The creatures we call Bigfoot, Yeti or Bigfoot are often described as peaceful enough that they just don't want people to stop them from living in their forests. But over the past hundred years, there have been many cases when the Yeti brutally attacked people and even killed them. These mysterious hairy giants are not at all as good-natured as they might seem.
Monkey Canyon Case
Probably the most famous case of a yeti attack on a person occurred in the summer of 1924. Five prospectors - Marion Smith, his son Roy Smith, Fred Beck, Gabe Lefebvre and John Peterson - went to work on Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington.
Those same prospectors.
People were near their camp, 8 miles from Spirit Lake, when they faced the first puzzle. They saw prints on the ground of unusually large footprints, similar to human ones, but 14 inches (35 cm) long and with very short fingers.
Soon after, people noticed a large creature flickering behind the trees and chasing the walking people on their heels. It was 7 feet (2 meters) tall, and looked like a gorilla, but with long black hair and very large erect ears (by the way, this is an atypical detail in the description of the Yeti).
At the sight of this seemingly dangerous animal, the prospectors were very nervous and finally one of them, Marion Smith, could not stand it and fired a gun into the trees behind which the creature was hiding. He wanted to scare him away, but the creature did not lag behind.
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The next morning, July 10, Fred Beck saw this creature standing nearby at the edge of a very deep cliff and decided to shoot directly at him. The creature, after being fired, fell straight down into the canyon from a height of 400 feet (121 meters) and apparently crashed to death.
But in the evening there was reckoning. The men sitting in their hut in the camp heard a loud sound of a blow on the roof of the building and after that part of their hut was damaged. But this was only the beginning, new blows soon followed, these were stones flying at high speed. They damaged the roof and window of the building, and also hit Beck, who lost consciousness from the blow.
Later, the prospectors said that their camp was attacked by dozens of hairy creatures. Beck himself was very scared and said that he tried to shoot these monsters, spinning in all directions. The battle with the hairy creatures, which the prospectors called "mountain devils", lasted all night and ended in the defeat of the people. The prospectors simply fled their camp, abandoning all property, supplies and tools.
This story quickly spread throughout the area and the Indians began to say that the prospectors encountered the so-called wild Seeahtik tribe. These wild creatures are believed to have supernatural powers and that they are usually peaceful. But here they apparently avenged the death of their fellow tribesman. The place where the massacre took place was named "Ape Canyon".
Monkey Canyon.
Later this story was reworked many times by storytellers and authors of various books, new details were added to it, and the size of the creatures and the fury of their attack increased. But this still remains not only one of the earliest cases of meeting with a Yeti / Bigfoot in North America, but also one of the most striking cases of meeting with a Yeti in general.
Even more mysteries to this case were added by the mystical disappearance of climber Jim Carter in 1950 just in Monkey Canyon. He was part of a group of 20, it was a warm and sunny day, and his disappearance was sudden and mysterious. Later, traces were found, as if the man was running very quickly and trying to find shelter in the crevices.
The canyon was thoroughly searched by more than seventy people for two weeks and nothing was found, no remains or other traces of Carter. One of the members of the search team, Bob Lee, said that during the period of searching, he always felt someone's gaze from the direction of the forest thickets.
“It was my most creepy experience of all time,” Bob said years later in an interview. “There was something strange on the slopes of those mountains and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I had no weapon other than an ice ax and believe me, I never let go of it. The disappearance of Jim Carter is still a mystery. Dr. Otto Trott, Lee Stark and I are certain that he was captured by the mountain devils."
Further, Bob Lee said that he found out that over 20 years in the Monkey Canyon there were as many as 25 cases of meeting with "mountain devils", some of them were aggressive. So, for example, ape-like creatures once greatly frightened a detachment of Boy Scouts.
Okefenoki Swamp Monster
Monkey Canyon is the most famous case of Bigfoot attacks on humans, but not the earliest in North America. On February 9, 1829, several newspapers, including The Statesman and the Connecticut Sentinel, wrote about the attack of the hairy giant on people in the Okefenokee swamp in Georgia.
This story began after two men and a boy went to explore the swamp, but noticed large footprints and then decided to return home, frightened by what they saw. Later, having heard about huge footprints, many hunters decided to find a mysterious creature. They found a guide and a group of hunters went in search of the creature deep into the swamp. First, they found large humanoid footprints, and then tracked down the creature itself.
