sigley, Chase Kinzer, and McLeod Andrews. Written by Brian Sigley. Story music by Jack Staten. Series music by Mitch Bain. Mixing and mastering by Pat Kicklater of Sundial Media. artwork by Nuno Sarnadas. For a list of this episode's sources,
Starting point is 00:37:43 check out our website at sightingspodcast.com. Sightings is presented by reverb and cue code. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you're first to hear new episodes. And if you know other supernatural fans, tell them about us. We'd really appreciate it.

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