However, the monster decided not to surrender without a fight and apparently at first they wanted to capture him alive, but after he attacked and killed five (!) Hunters, he himself was also quickly finished off, "having shot from seven rifles." The carcass was examined and measured on the spot, the creature was 13 feet (almost 4 meters) in height and was covered from head to toe with coarse hair.
But after that, the surviving hunters left the swamps as quickly as possible, leaving the bodies of their dead comrades and the carcass of the monster in place of the battle. People were afraid that by their act they would anger the evil forces and bring trouble upon themselves.
Whether everything was exactly as described, or there are a lot of exaggerations, or all this is generally fiction, is unknown. But local Indians regularly observed and observe in these swamps mysterious ape-like creatures.
Terror in the forest
Another early case of a Yeti attacking people was recorded in 1895. The San Francisco-based newspaper The Call published an article titled "Terror in the Woods" in the November 27 issue. The article stated that several loggers mysteriously disappeared in the local forests. The bodies of some were later found, but they looked as if they were being cruelly tortured by a strong beast.
It was believed that people were attacked by predatory animals and lumberjacks began to leave their places of work out of fear. But one of the lumberjacks managed to survive after the attack on him and said that he was attacked by a "wild man". The man had only his ax with him and it was they who managed to fight off the monster, which attacked as if he wanted to kill a man.
After that, the strange humanoid creature was seen several more times in the forest, but each time he managed to escape from people and the creature ran with the speed of a deer. The creature was described as a human that looked almost like an animal, had a large shaggy beard, and was dressed in what looked like a leather coat.
After some controversy, it was decided that this was a feral man who had once gotten lost in the woods and then went mad. What happened to this creature later remained unknown.
Attack in Montana
Another case was published in 1892 in The Wilderness Hunter, written by none other than the future US President Theodore Roosevelt. The incident describes a meeting with a certain migrant Bauman, who told about the incident with him and his partner.
The men set up camp somewhere in the wilds of the state of Montana near the river and went to set traps for the animals. When they returned, they saw that their hut was broken, and their bags were torn and their contents were scattered around. But instead of getting out of this place, Bauman and his friend decided to stay here for the night.
At night, Bauman woke up from a strange sound, like the grinding of a brush, and also from a strong unbearable stench. Bauman grabbed a rifle and almost at random fired into the darkness at the sound, after which a certain creature quickly ran away from the camp.
The next morning it was decided to get out of this place further away, but first Bamun decided to go into the forest and collect the traps that had been placed earlier. When he returned, he found his friend dead with an eerily twisted neck. There were also bite marks on the neck.
Hairy hand
Another case occurred in 1965 in Michigan, Monroe County. Christina Van Acker, 17, was driving home with her mother. It was late evening, dark and suddenly there was a crash, as if their car had run over something. Thinking that they had crushed some kind of animal, the women stopped the car and wanted to get out and take a look.
But as soon as Christina lowered the side window, a huge hairy hand reached out into it, grabbed the girl by the hair and hit the car door with force, so that Christina lost consciousness. She woke up from the loud screams of her mother, who screamed in fright, but the creature was no longer there, perhaps the screams frightened him off.
The girl's mother assured that the escaped creature was all covered with black hair.
Farm attack
This is a relatively recent case. It happened in rural Oklahoma in 2000. The story was told by an eyewitness who gave only his name, Mike. He says he owns a farm in the area, but a few months after he bought the farm and moved here with his family, strange things began to happen here.
One evening, Mike heard the sound of strong bangs from the front door, and later, near the house, he noticed a very tall figure flashing by. After that, about 30 chickens suddenly disappeared from the chicken coop, and the door of the barn was broken down with force and pieces of venison were carried away from there.
In addition to all this, Mike repeatedly heard strange loud squeals and screams from the forest near the farm, and always only at night. In order to catch the thief, Mike called his brother for help and together they spent several nights on duty. One night, they caught the creature by surprise and managed to see its hairy, ape-like face.
The creature growled at them and the brothers then fired guns at him. Then they saw the creature run, but then fell to the ground, dead. But they did not check this and approach the fallen one.
The next morning they were waiting for what happened in Monkey Canyon. Farmer Mike's house was raided, glass shattered by stones and the camps were also damaged by large stones. All this was done by other hairy creatures and Mike says that they howled terribly. After that, Mike and his family left for another place.